Contemporary Music Students' Experience of Improvisation in the Classroom

Improvisation is a central part of many contemporary musicians’ practices – from developing an accompaniment from chord symbols to ‘playing a solo’ in an ensemble. Despite the ubiquity of the practice, improvisation - outside of jazz programs - is rarely addressed in contemporary music curricula. This study took place over three years in a small music department in regional Queensland, Australia, where the researchers interviewed student musicians in an undergraduate contemporary music program. The purpose of this study was to collect participants’ ideas about how a study of improvisation influenced their ideas about musicianship. Data was collected in semi-structured interviews with participants during a semester’s improvisation course, where many were encountering the structured practice of improvisation for the first time. The results capture a wide range of participants’ ideas about the impacts of a study of improvisation – their fears and the challenges to their musicianship, describing changes in listening to and hearing music and how the study changed their understanding of ‘music theory’. For the purposes of the AJIRN conference, I wish to consider this data in the light of the opportunity that this ‘non-jazz’ improvisation study presents to jazz educators in the wider education sphere