Introduction
The overarching aim with this book is to broaden the understanding of the potentials and possibilities for improvisation in a variety of music education settings, and to stimulate the development of knowledge and reflection on improvisation in music pedagogy. Improvisation is a rapidly evolving area in music education, which we in this book define as all kinds of teaching and learning in a wide array of music practice fields, and in music pedagogy, which we understand as the scientific study and knowledge development of teaching and learning in music. This definition of pedagogy is based on SĂŠverotâs (2017) views on pedagogy as a field of practice, theory, and research.
In the last 20â30 years, the areas of interest in studies of pedagogy have expanded from concerning formal education and intentional learning as a result of deliberate instruction (Jorgensen 2008), to situated and peer-directed learning (Green 2002; Lave and Wenger 1991) in communities formed around a particular practice (Wenger 1998), and informal learning arenas (e.g. BerkĂ„k and Ruud 1994; Folkestad 2006; Green 2002; Wright 2016). This development demands that we look for how roles, positions, and relations between participants in a learning activity may shift from one practice to another, and how old teacherâstudent hierarchies are potentially challenged. It follows that issues of power relations are at stake. Historically seen, such issues inherit from progressive and critical pedagogy, for example John Deweyâs pedagogical philosophy (Dewey [1897] 2008, [1916] 2005, [1938] 2008). He proposed that aesthetics belong to everyone, not just to an elite (Dewey [1934] 2005). More recently, Gert Biesta (2009) has called for distributed ownership and agency between participants in education, for both teachers and students. Several scholars address the need for a culturally responsive and inclusive music education, aimed at social justice (Benedict et al. 2015; Jellison 2015; Lind and McKoy 2016).
Thus there is a need for pedagogical discussions about agency, ownership, power of definition, and ethics. These have been the common fulcrums for this book as a whole. In our view, improvisation activity has a particular potential in moving such issues to the surface. In music education contexts, improvisation has traditionally been taught as part of jazz curricula, but it is increasingly introduced as part of Western classical music, in addition to genre-free or crossover approaches in contexts spanning from the music classroom to higher music education, to mention a few examples. By describing and discussing a wide span of practices, contexts and events centred on musical improvisation, the various authors contributing to this book provide new perspectives to questions such as: Who defines the artistic expectations of improvisation activities? Who decides on the aesthetic criteria at play? Who are the gatekeepers of improvisation activity? How much freedom is involved? And for whom â who has creative agency, teacher or students? What professional ethical standards do teachers have?
Pedagogy has traditionally been fundamentally reliant on knowledge developed in other sciences, such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, and ethnography. Music pedagogy is thus no exception, but is informed by a spectrum of research areas that may help us understand music teaching and learning in all its facets and contexts. Hence, music improvisation has been addressed from many angles. These include music cognitive psychology (Ashley 2016; Berkowitz 2010; Clarke 2012; Johnson-Laird 2002; Pressing 1998, 2005), music therapy (StensĂŠth 2017), health and well-being (MacDonald and Wilson 2014), studies on creativity in children (Burnard 2000, 2012; Brophy 2005; Campbell 2009, [1998] 2010; Koutsoupidou 2005, 2008; Koutsoupidou and Hargreaves 2009), research on instrumental pedagogy and instrumental practising (Johansen 2016, 2018; Sloboda, Davidson, Howe, and Moore 1996; Watson 2015), improvisation in schoolsâ compulsory music (Borgo 2007; Guilbault 2009; Hickey 2009; Beegle 2010; Coulson and Burke 2013; Gruenhagen and Whitcomb 2014), studies on improvisation pedagogy and curriculum in higher education (Gatien 2012; Hickey 2015; Huovinen, Tenkanen, and Kuusinen 2011; Jaffurs 2006; Johansen 2014; Rose and MacDonald 2014; Whyton 2014), and socio-cultural or ethnomusicological perspectives on knowledge cultures and practices among professional improvising musicians (Borgo 2002; Johansson 2012; Johnston 2013; MacDonald and Wilson 2006, 2014; MacGlone and MacDonald 2017; Monson 1996).
Various theoretical accounts have focused on definitions of what improvisation is, or how improvisation is carried out from a psychological perspective. Furthermore, writing on improvisation in music pedagogy has largely been concerned with advocating improvisationâs place in education, by making visible its many practices in a broad range of music cultures and by highlighting its beneficial and positive dimensions. This leads us to the question: why teach or learn improvisation?
Why improvisation?
From a pedagogical perspective, issues of why improvisation should be included in various music education contexts are of vast importance. The need for a well-funded and detailed justification of improvisation in education is perhaps more pressing than ever. Firstly, dimensions of improvisation such as creativity and communication have been recognised as important 21st-century skills, since they show relevance for critical reflection, cultural consciousness, collaborative abilities, and responsible citizenship (Bellanca and Brandt 2010; NOU 2014: 7; NOU 2015: 8; Trilling and Fadel 2009). Secondly, and contradictory to the first aspect, improvisation is not easily promoted in what has been framed as a management-by-objectives ideology in Western education in general, with an emphasis on measurable achievements (Ferm Thorgersen and ZandĂ©n 2015; Johansen 2018; Larsson and Hanberger 2016; Larsson and Ăhman 2018; Lazzaretti and Tavoletti 2006). Musical activities in general, and specifically creative ones, which potentially have open ends and unpredictable, individual results, do not necessarily conform to assessment based on predefined criteria of learning outcomes. This feature, which might be seen as improvisationâs main force, may nevertheless lead to an exclusion from curricula.
Improvisation and learning
From a philosophical perspective, it is claimed that improvisation can evoke imagination and encourage the search of new ways of dealing with problems (Dewey 2005 [1916]; English 2016). This notion can manifest itself in a wide array of contexts.
Sawyer (2007: 1) makes a perhaps radical claim in his essay Improvisation and teaching, that improvisation should be regarded as the core in music education, for musical as well as pedagogical reasons. He highlights four learning outcomes, namely deep conceptual understanding of music, integration of knowledge through the act of creating music in real time, expertise in adapting to immediate changes, and collaborative skills, respectively (ibid.: 2). The ability to create music in real-time involves making musical choices about what to play and when. These choices draw partly on internalised knowledge about both structural elements and dramaturgical musical means, and partly on the improviser constructs the needed knowledge during the improvised musical course, due to the situational real-time demands.
Improvisation activities are often expected to develop real-time creative decision-making and nurture a critical mind, as well as abilities for working with the unknown (Heble and Laver 2016; Rose and MacDonald 2014), where musical ideas and aesthetic conventions are negotiated between the personalities involved. Free improvisation has been claimed to be particularly suited for facilitating musical collaboration with an egalitarian view on participation, with an emphasis on freedom over stricter, genre-based conventions (Johansen 2014; MacDonald, Wilson, and Miell 2011). In music instrumental learning and development, improvisation can be a powerful experience of personal achievement (Ashley 2016), in stretching oneâs abilities to act within the constraints of real-time music making while adjusting and tuning in to other participants simultaneously, and to explore personal musical fluency and decision-making (Wall 2018). In the perspective of benefits for the individual, improvisation can be seen as a means for strengthening ownership, self-determination, agency, independence, and the sense of having an individual, important voice (Johansen 2014; Rose and MacDonald 2014).
One might argue that the view that the improviser develops such generic skills takes for granted a process of implicit transfer of learning, which is not necessarily the case. This view must therefore be problematised and investigated further in concrete practices. Furthermore, being aware of potential positive outcomes from improvisation is not to overlook the fact that it can sometimes be perceived as a non-learning or even negative and frustrating experience, whether musically, emotionally or socially (see Henley 2018). We will return to a problematisation of potential tensions related to improvisation further on.
Improvisation in education: from primary school to higher music education
To us, it seems clear that improvisation is an underdeveloped field in general music education contexts such as primary school. Opening up for improvisation can involve risks on a personal as well as institutional level, due to potentially open-ended and unpredictable outcomes. In compulsory schooling, research shows that music teachers find it difficult to implement improvisatory music making activities in their teaching, sometimes ascribed to a perceived lack of artistic experience in teachers themselves (Bernhard and Stringham 2016; Larsson and Georgii-Hemming 2018). Furthermore, time is an important factor as the subject of music has limited time allocated in curricula and teachers tell they are preoccupied with assessment and documentation of studentsâ achievements (e.g. Bernhard and Stringham 2016; Higgins and Mantie 2013; Koutsoupidou 2005; Rozman 2009; Swedish National Agency for Education 2015; Ferm Thorgersen and ZandĂ©n 2015; Whitcomb 2007).
The teaching of improvisation as an institutionalised subject in Europe and North America has up until recently been dominated by jazz curricula. Within this context, a critical discourse has developed focusing on the consequences of academisation and institutionalisation that has been ongoing since the 1960s (Whyton 2014). It has been claimed that moving jazz from aural based learning contexts, metaphorically framed as âthe streetâ, and into a score-centred and hierarchical context framed as âthe schoolâ, has hampered the inherent creativity and individuality jazz as culture is taken to entail due to the role of improvisation (Whyton 2006). Academisation has furthermore been described as a development towards objectification and intellectualisation of the educational content on the cost of embodied and intuitive expressions, and egalitarian, interactive participation (Lewis 2000; Prouty 2006; Whyton 2014). On the other hand, institutionalisation as such may be seen as a democratisation process that has provided broader access to a knowledge domain that previously was reserved for socially exclusive, often male, sub-groups (Prouty 2008, 2012). According to Whyton (2014), jazz education in the West offers a wide range of educational and stylistic profiles, sometimes leading to acute tensions and dichotomies. Hence, current research on jazz education reflects a field described as an âinteresting and contested cultural spaceâ (ibid.: 28). A study on jazz studentsâ instrumental practising in Scandinavian higher education (Johansen 2016) reflects this situation, by showing that these students practise and perform improvisation with an eclectic approach to a broad spectrum of genres, mixing mainstream jazz, ECM inspired music, folk music and free improvisation.
Musicians across many genres are increasingly expected to be able to improvise. In classical and/or contemporary music contexts, this can be seen in the growth of improvisation festivals and the production of works which utilise electronics and graphic notation in combination with improvisation. As a consequence, improvisation as a distinct subject across genres is being offered by a growing number of conservatoires and universities to prepare portfolio musicians for a labour market that demands creative agency.
However, not much research has been done in this area yet. Several practice-based accounts have been published recently, though. For example, Kalmanovitch (2016) describes the motives and backgrounds for establishing the genre-crossing Contemporary Improvisation Department at New England Conservatory in Boston, USA. Currie (2016) is also recommending a genre-crossing approach, exemplified through the development of the Europea...
