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

Course: Improvisation for instrumentalists and singers

אלתור לכלי מקלדת ולכלים מלודיים/זמרים

Annual, 2019- 2020

Lesson - Exercise, 4 semester hours

Lecturer: Uri Rom, Ph.D.

Email: urom@tauex.tau.ac.il 

Office hours:

Please make an appointment by email

The course will be held in English

Course description

During the 17th through 19th centuries (and well into the 20th century) composers conceived their music (especially keyboard music) in a creative process based largely on improvisation. From partimento tradition, which constituted a central aspect of music teaching from the Baroque era onwards, through improvisational genres such as the toccata and the variation cycle, to the 19th-century practice of improvising short preludes to precede concert performance of piano pieces: all these illustrate the central role of the art of improvisation throughout the tonal period. Melodic instrument players and singers had to extemporize embellishments to decorate musical repetitions and were judged by their effective improvisations. A central aspect of improvisation is, of course, the cadenza in instrumental concertos and concert arias.

The aim of the course is to provide musicians with basic improvisational skills and help performers with a good theoretical basis to develop their creative abilities in a manner that will support a historically informed understanding of music in the Baroque, Classic and Romantic styles. In addition to reading sources on improvisation and its role in music composition during the common practice period, the main emphasis is placed on practical and theoretical-creative work.

Target group and prerequisites

The course is open to music performance, composition and musicology students in all tracks from the third year of the B.Mus./B.A. program on, as well as to M.Mus. and M.A. students. Students will have completed the Harmony and Analysis II course (or any comparable course) as a prerequisite. Good command of English is required.

Requirements

Regular attendance, preparation for individual classes (reading, listening, analyzing as specified on the course’s site in advance), active participation in class discussions; a minimum of 6 practical in-class assignments and 2 written composition assignments throughout the year; course’s final assignment; participation in final improvisation concert (date to be announced at the beginning of the year).

Grades

50% submission of assignments throughout the semester, active class participation; 30% final assignment; 20% participation in final concert (a completion requirement, performance will be graded). The final assignment will encompass a short analytical essay on one of the course’s subjects and a compositional assignment (such as writing a cadenza for a concerto movement).

Course topics (subject to changes)

Source reading on improvisation, theories of improvisation and creativity, techniques of non-verbal improvisation, creativity and spontaneity in different individual and joint interaction exercises, in-class improvisation assignments according to historical models, developing short passages (in writing) in the improvised genres of the 17th-19th centuries, writing and extemporizing variations / embellishments according to given models and themes, group improvisation on historical models, free improvisation exercises, improvising accompaniment to silent films, cadenza composition for instrumental concerto movements / concert arias.

Bibliography

Below is a selected general bibliography on the main topics of the course. Students will receive further bibliography during the course.

Berkowitz, A. (2010). The improvising mind: Cognition and creativity in the musical moment. Oxford University Press.

Boden, M. (2004). The Creative Mind: Myths and Mechanisms. Routledge.

Dreyfus, L. (1996). Bach and the Patterns of Invention. Harvard University Press.

Nachmanovitch, S. (1990). Free play: Improvisation in life and art. Penguin.

Nettl, B., & Russell, M. (Eds.). (1998). In the course of performance: Studies in the world of musical improvisation. University of Chicago Press.

Schwenkreis, M. (Ed.). (2018). Compendium Improvisation: Fantasieren nach historischen Quellen des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts. Schwabe.