TMEA: Improvisation

     For years, I have asked various people who knew how to improvise how they did it.  The most common response was, "I don't know...I just do it!"  That was decidedly UNhelpful for me since I wanted to learn, but didn't know where to start. 

     I was so excited to see several classes on improvisation scheduled at the TMEA convention...especially since I had already started teaching my band kids to improvise!  I was also amazed to hear many different lecturers talk about how important improvisation is.  I heard that idea first from a violinist, then from choral singers, then from the professor teaching all the improvisation classes, Christopher Azzara from Eastman School of Music.

     Dr. Azzara explain that learning music is a lot like learning speach.  As we learn to speak as small children, we first listen to lots of talking, learning what sounds go together to make meaningful phrases.  Then we begin trying out different sounds and phrases and begin communicating that way.  Usually, it is many years later that we learn to read and write words.  We all often begin our musical exposure the same way...by listening to music and beginning to sing and try different things.  When children are old enough to begin musical instruction on an instrument, the approach is often changed to reading music and playing only what is written.  Dr. Azzara has developed programs to help students learn to audiate (hear the music in their heads), sing and play, IMPROVISE, and read and compose music--all at the same time, or at least close together.  He says that being able to read music without being able to improvise is like being able to read words without knowing how to speak the language and understand what is being said.  We all improvise in speaking all the time--that is what conversation is!  Musical "conversation" involves improvising with a group of people. 

 

Some basic steps in learning to improvise include the following:

• Learning rhythms that tend to go together.
• Learning pitches that tend to go together.  (In solfege, Mi, Re, Do is an example.)
• Learning to hear and sing the bass line.
• Listening to LOTS of music and learning melody lines of many songs.
• Using silence or space in music to allow for others to respond to what has been "said."
• Trying.
• Trying again without worrying about being "wrong."
• Trying some more with others.
• Keep on trying.

I hope to be able to use some of these principles in my own musical development and in how I teach in  the co-op.

 

Jeannette Duke