by Lee Higgins and Roger Mantie

Improvisation as
Ability, Culture, and
Experience
Abstract: We argue in this article for greater role for improvisation in the music classroom.
Based on an extensive examination of scholarship about improvisational practices, we
propose three conceptualizations—ability, culture, experience—that can serve to guide
the teaching of improvisation. When considered as an ability, improvisation is a creative
aspect of overall musicianship; considered as culture, improvisation is a distinctive way to
understand specific musical practices; finally, considered as experience, improvisation is a
distinctive way of being in and through music that reflects the fact that the act of living is
largely improvisatory. Although we see merit in all three conceptualizations and provide
pedagogical examples to support each in turn, we conclude that the last of these holds the
greatest potential to positively affect school music classrooms.
Keywords: ability, creativity, culture, experience, improvisation, musicianship, pedagogy

The experience of Improvisation enjoys the curious distinction of being both the most widely
improvisation can practised of musical activities and the least acknowledged and understood.
enable students to —Derek Bailey1

unlock undiscovered

aspects of their
musical selves.
Copyright © 2013 National Association
for Music Education
DOI: 10.1177/0027432113498097
http://mej.sagepub.com
H
istorical and anthropological exam- however. For example, in a study of teacher
ples suggest that improvisation is perceptions and practices in English primary
and has been a fundamental aspect classroom, Theano Koutsoupidoua, from
of multiple musical practices.2 It is therefore Roehampton University’s Centre for Interna-
not surprising that the ability to improvise is tional Research in Music Education, found
included in the National Standards for Music that music teachers viewed improvisation
Education. The teaching of improvisation, positively and that 81 percent incorporated
however, continues to be viewed by many it in their teaching.4 Thus, improvisation and
as challenging. Among the concerns voiced its teaching may not be inherently difficult.
are that improvisation does not figure prom- Rather, perceptions about and teaching skills
inently enough in the curriculum and that related to improvisation more likely reflect
many music teachers are uncomfortable the ways in which we have been musically
teaching it.3 This attitude toward improvi- enculturated.
sation may reflect country-specific music Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, chair of music
teacher training and certification practices, education at the University of Michigan,
Lee Higgins is an associate professor of music education and Roger Mantie is an assistant professor of music education at
Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts. They can be contacted at HigginsL@bu.edu and Rmantie@bu.edu, respectively.

38 Music Educators Journal December 2013

Ann Arbor, has argued that part of the
reason that teaching improvisation is
considered to be difficult by some is
that the North American music educa-
tion profession’s conception of being
“musically well-educated” is derived
almost exclusively from classical music
values that underlie music teacher
training practices in the United States.5
These “classical” values tend to favor
notation literacy and large-ensemble
performance over alternative goals such
as the ability to play by ear, student-
created music, and spontaneity, hence
reducing the development of improvi-
sation skills. In a study of 244 musicians
in the United Kingdom, for example,
a team of ten researchers found an
almost inverse relationship in musical
values between classical and nonclassi-
cal musicians, with classical musicians
regarding notation-based skills highly
and ranking improvisation lowest in
importance. 6 Therefore, in spite of
Standard 3 and the many claims about
the benefits of improvisation, the per-
vasiveness of “classical” values helps
to ensure that improvisational activities
tend to be ignored and overlooked.
Reticence toward improvisation is
exacerbated by educational policies
that demand clearly defined and meas-
urable outcomes, often in the name of
teacher accountability. The open-end-
edness and unpredictability of activities
not designed toward a predetermined
product (improvisation) would seem
antithetical to how many people have
come to think of schooling and educa-
tion. How does one adequately dem-
onstrate to administrators and other
stakeholders in education the value of
process? Of seeking? Of exploration?
This is no easy task, and our aim here is
not to offer simplistic solutions to com-
plex questions of “proving” that learning
has taken place. Rather, in this article
we strive to remind readers that there is
indeed value in improvisation and that it
is our duty to ensure that improvisation
factors into our curricular and instruc-
tional practices, not just superficially or
tokenistically, but also as a central part
of what we do as music educators.
www.nafme.org
Based on an extensive examination
of scholarship related to improvisational
practices, we submit that improvisation
is, and can be, thought of in at least
three ways:
1. as a component of a holistic view of
musicianship (i.e., ability),
2. as an aspect of a situated form of
musical practice (i.e., culture), and
3. as a distinct way of being in the
world, embodying such qualities as
risk-taking, reflexivity, spontaneity,
exploration, participation, and play
(i.e., experience).
While each of these three conceptual-
izations is valuable in its own right, we
suggest that the last of these provides
the greatest educative potential and the
greatest potential to positively influence
American society.
Improvisation as (Creative)
Ability
As is well known by many music educa-
tors, improvisation figures prominently
in the educational writings and theories
of Émile Jaques-Dalcroze and Carl Orff.
It also figures in idealized curricular and
instructional practices in Comprehensive
Musicianship, the Manhattanville Music
Curriculum Project, and the work of
avant-garde composers with educational
interests, such as the U.K.’s John Paynter
and Canada’s R. Murray Schafer. Central
to the assumptions of these pedagogi-
cal approaches is that improvisation is
a musical skill distinct from composi-
tion. For music educator and composer
David Elliott, the ability to improvise is
an important aspect of being musically
educated.7 In this view, improvisation is
a core component of musicianship, one
that helps to develop the musical person.
Toward this goal, scholars and research-
ers have suggested that improvisational
activity is an effective means to develop
aspects of musicianship such as audia-
tion, the ability to play by ear, modes of
communication, expressiveness, informal
music-making, and musical agency.8
Creativity as it appears in more
recent music education literature is
almost always presumed to be a desir-
able skill, characteristic, or capacity. Lit-
erature examining creativity and musical
improvisation often presumes or implies
that creativity in music and other fine
arts is commensurate with creativity in
other domains, although such claims
have not yet been adequately examined.
Limb and Braun’s fMRI scans of jazz pia-
nists’ brains, for example, demonstrate
unique changes in brain activity while
improvising.9 On this basis they suggest
that certain “cognitive dissociations”
may be intrinsic to creative processes
generally. They are clear, however, that
what their research really demonstrates
is that improvising musicians are able
to operate within highly structured rule-
based environments “outside of con-
scious awareness and beyond volitional
control.”10 That is, improvisation is about
being able to internalize genre-specific
rules to the point where one no longer
thinks about them.
Being “musically educated,” then,
may be considered a matter of being
able to internalize stated or unstated
musical rules in order to improvise. As
anyone who has ever tried to improvise
quickly realizes, “making things up” is
often more challenging than it appears!
It is, in other words, a skill or ability—
one that can be fostered and developed
(see Figure 1 for a pedagogical exam-
ple). This raises several questions, how-
ever. For example, which musical rules
are to be learned, how are they to be
learned, and what are their potential
effects on production, reception, and
meaning making? Questions such as
these introduce questions of culture into
the discussion.
Improvisation is central to many
musical practices throughout the world.
This might lead one to believe that as a
phenomenon there are skills in the act
of improvisation that can be applied to
any musical practice. Those working
in the fields of situated learning and
situated cognition, however, have long
argued that learning is embedded in
context.11 This holds major implications
for the teaching and learning of improvi-
sation, which cannot be separated from
39
 consider jazz a cherished art form (for
FIGURE 1 some, an original American art form),
improvising is central not just to the
Riff Around musicianship of jazz, but also to the
This activity allows for every group member to invent a ‘riff’ of limited musical material. meaning of the music itself. If students
Use available instruments (including the voice): If a piano is used, wheel it into the are to truly understand jazz (or any
circle. If electric instruments require amplification, such as keyboards, guitars, or other music where improvising is intrin-
microphones, the cables should be long enough so that those who are playing them can sic to the practice), they must improvise
be part of the circle. to some extent; so much of the meaning
of the music, in other words, is to be
found in the improvising.
Preparation
Jazz and jazz education provide an
Choose a pentatonic scale from which to work. Suggest that the students familiarize intriguing case in point about improvi-
themselves with the pitch series. Inform the group of the task of creating a musical sation and musical learning. School jazz
mosaic or tapestry of sound. Explain that each player will invent a riff that uses pitches programs have become almost syn-
from the pentatonic pitch set. The riffs will fit a selected tempo and will be repeated. onymous with the idea (and ideal) of
As a collection of musical cells, the group can generate an interesting mosaic of riff- improvisation in music education, even
points that reflect upon the collaborative nature of a working group. though, as research has shown, the
amount of actual improvising that typi-
Activity cally occurs in school jazz programs is
Set a clear tempo and initiate the riffing, one individual at a time, all around the circle. often minimal.14 Moreover, among many
Importantly, once the riff hits the air, it is repeated even as every new riff enters. While in the jazz and jazz education communi-
the first “riffer” is challenged to set the music in motion, every new player should ties it is inevitably the teaching of jazz,
attempt to perform a riff that complements the sounds of the riffs already in motion. not improvisation, that is considered of
Remind the group that as the musical mosaic grows, each player must think, “What utmost importance.15 Hence, while jazz
does the music need?” “How can I contribute with my riff?” education in schools is often rational-
ized as important because improvisation
is fundamental to its structure, improvis-
Discussion Points
ing is frequently omitted from instruc-
The important aspect of this activity is that group members think about the process of tion, as the teaching of jazz as a style or
contributing to the musical whole, recognizing that the ability to think spontaneously, cultural form takes precedence.
to identify, in the moment, a place for integrating a suitable musical idea, is a skill to While it is possible, as Ed Sarath,
be honed. Through repetition, group members should become more facile in answering professor in the Department in Jazz
the questions, “What does the music need?” and “How can I contribute?” The ability to and Contemporary Improvisation at
compose a short piece that incorporates interlocking riffs might be one way of assessing the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,
students’ understanding. suggests,16 that the skill of improvising
Adapted from Lee Higgins and Patricia Shehan Campbell, Free to Be Musical: Group Improvisation in
holds some potential for transcending
Music (Lanham, MD: MENC/Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010). certain stylistic boundaries, the situ-
ated nature of learning cannot be over-
looked. To improvise is to participate in
specific musical practices, each carrying
its social and cultural contexts without there is, even in the most exploratory its own history, traditions, and expecta-
loss of meaning; sounds are only heard of improvisatory practices, a “content” tions. It is difficult to engage in improvi-
as meaningful in relation to what has present: We improvise on something.13 satory practices in the context of a jazz
come before.12 This is to say that there Closely connected with the view that ensemble, for example, without invok-
is always a history involved in every improvisation is a distinct ability, then, ing, implying, or heeding specific per-
improvising event. It is also to suggest is the idea that improvisation is a dis- formance practices—a further reminder
that there are always musical materi- tinct way of knowing particular musics that we improvise on something (see the
als in play and that these always allude or musical cultures. One cannot truly music example in Figure 2).
to some cultural referent. Invoking the “know” some musics without improvis- Based on his study of the improvi-
words of jazz musician Charles Mingus, ing. Although many examples of musi- sations of eight-year-old children,
Sara Ramshaw, then a postdoctoral fel- cal practices featuring improvisation Panagiotis Kanellopoulos of Greece’s
low with the collaborative research can be found throughout the world, the University of Thessaly noted the politi-
initiative “Improvisation, Community one that springs immediately to mind in cal nature and role of improvisation
and Social Practice,” pointed out that the United States is jazz. For those who and the way it served to construct

40 Music Educators Journal December 2013

 Improvisation as Experience
FIGURE 2
Eastman School of Music professor of
Drone on music education Christopher D. Azzara
The exploration of intervals between principal pitches of a given pitch series is certain stresses the importance of establishing
to guide students into a thoughtful process of generating melodic ideas. This activity an environment—an “improvisation
uses ideas reflective of the Hindustani classical tradition, in which the perpetual culture”—where improvisation, spon-
drone provides the tonal foundation for individual musical inventions. By exploring the taneity, and interaction are nurtured
intervallic relationships inherent with a particular series of notes, students are able to throughout the music curriculum. 18
create individual ideas with the support of their class. Thought of as a culture or as an envi-
ronment, improvisation becomes not a
skill or a cultural practice, but a way
Preparation of being in and through music, one
Ensure that students know the pitch series by singing or playing them. An example of where teachers and students embark
an effective pitch series is one sometimes referred to as the “Indian pentatonic”: C, E, on significant journeys of musical dis-
F, G, B-flat. Have students familiarize students with the pitches, rather than to strictly covery through the immediacy of mak-
practice them as a scale. ing one’s own sounds. A third way of
conceptualizing improvisatory practices,
Activity then, is as experience. Jazz pianist Vijay
Iyer suggests that because life itself is
Explain to students that each of them will take a solo improvisation using the pitch improvisatory in nature, there is really
series they have practiced. Begin by establishing the drone. The drone should be the “no difference between human expe-
root of the pitch series plus either a fifth or a fourth above the root. The drone does not rience and the act of improvisation.” 19
set a tempo and should not even be pulsive; the “time” is to be free. Similarly, Columbia University Professor
Once the drone is established, the solo explorations can begin. Encourage students of American Music George Lewis calls
to establish a relationship between one interval and the next. In a C-drone sound, improvisation a “practice of thinking”
challenge students to see how many melodic ideas they can invent using just the C and “a ubiquitous method of meaning
and E, sustaining, repeating, moving back and forth in various rhythms. Then, add the exchange in any everyday life inter-
F to the C and E. When all five pitches are in play, consider exploring the pitches in action.” Human existence, he suggests,
more than one octave. After the first soloist reaches a resting point, the next soloist can is “the condition of improvisation.”20
begin. Continue through the solos until everyone has had a chance to play. When thought of as experience,
engaging in improvisatory practice
Discussion Points becomes profoundly ethical. As Kanel-
lopoulos puts it, “Improvisation is a
Ask the students about the experience of playing drones and solos, probing them mode of musical practice where one is
for what it was it like to be conscious of exploring the individual pitches and their permitted to search for the meaning of
intervals. Discuss the musical possibilities open to singing and playing a limited set of what is right.”21 This search becomes a
pitches. Introduce students to the Hindustani tradition through listening experiences. powerful heuristic, emphasizing such
As a point of assessment, one could use the basic structure of Hindustani raag. Ask the qualities as risk-taking, reflexivity, spon-
students to compose a gat (small fixed thematic composition) within a tal (rhythmic taneity, exploration, participation, and
framework) and then along with members of the class perform it preceding the idea play22 (see Figure 3). These character-
with an improvisation or Alap as explored above. istics are central to the work of groups
such as International Society for Impro-
Adapted from Lee Higgins and Patricia Shehan Campbell, Free to Be Musical: Group Improvisation in
Music (Lanham, MD: MENC/Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010). vised Music (www.isimprov.org) and
the research consortium Improvisation,
Community, and Social Practice (www
.improvcommunity.ca), both of which
specific forms of “human agency,” and these choices have consequences. invoke a musical, social, and cultural
“human relationship,” and “relation- Every act of inclusion (e.g., improvis- lineage associated with such things as
ships among children, music, and ing on the blues) is an act of exclusion the free jazz movement, the Association
knowledge.” 17 That is, while there is (e.g., not improvising on Indian ragas). for the Advancement of Creative Musi-
an undeniable skill and musicianship The what and how of improvising thus cians, and the British group AMM. They
aspect to improvisation, improvising— helps to shape what is and is not con- are also central to the practices of bold
like all forms of music-making—is a sidered culturally meaningful, in both music educators, such as Doug Friesen,
social act. It therefore involves choices, the present and future lives of students. who dare to offer students an alternative

www.nafme.org 41
 outcomes (i.e., clearly defined behav-
FIGURE 3 ioral objectives and valid and reliable
grading rubrics) have become so perva-
Ensemble sive as to be thought synonymous with
Group members will play an amalgam of instruments, freely, and spontaneously. In learning.
order to engage fully in this activity, students must concentrate on listening to each Although little known in the United
other. Intimate playing experiences are demanding of attentive listening and sonic States, for more than thirty years “com-
judgments. munity musicians” in the United King-
dom, Ireland, Australia, and other
countries have been developing an
Preparation ethos of active music-making that has
Ask the students to arrange themselves into a circle with their instruments. Students improvisation at its core.24 Music leaders
must concentrate on listening to each other and making conscious sonic choices working in these countries seek to cre-
asking the question: What does the music need at this time? ate relevant and accessible music-mak-
ing experiences that integrate activities
Activity such as listening, improvising, musical
invention, and performing. Ideas are
To begin, work as a whole ensemble. There are no set rules; emphasize that you would derived from creating environments
like students to be free in their musical choices. Begin with silence and end with a that provide opportunities to release
silent signal to stop, unless the music making finds its own resting place. Encourage the musical imagination in ways that
the students to explore the sound capabilities of their instruments. As a development are free and expansive, playful, personal
to the large ensemble work select smaller group configurations from within the larger and interpersonal. To apply the cultural
circle. Each small group will play or sing in an improvisatory fashion for an unspecified musicologist Christopher Small’s term,
period of time. Following their performance, there is a small silence before the next improvisation in this context evokes the
group begin their improvised musical expression. This sequence continues until every human musicking potential, the capac-
small group has played. ity to participate in the socially interac-
The students are invited to comment on the experience, as both performers and tive process of making music. This is
listeners. Try to ensure that the dialogue has a critical edge, by asking such questions a belief that music-making can quite
as the following: What happened in the piece? How did it proceed? What was the acceptably be embraced as “a trail of
experience like? Who were you listening to? Invite members of each small group to no mistakes,” a celebration of the many
comment on their musical process, followed by comments from the larger group of and varied musical pathways that both
listeners. teacher and student can take.25 Improvi-
sation, considered as possibility and as
the unknown, is inextricably woven into
Discussion Points
music because improvisation is a large
Students are held accountable in this activity for listening: to themselves, to the part of what living is about.
members of their group as they perform, and to the musical inventions of other groups.
They are also responsible for thinking through and offering critical responses to the
process of musical improvisation, and the resultant product. No less important that
Conclusion
the experience of musical improvisation in a small ensemble are the opportunities for Why do music educators in the United
students to be reflective in their music-making and to consider the sonic decisions they States need to cultivate students’ skills
and their peers have made. The quality of their reflection notated in a musical diary in improvisation? Following Maud
could help to assess their musical understanding. Hickey, coordinator of music education
Adapted from Lee Higgins and Patricia Shehan Campbell, Free to Be Musical: Group Improvisation in at Northwestern University in Evanston,
Music (Lanham, MD: MENC/Rowman & Littlefield Education, 2010). Illinois, we would argue that it is not
to develop skills to produce a “good”
sounding response to a prompt in the
narrow context of the music classroom
to traditional music classroom practices “contemporary improvised music”), the and the teachers’ learning objectives, but
(see creative-ed.ca).23 Sharing qualities approach to improvisation characterized rather, “to enable students to be lifelong
of the classical avant-garde, free jazz by musicians and educators associated creative improvisers and to give them
improvisation, and world musics, but with groups such as these is not always a sense of freedom when doing so.” 26
not reducible to simple categorization well received in formal education con- As Kanellopoulos reminds us, improv-
or labeling (although sometimes called texts where predetermined educational isation “is an act of discovery without

42 Music Educators Journal December 2013

aspirations beyond itself.”27 Improvisa-
tion, in other words, is not a “product”
that can be taught in a “strict meth-
odological or pedagogical manner,”
but “a process to be encouraged on
the way to learning freedom and self-
actualization.” 28 Music teachers know
the importance of creative invention
and self-expression. Regrettably, how-
ever, even with such knowledge and
with mandates from national organiza-
tions such as the National Association
of School of Music (NASM) and the
National Association for Music Educa-
tion (NAfME), improvisation is still not
a ubiquitous feature of most music edu-
cation programs.
If music educators believe that fos-
tering qualities such as risk taking,
reflexivity, spontaneity, exploration,
participation, and play are important,
if they believe that there is value in
searching for, rather than stipulat-
ing, the meaning of what is right, and
if they believe that the quest to work
out the conditions that make individual
and collective life meaningful is impor-
tant, then improvisatory practices will
need to become a daily part of musi-
cal engagement rather than a mere add-
on. Conceptualizing improvisation as a
means to an end—as musicianship or
as creative activity—is fine, and is cer-
tainly better than not including improvi-
sation at all, but we suggest that this
does sell short the full potential of
improvisatory practices. What is worse,
conceptualizing improvisation in these
limited senses condemns improvisation
to the margins of music education, as it
becomes just another checkbox on a list
of standards—another item to include in
an already overcrowded curriculum. To
make improvisatory practices central to
music education is to reconceptualize
the nature and value of music educa-
tion as part of the educational process.
None of what we have stated here is
to downplay the challenges of making
improvisational music-making central
to music education. Our school system
demands accountability in the form of
demonstrable learning. This demand
inevitably results in a tragic narrowing
www.nafme.org
of the curriculum where the word
learning is reduced to whatever can be
conveniently measured on a standard-
ized test. From a distance, improvisa-
tion, especially that of a less structured
nature, can easily be viewed as mere
dabbling rather than as serious learning.
In order to be taken seriously, improvi-
satory activities will no doubt need to
be conducted with forethought into
indicators of learning. While not a sub-
stitute for the actual improvising process
itself, brief pre- and post-event reflec-
tion papers are one simple method of
documenting individual learning. Many
other ideas and assessment practices
needed to satisfy accountability legisla-
tion can be developed, but these will,
of course, need to be tailored to local
circumstances. Thoughtful and creative
music educators will find ways to do
this, because they recognize and under-
stand the value and importance of mak-
ing improvisation central to the music
education endeavor. Let us not continue
denying our students the opportunity to
discover their musical “voice”; let us
celebrate in the multiple possibilities
of musical interaction: Let’s say yes to
improvisation.
NOTES
1. Derek Bailey, quoted by Ed Sarath in
“Improvisation and Curriculum Reform,”
The New Handbook of Research on
Music Teaching and Learning, ed.
Richard Colwell and Carol Richardson
(New York: Oxford University Press,
2002), 188.
2. See Ernest T. Ferand, Improvisation in
Nine Centuries of Western Music: An
Anthology with a Historical Introduction
(Köln: A. Volk Verlag, 1961).
3. Susan Byo, “Classroom Teachers’ and
Music Specialists’ Perceived Ability to
Implement the National Standards for
Music Education,” Journal of Research
in Music Education 47, no. 2 (1999):
111–23.
4. Theano Koutsoupidou, “Improvisation in
the English Primary Music Classroom:
Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices.”
Music Education Research 7, no. 3
(2005): 363–81.
5. Carlos Xavier Rodriguez, “Popular Music
in Music Education: Toward a New
Conception of Musicality,” in Bridging
the Gap: Popular Music and Music
Education, ed. Carlos Xavier Rodriguez
(Reston, VA: MENC, 2004), 13–28.
6. Andrea Creech, Ioulia Papageorgi,
Celia Duffy, Frances Morton, Elizabeth
Hadden, John Potter, Christophe De
Bezenac, Tony Whyton, Evangelos
Himonides, and Graham Welch,
“Investigating Musical Performance:
Commonality and Diversity among
Classical and Non-Classical Musicians,”
Music Education Research 10, no. 2
(2008): 215–34.
7. David James Elliott, Music Matters:
A New Philosophy of Music Education
(New York: Oxford University Press,
1995).
8. See, for example, Christopher Azzara,
“Audiation-Based Improvisation
Techniques and Elementary Instrumental
Students’ Music Achievement,” Journal
of Research in Music Education 41,
no. 4 (1993): 328–42.
9. Using advanced fMRI technologies,
researcher Charles Limb has endeavored
to show that improvisation may be a
cognitive capacity, one associated with
creativity. C. J. Limb and A. R. Braun,
“Neural Substrates of Spontaneous
Musical Performance: An fMRI Study
of Jazz Improvisation,” PloS ONE 3,
no. 2 (2008). See also http://www.ted
.com/talks/charles_limb_your_brain_on_
improv.html.
10. Ibid.
11. Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, Situated
Learning: Legitimate Peripheral
Participation (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1991).
12. See N. Dempsey, “Hook-Ups and Train
Wrecks: Contextual Parameters and
the Coordination of Jazz Interactions,”
Symbolic Interaction 31, no. 1 (2008):
57–75.
13. Sara Ramshaw, “The Creative Life of
Law: Improvisation, between Tradition
and Suspicion,” Critical Studies in
Improvisation/Études critiques en
improvisation 6, no. 1 (2010): 1–13.
14. R. Mantie, “Schooling the Future:
Perceptions of Selected Experts on
Jazz Education,” Critical Studies in
Improvisation/Études critiques en
improvisation 3, no. 2 (2008): 1–11;
and Bruno Nettl, Heartland Excursions:
Ethnomusicological Reflections on
43
 Schools of Music (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1995).
15. See, for example, Lee Bash and
John Kuzmich, Complete Guide to
Instrumental Instruction (Los Angeles:
Alfred Publishing Co., 1989).
16. Sarath, “Improvisation and Curriculum
Reform.”
17. Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, “Musical
Improvisation as Action: An Arendtian
Perspective,” Action, Criticism, and
Theory for Music Education 6, no. 3
(2007): 97–127, 97. As an example
of how improvisation can be “politi-
cal” in its gendered effects, see Erin
Wehr-Flowers, “Differences between
Male and Female Students’ Confidence,
Anxiety, and Attitude toward Learning
Jazz Improvisation,” Journal of Research
in Music Education 54, no. 4 (2006):
337–49.
18. Azzara, “Improvisation.”
19. D. Miller and V. Iyer, “Improvising Digital
Culture: A Conversation,” Critical Studies
in Improvisation/Études critiques en
improvisation 5, no. 1 (2010): 1–10.
20. George Lewis, “The Condition of
Improvisation.” Keynote address,
International Society for Improvised
Music, Santa Cruz, New Mexico,
2009.
21. Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, “Children’s
Early Reflection on Improvised Music-
Making as the Wellspring of Musico-
Philosophical Thinking,” Philosophy
of Music Education Review 15, no. 2
(2007): 119–41, 133.
22. Barbara Rose Lange, “Teaching the
Ethics of Free Improvisation,” Critical
Studies in Improvisation/Études
critiques en improvisation 7, no. 2
(2011): 1–11; and Sawyer, “Group
Creativity: Musical Performance and
Collaboration,” Psychology of Music 34,
no. 2 (2006): 148–65
23. There are also pockets of such activity
within the relatively new organization
Jazz Education Network, which, at their
recent conference in Atlanta, featured
sessions emphasizing similar aspects.
24. “Community musicians” in this context
refers to professionals outside school
contexts, whose work centers on facilitat-
ing project-based music-making (e.g.,
songwriting, drumming, creative music-
making workshop, etc.). See Lee Higgins,
Community Music: In Practice and in
Theory (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2012).
25. Lee Higgins and Patricia Shehan Campbell,
Free to Be Musical: Group Improvisation
in Music (Lanham, MD: MENC/Rowman &
Littlefield Education, 2010).
26. Maud Hickey, “Can Improvisation Be
‘Taught’?: A Call for Free Improvisation
in Our Schools,” International Journal
of Music Education 27, no. 4 (2009):
285–99, 296.
27. Kanellopoulos, “Musical Improvisation as
Action,” 107.
28. Hickey, “Can Improvisation Be
‘Taught’?,” 296.

Visit Us Online at www.lvc.edu/mme

Master of Music Education

Lebanon Valley College’s inspirational programs enable K–12 music teachers to improve their skill set
and advance their careers. Students can choose from either our traditional 30-hour thesis/project track
or the new 36-hour non-thesis track.
s The Master of Music Education (MME) Program enables scholars sYear-round thesis advising
to learn new ideas and technologies that can be immediately applied s Generous transfer policy
in their classrooms.
s Earn your master’s or earn Act 48 credits
s Visiting Faculty in Music: Each summer, LVC brings noted visiting
s On-campus housing
professors to campus from across North America.
s Competitive tuition rates
s The LVC MME Program is organized to allow for learning from
fellow music educators who share personal classroom adventures s Deferred tuition option
and resolutions; often leading to networking that lasts a lifetime. s Lebanon Valley College is nationally recognized for its music
s The seven-week summer MME course schedule is arranged in program and successful graduates; a success achieved through
one- or two-week classes so students can earn college credits or Act strong student-faculty relationships, personal faculty attention,
48 credits. and premier academics. The Master of Music Education degree is
accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM).

To learn how to get started toward your degree or to take classes toward Act 48 credits, visit us
online at www.lvc.edu/mme, call 717-867-6919 or 1-877-877-0423, or email Dr. Marian Dura at
dura@lvc.edu.

Symposium on Creative
Lebanon Valley College™ | Graduate Studies and Continuing Education
101 North College Avenue, Annville, PA 17003-1400
Thinking in Music:
June 23-25, 2014.

44 Music Educators Journal December 2013