Synopsis
Karen Cubides sits with David Rodgers; musician, composer, and improviser; for his second appearance on the Musicians Guides Podcast. She provides a series of questions based around Rodger's various roles and experiences within the music business. During his first episode, he was focussed on making the transition from student to professional musician. As a Vanderbilt graduate, this new upload hones in on his creative process, outlook on life, and current project.
Rodgers Podcast
Karen wastes no time asking Rodgers about his inspiring project, The Improvisers Corner. Passionately bursting from the seems, he dives into the grave importance of applying improvisation to several different aspects of everyone's life. Interviewing various people, he aims to demystify the daunting idea of improvisation and connect it to other people in simple ways.
Behind the Podcast
This California native interviews a diverse crowd of people with hopes to implement such a practice into their everyday life. He believes it provides a sense of thrill and excitement after years of interacting in improvisational settings. While getting comfortable with the use of improvisation can take time to get adjusted to, it can improve many different areas of your life and career. Skills such as being capable of cleverly thinking quick on your feet becomes effortless.
Rodgers claims that many of the people he speaks with explain they are afraid of improv. It can appear to be intimidating as it requires a certain amount of trust, not only in your environment but as well within yourself. As once you trust yourself and begin experimenting with this practice it becomes rewarding in many unexpected ways.
The Effects of Improvisation
“You can’t do everything. You can’t control everything. But you can control the way you react to different situations” claims Rodgers. He pushes the idea that improvisational creates a more flexible individual who has a deeper understanding of the “bigger picture”.
With the unknown, you can not expect anything to go as planned, for there is no real plan with improv. He explains learning how to balance things with striving for the best while also accepting the truth. Pushing through the discomfort of failure with improv must be done in an authentic form where you accept the loss with grace, learn from it and truly move on. This can only happen when remembering not to allow excuses to sugar coat anything. “Not everything will be perfect. You can't always control outco
