Free form expression/improvisation and the removal of musical notation opens an avenue into an individual’s expressive center. They become free to listen to what they are playing while making musical decisions about how the melodic line sounds. The significant changes in performance are due to the fact the mind is no longer consumed with a visual response to notation, only listening to the flow of notes being played.
–Edward S. Lisk, in Intangibles of Musical Performance
The first time I gave a semester course in improvisation for classical (traditionally trained) musicians (8? 9? years ago), it was half jazz oriented, half nonjazz. The experiment didn’t really work: it was too much jazz for those who didn’t want to work on jazz, and not enough jazz for those who did. The next year the problem was solved: separate courses for both.
The content of this semester course has varied every year as I learn from the last course and get new ideas for the next one. Probably one-third to half the course is new/different every year. Teaching improv to classical players in college is still very new and methods and procedures for it are still experimental and have not (yet?!) ossified as the old 19th-century oriented music curriculum in place most everywhere has, and alleluia for that.
There are, nevertheless, some procedures and principles that remain the same in teaching a course in this kind of improvisation, and I’d like to share some of those with you so that you don’t have to completely re-invent the wheel when you give your improv course (and be sure to get back to me with stuff that worked for you that I missed).
