Improvisation
Books about Improvisation
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The Jazz Improvisor's Reference: Refreshing and Penetrating Insights for Creative Growth
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This book is Jerry's newest contribution to the tool box for all serious musicians looking for new ways to expand their creative range. An easy read, Jerry presents a variety of ideas and material including universal patterns, techniques for tune learning, interval study and considerations, must-know voicings for pianists and non-pianists, blues and rhythm changes exploration, essential licks/patterns, and much more.
Call Number: MT68 .C644 2012Publication Date: 2012 -
Free To Be Musical: Group Improvisation in Music
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Free To Be Musical: Group Improvisation in Music is for those who lead musical experiences in the lives of children, youth, and adults. Offering a set of experiences to inspire creative musical expression, this book will prove useful for music education majors, practicing music teachers, community musicians, and music therapists alike. The experiences (or 'events') are designed to reduce the musical barriers that Western societies pass on to children by the time they reach the 'age of reason,' when the natural childhood penchant to sing, dance, and play musically gives way to perfect performances of standard repertoire preserved in Western staff notation. The authors present ways to encourage music that is expressive and inventive, spontaneous yet thoughtful, communal and collaborative, and unlimited in its potential to bring fulfillment to those who make it. You'll find opportunities to release the musical imagination in ways that are free and expansive, playful and instructive, personal and interpersonal. Higgins and Campbell have created a context that validates the experiments and explorations of all people who are potential makers of all styles of music. Their musical events embrace the belief that music-making is 'a trail of no mistakes,' a celebration of the many and varied musical pathways that both teacher and student can take.
Call Number: MT68 .H62 2010Publication Date: 2010 -
Major and Minor in Every Key: Learn to Improvise Jazz
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For all instrumentalists and vocalists. Great primer for learning basic skills in major and minor keys. Advanced players will want to work on double-timing," playing "outside," and "side-slipping" in all keys at comfortable tempos. The CDs contain 30 extended tracks of recorded background. Special tracks have Jamey Aebersold playing various exercises and soloing on his saxophone with actual cuts from Volume 24 so you can hear and see how to use this set. All exercises and sax solos on the demo tracks are transcribed and written out in the book! Pick a different key each day/week/practice. Rhythm Section: J. Aebersold (p); John Goldsby (b); Charlie Craig (d).
Call Number: MT68 .J36 V.24Publication Date: 2009 -
Jazz Improvisation
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The fundamentals of jazz are here explained and systemized in 70 lessons based on 60 jazz standards. It covers the styles of musicians from Buddy Bolden to Dizzy Gillespie.
Call Number: MT68 .M45 V.1-4Publication Date: 1959 -
How to Play from a Fake Book: Faking your own Arrangements from Melodies and Chords
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Ever wondered how to create better accompaniments for the melodies in your favorite fake books? This "teach yourself" book introduces you to chord building, various rhythmic styles, and much more, so that you play the songs you like just the way you want them. Keyboard players with a basic understanding of notation and sight-reading will be on their way to more fun with fake books. The relaxed tone of the text and selection of fun songs keep How to Play from a Fake Book entertaining throughout perfect for amateur musicians, or as a supplement for keyboard teachers and their students.
Call Number: MT239.N44 H6 1999Publication Date: 1999 -
Contingent Encounters: Improvisation in Music and Everyday Life (eBook)
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Contingent Encounters offers a sustained comparative study of improvisation as it appears between music and everyday life. Drawing on work in musicology, cultural studies, and critical improvisation studies, as well as his own performing experience, Dan DiPiero argues that comparing improvisation across domains calls into question how improvisation is typically recognized. By comparing the music of Eric Dolphy, Norwegian free improvisers, Mr. K, and the Ingrid Laubrock/Kris Davis duo with improvised activities in everyday life (such as walking, baking, working, and listening), DiPiero concludes that improvisation appears as a function of any encounter between subjects, objects, and environments. Bringing contingency into conversation with the utopian strain of critical improvisation studies, DiPiero shows how particular social investments cause improvisation to be associated with relative freedom, risk-taking, and unpredictability in both scholarship and public discourse. Taking seriously the claim that improvisation is the same thing as living, Contingent Encounters overturns long-standing assumptions about the aesthetic and political implications of this notoriously slippery term.
Call Number: JSTOR and Project MUSE Open Access BooksPublication Date: 2022
Composition and Arranging Resources
Check out books on Jazz Composition and Arranging from the University Libraries.
Online Resources for Composition and Arranging
Search Song Catalog, available through Noteflight, a notation site, to purchase the rights to arrange songs. Songs include classical, American Songbook, and even songs by contemporary popular artists such as Adele, Taylor Swift, and BTS.
Arrange Me -- Sell your arrangements through Hal Leonard, the world's largest publisher of sheet music arrangements.
Interlibrary Loan
Users are encouraged to search for items beyond University Libraries' catalog via RILM Abstracts of Music Literature and WorldCat. Materials not available in print or online may be requested through Interlibrary Loan. Please allow up to seven days for electronic delivery and up to fourteen days for delivery of physical items.