Musical Improv 2: Genres, Spectacle and Game

Get ready to take your improvised song-making to the next level by incorporating genres and styles, adding a degree of spectacle, and uncovering the Game of Song.

In Musical Improv 2, we build off the skills we learned in level 1, each week applying them to different genres or styles like rock, blues, country, folk, love ballads and freestyle rap. We’ll study the different tropes, musical qualities and lyrical choices of each genre/style and get practice improvising complete songs using those elements. We’ll also discover some genre-focused short-form musical improv games, including an EDM-themed madrigal; a Beastie Boys-inspired rap battle and a boy band/girl band musical line game.

Throughout Musical Improv 2, we’ll start integrating elements of spectacle into our work-–elevating our songs beyond the lyrics and melody and incorporating things like harmonies, back-up singing and dancing, more complex rhymes, dance breaks and stage pictures.

And we’ll start exploring the concept of Game of Song—discovering patterns that both give us lyrical focus and make our songs funnier and richer.

Students will leave this class with several new skills including:

How to improvise songs in various popular music genres and styles;
How to improvise a song with a 12-bar blues progression;
How to spontaneously create 1-3-5 harmonies;
How to create seamless improvised dance moves with dance triangles;
How to use character and confidence to get into a freestyle rap flow;
How to identify the Game of Song and play it with purpose.

This class culminates with a show–an improvised music festival in which students will get the chance to show off the skills they’ve learned by staging spontaneous songs in various genres and styles based on audience suggestions.

Requirements:

All students enrolling in this class should have completed Musical Improv 1 at All Out Comedy, as we will be working with specific skills and concepts from that course that are not commonly taught at other theaters in the Bay Area.

If you haven’t completed Musical Improv 1 at All Out Comedy and are interested in this course, you’ll need to send us an email to be considered—Do not register for this class unless you’ve received approval.

Instructor: Ming Wong

Ming is an All Out Comedy mainstage cast member and a founding member of both RiOt: An Improvised Rock Opera and the musical improv indie team The Fledglings. You can also catch him twice a month belting his heart out with All Out Comedy's critically acclaimed musical improv show Knockoff Broadway. Ming is a graduate of the musical improv programs at both All Out Comedy and Leela Improv and also performs regular improv with the mainstage cast of All Out Comedy Theater and independent teams Oakland Dogwater District, Quality Control, and Bango Manana.

Dates: Sundays, 2:00pm-4:30pm, September 20-November 15 (20 Hours)
*No Class 10/25 for the Musical Improv Festival

Registration: $379

Location: All Out Comedy Theater, 2550 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland, CA 94612
*Please check your maps says Oakland. There's a duplicate address in Berkeley.

Refunds: No refunds. Your registration holds a spot that could be offered to another student.

*By registering you have agreed that you've read our Student Conduct Policy

Contact the host of Musical Improv 2: Genres, Spectacle, and Game