It's one of those words that makes some of us uncomfortable: improvisation. Did your palms start to sweat when I said that?

For those of us who grew up with classical music training, improvisation wasn't something we did very often. It may not have been encouraged by your teacher growing up, you may not have ever been taught how to do it or how to develop your ideas into something that felt cohesive and musical. You may have been intimidated to play without having music in front of you and let's not even talk about the fear associated with making up something on the spot.

Are your palms sweating now?

If you've been following along for a while, you've heard me share that this was my experience. I never improvised in my lessons and I hated being put on the spot and asked to play something when we were out somewhere and there happened to be a piano (those of you who play another instrument don't have this problem!). I didn't learn how to approach improvising from an educational standpoint until I was in grad school.

Only then did it start to make sense to me: When someone took the time to teach it step by step from the beginning.

And perhaps the thing that surprised me the most was how much structure was involved. Before improvising in class, we made decisions about meter and key, style and length, and we outlined a chord progression and how quickly it moved. I always thought improvising meant "make up whatever you want" but I realized it's all about establishing a musical framework first. That provided so much freedom for creativity because we knew where the boundaries were.

Musical creativity is something I value in my studio and something I want to encourage and foster in all of my students.

Today, I want to share a story from the early days of my studio when I was still a student myself. It's about a lesson I had one October with an 11-year-old student.

For show notes, click here.

Resources mentioned:

Monster Dance (Jennifer Fink)

A Conversation with Edwin Gordon (Mary Ellen Pinzino, 1998)