Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society

by Gabriel Solis, Bruno Nettl, Stephen Blum, Patricia Shehan Campbell, Sabine M Feisst

Overview

"Cutting across traditional subject boundaries in music and cultural studies, this admirably comprehensive work adopts a welcome interdisciplinary ideal and makes a truly significant contribution to our knowledge of musical improvisation."—Robert Witmer, professor emeritus of music, York University

Contributors are Stephen Blum, Patricia Shehan Campbell, Sabine M. Feisst, Lawrence Gushee, Robert S. Hatten, William Kinderman, Natalie Kononenko, Robert Levin, Charlotte Mattax Moersch, Ingrid Monson, John P. Murphy, Bruno Nettl, A. Jihad Racy, Anne K. Rasmussen, Stephen Slawek, Gabriel Solis, Nicholas Temperley, John Toenjes, and Thomas Turino.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252076541
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	07/24/2009
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	376
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Gabriel Solis is an associate professor of music and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of Monk's Music: Thelonious Monk and Jazz History in the Making.Bruno Nettl is a professor emeritus of music and anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the author of The Study of Ethnomusicology: Thirty-one Issues and Concepts and other works.

Table of Contents

Preface   ix
Bruno Nettl
Introduction   1
Gabriel Solis

PART ONE: SOCIETY
1. Jazz as Political and Musical Practice   21
Ingrid Monson
2. John Cage and Improvisation: An Unresolved Relationship   38
Sabine M. Feisst
3. When Traditional Improvisation Is Prohibited: Contemporary Ukrainian Funeral Laments and Burial Practices   52
Natalie Kononenko
4. The Juncture between Creation and Re-creation among Indonesian Reciters of the Qur'an   72
Anne K. Rasmussen
5. Genius, Improvisation, and the Narratives of Jazz History   90
Gabriel Solis
6. Formulas and Improvisation in Participatory Music   103
Thomas Turino

PART TWO: EDUCATION
7. Learning to Improvise Music, Improvising to Learn Music   119
Patricia Shehan Campbell
8. Improvising Mozart   143
Robert Levin
9. Keyboard Improvisation in the Baroque Period   150
Charlotte Mattax Moersch
10. Beyond the Improvisation Class: Learning to Improvise in a University Jazz Studies Program   171
John P. Murphy
11. On Learning the Radif and Improvisation in Iran   185
Bruno Nettl
12. Hindustani Sitar and Jazz Guitar Music: A Foray into Comparative Improvology   200
Stephen Slawek
13. Musical Improvisation in the Modern Dance Class: Techniques and Approaches in Fulfilling a Multi-Layered Role   221
John Toenjes

PART THREE: CREATION
14. Representations of Music Making   239
Stephen Blum
15. Improvisation and Related Terms in Middle-Period Jazz   263
Lawrence Gushee
16. Opening the Museum Window: Improvisation and Its Inscribed Values in Canonic Works by Chopin and Schumann   281
Robert S. Hatten
17. Improvisation in Beethoven's Creative Process   296
William Kinderman
18. Why Do They Improvise? Reflections on Meaning and Experience   313
Ali Jihad Racy
19. Preluding at the Piano   323
Nicholas Temperley
Contributors   343
Index   349
 
 

Editorial Reviews

"Valuable not only to researchers but also to performers, who will find their minds opened to how music different from their own can help them improvise better in their chosen genre. . . . Recommended."—Choice



"A goldmine of information ... that is relevant to the amateur and scholar alike."—Ethnomusicology


"An impressive and often sophisticated collection of essays. . . . it certainly constitutes a welcome addition to the field."—The World of Music


"Cutting across traditional subject boundaries in music and cultural studies, this admirably comprehensive work adopts a welcome interdisciplinary ideal and makes a truly significant contribution to our knowledge of musical improvisation."—Robert Witmer, professor emeritus of music, York University

From the Publisher