How can I find my own voice through my instrument
Many classical musicians can suffer from tension and nervousness during solo performance. This research looks at how practicing improvisation and creative body movement, as well as creating one’s own performance together with a dancer, can affect the feeling of freedom and enjoyment on stage. The researcher explored a way to find her own voice. By practicing free improvisation she explored new possibilities of her playing and expression as she searched for freedom and development of creativity. This resulted in a generally more free and involved feeling on stage. In addition, body movement courses helped her to be more aware of her body on stage, resulting in a better sound quality. A project was created to address the question of how to create one’s own performance that comes from the performers own voice. The project created was based on the poem Woman Inhabited by Words by Guisela Lopez – a poem that was very meaningful to the researcher. In the performance she improvised on the viola; the sound is modified by a computer, and at the same time a contemporary dancer improvised on the music. In this way, the researcher combined her love of dance and of playing music to find a new depth in her performance and performance experience.
