The Elite

When I was in junior high band, our band teacher came to us one day near the end of the year and posed a question: when auditioning new members for the band, what should their minimum proficiency be? The drummers all insisted on being able to do umpteen paradiddles, flamacues, pataflaflas, and other delightfully, entertainingly named rhythms and rudiments. Brass and woodwinds wanted three octave chromatic scales, five or more scales, double tonguing and other vaguely sexually termed techniques. We were all naming things that we felt we could do well, and we all wanted to feel that when bringing new band members in that we wanted them to meet a minimum skill level – at the very least to preserve the overall proficiency of the group. Insisting on high skill would seem to insure that only very talented and very serious players would get in. Our band director dutifully wrote down all our suggestions (which at the end turned into a fairly long and in depth list of things) and then posed another question: how many of you could do all of this when you joined this band? In the course of our high-minded ideals, we failed to realize how hard this list was – a set of demands that would effectively keep most people out of the organization.

We must never forget just how low improv sits on the hierarchy of needs; improv has never fed the hungry, satiated the thirsty, provided security to the insecure, or loved the lonely. If the world were to come to a crashing halt tomorrow, things that could do those things to the huddled masses would be appreciated much more than a rousing “Freeze Tag”. (Though on the plus side, we could do improv much longer than we could watch TV, movies, play video games, or listen to music; in that respect it's probably one of the most efficient entertainment options. This is one of the symptoms of the modern age and is best exemplified by a thought question I saw in an article recently: the world has ended, and you can escape and take one of three people with you: Brad Pitt, Jessica Alba, or a Scientist. Most people would grab one of the first two people, even though the scientist might actually be useful.) Yet, despite how essentially worthless improv is (not meaning to say that improv cannot give meaning – that is the nature of art – but just to reiterate that it does not fulfill any of the lower tiers needed to survive), what I notice that troubles me is a cult of elitism. I see improvisers time and time again, both as individuals and as teams who act as if what they do is exceedingly important, look down at others that don't conform to them, ostracize those who operate on their own, and treat hangers on with derision.

I like playing with the unaffiliated. I've been getting together once a week with a few improvisers in a very low key, relaxed environment – some are members of a few different groups, some have played in an official setting since they finished their last class, but they all get together because they love doing this improv thing, and they either don't get enough in whatever outlets they already use, or they've been cast aside by an improv group. At the same time, I've met some improvisers who play in a strongly defined improv group who practice a kind of jingoistic, isolationist group think that looks down their nose at the “other”, if they even deign themselves enough to recognize that they exist. Why this is plainly apparent in one aspect: insulation prevents innovation, but not so much in another: we were all that guy once, who wasn't very good, and who didn't have a group to call “home” (hell, I was that guy until pretty recently).

The way I see it is that you can either stay locked in your ivory towers, pretending that what you do is important, wanting people to watch you, but hoping that only the “good” ones get in, or you can come down to everyone else, and try and help others along. The ivory tower self-perpetuates: if you do it, the next group will too. But if you try and share the fire, it will spread too far and bright to be contained. Of course in that very Prometheus-like allegory, it should be pointed out that the Gods did chain him to a rock so that birds could tear him apart for eternity, so take my lessons with a grain of salt, because those who live in the ivory towers will not appreciate your generosity.