Pure Improvisation

Tonight I had a very interesting evening performing a Taizé service at St. John's Episcopal Church (15th and Julian near 16th and Mission BART, San Francisco). Charles Rus, with whom I work at Grace Cathedral, asked me to come. Bryan Bowman was also there playing tabla and a middle eastern frame drum. The first song was completely improvised. Brian started with a straight 16ths tabla pattern (that's what it sounded like to me at the time). I could hear the distinct note of one of the tabla drums and considered coming in on that tone but I waited. I watched Charles positioning his hands on the keyboard, first one approach, then another, without playing. I swayed and continued to wait till I heard something in my head. Charles played piano first and I came in soon after. To me the marvelous thing was the peaceful meditative musical communication we were able to instantly achieve. Throughout, I waited to hear in my head what to sing before I sang it. At a few points, words came to me. Afterwards I worried that might be blasphemous (I'm always worried about that;-)) but no one said anything so I think it was cool.

The improvised prelude and the last song, "My Heart is Restless," where I got a little gospel-y, were my favorites. Some congregants (and Charles's mother) played piano, bells, guitar and auto harp. Charles recorded the whole thing and I should get a copy on Sunday--I'll post some of it here!

One note to self: Charles never played intros to the various chants, and it would have been easy for me to get the starting note from the previous piece, but only once did I do that after my feeble brain figured out that he had perfect pitch and wasn't playing intros. Instead I had to finesse coming in late. Next time.

In the meantime, I recommend this beautiful, simple service. It's every Thursday at 7 pm. In addition to being the organist for the San Francisco Symphony, Charles has a wonderful voice and a good sense of humor. Oh, and read his homepage--my admiration has increased now that I know he kayaks under the bridge every day!