Free improvisation : what is it, can it be taught, and what are the benefits?

The chapter will explore the challenges and benefits of teaching free improvisation in an under-graduate context but in doing so will consider fundamental questions about what music is and what it can achieve. The chapter will interpolate remarks attributed to one of the three authors where they have something to contribute that may not necessarily reflect a commonly-held perspective. This is the nature of free improvisation: contested, and able to be applied to various outcomes and ways of thinking. The context of this chapter is a module of free improvisation approximately half a semester in length delivered for many years to the first-year cohort of Bachelor of Music students at Western Sydney University