ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we approach the practice of improvisation as it is taught and learned in a selection of culturally specific contexts in order to develop a cross-cultural understanding of improvisation as a musical act. We present improvisation as a continuum of creativity spanning simple variations, embellishments, and extensions of fixed material at one extreme, to freely exploratory and fully improvised sections at the other. We examine improvisatory practices, and their teaching-learning processes, across selected cases that include US-based jazz, Honduran Garifuna punta, Mexican-style son jarocho, Iranian classical music, and Karnatic kritis of south India. Throughout the chapter, we (a) briefly define and describe these five performance practices, (b) provide a contextualisation for improvisation and the processes by which it is taught and learned, (c) offer evidence of modelling by teaching musicians and techniques of imitation and immersion by learners, and (d) remark upon these genres and practices as they fit within a continuum of improvisation and their potential teaching-learning pathways. While we sample a wide array of musical practices, we identify commonalities between these distinct traditions. Emergent issues pertinent to a cross-cultural understanding of improvisation include the importance of full immersion within a given music-culture, varying degrees of orality-literacy, emulation of the master (or knowledgeable others), and competency in the explicit or implicit ‘rules and regulations’ of a given musical practice.
