In music education contexts, improvisation is currently a rapidly evolving field across musical genres. Writing on improvisation has so far been largely concerned with justifying improvisation’s place in music education, by making visible its many practices in a broad range of music cultures and by highlighting its beneficial and positive dimensions. However, there are challenges and unexploited potentials within improvisation pedagogy, such as deficiency in teacher qualification, or tensions between contrasting pedagogical purposes, values, and ideologies. In this chapter, the authors problematise improvisation pedagogy and its legitimation, and present the scope of the book as a whole, through posing the questions: Who defines the artistic expectations of improvisation activities, who are the gatekeepers? How much freedom is involved? Who has creative agency – teacher or students? What professional ethical standards do teachers have? The various chapter contributions all relate to these issues from a wide array of contexts and research disciplines. The overall objective is to broaden the understanding of the potentials and possibilities for improvisation in a variety of music education contexts, and stimulate the development of knowledge and reflection on improvisation in music pedagogy.

In music education contexts, improvisation is currently a rapidly evolving field across musical genres. Writing on improvisation has so far been largely concerned with justifying improvisation’s place in music education, by making visible its many practices in a broad range of music cultures and by highlighting its beneficial and positive dimensions. However, there are challenges and unexploited potentials within improvisation pedagogy, such as deficiency in teacher qualification, or tensions between contrasting pedagogical purposes, values, and ideologies. In this chapter, the authors problematise improvisation pedagogy and its legitimation, and present the scope of the book as a whole, through posing the questions: Who defines the artistic expectations of improvisation activities, who are the gatekeepers? How much freedom is involved? Who has creative agency – teacher or students? What professional ethical standards do teachers have? The various chapter contributions all relate to these issues from a wide array of contexts and research disciplines. The overall objective is to broaden the understanding of the potentials and possibilities for improvisation in a variety of music education contexts, and stimulate the development of knowledge and reflection on improvisation in music pedagogy.

Expanding the Space for Improvisation Pedagogy in Music is a critical, research-based anthology exploring improvisation in music pedagogy. The book broadens the understanding of the potentials and possibilities for improvisation in a variety of music education contexts and stimulates the development of knowledge and reflection on improvisation.

The book critically examines the challenges, cultural values, aims and methods involved in improvisation pedagogy. Written by international contributors representing a variety of musical genres and research methodologies, it takes a transdisciplinary approach and outlines a way ahead for improvisation pedagogy and research, by providing a space for the exchange of knowledge and critique. 

This book will be of great interest to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of arts education, music education, improvisation, music psychology, musicology, ethnomusicology, artistic research and community music. It will also appeal to music educators on all levels in the field of music education and music psychology.

In this chapter I argue that specific valuable educational qualities can be developed through free group improvisation in general music education. My claims are operationalised through a set of research questions to investigate students’ actions, and characteristics as well as implications of these actions in improvisation events. John Dewey’s theory of aesthetic experience, and more specifically an experience, is employed as analytical lens in analysis of children’s improvisations. I argue that an experience in improvisation occurs in and through a reciprocal interaction with the environment which means that when children improvise, they change due to their musical experiences but they also in turn change their musical environment. Crucially, I argue that having an experience in free group improvisation can cultivate Expressiveness, Agency and Responsiveness.

In the growing field of research on improvisation, it is argued that improvisation should be at the core of music education, and in many curricula improvisation is in fact emphasized. However, in general music education, as well as research, improvisation is still overlooked. There seem to be a discursive gap between ‘everyday’ and artistic perceptions of improvisation and the way it is perceived didactically. Improvisation is also a creative music activity form and as such it cannot have prescribed outcomes. Yet, the current goal- and result driven schooling system focuses on achieving prescribed knowledge requirements. This situation constitutes an educational paradox. Through a systematic literature review, interviews with teachers and a practice-based study, this thesis explores the conditions and the role of improvisation in general music education. The theoretical perspective is based on Dewey’s pragmatist philosophy, and his concepts of aesthetic experience and transaction. Results show that improvisation is conceptualised in a continuum between structure and freedom and that teachers’ didactical approaches to improvisation can be oriented towards the process, the subject or Bildung. However, teachers’ perceptions of improvisation as related to jazz and blues sometimes present a hindrance. Combining a practical epistemology analysis with Dewey´s concept of the esthetic event (Dewey´s spelling) provides new insights into the process and content of aesthetic meaning-making. Improvising pupils who have an aesthetic experience can develop expressivity, agency and responsivity (EAR) as well as aspects of embodied, cognitive and ethical knowledge. The transactional perspective and 5 concepts developed here provide new insights in how to understand improvisation in education: as ethically co-creative action, co-learning action, explorative action, a space for imagination and emotional engagement and finally a room for subjectification. This implies a negotiated role for the teacher as co-player. A practical aesthetic analysis (PESA) is suggested which emphasises the specific nature of the aesthetic experience.

This article draws on interviews with three music teachers. It is part of a larger study that explores improvisation in general music education in the Swedish school year 4. The article focuses teachers’ pedagogical approaches to improvisation and how this effect the teaching. This study reveal that music teachers incorporate improvisation in their teaching. They do, however, lack a professional language in order to reflect on content, methods, aim and purpose of improvisation in education. Through thematic analysis, we demonstrate that pedagogical points of departure and attitudes are implicitly present in the teachers’ practices and have implications for their educational orientation. Three diverse but overlapping educational orientations are discerned: a process-oriented, a subject-oriented and a Bildung-oriented. The educational orientations are reflected in these teachers’ approaches to improvisation and are related to pedagogical choices of activities, how activities are conducted and to what aim.

The overall purpose of this article is to provide a convenient summary of empirical research on improvisation in general music education and thereby provide guidance to researchers and practitioners, using a systematic, narrative-review approach. By analysing 20 music education research articles, published from 2000–2015 in peer-reviewed journals,we firstly provide an overview of the key features and knowledge of existing research. Secondly we identify how improvisation has been characterized, conceptually before, thirdly, describing the implications of the literature for improvisation in practice. Our article reveals that improvisation tends to be an overlooked activity both in music education contexts and in music education research. Broadly speaking, music education research tends to characterise improvisation within two conceptual frameworks, which have different implications for implementation; ‘structured’, teacher-directed improvisation and ‘free’, child-directed improvisation. We conclude by arguing that music educational research on improvisation is an underdeveloped field and outline a number of questions to be addressed in future research.

Improvisation is and has been a distinguished feature of many music practices. Yet existing international literature shows that improvisation tend to be an overlooked activity in music classrooms. Music teachers find improvisation challenging and say they are uncomfortable teaching it.

Whilst improvisation features fairly prominently in academic scholarship in Anglophone countries, it has attracted little attention in continental Europe and Scandinavia. Much of the current research centres either on improvisation as an initial stage of composition or examines how musical elements are learnt through improvisation. In addition, to facilitate the study of improvisation it is fairly common that researchers orchestrate a specific project, taking place in school but outside of regular music lessons.

This paper draws from an ongoing PhD-project consisting of three sub-studies. It seeks to explore if and how improvisation practices in ordinary music lessons (years 4–6) develop when supported by a researcher. This ‘Participation Action Research’ (PAR) framework arguably provides a much more beneficial learning path than more conventional approaches, through the process of interaction between teacher and researcher. Nevertheless, there are also particular concerns in research using PAR which  have received far too little critical attention in existing literature. This paper will therefore be concerned with three methodological issues and challenges in PAR: (i) the advantages and disadvantages of staging the lessons to be studied, (ii) the role of the researcher as a scholar vs. a colleague, (iii) the concept of reflexivity.

We will demonstrate how PAR has the possibility to engender teachers’ confidence and thus develop improvisation practices in music classrooms. It shall, however, be argued that further critical reflection is necessary to expand on the scholarly contribution of PAR and to tackle the three issues above.

Improvisation holds a problematic position – in music education as well as in music education research. According to music education syllabi in most European countries, improvisation is a part of the subject content and, as such can even be even mandatory. Previous studies have, however, shown that music teachers find it difficult to incorporate improvisation activities in their teaching (e.g. Ferm Thorgersen & Zandén 2014; Whitcomb 2007). As a result, the concept of improvisation has received an increasing interest from scholars and educators. Yet, at present it is an under developed field in music education contexts.

This symposium brings together researchers in music education with special interests in questions related to research in improvisation and improvisation pedagogy. All presenters conduct research on improvisation in music education, based in either ethnography or participating action research. In addition, the researchers represent four European countries – Finland, Norway, Scotland and Sweden – where new curricula quite recently have been introduced. According to these, improvisation activities are expected to take place in music education and the common argument is it is assumed that improvisation can develop creativity and in turn nurture a critical mind (Gonzales, 2015). Similar ideas are apparent in key documents related to education and training in Europe (see e.g. OECD, 2013). Music education research is, in other words, confronted with several challenging questions about the role of, and assumptions about, improvisation.

This symposium focuses on how we can understand improvisation in educational contexts. Within this symposium, we will address a number of fundamental questions designed to take the audience to the heart of current debates around improvisation. Two main questions guide this symposium:

   How can we theoretically understand improvisation in an educational context?

   What are the implications and challenges for music education research on   improvisation?

Firstly, we will present a literature review of improvisation in music education research, setting the background and illustrating the current situation. We will then consider particular challenges and/or possibilities music education researchers and music educators perceive and encounter. Following this, we will discuss different visions of improvisation pedagogy which have emerged from the music education research.

Secondly, the symposium will bring forth and reflect on new methodological approaches to research improvisation exemplified in three different educational environments: kindergarten/preschool, elementary school and adult education. Approaches to free improvisation will be presented instrumentally and vocally, as well as individually and collaboratively. Importantly, the concept of free improvisation is suggested to include social, visual and bodily engagement with potential forcreating a space for facilitation of individual and collaborative creativity. Also original methodological and theoretical constructs that have been developed will be presented, constructs, which delineate the strengths that participants may build through practices of free improvisation,

We suggest

   key approaches and methodologies in music education research, and in teaching music through improvisation, which are drawn from research and practice, thus benefitting both music education research and future teachers

   that approaches to teaching music through improvisation have potential benefits in broader music education and developing these is an important research priority

   that as interest seems to be growing amongst music educators in utilising improvisation in music education, effective teaching materials and robust methods of delivery are needed

   the importance to advance theoretical and critical appraisals for comprehension of practice and research concerning improvisation in music education.

References

Gonzales, Anita (2015). (Pre-)Scripted Creativity: An Examination of the Creativity Movement in Spain’s Contemporary MusicEducation Literature. Paper presentation at ECER conference 2015

Ferm Thorgersen, Cecilia; Zandén, Olle (2014). Teaching for Learning or Teaching for documentation? Music teacherśperspectives on a Swedish curriculum reform. In British Journal of Music Education. September 2014, pp1-14. DOI:10.1017/S0265051714000166

Education Scotland, Curriculum for Excellence, http://www.educationscotland.gov.ukhttp://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/nqmusic/learningandteaching/composingskills/index.asp 2016-01-10

Finnish National Board of Education (Utbildningsstyrelsen) (2004). National core curriculum for basic education (Grundernaför läroplanen för den grundläggande utbildningen) http://www.oph.fi/lp2016/grunderna_for_laroplanen

Finnish National Board of Education Utbildningsstyrelsen (2014). National core curriculum for basic education (Grunderna förläroplanen för den grundläggande utbildningen Föreskrifter och anvisningar 2014:96)http://www.oph.fi/lp2016/grunderna_for_laroplanen

National Agency for Education (Skolverket), (2011). Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the recreationcentre 2011. www.skolverket.se/publikationer

OECD (2013), PISA 2012 Results: Ready to Learn: Students’ Engagement, Drive and Self-Beliefs (Volume III), PISA, OECDPublishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264201170-en

Whitcomb, Rachel (2007). Improvisation in elementary general music: A survey study. The Kodály Envoy, 34(1), 5-10.

Winner, E., T. Goldstein and S. Vincent-Lancrin (2013), Art for Art's Sake?: The Impact of Arts Education, EducationalResearch and Innovation, OECD Publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264180789-en

Improvisation in general music education is still a somewhat underdeveloped practice. Moreover, attempts to justify its place in the curriculum have often focused solely on its (measurable) outcomes. In this article, we claim that a deeper understanding of students' meaning-making processes in experiences of improvisation is necessary in order to develop improvisation practice and research. The purpose of this article is to offer a music education perspective on improvisation based on John Dewey's transactional perspective on aesthetic experience and meaning-making. Related to this, we suggest and illustrate a Practical Epistemology Analysis (PEA) as a way of analysing meaning-making in music improvisation within general music education. The method of analysis is illustrated by vignettes from video analyses of music lessons in two Swedish schools with pupils aged 9-10 and their free improvisations. The vignettes show how PEA enables analyses of situated meaning-making in the progress of the pupils' improvisation activities. Further, the transactional perspective makes educational values of improvisation visible, such as musical and personal agency, and elucidates cognitive, embodied and ethical aspects of musical meaning-making.