ILMEA 2015 STATE CONFERENCE

Teaching Musical Improvisation Through

Language-Learning Strategies
Ted Holtz

Jazz Pedagogical Applications of

First and Second Language Acquisition Theories
The Behaviorist Perspective:

The quality and quantity of the jazz language a student hears, as well as the consistency of positive
reinforcement, shapes a students outcome in jazz improvisation studies.
The environment is the source of everything the student needs to learn.
Classroom activities emphasize mimicry and memorization.
While possibly useful at beginning stages, it is not an effective overall approach to jazz improvisation learning.

The Interactionist/Developmental Perspectives:

The development of jazz improvisation skills is derived primarily through social/musical interaction.
In a supportive interactive environment of both adults and peers, students are able to advance to higher levels
of knowledge and performance.
One-on-one interaction gives the student access to jazz improv vocabulary that is adjusted to his or her level of
comprehension.

The Connectionist Perspective:

When a student hears a lick, pattern or single note in the context of a specific chord or location in a musical
form, an association is created in the students mind between the note, lick or pattern and the chord it fits with.
Hearing the chord brings to mind the musical statement and the musical statement brings to mind the chord.
Jazz vocabulary acquisition is not just a process of associating notes or musical phrases with chords. It is also a
process of associating the notes and musical phrases with the other notes and phrases that occur with them.

The Cognitive/Developmental Perspective:

The development of jazz improvisation skills is the buildup of knowledge that can eventually be called upon
automatically for creating and understanding in the context of improvisation.
Improvisation students first pay attention to any aspect of the jazz language they are trying to understand or
produce.
Learners at the earliest stages will use most of their cognitive resources to understand the main sounds of a
musical message. Through experience and practice, vocabulary that was once new becomes easier to process
and improvisers are able to access it quickly or even automatically, allowing them to focus on more complex
parts of a musical message.

Ausubels Meaningful Learning Theory:

Vocabulary development takes place through a process of relating new vocabulary to already existing musical
knowledge- hanging new musical embellishments on pre-existing musical pegs.
Meaningful learning is more effective than mere rote learning.

Krashens Monitor Model:

Acquisition of jazz vocabulary is the result of meaningful interaction in the target language in which performers
are not as concerned about what they are playing as they are with the musical messages they are conveying and
understanding. Acquirers need not have a conscious awareness of the music theory behind what they are
playing and may correct themselves merely on the basis of an ear for the music.
Jazz vocabulary and theory learning is conscious and thought to be helped a great deal by error correction and
the presentation of explicit musical rules. Error correction helps the student come to the correct mental
representation of the aural generalization.
Personality traits, fears and negative feelings toward the music or teacher will act as an affective filter,
preventing input from being acquired.
Monitor Overusers- performers who feel they must know the theory behind everything and do not entirely
trust their ear to improvise music in the jazz style.
Monitor Underusers performers who appear to be entirely dependent on what they can pick up from
listening to jazz.
Optimal Monitor Users performers that use theory as a real supplement to acquisition, monitoring what they
play when it is appropriate and when it does not get in the way of musical communication. They keep theory in
its place, using it to fill in gaps of aural competence when such monitoring does not get in the way of
communication.

Good Language Learners

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Find their own way, taking charge of their learning.

Organize information about language.
Are creative, developing a feel for the language by
experimenting with its grammar and words.
Make their own opportunities for practice in using the language
inside and outside the classroom.
Learn to live with uncertainty by not getting flustered and by
continuing to talk or listen without understanding every word.
Use mnemonics and other memory strategies to recall what has
been learned.
Make errors work for them and not against them.
Use linguistic knowledge, including knowledge of their first
language, in learning a second language.
Use contextual cues to help them in comprehension.
Learn to make intelligent guesses.
Learn chunks of language as wholes and formalized routines to
help them perform beyond their competence.
Learn certain tricks that help to keep conversations going.
Learn certain production strategies to fill in gaps in their own
competence.
Learn different styles of speech and writing and learn to vary
their language according to the formality of the situation.

Ten Commandments for

Good Language Learning
Teachers Version
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Lower inhibitions.
Encourage risk-taking.
Build self-confidence.
Develop intrinsic motivation.
Engage in cooperative learning.
Use right brain processes.
Promote ambiguity tolerance.
Practice intuition.
Process error feedback.

10. Set personal goals.

Learners Version
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Fear not!
Dive in.
Believe in yourself.
Seize the day.
Love thy neighbor.
Get the BIG picture.
Embrace the chaos.
Go with your hunches.
Make mistakes work FOR you.
Set your own goals.

Building Strategic Techniques

1. To lower inhibitions: play ear games and communication games; do role-plays and skits; play
songs; use plenty of group work; laugh with your students; have them share their fears in small
groups.
2. To encourage risk-taking: praise students for making more sincere efforts to try out musical
vocabulary and ideas; use fluency exercises where errors are not corrected at that time; give outof-class exercises to play or write or otherwise try out what they have learned.
3. To build students self-confidence: tell students explicitly (verbally and non-verbally) that you do
indeed believe in them; have them make lists of their strengths, of what they know or have
accomplished so far as musicians.
4. To help them to develop intrinsic motivation: remind them explicitly about the rewards of learning
music and the skill of improvisation; describe (or have students look up) performance or job
opportunities for musicians for them to aspire to; play down assessments in favor of helping
students see rewards for themselves beyond assessments or upcoming concerts.
5. To promote cooperative learning: direct students to share their knowledge/licks/music that excites
and inspires them; play down competition among students; get your class to think of themselves as
an improv team; do a considerable amount of small group work.
6. To get them to use right brain processing: Use movies or recordings in class; have them read music
rapidly; do skimming exercises; do rapid free composing; do fluency exercises where the object is
to get students to improvise (or compose) a lot without being corrected.
7. To promote ambiguity tolerance: encourage students to ask you, and other students, questions
when they understand something; keep your theoretical explanations very simple and brief; deal
with just a few rules at a time.
8. To help them with their intuition: Praise students for good guesses; do not always give
explanations of errors let a correction suffice; correct only selected errors, preferably just those
that interfere with learning.
9. To get students to make their mistakes work FOR them: record students playing and get them to
identify their own errors; let student catch and correct each others errors- do not always give
them the correct chord/scale choice; encourage students to make lists of their common errors and
to work on them on their own.
10. To get students to set their own goals: explicitly encourage and direct students to go beyond the
classroom goals; have them make lists of what they will accomplish in their own in a particular
week; get students to make specific time commitments at home to study the musical language;
give extra credit work.

Learning Styles Checklist