ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that within the Yamaha music education system, 'improvisation is a means to an end, the outcome of which is the development of musicians with a more comprehensive sense of music'. It uses a specific method of learning piano improvisation, one which has patterns of harmonic progression as a starting point from which to develop skills in improvisation and melody writing. For each performer, a musical biography was compiled, informed by data generated from interviews with them, their childhood teachers and relatives. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed and the descriptive accounts of their personal histories in musical learning were fed back to participants to check for accuracy. The chapter concerns the effectiveness of the teaching models used in developing expertise in improvisation. It explores those musicians' performance styles and personalities emerge and shape their developing improvisational styles.
