How do you feel about teaching improvisation? This may relate to how you feel about improvising yourself – if you learnt an instrument as a child, were you encouraged to improvise? Improvisation didn't feature in my trumpet lessons at school, but it hasn't stopped me exploring sound through improvisation in my teaching. And of course, it is in the National Curriculum, so it should be in our curriculums too.
Two questions may come to mind: do teachers need specialist musical knowledge in order to teach improvisation? And do children need to be competent on an instrument before they can learn how to improvise? No is my answer to both points! Improvising is about having a go; we can improvise as soon as we can make a sound, whether it's on classroom percussion, with our voices, or with instruments in Whole Class Ensemble Tuition (WCET).
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