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This book offers compelling new perspectives on the revolutionary potential of improvisation pedagogy. Bringing together contributions from leading musicians, scholars, and teachers from around the world, the volume articulates how improvisation can breathe new life into old curricula; how it can help teachers and students to communicate more effectively; how it can break down damaging ideological boundaries between classrooms and communities; and how it can help students become more thoughtful, engaged, and activist global citizens. In the last two decades, a growing number of music educators, music education researchers, musicologists, cultural theorists, creative practitioners, and ethnomusicologists have suggested that a greater emphasis on improvisation in music performance, history, and theory classes offers enormous potential for pedagogical enrichment. This book will help educators realize that potential by exploring improvisation along a variety of trajectories. Essays offer readers both theoretical explorations of improvisation and music education from a wide array of vantage points, and practical explanations of how the theory can be implemented in real situations in communities and classrooms. It will therefore be of interest to teachers and students in numerous modes of pedagogy and fields of study, as well as students and faculty in the academic fields of music education, jazz studies, ethnomusicology, musicology, cultural studies, and popular culture studies.
List of contents
Introduction: Improvisation and Music Education: Beyond the Classroom Ajay Heble and Mark Laver Section 1: Teaching Improvisation 1. On the Ethics of Teaching "Jazz" (and "America's Classical Music," and "BAM," and "Improvisational Music," and . . .) David Ake 2. Improvisation Pedagogy in Theory and Practice Jesse Stewart 3. Free Improvisation and Performance Anxiety in Musicians Kathryn Ladano 4. Analysis, Improvisation, and Openness Chris Stover 5. Embodied Action Frameworks: Teaching Multicultural Ear Training Howard Spring 6. From Jazz Pedagogy to Improvisation Pedagogy: Solving the Problem of Genre in Beginning Improvisation Training Gabriel Solis Section 2: Histories, Institutions, Practices 7. Time to Change the Curriculum: Revaluing Improvisation in Twenty-first Century Canada Parmela Attariwala 8. Back into the Classroom: Learning Music through Historical Improvisation Peter Schubert and Massimiliano Guido 9. Thoroughbass as Pedagogy in the Teaching of Improvisation in Undergraduate Music Theory Courses Vincent P. Benitez 10. Improvise Globally, Strategize Locally: Institutional Structures & Ethnomusicological Agency Scott Currie 11. Teaching the 'Compleat Musician': Contemporary Improvisation at New England Conservatory Tanya Kalmanovitch 12. Becoming Music: Building Castles with Sound William Parker Section 3: Improvisation and Community Engaged Pedagogy 13. The Music is the Pedagogy David Dove 14. Informed by Children: Awakening Improvisatory Impulses in University Students Matt Swanson and Patricia Shehan Campbell 15. "Things that you hope a human being will be": Jane Bunnett in Conversation with Ajay Heble Ajay Heble and Jane Bunnett 16. The Share: Improvisation and Community in the Neoliberal University Mark Laver 17. Control This! Digital Improvisation & Pedagogy Mark V. Campbell 18. Education f
About the author
Ajay Heble is Director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation and Professor of English at the University of Guelph, Canada.
Mark Laver is Assistant Professor of Music at Grinnell College, US.
Summary
This book offers new perspectives on the revolutionary potential of improvisation pedagogy. A global range of contributors articulate how improvisation can reinvigorate old curricula; help teachers and students communicate more effectively; break down boundaries between classrooms and communities; and help students become more engaged global cit
