Standard 2:

The teacher of PK-12 music has skills in creating, arranging, and improvising.

Creating, arranging, and improvising is an important skill to have in any musical setting.

Not only as a teacher are we creating activities and assignments, but we are also creating a rich

musical environment in which our students can learn. As a music educator, we demonstrate these

skills almost everyday through teaching an elementary improv lesson, arranging a pep band tune

for our band, teaching our jazz players to improvise, and so on. In many of my classes weve

learned to improvise and arrange. Ive been taught all the necessary tools such as knowing

ranges of instrument and voices to create arrangements for my students that will be fun to play,

yet musically challenging. I know how to teach appropriately improvised melodies and

accompaniments over simple or complex harmonic progression and I can play written

accompaniments or transpose them to a more friendly key. As a teacher, getting my students to

be comfortable with arranging and improvising is a huge milestone in their musical development.

For students, having the skill set to improvise comfortably and arrange music can open so

many doors for them. At the youngest ages, improvising can lead the way to creating their own

simple melodies. They can begin to explore the world of music through their own creation

instead of someone else's. As they grow musically they can begin to add harmonizations, more

complex rhythms, flowing or technically challenging melodies, etc. Being taught improvisation

in elementary school lays the foundation for which the building blocks to composition and

complete independence in improv are built. In high school, students can take what theyve

learned and apply it to learning how to improvise over jazz progressions, latin progressions,

blues, rock, and the list goes on and on.