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In childrens' education we preach interactivity at the expense of improvisation

By John Terauds on September 27, 2012

(Wil Offermans illustration)

One of my favourite piano students, a whipsmart and hardworking 9-year-old who only began lessons at the start of the year, politely but firmly told me yesterday that I had to stop asking him to improvise music, because there were far more important things to do.

What made this announcement really hurt was that he was the last out of my 12 piano students to let me know that they are not able or not interested in cultivating a one-on-one relationship with the instrument unmediated by a printed score.

Whether it’s a 30-minute or 60-minute lesson, there’s never enough time to cover a week’s worth of assignments, so it’s easy for me to shrug and stick to traditional routine of getting to each Royal Conservatory of Music exam as quickly and efficiently as possible — without regard to whether the student is actually bonding with the instrument or the art of making music.

I find these youthful attitudes troubling. In a world that says it values creativity so much and produces so many interactive learning experiences — none of which offer the true scope of two hands, instrument and empty music stand — are our children really exploring the art of creating art (of making something from nothing) or running an obstacle course to a finish line?

I’m beginning to suspect that, in a generation or so, pedagogical experts will discover that the Age of Interaction (say 1995 to 2020) was no more effective in promoting creativity than what had come before, because the real impetus for kids is to get the highest marks possible as efficiently as possible.

The bewildered looks I’ve had from several students after explaining that there are no wrong answers when improvising reminds me that critical thinking and a practical sort of mental resourcefulness (like identifying patterns in music, which is one of the building blocks an improviser relies on) are not built while running the shortest distance between Labour Day and Final Exam.

I found the most concise expression of the value of improvisation in an educational context on Wil Offermans’ site For the Contemporary Flutist (where I nabbed the illustration at the top of this post):

One may say that improvisation, in whatsoever form it is practiced, is a musical approach which may extend your creativity, your sensitivity, your musical awareness and maybe even your awareness in the daily life. Or more in general, improvisation is a most enjoyable and successful technique to develop the ‘mind-part’ of your instrument. While extended techniques develop ‘the body’, improvisation will develop ‘the mind’.

Maybe I can inspire someone other than my own students with one of these three examples of art-musical invention:

1. Waiting in the hotel room. Il Segreto String Quartet violinist Nady Banyamine and bass player Michael Rais kill time before an American String Teacher Association conference presentation two years ago:

2. Improvsation as serious art music. Rice University doctoral student (of Jon Kimura Parker) Christopher Janwong McKiggan improvising some impressive counterpoint at the piano:

3. A sense of festive atmosphere. Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris titular organist Olivier Latry making up exit music for the clergy at the end of a Mass last fall:

John Terauds

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