A brief analysis of two songs.
October 15th, 2003 | by Scott Jennings |This’ll be the first in a series where I attempt to bring together my thoughts into a cogent theory of improvisation. I hope someone will find it useful at some point.
In the hypothetical thought-universe which I’ve just created, there are exactly two types of songs, and all songs can easily be placed into one of the two categories.
The first song that comes to my mind from the first category is “Take The Money And Run” by the Steve Miller Band. These are the lyrics:
This is a story about Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue
Two young lovers with nothin’ better to do
Than sit around the house, get high, and watch the tube
And here is what happened when they decided to cut loose
They headed down to, ooh, old El Paso
That’s where they ran into a great big hassle
Billy Joe shot a man while robbing his castle
Bobbie Sue took the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is
He ain’t gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin’ off of the people’s taxes
Bobbie Sue, whoa, whoa, she slipped away
Billy Joe caught up to her the very next day
They got the money, hey
You know they got away
They headed down south and they’re still running today
Singin’ go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
Go on take the money and run
And in the second category, the first song that comes to mind is “Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover” by Paul Simon. These are the lyrics:
The problem is all inside your head she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
She said it’s really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover
You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways
She said why don’t we both just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning you’ll begin to see the light
And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right
There must be fifty ways to leave your lover
Fifty ways to leave your lover
You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don’t need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free
Now, while I’m establishing the parameters of this thought-universe, let me go ahead and mention that these songs can be analyzed like they’re improv scenes, and I happen to be the director responsible for giving notes.
All right, now in song-scene #1, we got a little hung up on plot, right? You establish two characters up top, they have a clear and defined relationship, but almost immediately, it’s “I don’t want to be here, let’s get moving, for it will be in the moving that we will discover something to do.” Yeah, it ended up working for you guys here, but I don’t want to encourage you to make that a habit. But you know what worked for you here? You managed to latch onto a very simple and easily-communicated structure for a story — I’m sure you guys weren’t lost at any point, and you resisted the temptation to throw in loads of twists and turns. We had a walk-on here, Billy Mack, but it was necessary to keep this particular story on track. Billy Joe and Bobbie Sue are all about rebelling against authority, so we move their scene forward by presenting them with more authority to rebel against and thwart. So Billy Mack’s arrival raised the stakes and I liked it; I’m glad you didn’t decide to walk on as yet another loafer or some other character that wasn’t there to heighten the situation. This scene worked, but make sure you understand why: it was a simple story, you stuck right to it, you didn’t throw curveballs, one of the slackers wasn’t a Harvard doctoral candidate, one of the authority figures wasn’t a secret pot dealer. You have to keep the story as simple as you can in order to free yourselves to improvise within those strong characters. Good scene.
Ok, song-scene #2 is a little bit different, right? Again, we attack the relationship right off the bat, which I always like. When you know who you are and who you are to each other, you’re left free to play around with the situation you’re in. And that’s exactly what you do — unlike in the first scene, you stay in the same place, but the action of the scene moves forward by devising more ways to leave your lover. It’s a simple and clean game you’re playing here, but like I always say, don’t be afraid of a simple game, just attack it hard and find new things to explore by committing fully and executing your characters completely. That’s what you did here — instead of falling into the trap of “oh no, this is totally dumb, there’s gotta be something else I could be doing,” you noticed a pattern in the advice you were given, and began to explore it and exploit it. You ended up creating a very delightful and fun little piece there, just by noticing something unusual and building upon it. Good scene.
I see a lot of “category #1 scenes,” and I think it’s only natural that improvisers want to perform that way. I just happen to believe that it’s practically impossible to pull off those kinds of scenes with any sort of regularity unless you’re completely clairvoyant and can recall and communicate every story ever told. It’s probably possible to come close, but it seems like a lot of work.
Personally, I’d like to see more “category #2″ scenes. They strike me as inherantly more playful, more fun to play, and more rewarding. The book on longform would have every scene be a “category #2,” but that’s not especially practical. And then we have the case of scenes that start off in the playful “category #2″ world, they don’t go especially well, the players begin grasping at straws, and all of a sudden, one of the players says “let me tell you about my plan,” and now we’re trying to construct a plot.
If you’re writing, constructing a plot is par for the course, since you can revise and rework and polish before you present. If you’re improvising, constructing a plot is death, since you have to communicate and shape and steer while you’re trying to be in the moment. When it works, it’s because the plot is so simple to free you to play your characters without worrying about the plot. Even when you’re playing a plot, you can’t worry about the plot.
Be aware of what category your scene is in, assuming you’re still sitting in my thought-universe. If your scene is plotty, keep that plot simple. If your scene is gamey, generate, recognize, and exploit your patterns to keep the scene moving forward. Either way, have a strong relationship between the two characters, because that’s going to be your main course in either meal.
That’s a metaphor shift, people. Watch for those.
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