In the teaching of musical improvisation, implicit assumptions held by both students and teachers about how music can be performed and improvised play a central role. The exchange of different assumptions can lead to learning outcomes that are unexpected for all participants (Lampasiak 2025).

This presentation aims to shed light on a specific type of implicit musical knowledge within improvisation pedagogy. It investigates the unspoken ideas that teachers and students bring to the classroom regarding how music can be improvised from gestural pantomime. Drawing on ethnographic, video-based participant observation (Hammersley & Atkinson 2019, Wulf 2011), the study argues that teachers and students involved in the research tended to operate with different underlying logics about the relationship between pantomime and sound.

While teachers were more likely to draw on professional musical practices—such as conducting gestures—students tended to rely on everyday, socially familiar connections between movement and sound, such as celebratory gestures accompanied by cheering. The presentation outlines pedagogical strategies for addressing this divergence: it suggests ways in which educators can acknowledge students’ representational logics while guiding them toward more open-ended, less concretely predetermined relationships between movement and sound.

Hammersley, M. & Atkinson, P. (2019) Ethnography: Principles in Practice (4th ed.) Routledge.

Lampasiak, A. (2025). Zum Unvorhersehbaren in der improvisationspädagogischen Praxis. In N. Hadji, J. Jachmann & A. Welte (Eds.), Ethnographie und Musikpädagogik. Forschungsansätze, Synergien, Differenzen (pp. 125–140). transcript.

Wulf, Christoph (2011). Einleitung. In C. Wulf, B. Althans, K. Audehm, G. Blaschke, N. Ferrin, R. Mattig & S. Schinkel (Eds.), Die Geste in Erziehung, Bildung und Sozialisation. Ethnographische Feldstudien (7–26). Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.

The professionalization of music education students requires university teaching formats that foster not only technical and didactic skills, but also reflective and personal dimensions of professional practice. Drawing on professionalization theories (Cramer 2023), this process is conceptualized as growing into the logic of pedagogical action, shaped by experiential learning and self-reflection.

The ECI research project in Hanover explores how innovative teaching formats—particularly team teaching and autonomous teaching practice—can support the development of profession-related competencies among Master's students in improvisation pedagogy. ECI formats can be characterized as subject-oriented, experience- and action-based, and agile teaching (Geuen 2022). Within the ECI framework, students plan, implement, and reflect on improvisation activities in diverse group settings. This requires openness, creativity, methodological breadth, and a high degree of reflective capacity. Structured, needs-oriented artistic-pedagogical and scientific mentoring supports the process.

Empirical data are generated through guided interviews, analyzed using qualitative content analysis (Kuckartz & Rädiker 2022). The study investigates how students articulate their learning processes, which challenges they encounter, and how they reflect on their actions.

Initial findings suggest that these teaching formats—particularly in combination—effectively promote individual professional development by encouraging meta-reflective engagement with the complexity and ambiguity of teaching. Students show increased awareness of diversity, inclusive practices, and the potential of education for democratic development.

The results offer insights into how experience-based and reflective formats in music education can foster sustainable professionalization and provide valuable impulses for the design of future-oriented curricula and profession-oriented university didactics.

References

Cramer, C. (Ed.). (2023). Meta-Reflexivität und Professionalität von Lehrpersonen. Theorieentwicklung und Forschungsperspektiven. Waxmann.

Geuen, H. (2022). Was bedeutet „Professionalisierung der Lehre“ an Musikhochschulen? – Einführung. In M. A. Waloschek & C. Gruhle (Eds.), Die Kunst der Lehre: Ein Praxishandbuch für Lehrende an Musikhochschulen (pp. 17–24). Waxmann.

Kuckartz, U., & Rädiker, S. (2022). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse: Methoden, Praxis, Computerunterstützung. Beltz Juventa.

A central question in music teacher education is how artistic and pedagogical practices intersect and enrich one another (Pecher-Havers, 2009). This presentation explores this relationship within improvisation pedagogy, asking how developing musical improvisation skills can enhance pedagogical competencies.

The study was conducted with music students, music school teachers, and general education music teachers who taught improvisation as part of the Everyone Can Improvise project in Lübeck. It draws on a triangulated qualitative dataset including interviews, video recordings, and classroom observations, focusing on changes experienced by participants during the project.

Two interrelated areas of professional growth emerged:

Artistic experience in improvisation:

Teachers with personal improvisation experience showed greater confidence and flexibility in adapting creative ideas to diverse learner groups. This supports the view that personal artistic engagement is a core competence in music teaching (Lugitsch, 2021), and highlights the importance of educators’ own improvisational practice for pedagogical development.

Pedagogical improvisation:

Improvisation in teaching involves responding to the unexpected. The ability to navigate between structure and spontaneity is identified as a key pedagogical skill that benefits from conscious professionalization (Sawyer, 2011).

The study illustrates the dynamic interplay between artistic and pedagogical improvisation, offering insights into how these competencies can be cultivated in music teacher education. The findings inform the design of future teacher training programs that aim to promote both musical creativity and pedagogical responsiveness.

Lugitsch, M. (2021). Kompetenzen von Instrumental- und Gesangslehrenden im heutigen Berufsfeld. Waxmann.

Pecher-Havers, K. (2009). Der Musikerzieher im Spannungsfeld zwischen „Künstler“ und Pädagoge. In N. Bailer (Ed.), Musikerziehung im Berufsverlauf. Eine empirische Studie über Musiklehrerinnen und Musiklehrer (pp. 109-120). Universal-Edition.

Sawyer, K. (2011). What Makes Good Teachers Great? The Artful Balance of Structure and Improvisation. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), Structure and Improvisation in Creative Teaching (pp. 1–26). Cambridge University Press.

To support musical expression in integrated early childhood curricula, educators enhance children’s creative and musical competencies while connecting music with other developmental domains (Bačlija Sušić et al., 2025). Building on findings from the Erasmus project Everyone Can Improvise, which highlighted the benefits of multimodal improvisation storytelling, this research empowers future early childhood educators (ECEs) to foster both children’s improvisational abilities and their own professional skills as facilitators.

Participants included children from two kindergartens in Zagreb, including those with special needs, and students from the University of Zagreb’s Faculty of Teacher Education. An ethnographic approach was used to explore children's perspectives, culture, and experiences in early childhood education and care (Köngäs & Määttä, 2023). Participatory experiences in preschools supported children’s creativity, collaboration, and improvisation while developing students’ pedagogical competencies. Data collection included field notes, video recordings, photographs, and transcripts.

Integrating music into project themes engaged children in developmentally enriching activities such as sound exploration, body percussion, instrumental and vocal improvisation, movement, dance, and storytelling. These activities inspired imaginative play, collaborative learning and group creativity.

Students took on multiple roles as facilitators, observers, co-players. The experiences promoted children as competent creators and reflective collaborators, while strengthening students’ improvisational and pedagogical skills.

This study demonstrates how multimodal improvisational learning fosters inclusive, democratic, and developmentally rich early childhood environments, contributing to both children’s creativity and the professionalization of future educators.

Bačlija Sušić, B., Šuško, V., & Mendeš, B. (2025). Activities of musical expression and creation in the context of the integrated curriculum for early childhood education and care. Journal of Childhood, Education & Society, 6(2), 190-202.

Köngäs, M., & Määttä, K. (2023). Ethnography in early childhood education and care. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 9(3), 787-801.