Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians

If you're interested in nonjazz improvisation and composition games, you might check out my new book Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians - Jeffrey Agrell

500+ nonjazz musical games for performers, composers, educators, and everyone else.

What is nonjazz? Anything? Is it rap?

Originally Posted by Rkmajora

What is nonjazz? Anything? Is it rap?

He's just specifying that the exercises are not jazz-oriented.

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Right. Many traditionally trained musicians (aka classical) never sample the joys and benefits of improvisation (which is just very quick composition that doesn't use a lot of ink) because the implicit assumption is that improvisation = jazz, and jazz = bebop, and that's not for me! Improvisation simply means making your own decisions about what you play (not something we ever get practice in in school). This approach takes what you already know and gives you ways to put it to use creating music on the spot, i.e. "thinking in music," something that every composer should spend a lot of time doing. But the system promotes the separation of disciplines (performing - theory - history - composing) and discourages the performer from composing and the composer from performing (composing becomes more cerebral and removed from performers, performing, and audiences) and both from improvising. Complete musicianship requires familiarity with both aural and literate sides of music - and it's a lot more fun. It's a revelation to find out you have a voice - that it's not just jazz players who get to have something to say. And there are an infinite number of styles or voices possible - it is the sum total of each individual's musical background, abilities, likes and dislikes. The style or styles or fusion of styles is up to you. What the book promotes is daring to experiment, invent, discover, play (in the sandbox sense), with music, with friends in real time. There are over thirty categories of games (Melody, Rhythm, Harmony, Accompaniment, Composition, Nontraditional Score, etc etc), over 500 games overall plus extensive explanatory and resource material. Jazz players have endless materials available to learn jazz. Nonjazz players (everyone else) now have a resource to know how to get started on the wondrous journey of creating one's own music. The result will be different for everyone. If you'd like to hear some of my personal samples (both very different), see my CD "Repercussions" (at CD Baby: AGRELL/MAZUNIK: Repercussions) or "Mosaic" (MS1158: MOSAIC - New Interpretations of Early Music, Duende Trio). I'd love to hear what you come up with using the ideas and approach in the book.

Your book would be interesting, but for me (and I suspect many others of this forum) it's too dear to merit splashing out on.

Originally Posted by Daniel

Your book would be interesting, but for me (and I suspect many others of this forum) it's too dear to merit splashing out on.

Especially when exercises are so easily invented on the spot.

Might be useful for those 'legit' players who need something written on a page before they can play.

This sounds quite interesting, but it's difficult to understand exactly what you mean by 'games', care to post an extract/short example?

I love how you compare music to....basketball

If I saw this in a bookstore I'd certainly be interested and would read it, and I wouldn't mind receiving it as a gift.....but I wouldn't buy this book. Improvisation is more of a personal experience, and I don't really think of it as a game. Who am I trying to beat ?