Improvising to learn

Abstract

This study explored how and what a group of six fifth-grade instrumental music students learned during group improvisation activities over eight sessions together with the researcher as participant observer. Students’ learning was investigated through the lenses of musical fluency and collaborative emergence. Findings related to multiple understandings of students’ musical fluency and students’ rhythmically driven displays of collaborative emergence. Implications of this study include the ideas that (a) students’ musical fluency is individual and personal in nature and improvisation gives students a space to explore these personal decisions; (b) young improvisers can be overwhelmed by free improvisation and may create boundaries to aid their playing; (c) without teacher direction, young improvisers can make pedagogical and music making decisions relevant to their interests; and (d) young improvisers can successfully create a collaborative emergent during group improvisation.