TEACHING THOUGHTS #10: CONNECTIONS BETWEEN IMPROVISATION IN MUSIC AND TEACHING

I recently played guitar at a wedding reception in Nottingham and had a great day out. When you travel eight hours by train to get somewhere you know your commitment to your art is strong. When I reflect on what and how I played I realise now that everything I played was totally improvised. Nothing was prepared but there were 46 years of musical preparation behind it. Does that make sense?

There are definitely connections between musical improvisation and improvisation as a teacher in the classroom. I’m experienced enough now as a teacher to trust in my repertoire and in the innate desire of human beings to interact and have fun and to know that I can discover teachable moments in the classroom at will. I plan lesson outlines but I just don’t plan lessons anymore. I trust myself and trust learners. We will work out what to say and how to say it.

And just as it’s possible to overplay, it’s also possible to overteach although now after 30 years of teaching and 46 years of guitar playing I think I’ve arrived at a very different creative space in which I’m getting better at listening to myself. And that is what is at the heart of improvisation. Improvisation is self-dialogue.

So I share this music video with you in that spirit – it’s not perfect playing but it is definitely a person trying to say something new and say it differently. There are flashes of getting it kind of right now and again. And that applies both to music and teaching.

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