Improvisation and Curriculum Reform

Abstract

Abstract Despite appeals by NASM, MENC, and UNESCO’s International Music Council for greater diversity in musical study, strategies for reform remain elusive for many college and university music departments. Conventional curricular models filled to the brim with requirements in interpretive performance and analysis of European repertory leave little room for experiences in improvisation, composition, technology, and multiethnic musicianship-to list some of the areas most commonly cited to be lacking. As a result, many students graduate with little or no training in skill domains that will be important to their professional careers. If substantive strides toward reform are to be made, change must take place at the core level, where the seeds of diverse musicianship are planted early on in students’ development. In this chapter, I propose that improvisation, particularly when studied from what I call a trans-stylistic perspective, is uniquely equipped to address these needs and therefore warrants a significant place in the core music curriculum. The creative, integrative, eclectic, and handson qualities of improvisational experience promote the development of both conventional and contemporary skills, foster in students an all-important self-sufficiency, and also open up pathways to emerging educational areas such as consciousness and contemplative studies. Moreover, as these inherent qualities in improvisation point to new types of educational models, they also illuminate new reform strategies through which these models may be achieved.