The Yolanda and David Katz Faculty of the Arts, The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music

Name of Course: Introduction to Improvised Music

BA Semester II, 2017-2018

Lesson and practice, 2 hour weekly course

The course will be held in English.

Name of Lecturer: Ofer Gazit
Tel: TBA
Email: TBA

Reception time: By appointment

Course requirements

participation, weekly reading, writing exercises, final project, performance as required. 


Description of course

This course explores the theory and practice of musical improvisation. Instead of focusing on one particular style, we will define "improvised music" inclusively, from American and European experimental music, different approaches to jazz improvisation after 1959, to a number of musical traditions from around the world where improvisation is a central element. Our investigation will include two broad areas: 1) the use of improvisation as a musical process in real time 2) As a musical genre in its own right, whose main focus is improvisation, which is defined under different names: improvised music, free improvisation, and creative music. Historically and aesthetically, these names express different understandings about the role of improvisation in modern music and illustrate how improvisation itself has become an important methodology for composers' and performers.

Course topics

Week 1

Introduction: What is (not) improvisation?

Week 2

Improvisation in Western Art Music until 1900

Week 3

Earle Brown, John Cage, Morton Feldman, Christian Wolff, Stockhausen, Cardew.

Week 4

performance workhop: Written and Conceptual instruction

Week 5

The New Thing: Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Ornett Coleman.

Week 6

Performance Workshop: Extended Techniques.

Week 7

1970- AACM Anthony Braxton, Butch Moriss, George Lewis,

Week 8

 Performance Workshop: Conduction.

Wek 9

1980s John Zorn, Fred Frith, Walter Thompson

Week 10

Performance Workshop: Game Pieces

Wek 11

Non-Western Systems: Raga and Tal, Maqam and Iqat.

Short Presentations. Scores are due at the begning of class.

Week 12

Final Papers are due. rehearsal for final concert

Week 13

Final Concert.

Grading Summary

• 20% Participation
• 20% short essay
• 20% presentation.
• 40% Final project (score with paper).

Bibliography            

Weekly readings will be posted on the course website.                         

Bailey, Derek.  Various chapters from Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music.                                                       

Braxton, Anthony. Creative Music from the Black Aesthetic.

Lewis, George. 1995. Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives.

Lewis George. 2004. Gittin' to Know Y'all: Improvised Music, Interculturalism and the Racial Imagination. Critical Studies in Improvisation.

selected chapters from Lewis, George E., and Benjamin Piekut, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies. New York: Oxford University Press