Learning Values through Improvisation

Learning to improvise and interact musically can build rich experiences and positive values
in your daily life. Here are five of life’s values that the art of improvisation can strengthen:

1) Discernment and wisdom
2) Integrity
3) Leadership
4) Informed risks
5) Diversity

#1: Discernment and Wisdom
Improvising opens up a potential floodgate of notes and ideas. Exploring and controlling these musical ideas requires discernment and wisdom. First, you use discernment to recognize chords, rhythms, melodic shapes, and other elements as they emerge in the music. Then you develop wisdom as you learn:
• When to speak up musically and when to be silent
• When and how to copy, change, or support the ideas of other players
• How to fully develop musical ideas to interesting conclusions


#2: Integrity
As you learn to improvise, you’re faced with issues of musical integrity such as these:
• Do I pursue musical excellence and new territories, or do I stay in a comfortable rut?
• Do I keep my ego in perspective, or do I inflate my self-importance or get paralyzed in
self-criticism?
• Do I treat others with honesty and compassion, or do I walk on them to get to the top?
Music and the music business often seem at odds with each other, but they’re both great
places to practice musical and personal integrity.

#3: Leadership
In improvisation you sometimes lead with musical ideas, and you sometimes follow by supporting the ideas of other players. In accomplished groups, this interplay of teamwork can be astonishingly good. In basketball you feed the hot shooter on the team, whoever it is; in a company, you promote good ideas from any employee; in jazz you let good ideas roll. To lead, you need to connect the past and the present. In the immediate past, you need to analyze what’s been going on in a tune and how it shapes present and future ideas. Farther back, the recordings of jazz greats can provide you with new insights in your own playing.

#4: Informed Risks
In the high-wire act of improvisation there are sometimes spills, but there are also breathtaking moments of adventure. Improvisation helps you weigh issues of courage vs. Safety and risk vs. restraint. When you come to a workable balance, the rewards are high!The key to success is taking informed, not blind risks.


#5: Diversity
As you improvise in a jazz group, you learn:
• How to appreciate and value others’ viewpoints
• When to specialize or diversify your skills
• How to learn from others’ strengths and mistakes.

A boring world is one where everyone thinks as we do. We can learn something from everyone, even if it’s just what not to do in music or life.