Incorporating beginning jazz improvisation activities and excercises into an intermediate-level classical piano curriculum: A guide for private piano teachers

This thesis provides activities and exercises designed to teach beginning level jazz improvisation and style. These exercises and activities were created as a guide for classically-trained piano teachers to learn how to incorporate beginning level jazz improvisation and style into classical intermediate-level private piano lessons. The guide uses a modular structure for each of the jazz pieces presented in the curriculum to demonstrate how the presented sequence of activities can be applied to other jazz pieces. The intermediate-level classical content and jazz content maintain a forty-five minute to fifteen minute ratio of classical to jazz material in each sixty-minute, weekly piano lesson. In order to integrate further the jazz portion within classical lessons, this study discusses similar general concepts taught from the classical portion of the created curriculum to the jazz portion. Chapter three outlines the entire curriculum and provides step-by-step instructions on how to use the designed activities and exercises created in Appendix B. The designed curriculum demonstrates a possible pacing through weekly content charts of the entire curriculum, and a detailed jazz chart for reference in Appendix A.