Musical Improv 2: Genres, Styles and Spectacle

In Musical Improv 2, we build off the skills we learned in level 1, applying them to different genres and song styles & injecting spectacle.

Each week, we’ll dive into a different genre or style of song like rock, blues, country, folk, love ballads and 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.

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.

All students enrolling in this class must 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.

The Instructor: Jed Levine

Jed is an All Out Comedy main stage cast member with nearly a decade of experience as a musical improviser, coach and teacher. He is a graduate of the Second City Musical Improv Conservatory in Chicago and is an alumni of the critically-acclaimed musical improv company Baby Wants Candy. Jed is currently a guest player for improvised musicals at BATS Improv and teaches musical improv at Leela in San Francisco where he also coaches the musical improv team Noteworthy.

The Musical Director: Jared Hauser

Jared has spent the past 10 years in Seattle, fronting several local rock bands as singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Blending his love of late-60s psychedelia with mid-70s jangle-rock, Jared has graced stages around the Northwest and beyond. Recently, Jared relocated to California, setting up his home base in the east bay. Jared’s instruments include: guitar, piano, mandolin, lap steel, sitar, melodica, autoharp, and many more. As a rule of thumb, if it has strings and frets Jared can probably jam on it.

Dates: Thursdays, 7:00pm-9:30pm, September 19-November 14
*No Class 10/31 For costume time. :)

Requirements: Musical Improv 1 at All Out Comedy Theater

Location: All Out Comedy Theater, 2550 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland CA 94612

Registration: $344