Improvisation Prompt: Improvise a poem

So far in our Improvisation Challenge, we’ve invited you to gradually immerse yourself in the world of creativity and imagination. First, we suggested improvising using only one pitch as a way to focus on only certain elements of your art-making. Then we asked you to reimagine a pre-written piece of music in order to explore musical character. This week we encourage you to dive into someone else’s creative space and make it your own: take a poem and turn the words into music.

Adult non-musicians: Carefully read Emily Dickinson’s poem below (XXVI from the “Nature” collection). As you dwell on each line, imagine what sounds are being described. After reading the poem a couple times, mentally organize each imagined sound into a soundscape. How would you characterize it? Cacophonous, whispery, triumphant, subdued?

There came a wind like a bugle;

It quivered through the grass,

And a green chill upon the heat

So ominous did pass

We barred the windows and the doors

As from an emerald ghost;

The doom’s electric moccason

That very instant passed.

On a strange mob of panting trees,

And fences fled away,

And rivers where the houses ran

The living looked that day.

The bell within the steeple wild

The flying tidings whirled.

How much can come

And much can go,

And yet abide the world!

K–8: reinterpret the nursery rhyme “Jack and Jill” as a musical score.

Jack and Jill went up the hill
To fetch a pail of water.
Jack fell down and broke his crown,
And Jill came tumbling after.

How does each word sound? Explore each part of the rhyme together (as a class, with a teacher, etc.), then assemble all the sounds together as a musical piece. Some examples to explore in your improvisations:

  • How does Jack sound as he walks up the hill? What about Jill? Do they talk to each other?

  • How does the empty pail sound?

  • How does Jack sound when he breaks his crown?

  • How does Jill sound as she tumbles?

  • What noises are there in the background?

Musicians: Read through Dickinson’s poem or the nursery rhyme above. As you read each line, imagine a sound, then produce it. Take time with each line of the poem/nursery rhyme, making various sounds for each line if necessary. After exploring each line, record yourself playing the entire poem/rhyme. Did your sounds accurately depict the text, or embellish it, or are there any changes you would make?