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Improvisation in general music education – a literature review

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 June 2018

Christina Larsson  and
Eva Georgii-Hemming
Christina Larsson
Affiliation:
School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro UniversitySE-701 82 Örebro, [email protected], [email protected]
Eva Georgii-Hemming
Affiliation:
School of Music, Theatre and Art, Örebro UniversitySE-701 82 Örebro, [email protected], [email protected]
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Abstract

The overall purpose of this article is to provide a convenient summary of empirical research on improvisation in general music education and thereby provide guidance to researchers and practitioners, using a systematic, narrative-review approach. By analysing 20 music education research articles, published from 2000–2015 in peer-reviewed journals, we firstly provide an overview of the key features and knowledge of existing research. Secondly we identify how improvisation has been characterized, conceptually before, thirdly, describing the implications of the literature for improvisation in practice. Our article reveals that improvisation tends to be an overlooked activity both in music education contexts and in music education research. Broadly speaking, music education research tends to characterise improvisation within two conceptual frameworks, which have different implications for implementation; ‘structured’, teacher-directed improvisation and ‘free’, child-directed improvisation. We conclude by arguing that music educational research on improvisation is an underdeveloped field and outline a number of questions to be addressed in future research.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Journal of Music Education , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 49 - 67
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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