Anyone Can Teach Improvisation: How Do I Start? An Interview with InnerMusician

An Interview with Lyndel Kennedy of InnerMusician

Many teachers are interested in teaching improv and want to find ways to incorporate it into their curriculum but feel they don't know enough about the topic to teach it. So - we sought an expert in the topic: Lyndel Kennedy, creator of InnerMusician, a program designed to make teaching improv fun and easy for both the teacher and student! And, she has great news: you don't have to be a 'master' of improv to teach it! Anyone can incorporate improv into their curriculum with the right mindset.

See how teachers with no experience teaching improv can get started, what steps to take for your students, and how to conquer your fears of letting go!

1. Why is it important for students to be exposed to improvisation?

It provides an opportunity for self expression. All judgement aside, this is so needed in a society where our primary form of self expression lives in short-hand social media posts.

It’s the precursor to composition, often forging new musical styles. The future of music depends on this creative infusion.

It assists in the transformation from head players to heart players, empowering students to explore their own musical personality, their inner musician, their musical DNA. This encourages individuality which fosters acceptance and inclusion on a global scale.

It develops spontaneous problem solvers who can use the tools at hand and think outside the box. These are the thinkers we need moving into an increasingly complex future.

2. I know a lot of teachers, mostly classically trained, who want to but are unsure about how to dive into the world of improv. What are your thoughts on how to get started?

So how do you dive in? First, get your swimming costume on! Don’t dive in with suit and tie - the attire of academia and high expectations. Set your headspace for ‘personal enjoyment’ and clear out performance anxiety. I get that this is easier said than done, especially perhaps for those of us who are classically trained.

Improv is something you first learn for yourself, putting aside the judgement of others. Trust your previous training, your playing expertise - and then free fall into that dive. It’s the essence of improv! Allow yourself permission to explore and be adventurous. Many musicians experience a deeper acceptance of themselves, and even live a little lighter in the experience!

TIP: One of the easiest ways to experience immediate improv satisfaction is to play only on the black keys, using the sustain pedal to create atmosphere. Moonlight Sonata takes on a whole new persona in the pentatonic blackness! It works so well because you can’t actually play a wrong note. EVER! It provides a valuable starting point for getting your mind in the right space.

3. What’s your outline/basic path for teaching improv?

Before we play a single note we listen to a recorded piece (this could be orchestral rather than just piano). Then I have the students tell me how the music makes them feel. Once we have an emotional place holder, we create an improvisation that expresses that mood. This prevents us from always gravitating to our favourite styles and becoming bored.

My first project is always the pentatonic black note improvisation. I introduce simple musical patterns (motifs), encouraging students to explore the motif across the entire piano, varying their interpretation everyday. My students learn the basics of chord building very early on and this establishes the basis for exploring progressive harmonic improvisations. Eventually my students transform their improvisations into compositions and this is when my teaching gets very exciting!

4. Does this path differ if you’re teaching a student totally new to music vs. a more experienced music student who has never improvised?

All of my students (beginners or not) use the Play a Story program (by InnerMusician). My 4-7 year olds learn improvisation exclusively for up to 12 months. They learn so much in this time and fall in love with playing, which makes further learning a breeze.

More experienced students also learn improvisation using Play a Story alongside my regular curriculum. They follow the same path as my beginners but each student improvises to his or her own imagination and ability. That’s the beauty of teaching improv. It follows its own journey, to be celebrated no matter where a student is on the learning continuum. I see it like landscaping a cottage garden. It isn’t clipped and pruned, but rather it’s given the freedom to take on its own beauty as it grows at its own rate.

5. What do you find is a common challenge for students learning improv and how do you/they overcome it?

I want to say firstly that many challenges are common to both teachers and students. It’s helpful to know why these might be occurring in order to understand how to get past them. Here are a handful of challenges that I have come across with my own students and which seem to also pop up when I speak to other teachers.

1. Initial apprehension, if improvisation is not familiar to them. Simply put, any new skill can create a level of anxiety, especially one that is not quite as black and white as playing predetermined notes and rhythms like we would in a repertoire or rote piece. Students need to trust the process of growth and be willing to just jump in. A sense of familiarity will soon develop and they’ll find their own comfort level, allowing the time needed to grow and mature through the experience of doing. The teacher’s role is to inspire confidence in the student with projects that give a winner’s outcome every time. With improvisation it’s all about the journey, the process of discovery, not the destination. It can be a thrilling and truly liberating journey, the like which can’t easily be found elsewhere.

2. Often students feel that only a certain ‘quality’ of artist can be inducted into the ‘Improv Club’. They might feel that they are just not good enough. A lot of judgmental baggage comes with the arts. It is perpetuated, in part, through assessment and performance expectations that are to be required, mostly through education from a very young age (and getting younger and younger). No matter what your background, I encourage you to let go of judgement (placed either on yourself as a teacher or on your students), and relish the opportunity to just play in the moment. As one my 8 year old (reformed) perfectionist student told me yesterday, ‘I love it when I improvise because as soon as each note is finished, poof, it’s gone and I can find new ones.’ Her mum will tell you that improvisation has changed her perception of herself!

3. There is not a lot of sequential step by step improvisational material that you can pick up and teach and that really inspires a student to develop fluency by improvising everyday, even if it’s just for a few minutes. It takes a lot of time and energy for a teacher to create projects that are varied, inspiring and challenging. It’s something that InnerMusician strives to provide; fresh, innovative material that serves both teachers and students well.

4. Trying to fit improv into already packed lessons can be difficult if not impossible. Teachers are required to cover so many areas. Prepping for recitals and exams means that often the first thing to go is creativity. Using InnerMusician gives teachers instant access to projects, ready to teach in a moment, every week.

6. What is InnerMusician and how does it approach teaching improv?

InnerMusician’s program, Play a Story, has students interacting musically and creatively with imaginary scenes by literally playing the story onto the piano... Musical story-telling. Students learn the motif (a simple musical pattern that reflects the scene) and then improvise on the piano along to the animated story or movie clips we provide for each scene. I guess you could say we take the well-known concept of ‘improvising from a motif’ and give it a whole new twist. Using visual stimulation makes moving an improvisation forward much easier and gives students a destination to play towards. Adding this dimension to improvisation really does transform the improv learning curve.

Teachers can use Play a Story as a stand alone program exclusively for 4-7 year old beginners, dedicating about 12 months to improvisation. When layered with foundational playing skills, improvisation becomes part of a healthy playing lifestyle. Teachers can also use our program as an improvisational stream alongside their regular curriculum. In this situation, teaching and assigning a project takes only a few minutes; teachers have projects on hand for every week that take just a few minutes to teach during a lesson, processed at home and reviewed briefly the following lesson.

InnerMusician supports its teachers by providing the visual elements as well as lesson plans and live lesson recordings. Students purchase a student access to the program enabling them to practice at home along to the stories and movies, feeling fully supported by the step by step coaching sessions. Knowing they have this support at home makes it possible for teachers to set projects simply and quickly.

We love partnering with our teachers around the world, refining and developing our resources. We are proud to join the improvisational movement toward developing self-expressive, well-rounded musicians of the future.

Thank you, Lyndel, for sharing your wisdom! Check out her wonderful program at innermusician.com. The lesson plans are also available through Better Practice, so it's doubly easy for Better Practice users!