Critical Studies in Improvisation: Student Work

This work has been produced by students in the Critical Studies in Improvisation MA and PhD programs at the University of Guelph.

Community Building through Formal and Non-Formal Music Learning: An Interview With My Father

Brent graduate students 2019 IICSI cohortBrent Rowan

This podcast features a conversation between Brent Rowan and his father.

“One part of my autoethnographic study to better understand my own musical development and facilitation skills was to conduct an interview with my father. I wanted to further understand where he came from in terms of his musical development and how that impacted the beginnings of my own musical development. This interview shed light on the role music played in my father’s life, how his musical ability was developed, and how he used music to accompany the building of community. Whether he was accompanying the congregation at church, the girls at school, a square dance event at university, or entertaining at a community party, my father drew on the skills he developed through his formal private music lessons and his non-formal musical experiences such as jamming with his father on guitar, or learning songs by ear with his cousins. Listening to his audience and improvising the content according to what he heard was a key component of how my father ensured that he contributed to building the community’s spirit. As I learned about the improvisation, accompanying, and listening skills that my father used, I noticed many parallels to the skills I rely on for my own pedagogical practice. These parallels and my father’s description of his experiences are presented on this podcast.”

Listen to the podcast in our research library.

4 Cities of Love: Singing in the Language of Others

Reza Yazdanpanah

This collaborative performance video was completed by Reza Yazdanpanah under Dr. Ajay Heble’s supervision in April 2021. In this video, 5 musicians with different first languages sing in the languages other than their own as an application to the approach of equity, diversity, and inclusion. This project was funded in part by the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Enhancement Fund at the University of Guelph.