Along the way the students said they found it liberating and constructive to be able to use their instrument for free improvisation. They saw it as a breathing space in a timetable full of repertoire and notes, and they found that their own creativity and intuition guided their learning. They also found the basic exercises with speech sounds, pitch, dynamics, articulation etc. to be useful, as they gave them a feeling of system and order in something that could easily descend into chaos.
Towards the end of the academic year project manager Ingrid Maria Hanken interviewed two of the students. For the students to be able to express themselves as honestly as possible, it was agreed that I was not to know who was being interviewed, and I have only had access to anonymised transcripts of the interviews.
Both students state that they found it useful and constructive that the improvisation lessons were given in a group. One of them highlights the fact that you can be more creative in a group:
«I see it as the best way of working: working together so that you can draw on each other and on your creativity and do things that you wouldn’t have thought of by yourself.»
The second student notes that the group lessons also helped teach the students to co-operate:
«I actually think it’s a very nice addition to the one-to-one tuition, because you learn to co-operate in a completely different way, and you also have to focus on things other than the musical aspect. Of course you focus on your technique, too, but that’s not the main thing. You make music together in a way that you don’t normally do during one-to-one lessons and accompanied lessons. You learn to co-operate and communicate through music in a different way. Normally it’s the “I” that is the centre of attention. That’s not the case in the improvisation lessons, and I think that’s a good thing.»
They also say it is useful to hear how other people perceive what they do and that it gives them a sense of achievement to get responses to their ideas:
«But it’s brilliant to get that response if you have an idea and it’s actually picked up on. That in itself gives you a sense of achievement. It’s fun coming up with ideas that are picked up on, as is supporting the others.»
When asked what is required for this form of tuition to work, they say that everyone must approach it with an open mind, “…that anything goes and will work out well – or that it’s a bit daft, but will turn out just fine anyway”. You have to trust each other, and “…the teacher [should] set an example to show that anything is possible rather than curb our creativity”.
In the interviews the students were also asked about my role. They say they saw me as “…having a leading role, but not the role of teacher as such”, as one of the students puts it. The other student is saying something similar: “She provides inspiration, and subsequently also more guidance.” They appreciate my setting them tasks and a few frameworks within which to solve them. They say this kind of clarity is good, especially since I did not force any particular solution on them, instead “asking the right questions at the right time”, as they see it. They appreciate the fact that I do not talk too much but mostly leave it up to them to reflect on what has taken place. One of them also notes that the teacher’s role should change over time: “But as we become more and more confident, the teacher could begin to step back – or participate.”