Classroom improvisation

Adapting the only proven effective way of teaching improvisation, the traditional way as exemplified by the Indian method, to teaching in a classroom raises many problems: maintaining the necessary degree of empiricism; maintaining the non-documentary, purely practical character of the activity; avoiding the establishment of a set of generalized rules; and always allowing an individual approach to develop - these are essentials which, in a classroom situation with, perhaps, a large group of people, are in danger of being lost. And the only places where, to author's knowledge, improvisation is successfully taught in the classroom is in those classes conducted by practising improvisers. Most teaching concerns itself with transmitting a type of proficiency, with imparting a skill, technical ability or know-how. The aim of teaching usually is to show people how to do something.