General course introduction

Transcript:

IMPROVISATION - COURSE OVERVIEW

Hello and welcome to IMPROVISATION - AN INTRODUCTION TO ITS THEORY AND PRACTICE -
brought to you by HfMT - University for Music and Drama in Hamburg and SPIIC - STUDIO FOR POLYSTYLISTIC IMPROVISATION AND INTERDISCIPLINARY CROSSOVER - via the HAMBURG OPEN ONLINE UNIVERSITY.  SPIIC is a project of Innovative Hochschule / Stage_2.0 at HfMT in Hamburg.

My name is Vlatko Kučan and I am an improvisor, musician, music therapist and the head of the SPIIC project. In addition to working as an improvising artist, I also teach improvisation in different departments at the HfMT. I am looking forward to guiding you through this course on Improvisation. But before we start, let me give you a quick overview of the main topics of the course and its formal framework.

MAIN COURSE TOPICS
This multi-part course is about improvisation - a phenomenon that, as we will see, has many facets in both its practical applications and its theoretical conceptions. In this course I will be looking at improvisation mostly through improvisational practices related to music. But as we will try to understand the creative process of improvisation in a general sense, our discussion will also have relevance to improvisation in other artistic fields and contexts.

I will start by looking at the most common fields of improvisation practices and continue by introducing theoretical conceptions and practical exercises as wee progress with our investigation and discussion. 

That being said - there is one important aspect that I have to address right away: 
improvisation is first and foremost a practice - it is therefore also something that we fundamentally learn through practice. The goal of this course is to provide a theoretical overview and framework together with some practical examples for the study of improvisation. It can not replace the actual act and the experience of improvisation - but I hope that it will give you some helpful orientation and inspiration.

You will need no specific prerequisites for this course. My hope is that everyone interested in improvisation will be able to find some valuable information - regardless of whether you are practicing a performative art form, studying as a scholar or coming from any other field or practice. 

FORMAL STRUCTURE
This course is structured in larger units or PARTS - that identified by Roman numerals.
Each of these PARTS consists of a number of chapters - the are identified by Arabic numerals. Each chapter contains a video that will present the given topic very briefly - and at the same time promote and advance our discussion. In addition to that, most chapters will also contain an audio podcast and/or other materials, like reading lists or listening suggestions - that will help us to explore the given subject more deeply - and I am looking forward to welcoming some great guests here!

Here you see structure of the main course parts:

PART I - IMPROVISATION - COMMON PRACTICES AND TRADITIONS
In his first part of the course we will try to get an idea what improvisation is by looking at some of the most common improvisational practices, contexts and traditions.

PART II - EXPLORING IMPROVISATION - THE THEORY
Here I will discuss theoretical models and conceptions of improvisation.

PART III - EXPLORING IMPROVISATION - THE PRACTICE
Here I will give you some practical examples and exercises that will put the theoretical reflections of Part II into action.

PART IV - JAZZ IMPROVISATION
Here I will present an introduction to Improvisation in Jazz music discussing its specific idiomatic aspects.

More dedicated parts might follow down the road - please look at the course webpage for the most recent status.

So that’s it for the introduction to the formal structure. I hope to see you in the first chapter of PART I - thank you!