Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation, Vol 3, No 2 (2008)

Editorial

Sounds of Hope, Sounds of Change:

Improvisation, Pedagogy, Social Justice

Ajay Heble and Ellen Waterman

What does it mean to practice political resistance, to speak of social justice, and to radicalize public
understanding through music education? How can pedagogical musical endeavours, despite the forces that
seek to marginalize or contain them, work to activate diverse energies of critique and inspiration? How might
such endeavours play a crucial role in building vibrant and sustainable communities, and in fostering hope
for a better future? Activist disruptions to mainstream consensual assumptions, indeed, take many trenchant
forms in contemporary culture, as artists, educators, and networks of practice continue to find innovative
strategies to enlarge our base of valued knowledges. In this editorial, we’d like to suggest that musical
improvisation, in particular, offers rich possibilities for developing a robust and alternative pedagogy that
reaches across cultural and social divides, and that enables us to imagine what it might mean to achieve
social justice and a meaningful sense of participation in community. As a musical practice that accents real-
time creative decision-making, risk-taking, and collaboration among its participants, improvisation, as much
of the work that has hitherto been profiled in our journal makes clear, has repeatedly insisted on the very
force of its out-of-tuneness. It has purposefully confounded familiar frameworks of assumption. If it is the
case (as we believe it is) that oppositional politics often takes as one of its most salient manifestations an
allegiance to forms of artistic practice that cannot readily be assimilated using dominant structures of
understanding, then improvisatory performance practices, we believe, may themselves be understood as
activist forms of insurgent knowledge production.

To what extent, and in what ways, then, might improvised creative practice foster a commitment to cultural
listening, to a widening of the scope of community, and to new relations of trust and social obligation? If,
following Henry Giroux, we understand pedagogy not just in terms of the transmission of knowledge within
classrooms, but more broadly as “the complicated processes by which knowledge is produced, skills are
learned meaningfully, identities are shaped, desires are mobilized, and critical dialogue becomes a central
form of public interaction” (xi), then to what extent (and in what ways) might improvisational musical
practices be understood as vital (and publically resonant) pedagogical acts which generate new forms of
knowledge, new understandings of identity and community, new imaginative possibilities? How do the kinds
of cultural (and pedagogical) institutions that present and promote improvised music shape our
understanding of public culture, of memory, of history?

Drawing on the work of Giroux, bell hooks, Paulo Freire, and other theorists of critical pedagogy, we’d like to
argue that teaching and learning are going on constantly (and not just in formal educational settings). At
issue in the context of musical pedagogy, then, is the need to develop a more rigorous understanding of how
(and with what impact) alternative pedagogical institutions function in our communities. In this context, Max
Wyman makes a convincing case in his book The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters for the
pedagogical value of arts and culture, suggesting that “engagement with artistic creativity develops the
ability to think creatively in ways that significantly enlarge the educational experience. It encourages the
flexible, nuanced thinking that will be an essential requirement of any innovative response to the challenges
we face. It makes us see our world in fresh ways, encourages suppleness of mind. Doubt is cast on our
most comfortable perceptions. We learn the art of adaptability” (7). These are powerful claims that
encourage us to consider how arts-based initiatives might—to borrow again from hooks—help us to re-
envision education as always a part of the real world experience in our communities.

In their book Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change in America, Sara Evans and Harry Boyte
ask, “Where are the places in our culture through which people sustain bonds and history? What are the
processes through which they may broaden their sense of the possible, make alliances with others, develop
the practical skills and knowledge to maintain democratic organization?” (202). We’d like to open up
questions about the extent to which a broadly construed pedagogy of improvisation might offer one such
place in our culture where aggrieved communities can gain the hope to assert their own rights, to enhance
our collective ability to see (and to hear) “life as possibility” (the phrase is Robin Kelley’s), to educate the
public on abiding matters of justice and rights, and to advance the struggle for more inclusive frameworks of
understanding. And if Wyman is correct in noting that “new art educates us for uncertainty, and it is in
uncertainty that we will find the future” (110), then we’d like to suggest that improvised music can (to borrow

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again from Kelley) not only empower us to hear “life as possibility,” but also enable the sounding of a more
inclusive vision of community-building and intellectual stock-taking for the new millennium.

To envision improvisation pedagogy as a tool for social reform is to accept an idea of music education that
goes far beyond the transmission of skill sets and information. The papers presented in this special issue on
Improvisation and Pedagogy present diverse points of view in an emerging dialogue that carries some
urgency.1 Three strands of thought emerge from this collection: calls for a radical pedagogy, narratives of
experience, and visions of hope.

Guest commentaries from George E. Lewis and Keith Sawyer articulate a concept of improvisation as
radical pedagogy. Drawing on research in learning science, Sawyer calls for nothing less than a
“transformation of our music culture” that would put improvisation at the core of music education. Such a
move, he argues, would put an end to the binary composer/performer, and bring about a return to the idea of
the whole musician. Improvisation pedagogy has the potential to foster musicians who exhibit characteristics
that are key to the knowledge economy: deep conceptual understanding, integrated knowledge, and
adaptive expertise. Lewis points beyond the academy to autodidactic jazz communities where developing
new forms of musicking has historically been linked to political engagement. Given such histories, he asks,
how can we foster new ways of creating and nurturing partnerships between artistic communities and
institutions? Further, how can improvisation be extended beyond music pedagogy into other fields, as work
in organizational studies, for example, suggests?

Guitarist Fred Frith, who developed the graduate program in Improvised Music at Mills College, offers a
pragmatics of improvisation pedagogy grounded in his experience both as a working musician and a
teacher. In his interview with Charity Chan, he suggests that “in the end, improvising is what we all do. It’s
how we get through life, even within the rigid structures where we may have to work.” Working with young
musicians in the academy requires the same deep engagement with listening required in all improvised
music contexts. For Frith, musical improvisation is not inherently ethical, but his improvisation pedagogy
works to model ethical social practices; for example, in his insistence on gender parity in his student
ensemble. Our thanks to Fred for providing the image of the Mills Music Improvisation Ensemble (MIE) and
music for our splash page. The music is from “For MIE” by Ayako Kataok.

Like Frith, trombonist Scott Thomson regards improvisation as an arena that challenges us to work
collectively. He is a founding member of the Association of Improvising Musicians Toronto (AIMToronto),
and locates his essay across the spheres of local, national, and international improvising communities.
Thomson’s musical (and concomitant administrative) life finds meaning in the idea that musical
improvisation carries a “pedagogical imperative” as “improvisers’ musical knowledge, aesthetic judgment,
negotiation of difference, and sense of play circulate in the process of making collaborative music in real
time.” The improviser’s challenge is to abandon authoritarian models of musicking and to embrace the
challenges presented when we embrace difference.

Ursel Schlicht and Roger Mantie also offer perspectives on improvisation pedagogy from the field, in college
and secondary schools respectively. Schlicht’s description and analysis of her course on improvisation at
Ramapo College recounts her personal journey as an artist who wanted to create an inclusive curriculum
that welcomed a diversity of experience and musical expression. Student journals reveal both the anxieties
and epiphanies encountered in the course. Mantie’s case study of jazz pedagogy in Manitoba high schools
reveals the limitations of adherence to the “Big Band” model in which students mostly learn to read notated
and heavily standardized scores. His interviews with experts in jazz pedagogy and adjudication show a
frustration with students’ lack of opportunity to develop improvisational skills.

Steve Lehman’s historical contribution articulates a vision of hope for the potential force of improvisation
pedagogy to have a genuine impact on society. As his former student, Lehman presents a moving account
of saxophonist Jackie McLean’s community and institutional pedagogy. McLean (1931-2006) is a great
example of a self-taught musician who learned his art by proximity to some of the great African American
bebop musicians, including Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. McLean’s extraordinary career bridged political
and community activism (from his support for the Black Panthers to his work with street youth) to institutional
teaching (at the University of Hartford). Lehman argues that McLean’s activism stemmed directly from his
improvisational gifts including “a positive response to change, opportunistic/creative solutions to problems
that presented themselves, an orientation to social cooperation, and a careful attention to process.” Echoes
of Sawyer’s “knowledge expert” resound.

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In our previous editorial, we told you that Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation
was entering into an exciting new phase of development. We noted how the journal was a core part of a
large, multi-year, multi-institutional research project, Improvisation, Community, and Social Practice
(ICASP), that had just received significant funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research
Council of Canada’s prestigious Major Collaborative Research Initiatives Program. Now, we’re pleased to
tell you a little more about the extraordinary momentum and sense of intellectual excitement generated by
the ICASP project, and about the significance this momentum carries for the journal.

The questions we've been broaching in our editorial for this special issue on Improvisation and Pedagogy
reflect the core hypothesis of the ICASP project: that musical improvisation needs to be understood as a
crucial model for political, cultural, and ethical dialogue and action. Taking as a point of departure
performance practices that cannot readily be scripted, predicted, or compelled into orthodoxy, our
researchers argue that the innovative working models of improvisation developed by creative practitioners
have helped to promote a dynamic exchange of cultural forms, and to encourage new, socially responsive
forms of community building across national, cultural, and artistic boundaries. Improvisation, in short, has
much to tell us about the ways in which communities based on such forms are politically and materially
pertinent to envisioning and sounding alternative ways of knowing and being in the world. Improvisation
demands shared responsibility for participation in community, an ability to negotiate differences, and a
willingness to accept the challenges of risk and contingency. Furthermore, in an era when diverse peoples
and communities of interest struggle to forge historically new forms of affiliation across cultural divides, the
participatory and civic virtues of engagement, dialogue, respect, and community-building inculcated through
improvisatory practices take on a particular urgency.

It’s our contention, indeed, that scholars in the humanities and social sciences have much to learn from
performance practices that accent dialogue, collaboration, inventive flexibility, and creative risk-taking, from
art forms that disrupt orthodox standards of coherence, judgement, and value with a spirit of experimentation
and innovation. If humanities research and teaching have for too long operated on the flawed assumption
that knowledge is a fixed and permanent commodity, then the most absorbing testimony of improvisation’s
power and potential may well reside in the spirit of movement, mobility, and momentum that it articulates
and exemplifies. From the social relationships envisioned and activated through improvisational music-
making, we learn that in the ongoing search for new categories of momentum resides the hope that will
sustain and empower us in our efforts to work towards a more inclusive vision of community-building and
intellectual stock-taking for the new millennium.

Our broadly based team of researchers and community partners is particularly well-positioned to take on this
work. With expertise in critical, literary, historical, musical, sociological, anthropological, technological, and
philosophical inquiry, policy-oriented social research, law, and creative response, the ICASP team will
address pressing issues of social and cultural transformation: human rights, transculturalism, pedagogy,
intellectual property rights, the civic participation of aggrieved populations, the role of creativity in powering
economic growth, issues central to the challenges of diversity and social cooperation.

What does all this mean for the journal? For one thing, we’ll be highlighting the seven research areas of the
project by devoting a special topic issue to each. Starting with the current pedagogy issue, we’ll also provide
an opportunity for leading theorists in the field to reflect on the current state of research in their specific
research areas, and to outline key questions and areas of emphasis that are likely to shape the research
agenda in the years ahead. It is, of course, our hope that these commentaries will inspire ongoing inquiry
and dialogue. Vol 4.1 (June 2008) is a “general” issue with a mini-focus on the inspiring music and thought
of Anthony Braxton. Vol 4.2 (Dec 2008) will be a special issue, Comin’ Out Swingin: Improvisation and
Sexualities, with guest editors Kevin McNeilly and Julie Dawn Smith. As always, we invite ongoing
submissions of articles, interviews, book reviews, and commentaries. Finally, a word of heartfelt thanks to
our dedicated and efficient team: Greg Fenton, Managing Editor; Natalie Onuka, Copy Editor; and Wayne
Johnston, Technical Support.

Notes

1
The issues raised here were also at the centre of the Second Annual International Society for Improvised
Music conference at Northwestern University, December 2007. The conference theme was Building Bridges:
improvisation as a unifying agent in education, arts, and society. At a roundtable on curriculum reform,
musicians and music teachers alike called for a concerted lobbying effort on behalf of improvised music in

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schools. Another recent conference Musica Ficta / Lived Realities: exclusions and engagements in music,
education and the arts, at the University of Toronto in January 2008, revealed the broad range of exciting
visions, and deeply felt need, for a creative music pedagogy that reaches out of the classroom to aggrieved
communities. See <http://isim.edsarath.com/index.htm>, and
<http://www.music.utoronto.ca/events/conferences/musicaficta.htm>. A number of the essays published in
this issue of Critical Studies in Improvisation / Études critiques en improvisation were first presented at the
Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium in September 2006 and September 2007.

Works Cited

Evans, Sara, and Harry Boyte. Free Spaces: The Sources of Democratic Change in America. New York:
Harper and Row, 1986.

Giroux, Henry A. “Foreword” Contending Zones and Public Spaces.” Carol Becker. Zones of Contention:
Essays on Art, Institutions, Gender, and Anxiety. Albany: State U of New York P, 1996. ix-xii.

Wyman, Max. The Defiant Imagination: Why Culture Matters. Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre, 2004.