A Curricular Outline For Teaching Beginning Improvisation In The High School Jazz Ensemble Based On A Survey Of Band Directors Practices And Opinions PDF Download

Common practice instrumental music pedagogy prioritizes performance from music notation. Certainly a worthy pursuit, such an exclusive objective often neglects other essential musical behaviors, such as singing, improvising, and composing. Local, state, and national music education policymakers, as well as authorities in the profession, agree that these behaviors are important. Nevertheless, singing, improvising, and composing are rarely included in instrumental music curricula. With the intent of improving music teaching and learning in secondary instrumental music, the purpose of this mixed methods study was to describe music achievement and personal perspectives of high school students who learned to improvise and compose using a sequential music curriculum in a non-auditioned wind and percussion ensemble. In this study, curriculum emphasized development of individual musicianship and emerging behaviors for improvisation and composition (i.e., singing, movement, and playing by ear to learn melodies, bass lines, tonal patterns, rhythm patterns, and voice leading). Quantitative measures revealed relationships between music aptitude and music achievement. Three judges rated student performances. Overall, mean scores were highest for singing, followed by mean scores for playing and writing music. Stabilized music aptitude scores were predictive of performance achievement, improvisation achievement, and composite music achievement; these aptitude scores were a relatively weak predictor of composition achievement. Several statistically significant correlations emerged among musical tasks. Analysis of variance revealed significant effects for gender and instrument group. Student perspectives on improvisation and composition were examined in a focus group comprising eight students who participated in the research. Students in this focus group found the sequential nature of this curriculum helpful, and reported success in learning to improvise and compose. Students generally agreed that learning musical elements by ear was beneficial. Several participants indicated that the processes of improvising and composing are related. Recorded class meetings and fieldnotes were examined to describe teaching and learning of improvisation and composition in this setting. Based on this examination, it was evident that musicianship, understanding of music teaching and learning, interaction, making connections, and a positive learning environment are important when learning to improvise and compose. Singing, moving, performing, improvising, composing, and analyzing were ongoing elements of the curriculum. Quantitative and qualitative data presented in this study provide preliminary evidence to suggest that teaching improvisation and composition in a non-auditioned secondary wind and percussion ensemble is a practical, meaningful, and musical objective.