Download or read book Improvisation Creativity and Consciousness written by Edward W. Sarath and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jazz, America's original art form, can be a catalyst for creative and spiritual development. With its unique emphasis on improvisation, jazz offers new paradigms for educational and societal change. In this provocative book, musician and educator Edward W. Sarath illuminates how jazz offers a continuum for transformation. Inspired by the long legacy of jazz innovators who have used meditation and related practices to bring the transcendent into their lives and work, Sarath sees a coming shift in consciousness, one essential to positive change. Both theoretical and practical, the book uses the emergent worldview known as Integral Theory to discuss the consciousness at the heart of jazz and the new models and perspectives it offers. On a more personal level, the author provides examples of his own involvement in educational reform. His design of the first curriculum at a mainstream educational institution to incorporate a significant meditation and consciousness studies component grounds a radical new vision.
Download or read book Improvisation written by Derek Bailey and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 1993-08-22 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Derek Bailey's IMPROVISATION, originally published in 1980, now revised with additional interviews and photographs, deals with the nature of improvisation in all its forms--Indian music, flamenco, baroque, organ music, rock, jazz, contemporary, and "free" music. Bailey offers a clear view of the breathtaking spectrum of possibilities inherent in improvisational practice.
Download or read book Music Theory Through Improvisation written by Ed Sarath and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-07-04 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed for Music Theory courses, Music Theory Through Improvisation presents a unique approach to basic theory and musicianship training that examines the study of traditional theory through the art of improvisation. The book follows the same general progression of diatonic to non-diatonic harmony in conventional approaches, but integrates improvisation, composition, keyboard harmony, analysis, and rhythm. Conventional approaches to basic musicianship have largely been oriented toward study of common practice harmony from the Euroclassical tradition, with a heavy emphasis in four-part chorale writing. The author’s entirely new pathway places the study of harmony within improvisation and composition in stylistically diverse format, with jazz and popular music serving as important stylistic sources. Supplemental materials include a play-along audio in the downloadable resources for improvisation and a companion website with resources for students and instructors.
Download or read book Records Ruin the Landscape written by David Grubbs and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-03-03 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Cage's disdain for records was legendary. He repeatedly spoke of the ways in which recorded music was antithetical to his work. In Records Ruin the Landscape, David Grubbs argues that, following Cage, new genres in experimental and avant-garde music in the 1960s were particularly ill suited to be represented in the form of a recording. These activities include indeterminate music, long-duration minimalism, text scores, happenings, live electronic music, free jazz, and free improvisation. How could these proudly evanescent performance practices have been adequately represented on an LP? In their day, few of these works circulated in recorded form. By contrast, contemporary listeners can encounter this music not only through a flood of LP and CD releases of archival recordings but also in even greater volume through Internet file sharing and online resources. Present-day listeners are coming to know that era's experimental music through the recorded artifacts of composers and musicians who largely disavowed recordings. In Records Ruin the Landscape, Grubbs surveys a musical landscape marked by altered listening practices.
Download or read book Making Music written by Jan Overduin and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keyboard improvisation is often considered the domain of the musical genius, a perception created no doubt by masters from Bach and Mozart to Liszt. The capacity to express one's musical thoughts spontaneously and coherently, however, presumes neither a virtuosic command of the instrument nor a sublime command of compositional theory. Assuming only an elementary background in harmony, each of Overduin's 32 lessons focuses on a specific harmonic, melodic, or structural topic designed to provoke experimentation and to develop improvisatory skills, starting with simple melodies and improvising on one or two chords. Subsequent exercises expand the harmonic vocabulary and incorporate a range of techniques including variation, ostinato, sequence, ornamentation, and figuration. Written in an engaging style and featuring numerous accessible musical exercises,Making Musicis the ideal introduction to this essential skill.
Download or read book Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians written by Jeffrey Agrell and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why don't classical musicians improvise? Why do jazz players get to have all the fun? And how do they develop such fabulous technique and aural skills? With these words, Jeffrey Agrell opens the door to improvisation for all non-jazz musicians who thought it was beyond their ability to play extemporaneously. Step-by-step, Agrell leads through a series of games, rather than exercises. The game format takes the pressure off of classically trained musicians, steering them away from their fixation on mistake-free performance and introducing the basic concepts of playing with music itself instead of obsessing over a perfect rendition of a written score. Agrell draws an analogy with sports that illustrates the absurdity of the traditional approach to classically-oriented music performance.
Download or read book Being Music written by Mark Miller and published by University Professors Press. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improvisation is a practice of musical exploration and discovery. What we explore is our lived experience and what we discover we share with our audience. As improvisers, our creative resources include sense perception, imagination, somatic presence, and the vitality of emotional expression. In collaboration we develop relationships that serve the music and balance the priorities of self and others in the ensemble. Being Music describes the craft of improvisation as “spontaneous composition” including an awareness of form, compositional focus, theme and development, stillness and creative flow. Miller and Lande address the problem of perfectionism and offer strategies for overcoming judgmental thinking and other obstacles to creative spontaneity. Abundant written musical examples and exercises offer the reader ample opportunity to practice the principles outlined in the text. With over forty-five years of experience performing together, Miller and Lande's dialogical reflections on creativity and community offer a clear and practical guide to the creative process of improvisation for musicians of any style or genre, and at all levels of experience.
Download or read book Contingent Encounters written by DAN. DIPIERO and published by . This book was released on 2022-08-31 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigates the relationship between improvisation in music and in everyday life
Download or read book The Improvising Mind written by Aaron Berkowitz and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-06-17 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ability to improvise represents one of the highest levels of musical achievement. Yet what musical knowledge is 3equired for improvisation? How does a musician learn to improvise? What are the neural correlates of improvised performance? These are some of the questions explored in this unique and fascinating new book.
Download or read book Improvise for Real written by David Reed and published by . This book was released on 2013-02-27 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Improvise for Real is a step-by-step method that teaches you to improvise your own music through progressive exercises that anyone can do. You'll learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you. And you'll learn to express your own musical ideas exactly as you hear them in your mind. The method starts with very simple creative exercises that you can begin right away. As you progress, the method leads you on a guided tour through the entire world of modern harmony. You will be improvising your own original melodies from the very first day, and your knowledge will expand with each practice session as you explore and discover our musical system for yourself. Improvise for Real brings together creativity, ear training, music theory and physical technique into a single creative daily practice that will show you the entire path to improvisation mastery. You will learn to understand the sounds in the music all around you and to improvise with confidence over jazz standards, blues songs, pop music or any other style you would like to play. And you'll be jamming, enjoying yourself and creating your own music every step of the way. The method is open to all instruments and ability levels. The exercises are easy to understand and fun to practice. There is no sight reading required, and you don't need to know anything about music theory to begin. Already being used by both students and teachers in more than 20 countries, Improvise for Real is now considered by many people to be the definitive system for learning to improvise. If you have always dreamed of truly understanding music and being able to improvise with complete freedom on your instrument, this is the book for you
Download or read book The Improv Comedy Musician written by Laura Hall and published by . This book was released on 2016-07-08 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Learn musical improv from Laura Hall of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Are you a musician who performs with an improv comedy group? If so, this book is for you! You'll also greatly benefit if you are a music director, improv team leader, improv teacher or coach, improv actor or singer, or just a hardcore Whose Line fan. From the Foreword by Colin Mochrie: "On Whose Line, Laura supplies note-perfect music styles for Wayne Brady, Brad Sherwood, Chip Esten, Jeff Davis, et al, to shine on. But Laura's true genius is that she can make caterwaulers like me sound good and, more important, makes caterwaulers like me feel safe enough to try. "Laura Hall is a damn fine musician, period. There is no musical style she isn't well versed in. With Laura you get experience, knowledge, and a teacher you can trust. What more could you ask for? So get reading, start playing, and have more fun than you're ready for." "I'm a Laura Hall-ic!" -Chip Esten, Nashville, Whose Line Is It Anyway? "I know and highly respect both Laura and Bob. I can't think of a better pair to teach you the fundamentals of musical improv." -Bill Chott, actor and founder of the Improv Trick Laura Hall is an accomplished musician best known as the pianist on Whose Line Is It Anyway? She also stays busy recording film scores, writing musicals, leading improv workshops with her husband Rick, and performing with her Americana music trio, The Sweet Potatoes. Bob Baker is a prolific author, musician, artist and actor, as well as an improv teacher and performer. Through his books and workshops Bob teaches creative people of all kinds how to get exposure, connect with fans, and increase their incomes.
Download or read book Improvisation and Music Education written by Ajay Heble and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers compelling new perspectives on the revolutionary potential of improvisation pedagogy. Bringing together contributions from leading musicians, scholars, and teachers from around the world, the volume articulates how improvisation can breathe new life into old curricula; how it can help teachers and students to communicate more effectively; how it can break down damaging ideological boundaries between classrooms and communities; and how it can help students become more thoughtful, engaged, and activist global citizens. In the last two decades, a growing number of music educators, music education researchers, musicologists, cultural theorists, creative practitioners, and ethnomusicologists have suggested that a greater emphasis on improvisation in music performance, history, and theory classes offers enormous potential for pedagogical enrichment. This book will help educators realize that potential by exploring improvisation along a variety of trajectories. Essays offer readers both theoretical explorations of improvisation and music education from a wide array of vantage points, and practical explanations of how the theory can be implemented in real situations in communities and classrooms. It will therefore be of interest to teachers and students in numerous modes of pedagogy and fields of study, as well as students and faculty in the academic fields of music education, jazz studies, ethnomusicology, musicology, cultural studies, and popular culture studies.
Download or read book The Art of Becoming written by Raymond A. R. MacDonald and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With a focus on music, this book outlines what improvisation is and why it is an important creative and social activity. Drawing on the emerging psychological literature in this area, as well as evidence from authors' research with musicians, this text outlines innovative ideas on what defines improvisation and the psychological, creative and social processes involved. It explores the role of specialist skills, the importance of musical identities and the nature of understanding in improvised interaction and between improvisers. It discusses how we develop as improvisers and the role of improvisation within therapeutic applications of music. Each chapter proceeds from discussion of an illustrative instance of musical improvisation. Providing fresh and provocative insights for anyone interested in playing, studying, teaching or listening to improvised music, the authors offer suggestions for approaching this practice in new ways at any level, and identify potential developments in cross-disciplinary improvising. Asserting that everyone can and should improvise, the book provides a resource for courses teaching improvisation in contemporary practice, and has strong relevance for those applying musical improvisation in community and therapeutic contexts. The book deals with such questions as: What constitutes improvisation? Do all forms of improvisation represent the same thing? Faced with myriad possibilities, how do improvisers decide what to play? How does an improviser in a group know what the others will do? How might improvisation influence our wellbeing? In response to such questions, a definition of improvisation based on its unique behavioural features is set out as an exciting context for psychological investigation"--
Download or read book Free to Be Musical written by Lee Higgins and published by R&L Education. This book was released on 2010-10-16 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Free to Be Musical: Group Improvisation in Music is for those who lead musical experiences in the lives of children, youth, and adults. Offering a set of experiences to inspire creative musical expression, this book will prove useful for music education majors, practicing music teachers, community musicians, and music therapists alike. The experiences (or 'events') are designed to reduce the musical barriers that Western societies pass on to children by the time they reach the 'age of reason,' when the natural childhood penchant to sing, dance, and play musically gives way to perfect performances of standard repertoire preserved in Western staff notation. The authors present ways to encourage music that is expressive and inventive, spontaneous yet thoughtful, communal and collaborative, and unlimited in its potential to bring fulfillment to those who make it. You'll find opportunities to release the musical imagination in ways that are free and expansive, playful and instructive, personal and interpersonal. Higgins and Campbell have created a context that validates the experiments and explorations of all people who are potential makers of all styles of music. Their musical events embrace the belief that music-making is 'a trail of no mistakes,' a celebration of the many and varied musical pathways that both teacher and student can take.
Download or read book Improvising the Score written by Gretchen L. Carlson and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2022-06-27 with total page 181 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 2023 Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) Jazz Awards for Books of the Year—Honorable Mention Recipient On December 4, 1957, Miles Davis revolutionized film soundtrack production, improvising the score for Louis Malle’s Ascenseur pour l’échafaud. A cinematic harbinger of the French New Wave, Ascenseur challenged mainstream filmmaking conventions, emphasizing experimentation and creative collaboration. It was in this environment during the late 1950s to 1960s, a brief “golden age” for jazz in film, that many independent filmmakers valued improvisational techniques, featuring soundtracks from such seminal figures as John Lewis, Thelonious Monk, and Duke Ellington. But what of jazz in film today? Improvising the Score: Rethinking Modern Film Music through Jazz provides an original, vivid investigation of innovative collaborations between renowned contemporary jazz artists and prominent independent filmmakers. The book explores how these integrative jazz-film productions challenge us to rethink the possibilities of cinematic music production. In-depth case studies include collaborations between Terence Blanchard and Spike Lee (Malcolm X, When the Levees Broke), Dick Hyman and Woody Allen (Hannah and Her Sisters), Antonio Sánchez and Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman), and Mark Isham and Alan Rudolph (Afterglow). The first book of its kind, this study examines jazz artists’ work in film from a sociological perspective, offering rich, behind-the-scenes analyses of their unique collaborative relationships with filmmakers. It investigates how jazz artists negotiate their own “creative labor,” examining the tensions between improvisation and the conventionally highly regulated structures, hierarchies, and expectations of filmmaking. Grounded in personal interviews and detailed film production analysis, Improvising the Score illustrates the dynamic possibilities of integrative artistic collaborations between jazz, film, and other contemporary media, exemplifying its ripeness for shaping and invigorating twenty-first-century arts, media, and culture.
Download or read book Improvising Improvisation written by Gary Peters and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2017-05-29 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is an ever-increasing number of books on improvisation, ones that richly recount experiences in the heat of the creative moment, theorize on the essence of improvisation, and offer convincing arguments for improvisation’s impact across a wide range of human activity. This book is nothing like that. In a provocative and at times moving experiment, Gary Peters takes a different approach, turning the philosophy of improvisation upside-down and inside-out. Guided by Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, and especially Deleuze—and exploring a range of artists from Hendrix to Borges—Peters illuminates new fundamentals about what, as an experience, improvisation truly is. As he shows, improvisation isn’t so much a genre, idiom, style, or technique—it’s a predicament we are thrown into, one we find ourselves in. The predicament, he shows, is a complex entwinement of choice and decision. The performativity of choice during improvisation may happen “in the moment,” but it is already determined by an a priori mode of decision. In this way, improvisation happens both within and around the actual moment, negotiating a simultaneous past, present, and future. Examining these and other often ignored dimensions of spontaneous creativity, Peters proposes a consistently challenging and rigorously argued new perspective on improvisation across an extraordinary range of disciplines.
Download or read book It 39 s About Music written by Jean-Michel Pilc and published by Balquhidder Music/Glen Lyon. This book was released on 2013-03-08 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jean-Michel Pilc, jazz pianist and faculty member of Steinhardt School, New York University, has written a remarkable book about the artistic and creative process in the arts. The conversational style well suits the wide ranging topic which draws examples from art and music both classical and jazz. A beautifully expressed work on a subject otherwise impossible to write about. Hailed by musicians around the world as enlightened and inspirational.
