Racer Session #552 | Mike Gebhart | Sunday October 30th, 2022

Friends! A rare 5th Sunday Racer Session for you this month.

Back in July, we were excited to present our pal Mike Gebhart, but unfortunately had to reschedule for further down the road. But now that day has finally come: this Sunday, October 30th at 7pm.

To know Mike is to love him. Born in Cali, Colombia and raised in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington, drummer and composer Mike Gebhart studied music at the University of Washington with a focus in Jazz Studies, and lived in Seattle for 5 years. In that time he co-created The Sky Is A Suitcase, and was a drummer for many projects in and around the Racer Sessions scene. Mike was a constant presence at the session and the unofficial head of its welcoming committee, greeting new faces and playing improvisations with anyone who wanted to join. Now in New York, he is as beloved and sought after by those lucky to know his playing as he was in Seattle, or anywhere music has taken him. We’re so excited to welcome him back!

Mike is taking an integrative approach to his session and will be guiding us through some improvisational techniques, so make sure you come right at 7pm and don’t miss what he has to share! We look forward to seeing you there.

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“I’m excited and honored to perform at Racer Sessions and share some improvisation ideas I’ve been thinking about for some time. Sunday night i’m going to sing and play drums and share some exercises that have helped me over the years when I don’t musically feel connected to myself or the group. I will run through this on Sunday, but I’m sharing it here in case anyone wants to know what to expect or try it out at home.

To start, let’s focus on breathing as slowly as we comfortably can. Let your shoulders be relaxed and not move when we breathe. Breathe from your stomach/diaphragm. It starts with our breath and then moves to our voice. The voice is the first instrument and its always good to feel relaxed in the voice and body first and then play your instrument from there.

The exercise starts by singing or vocalizing (grunting, whistling, yelling, speaking, humming ) the sound you want to hear. Once you feel comfortable in that and in the flow musically, start to bring in the sound of your instrument gradually, mimicking as best you can the sound of your voice. Essentially let your voice guide your improvising ideas. When your instrument is fully playing, start to take the voice out and see if there is a difference. This to me is where the exercise works best because as your voice is getting quieter or leaving, you will hear a more intentional, raw, emotional, personal sound then maybe you are used to. When you lose that feeling or that new thing you were hearing, bring back the voice. Repeat as much as you like.

For horn players or singers or other musicians that use the mouth or voice, I like to substitute the vocalizing for movement. First start moving in a way you want the sound to feel, this could include gestures or physical communication, body language, complete stillness, blinking, twitching. Then bring in your singing or horn playing and take out the movement slowly noticing the results. Bring back the movement as needed to ground your ideas or physicalize them.

The bringing back of the Voice or of the Movement is the getting back on the bicycle moment. That is really where the training/learning happens. It helps us stay connected, and strengthens our ability to stay connected and stay focused.

Another exercise I find very helpful is singing over a drone. That's it, put on one of the cello drones or make one yourself and sing over it. Listen to the sound you are hearing and experiment with using an AH, OH, EE or oooo sound or hum. or move between them. This is so good in the morning, especially early mornings, but really anytime.

The third exercise I want to share is rhythmic. I have attached a photo of this rhythm, this is a bell rhythm that comes from West Africa and is known by many names, Bembe, Ga, in Colombia its called Afro, some just say 6/8 or 12/8. It’s a beautiful rhythm.

What we'll do is walk in place to the beat and then together clap the rhythm. There are many benefits to this, we have two feet but the rhythm we are walking in is in three so there is this bigger symmetry happening, every two measures your feet lines back up with the rhythm, also the rhythm has small parts of important rhythmic relationships ( Straight 8ths, Quarter note triplets, 8th notes on the up beats, up beat quarter note triplets) Once we got the rhythms happening, its cool to walk around, I know the new racer is bigger so maybe we can walk around clapping. ( would be fun!!) The real deal is going on a walk and doing this and then next level going on a walk with a friend and keeping the beat in your feet and clapping lightly and listening to the birds and traffic and all that together. It's fun!

Thank you for reading this and I hope the exercises serve you, See you Sunday!”

- Mike Gebhart