Resonances : exploring improvisation and its implications for music education

Abstract

This thesis is centred on explaining and understanding musical improvisation.By developing a philosophical view of improvisation I hope to show how improvisation is different from other kinds of music making that we generally encounter in educational settings, why it should become an integral part of all music learning, and how we can approach the teaching of improvisation.The bulk of my research on this subject is both an investigative reflection on my own performing experiences as an improvisor and my ongoing thinking about how I can best teach people to improvise.In order to help explain what I believe is happening when people improvise music together and what this means for music education, I draw on resources from philosophy, religion, aesthetics, psychology, and cultural theory.Because scholarly writings on improvisation are few, I have also chosen to make extensive use of excerpts from interviews with four musicians with whom I perform improvised music.Since my playing has been profoundly influenced and altered through my musical interactions with them, I thought it only fitting and consistent that I allow their voices to mingle with mine in the writing of this thesis in a creative dialogue of ideas.Chapter 1 presents a general outline of my philosophy of music as well as pointing out some of the problems I see in current music educational practice.Chapter 2 investigates how understanding improvisation presents some solutions to persistent aesthetic questions around music's relationship with language.Chapter 3 is concerned with helping non-improvisors understand what free improvisation is and to understand its place in the larger musical world.Chapter 4 presents various theories of possible social and cognitive musical processes at play in free improvisation.Chapters 5 and 6 provide both a philosophical rationale and a general outline for a pedagogy of free improvisation..-It is my hope that readers of this thesis, especially music educators, will come to understand and appreciate the value of improvised music and the activity of improvisation and that they will begin to think about ways to incorporate it into their teaching and performance.highway.This led to a series of such songs and a lot of productive work on the guitar for Terry.I was completely amazed at how he took the small creative license of a few notes to improvise with and took complete artistic control of the situation.He had a profound musical vision for our guitar lesson far beyond mine.My session with Michael (the next student that afternoon) was a little different.It went something like this: Jared: So let's try improvising with those notes that I showed you. Michael: How do I know which ones to play first?Jared: It doesn't matter which ones you play first.Anything you decide

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