Report From an Improvisation Workshop with Veronika Roemer

Triform Camphill entrance

From April 5th through 7th, in Triform Camphill Community in Hudson, NY, I attended a weekend lyre workshop with Veronika Roemer entitled "Improvisation – Between Chaos and Rigidity." Participants included eight lyrists from the local area in addition to players who traveled from Pennsylvania and downstate New York.

Childrens Workshop Attendees with Veronika Roemer and Monica Talaya

On Friday afternoon, prior to the main workshop, Veronika offered a children's improvisation session, attended by Monica Talaya and five of her students, aged 10 and 14. My 9-year-old son was able to join as well. The children explored a variety of instruments, including the psaltery, drums, and xylophones, while learning to follow rules and listen to each other carefully. The children enjoyed making music in a circle accompanied by singing and lots of movement that included pairs of children meeting in the center of the circle with their instruments. Unforgettable was the moment two boys elegantly "danced" to make a powerful sound with their wooden sticks. The instruments were then switched from wooden sticks to iron bars and finally to gongs, and we learned how very gently we must use our mallets to draw beautiful sounds from the gongs.

Adult Workshop Attendees with Veronika Roemer ( far right, standing)

From Friday evening through Sunday morning, we had the main workshop. We began every session with singing and "Strömendes Gestalten" (translated literally as "Flowing and Forming"), which is a kind of conducting for the plenum playing of the lyre. Specific gestures are used to indicate streaming the lyre strings, playing single tones, and changing pitches and volumes, etc. Someone commented that even more so than conventional music conducting, this style of conducting allowed her to “hear what she envisioned”. Veronika explained that this unique method of conducting was developed by Julius Knierim out of his work with children with special needs. The fact that anyone who holds the lyre can immediately participate in group music making through such accessibility and openness is one unique aspect of the modern lyre.

Exercise in Conducting with body movement

Over the course of two days, Veronika guided us step by step, allowing us to focus on various musical elements one at a time, and we experienced a number of interesting results emerging out of our improvisations. We began our exploration with pentatonic scales, then moved to diatonic and chromatic ones. We then explored different melodic and other musical forms as well as various rhythms, meters and beat. One climax was having two people "conduct" with their entire bodies by stepping forward and backward (as shown in the picture.)

Veronika was inspired to offer this workshop on improvisation after she had attended a workshop on this topic in Germany offered by Martin Tobiassen and Christian Giersch last summer. She also shared with us things she had learned from Pär Ahlbom many years ago as well as gems she has gleaned from translating a book by Reinhild Brass entitled The Pedagogy of Listening (available in English later this year).

I returned home with many wonderful seeds of ideas and inspirations, though I realized that it will actually take the rest of my life to unpack and fully master what I learned during this one weekend! I would like to thank Veronika for having so generously shared with us her own lifelong work. I would also like to thank Akiko Suesada from the Triform Camphill Community for hosting us on their beautiful campus.  

Saeko Cohn, Chestnut Ridge, NY