Improvisational Ways of Being: Making with Others

Posthumanism’s challenge to decenter the human, to see ourselves as making with and becoming with collective assemblages, requires us to reconsider the nature of relationships in composition, how we are with others (human, and more and other than human), and how they are with us. Improvisational creativities give us a structural metaphor, a language, and ways of being, which allow us to challenge the myths of composer as genius, as self-made, and as having a toolbox of techniques and skills. They reposition a human as one of many who are involved in the processes of making. They ask us to reposition ourselves and be responsive in the moment to what we are making with, whether as “teacher-makers” or “student-makers.”

Improvisatory ways ofbeing include us in:
- horizontal, non-hierarchical positioning of others in relation to self through shared responses and mutual support (Ross, 2014; Saladin, 2009; Giacomelli, 2012)

- the simultaneous creation and execution of plans—a conflation of process and product (Ross, 2014)

- the constant investigation in the moment of materials for their potential (Prevost, 2009)

- an openness to what will happen, accepting it for itself, staying alert to the here and now (Saladin, 2009)

- a collective dimension—group improvisation as a vehicle to probe the limits of acceptable conventions (Ross, 2014).

These improvisatory ways of being with others and making with others (whether human, sonic or material) shift our attention, our gaze (Masschelein, 2010) away from individualist humanism and monodisciplinary views of making to something more entangled, more together (in com-posing) and more “lived.” This resonates with Nardone’s (1996) notion that the lived experience of improvisation is a coherent synthesis of the body and mind engaged in socially valued conscious activity.

The emergence of improvisational forms of creative teaching, of incorporating creativities into university pedagogy classes, and of integrating creativity into the program of study for instrumental music teaching is a challenge for university teacher practice. It requires a shift in the paradigm of higher music education. Bennett Reimer (2003), a philosopher and influential advocate for music education, insists on the democratization of creativity, in both teaching and learning, as this allows it to be something all people have to some degree. He shows how creative teaching links to the co-construction ofcreative learning:

Such a view of creativity as existing in degree, and as constituted of particular, identifiable ways of dealing with one’s world, provides a role for education. Whatever the level of one’s capacity to be creative at something, that level can be better achieved by educational interventions designed to improve one’s thinking and doing so as to make them “more creative" (pp. 108-109, emphasis added)

In higher music education settings, when teachers and learners collaborate, their different conceptions of teaching and different paradigms of expertise must be resolved before they can construct an effective creative learning environment. Creative teaching represents the improvisational end of the paradox, while creative learning has been shown to help professional learning communities enliven and loosen up tightly scripted ways of teaching (Burnard & Swann, 2010). As one creative practitioner put it in Maurice Galton’s (2010) study on the impact of creative practitioners in schools and classrooms:

To me being here is about several things. One important thing for me is to look at a different model of working: of the ways artists can work with schools and teachers in a much more collaborative way rather than be expected to come in and deliver and then go away again. And another important thing is with the children. What we are trying to do here is to be a person who responds to ideas that the children are coming up with and then to bring our own practice to share. (p. 365)

So, with improvisation, creative teaching moves flexibly and reflexively between scripted and unscripted moments—a kind of partly improvised and partly choreographed dance. It tends to follow constructivist traditions of learning, in dynamic interaction with all those present as well as the environment and materials available.

Another relevant dimension of improvisation that is often referred to in music and theater is “going with the flow” or “getting in the groove" These skilled performances are based on a high degree of tacit knowledge and practice, like all professional expertise. Improvised behaviors involve ideas that leap to mind and to jazz players’ fingers and can be seen in the perceptual responsiveness of the teacher to the students. When teachers and students work and learn creatively together, particularly if they are undertaking digital experiments, creativity and innovation become critical competences and good practices are created.

This is a reconfiguration of composing as co-constituted practices of matter, and of symbolic, sociological, material, biological and political forces. This is where we need to (re-)set our sights and pursue the desire to work in more entangled, more potential-filled relationships with humans and more than humans alike.