Jamming the Classroom

Ajay Heble is Professor of English and Director of the International Institute for Critical Studies in Improvisation at the University of Guelph. In 2023 he was awarded the Killam Prize in the Humanities. Jesse Stewart is Associate Professor of Music at the School for Studies in Art and Culture at Carleton University. He is also the founder of We Are All Musicians, an organization dedicated to fostering inclusive music making.

• ContentsPreface – “Stepping into Another World”Introduction – The Many Classrooms of ImprovisationChapter One – Solo Dialogics: Autodidactic Methods of Learning to ImproviseChapter Two – Hearing What the Other Has to Play: Co-Learning through Musical ImprovisationChapter Three – Music Festivals as Alternative Pedagogical InstitutionsChapter Four – Improv Goes to School: Musical Improvisation and the AcademyChapter Five – A Force That’s Active in the World: Community-Oriented Pedagogies of ImprovisationCoda: Performance as PedagogyWorks CitedSelected Discography of Improvised MusicIndex

“Coming from two authors who are improvisers themselves, and who have sought out the views and visions of improvising musicians and thoughtful scholars, Jamming the Classroom paves a pathway for honing one’s skills, for evaluating the process by which improvisation develops, and for offering a critical analysis of improvisation and how it is taught/learned. This is scholarship at its best, where in this case the very best minds on the topic are featured in support of themes surrounding improvisation and pedagogical practice.”—Patricia Shehan Campbell, University of Washington; Carleton University