Improvisation should be at the core of the music curriculum. It should come first and should remain at the core of music education throughout the later years of increasing expertise. Musicians educated with improvisation at the center will have a better-developed ability to think musically —to deeply understand music as well as be better prepared to interpret written scores.
–R. Keith Sawyer
[This is a slightly edited re-post from Horn Insights]
Let’s get this out of the way up front: I’m in love. I don’t know how else to describe my wonderful time last week in Nova Scotia, my first visit to this splendid province.
I was asked by the music educators of NS to give the keynote address at their annual music educator’s conference in Antigonish at the end of October, as well as to do some presentations. The reason they asked me was because they started working on a new curriculum for band Gr. 7-12 about four years ago. Ardith Haley, Arts Educational consultant in the NS Dept. of Education and one of the central figures involved in writing the new curriculum, was at the Midwest Band Clinic at that time and happened to stop by the booth of GIA Music. GIA had just published my book Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians. Ardith examined a copy and decided that this was just what they needed for the new curriculum. They wanted to include improvisation and composition in the new curriculum, but they hadn’t found any material out there that addressed their needs until the moment that Ardith picked up my book.
