OBJECTIVES

1. To develop skills and confidence in improvisation over a broad range of musical styles, ideas and
traditions, starting at a basic introductory level, within an enjoyable, positive context conducive to
learning. With this aim, I would also seek to nurture an ethos which emphasises commonalities
building bridges while acknowledging cultural and stylistic differences, thereby allowing each
students musical culture, outlook, and sensitivity to expand.

2. To impart the fundamentally important point that improvisers must listen closely to one another,
respond to and develop co-improvisers material, and at times remain silent. These are all prerequisites
for successful, musically satisfying improvisation within a group.

ORGANIZATION (65 Students) and ASSESSMENT

Subject to timetable constraints, a desirable structure would involve 3 hours of classes per week: a 1-hour
lecture/demonstration for all 65 students; and four 30-minute tutorial/workshops with approximately 16
students in each. Moreover, I would make myself available to consult with individual students as
required.

1. The lecture would introduce and overview concepts, theory, and style, as well as similarities and
differences to other genres. Where applicable, handouts shall be provided, and recordings played. I would
then give a practical demonstration; an improvisation involving the whole class would ensue. We would
conclude with a discussion of what was achieved, what was not, together with general feedback from me.

2. The tutorials would address any problems of understanding that arose from the lecture, while being
devoted mostly to the practice of improvisation. Further material may be introduced; specific feedback,
to individual students, would also be given.

3. a) I would assess each students degree of participation, their enthusiasm, their willingness to embrace
unfamiliar concepts, and the musicality (spontaneous inventiveness) of their improvisations in class. 50%
b) There would also be a post-module examination. Having chosen an area covered within the course,
every student will give an improvisation of c.5 duration. Depending upon their choice, each performance
will involve either an individual student, or a small group. 50%

COURSE CONTENTS (Weeks 1 to 5)

1. Two simple ideas for group improvisations (both targeting Objective 2). a) From Cardews The Great
Learning (c.10; in tutorial): starting together, everybody sings their own pitch, gradually moving it away
from that of the person next to them; at a cue from me, the process is reversed. b) Find your group: the
students are divided into 8 groups, randomly distributed throughout a room, with nobody knowing who
else is in their group. Each group is allocated a different motive or call. Through each student
performing their call, others of their group are located, and members of the same group then move
towards one another. For coherence, students will have to listen while being silent; more advanced
variants are possible.

2. Using various scale patterns tonal/modal or non-diatonic students perform brief, self-contained
melodic improvisations over a duration derived either from breath-length (winds) or from the resonance
time of a percussion instrument (e.g. Japanese rin). This concept proposes an alternative, non-metric,
approach to time as in some musics of Asia. We would then improvise over a sustained drone or single
chord, utilizing Classical Indian raga scales/styles, and Celtic melody (in pentatonic and diatonic
modes).

3. Call-and response improvisation of clapped rhythmic patterns, in bar-lengths based on various quaver-
multiples: I improvise a short rhythm in a given time-signature (announcing any changes of bar-length); a
student responds by improvising a variant of my pattern. In tutorials, using transposed parts if necessary,
Rileys minimalist classic In C would be performed, for it develops these ideas and those of Week 2.
4. Again building on concepts from Week 2, we would improvise over standard bass patterns and chord
progressions, such as the 12-bar blues and various 16th-century dance basses (passamezzo etc.)
although not necessarily in jazz or 16th-century style. The repetitive bass/chord patterns could be MIDI
sequenced and looped, so that I would be able to improvise against them on recorder, by way of
demonstration.

5. Free improvisation based on Daryl Pratts Frame, introducing students to graphic scores and extended
instrumental techniques. Pratts framework offers pictographic instructions regarding transformations,
influence, fusion, alternation, parametric increase/decrease (cf. Stockhausens Plus/Minus) of 3 flexible
musics or sound-worlds that are developed by several individual improvisers or groups of
improvisers. Global and local durations are decided beforehand: c.10 in lecture; c.20 in tutorials.
Materials would be distributed to students during Week 4, and arranged by their groups prior to the
Week 5 lecture.