Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians

500+ Non-jazz Games for Performers, Educators, and Everyone Else

Why don’t classical musicians improvise? Why do jazz players get to have all the fun? And how do they develop such fabulous technique and aural skills?

With these words, Jeffrey Agrell opens the door to improvisation for all non-jazz musicians who thought it was beyond their ability to play extemporaneously. Gently, step-by-step, Agrell leads through a series of games, rather than exercises. The game format takes the pressure off of classically trained musicians, steering them away from their fixation on mistake-free performance and introducing the basic concepts of playing with music itself instead of obsessing over a perfect rendition of a written score.

Agrell draws a startling analogy with sports that illustrates the absurdity of the traditional approach to classically-oriented music performance:

Imagine if basketball were played the way we perform music today.... The greatest games would be recorded and aspiring players would be required to learn a pro’s every move by reading a description of each move from a written chart. Nothing unplanned or unknown would be allowed to happen. No invention in the moment. No individual expression of ideas. No risking a series of less-than-perfect moves for the sake of imaginative play.

Starting with simple scale fragments, Agrell shows the way to break this artificial way of thinking about music making with an innovative approach to the business of creating melody, harmony, and rhythm, while working in tandem with others. This extensive collection of 566 games is for anyone and everyone who wants to learn to improvise, but has been afraid to try.

Improvisation Games for Classical Musicians can be used by solo individuals, groups from two to sixteen or more, and in classroom settings.

Jeffrey Agrell teaches horn, directs the Horn Choir, coaches chamber music, and performs in the Iowa Brass Quintet at the University of Iowa.