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I always enjoyed improvising on the piano as I was growing up in a small town near a farming community in western New York State. However, when I took piano lessons, this creativity was discouraged. According to my teachers, there was only one right way to play the piano: from the written notes. "Good" music meant only notated music. Since community singing was popular at this time, I used my ability to play "by ear" to accompany traditional American songs sung at social occasions, as well as the songs of the big bands that my father so enjoyed. Throughout my musical studies and professional career, I have constantly heard music teachers express negative attitudes towards improvisation and improvised music, such as jazz.
Why Improvise?
The word improvise is defined as "to invent, compose or recite without preparation...to make or do something using whatever you have or without arranging it or planning it in advance."1 One could say to improvise means to "make it up as you go along." We improvise when we speak. For several years after we're born, we speak before being able to read. Why not teach students to "speak" music through musical improvisation, including playing songs "by ear," before learning to read notes? Authors William Anderson and Joy E. Lawrence state:
Children should be able to physically feel and respond to musical stimuli before being asked to identify such stimuli on a cognitive level. Such an approach to musical study clearly parallels the pedagogical principle of sound before sight.2
Angela Diller in her method book summarizes the value of improvisation when she states:
As soon as you learn something new, experiment on the piano with it and play in all keys.. .most people feel that a free use of the keyboard is a prerogative of a gifted few people who play "by ear"
naturally...experience shows anyone who is intelligent, has a fair ear and is taught an order of procedures can acquire this skill.. .it is valuable because it stimulates students to investigate music and use the keyboard for him or herself.3
Performance Benefits
* A student learns the basic mechanics of playing a musical keyboard, as well as understanding essential musical elements such as the geography of the keyboard and pitch...