26-27th September: VOCAL IMPROVISATION - MUSICAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, Grzegorz KARNAS (Poland)

VOCAL IMPROVISATION - MUSICAL FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Saturday 26. September - Sunday 27. September

with Grzegorz KARNAS (Poland)

Grzegorz Karnas is an active jazz vocalists who teaches by choice. It is about singing, voice managing, breathing technics, connections between sense of rhythm and ability to transpose it onto one's voice. It is also about singing in foreign languages in order to be convey clear interpretional messages. Phonetics of English with the area of expertise extending to Arabic and Chinese pronunciation are the subjects Grzegorz is familiar with. He is an experienced academic teacher who also conducted numerous workshops and masterclasses for foreigners including several classes for French, Luxembourgish, Danish, Slovak, German and Chinese students. For five past years Karnas has been conducting workshop in his home town Żory under the festival called Voicingers of which he is the artistic director. His music workshops are mean to be attended both by the people who would like to engage in music-making using the instrument which is the human voice as well as those interested in learning more about their own voice used on everyday basis for social interactions.

Since playing music with the voice is based not only on play, but also on becoming familiar with several seemingly self-evident aspects of it, the issues dealt with during these workshops include: breathing, articulation and projection of one's voice based on its natural tone, in keeping with its primary function – conveying emotions.

Among other things, group sessions consist of creating so-called “cyclic cantos”, the aim of which is to broaden rhythmic awareness by bringing one into contact with what are known as poly-rhythms. 
This is a way to quickly create a live improvisational choir based on a group of people who - once familiar with a given rhythmic element, onto which a successive rhythmic element that creates a simple counterpoint to the first is then superimposed – are able to create a percussive effect. Notes in simple arrangements of intervals are then superimposed onto this mixture of rhythms. The melodies change in the course of their being sung, and the choir follows the cues of a leader.

The application: here.

Where: Studio ITAKA, Korunní 35, Prague 2.

When: Saturday 10.00 to 17.30, Sunday 9.30 to 16.30, including 90min lunch break each day.

Price: CZK 1750,-/1550 students, parents on maternity leave, pensioners.

The workshop will be lead in English and translated to Czech.