ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I summarise the main results of the study of Improbasen and use various counter-perspectives from jazz research, jazz education, and fiction literature to discuss what Improbasen may teach us about instrumental tuition for children, about jazz education, and about learning to improvise. I argue that future instrumental tuition for children should stop treating improvisation as an educational ‘side-dish’, and instead place improvisation at its core. The children at Improbasen develop a particular kind of musicianship that enables them to think in music: that is, to articulate one’s own musical thoughts and express them on an instrument. Again, I pick up the polarising debates inherent in discourses on both jazz education as well as children’s creative practices, in the light of the ideal of ‘the noble savage’ on one hand, and discourses on talent development on the other. I point to children’s benefits from working creatively with socio-historical material, and how some of the contradictions in jazz education can be overcome through the practical and social teaching and learning practice at Improbasen. If creative music education avoids idiomatic traditions and mature practices, we may deny children rich and empowering learning opportunities. Through Improbasen’s international outreach, we see how improvisation practices create possibilities for children from different continents to meet and interact without another common language than musical improvisation.
