Improvisation as Liberatory Praxis in Popular Music Education

There is growing recognition that improvisation is a vital artistic and ontological practice that can promote developments in many areas of musicianship and beyond. Although improvisation is taught and assessed in education institutions throughout the world, pedagogical research on improvisation is disparate, emerging mainly from case-specific accounts of particular musical traditions, for instance, jazz and free improvisation. Furthermore, in certain musical contexts, improvisation is often viewed primarily as a means to an end or as a method to construct musical artifacts. In contrast, this volume considers improvisation within the field of popular music education not as a "means to an end" but as the opportunity for liberatory praxis. Editors Gareth Dylan Smith and Zack Moir view improvisation and improvisatory thinking within education as means to enhance, challenge, rethink, or disrupt normative pedagogic approaches within popular music education. Improvisation offers liberatory potential through resisting, undermining, and refocusing many of the forces in music education and cultures of music learning that can have dehumanizing effects on learners, teachers, scholars, and practitioners alike. The editors have curated a unique collection of essays wherein improvisation as liberatory praxis works as an exploratory framework. Together these chapters--written by leading scholars, practitioners, and musicians from around the world--explore ways to consider improvisation and improvisatory thinking within education as means to enhance, challenge, rethink, or disrupt normative pedagogic approaches within and around popular music education.