Maud Hickey

“Can free improvisation be taught?” A call for free improvisation in our schools
Ursel Schlicht
“I Feel my True colors began to show” Designing and teaching a course on
improvisation

Can free improvisation be taught in secondary schools? What kind of improv teaching
would be most effective/beneficial for the students?

Presence of improv in secondary schools - personal experience

- High school concert band
- Student teacher experience through UBC courses/volunteering

Challenges adding improv to the core curriculum

- Academic regulations (Grading, Achievements, parents)
- Administrative (Class needs numbers, course syllabus, concerts, school wants results)
- Time restrictions (Class time restricted to maintain repertoire, learn tunes, practice)
- Participation - self confidence - Teenagers are more aware of themselves (Shyness,
breaking through the emotional barrier, emotional rollercoaster they’re going through)
- Imbalance of skill levels in terms of harmonic understanding to instrumental ability

Hickey says, Current methods are limited - do not encourage or facilitate true creative
thinking and growth
- Current methods = Defined path set that leads to “success”. Usually a path that ensures
tonal or rhythmic success.
- When students improvise, they are given limits, put into a box - i.e. only freedom in
dynamics/texture or timbre.
- Teachers are heavily involved. Path is teacher directed/focused and carefully prescribed
in stages.
- In the examples there is a clearly defined path to the improvisation product and ,if done
and the advanced level, the product will sound nearly identical to the teacher’s example.
There are other methods such as this (i.e. Orff-Schuwerk) have similar question-answer
approaches to improvisation with a clear sense of a correct answer for success.
- The improvisation exercises that are offered provide carefully prescribed directions to fit
with the concept, rhythm, melody and form being learning in a particular unit. There are
no moments where the students are free to simply improvise.

Structured (School) vs. Freedom (Creative, aural tradition)

Teacher involvement (left side) vs. Student directed (right side)

5 stages on study of improv (Jeff Pressing, scholar on the study of improvisation as a

cognitive process)
1. Embellishment - variations, fill in the blank exercises
2. Patterns and Models - Aebersold style, licks and riffs
 3. Problem Solving - problem to be solved is the tune and chord changes
4. Imitation/Self discovery - play by ear approach (Ghanaian musical traditions),
garage bands
- Learning music students choose, like and identify with
- Learning by listening/copying songs
- Learning alongside friends/community
- Personal learning without structure
- Integration of listening, performing, improvising and composing
5. Free Improv - concept of creativity and expressive individuality.

Balance of structure and freedom is the key. The students should be able to explore stages 4
and 5, and we should encourage them to do so, but it’s ultimately up to the students to step into
those areas. We can’t teach that in the classroom but we can maybe plant it into something else
(Example: improv games/team building games and the difference it made).

Teachers can only nurture and guide them when asked to. In the meantime, we should focus on
teaching them the foundations they may need to take things further. That should be our main
focus, equipping them with the tools they need.

In the second article we see what it could be like if we, in our high schools, were to
introduce a course or an afterschool club in Improvisation. We see the journey Schlicht
was on in designing and teaching this course on free improvisation as the article was
written this way with excerpts of students logging their feedback about the course.
Important thing I thought was that the students weren’t thrown into a classroom and
asked to improvise or make something together, but it was a balance of specific
structured guidance towards musicianship and communication while providing ample
space for openness and creative practice. Essentially these students of hers paid tuition
to practice creativity. There was structure to the class but once the music began
everyone was equals and contributed their share.

I read this article imagining myself as the instructor.

As instructor, she focused the course on collective growth. The interplay of the individual and
the collective significantly added to the overall effectiveness of the course. She didn’t put
anyone on the spot but tried to make sure that it was a safe place for expression.

“Intent of the course was to encourage and strengthen artistic expression and skills of musical
communication, both individually and in the context of a group.”

Main goal was: to help students intensify and deepen their relationship with music, their
way of listening, practicing, thinking, and musically interacting and communicating.

3 core elements that were included each class that helped with success of the course:
Warmups: Drum circles, rhythmic exercises. The warm ups were good for the training of
musicianship skills and establishing a group feel. Body, voice and percussion needed to be
coordinated by each individual. In addition, everyone had to be in sync with everyone else.
Shifting attention to primary musical elements and away from instruments freed up
preconceptions about right and wrong. For most of the class, hitting buckets with sticks was a
liberating experience. Warmups fed into more multilayered and polyrhythmic, complex
interaction.

Open Group improv: extensions of warmups, each player being an equal part of the aesthetic
process of creating a soung together. Frequently, an idea or a direction was given. After the
improv, discussion followed about feelings about the sound created and process of direction
changing within the sound.

Lasts and I think most importantly:

Reflection: Improv is a musical expression - it goes by quickly and the memory of it fades
quickly. Students were asked to keep a journal to reflect about each class session, to remember
feelings and observations made and to take note of specific musical epiphanies. Class
discussion and journals added to the creative flow.

Ultimately, we’ll be faced with challenges to implement more improv in our classrooms.
But through this example in the article, and through trial and error over time, we’ll learn
to balance structure and freedom in an effective way.