In Vote the Note! we combined Zoom’s poll function with one of our activities for teaching improvisation. It encourages collaborative creativity and is possibly the lowest-stakes improvisation exercise EVER! Here’s how we do it:
1. Before your meeting, add a poll with 4 questions. Each question should be multiple choice with 7 options: don, doko, ka, kara, tsu, tsuku, and su.
2. In your class, launch your poll.
3. Give participants 1 minute to vote.
4. Share results. The top vote-getter for each question becomes one beat in a 4-beat phrase. In the results below, the third beat would be “kara.”
5. Lead participants in this 4-beat phrase 5-6 times, stopping between each repetition.
6. Play the 4-beat phrase twice in a row, so it becomes an 8-beat phrase. Practice it several times as an 8-beat phrase, stopping between each repetition.
7. Once people seem comfortable, play: 8-beat phrase/8-beats of improv/8-beat phrase. You should keep a jiuchi during the 8 beats of improv and count to 8 to help people learn the phrase length (à la this post).
If you have more experienced players in your virtual class, add some improv challenges. We’ve challenged people to try improvs that are movement only, or where they play with big movement and quiet sound, or play only ka. If everyone is more experienced try an 8-question poll in Zoom and vote an 8-beat phrase. I don’t recommend that if you have a critical mass of beginners, however - it will be exponentially harder for them to master an 8-beat phrase vs. learning and repeating a 4-beat phrase.
If you haven’t used the poll function in Zoom yet, here’s a good tutorial. Polling requires a paid Zoom account. If you don’t have one, TCA is generously making its Zoom licenses available for taiko groups to use. Email Paul Sakamoto to find out more. As always, I’d love to hear about it if you try this in your classes. Happy teaching!