The typical "classical" training for students studying orchestral instruments tends not to include musical improvisation. But this was not the case during the 18th century (or earlier for that matter!) Improvisation is to be encouraged and I think it is becoming a new trend in instrumental music study because it makes you a better musician!
Improvisation is good for so many reasons:
- It develops your ear-hand coordination
- It makes you listen and spontaneously plan what to do next
- It's a creative way to learn about harmony
- It makes you begin to understand how to compose music
Here's a very simple and fun way to introduce improvisation to your students. Ask everyone to pluck a steady ostinato of AAGG and demonstrate first by improvising rhythms on open A. The students are learning, one by one, to fit an improvised rhythm into a pulse. You can then expand this to adding more pitch choices. At about 2:00 the student Kevin, enthusiastically launches in using 3 pitches to improvise on. (A,C and D)
Improvisation doesn't have to be jazz or even jazzy. You can start out by just playing one pitch and make up rhythms to fit a particular tempo.But it's fun to use an ostinato when you are first learning to improvise. If you have another person or an ensemble, someone (or the group) can pizzicato a repeated rhythm or a repeated series of notes while you try to fit some rhythms in and gradually extend the range of pitches. Use a limited range of pitches at first. At home, you can do this by yourself with just a metronome or with audio recordings of ostinatos.
You can't make mistakes when you are improvising! Some of the phrases you come up with will sound better than others but if you use a "let's see what happens" attitude, little by little, you'll get more adept at it. You'll start to think like a composer, developing your opinions on what excites you with sound and you'll make choices based on personal preferences.
It's good to improvise with people who you like. You have to feel totally comfortable with them and not inhibited in any way. Here are two of my kids improvising with me.
This exceptionally gifted child, Alma Deutscher, improvises in the style of Mozart/Haydn. She has had keyboard training in the 18th century practice of partimento. Here she is interviewed (and speaks in Hebrew and English) and is given 3 notes out of a hat to improvise on. She was one of the first children to be taught in this new but actually 30o year old method!