Teaching Improvisation

Creativity from Day One: An Interview with Siliana Chiliachka

Infinite Improvisation Podcast: adventures in music and creativity with Steve Treseler and Lauren Best. Founder of Siliana's Piano Studio, Bulgarian-American pianist Siliana Chiliachka is reimagining music lessons for young children, teaching technique, composition, and improvisation through Music Learning Theory.  In our conversation, we discuss that children are naturally musical and creative, but there is a lack of creativity in early music instruction—and what we can do to change that. We also discuss the principles of Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory, how to promote life-long music-making, and the distinction between learning about music vs. understanding music.  Siliana Chiliachka is a dedicated music educator who has performed and taught piano throughout North America, Canada, and Europe. She debuted as a soloist with the Vratsa Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria when she was 10 years old. She is a graduate of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada and holds bachelor's and master's degrees in music. She has received training from renowned artists such as Jerome Lowenthal, Charles Asche, Yuval Yaron, Anne Epperson, and Peter Yazbeck. She is a recipient of numerous scholarships including the UCSB Music Affiliates Quarterly Performance Award, the SB Music club, and an awardee of several competitions and festivals in Bulgaria, Canada, and the U.S. Learn more about Music Moves group classes with Siliana [https://subscribepage.io/G6GKW3?fbclid=IwAR1OTCUqCh3NkT8cNzMTh5nABkyI47uUOg-LdUk9lnDs1gTzwR56lZq3azc] for 4-7 year olds https://www.instagram.com/silianastudio/ [https://www.instagram.com/silianastudio/] https://www.facebook.com/siliana.chiliachka [https://www.facebook.com/siliana.chiliachka]   Get updates and exclusive community content by signing up for our email newsletter at: www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast [http://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast]   Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFC9c3kPO5rJ7YD2WoScbPQ]   Theme Song: “Cold Hammered” by Steve Treseler

School Rock Bands and Creative Musicking: an Interview with Steve Giddings

Infinite Improvisation Podcast: adventures in music and creativity with Steve Treseler and Lauren Best.   Canadian music educator and author Steve Giddings joins us to talk about sparking creativity in high school music programs on Prince Edward Island. He reveals what it was like to stretch from being a classically trained orchestral player to jamming in blues bars and playing in a ska brass section, and what ignited him to self-publish his first practical guide to teaching rock bands in schools. Steve’s work to innovate and inspire “creative musicking” in the classroom has most recently resulted in his newest book from Oxford University Press “Technology for Unleashing Creativity: Practical Tips and Tools for Music Educators”. He shares some spicy thoughts and why they get pushback, and explains why he wants to electrify music education and create change for more fun and functional learning.   https://www.stevesmusicroom.com/ [https://www.stevesmusicroom.com/] @StevesMusicRoom facebook.com/stevesmusicroom [http://facebook.com/stevesmusicroom] instagram.com/stevesmusicroom [http://instagram.com/stevesmusicroom] twitter.com/stevesmusicroom [http://instagram.com/stevesmusicroom]     Get updates and exclusive community content by signing up for our email newsletter at: www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast [http://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast]   Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFC9c3kPO5rJ7YD2WoScbPQ]     Theme Song: “Cold Hammered” by Steve Treseler

Improvising (Pencil) Tips: props and prompts inspired by W.A. Mathieu

Infinite Improvisation Podcast: adventures in music and creativity with Steve Treseler and Lauren Best.   Steve and Lauren discuss how to mix things up with some unusual improvising tricks and tips- including playing piano with eraser tips! Featuring inspiration from the audiobook, "W.A. Mathieu reads from The Listening Book and The Musical Life", the episode is packed with unconventional yet easy methods for tapping into creativity.   Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFC9c3kPO5rJ7YD2WoScbPQ]  Get updates and exclusive community content by signing up for our email newsletter at: www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast [http://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast] Theme Song: “Cold Hammered” by Steve Treseler     audiobook "W.A. Mathieu reads from The Listening Book and The Musical Life": https://coldmountainmusic.com/downloads/the-listening-book-and-the-musical-life/ [https://coldmountainmusic.com/downloads/the-listening-book-and-the-musical-life/]   print: https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Book-Discovering-Your-Music/dp/159030831X [https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Book-Discovering-Your-Music/dp/159030831X]   streaming: https://open.spotify.com/album/31yOnWgSqu1GoxvTsJn4nf [https://open.spotify.com/album/31yOnWgSqu1GoxvTsJn4nf]

Teaching Improvisation

Infinite Improvisation Podcast: adventures in music and creativity with Steve Treseler and Lauren Best. In this episode, we talk about emphasizing creativity in music education for young people, from leading bands for Seattle’s JazzEd to Lauren’s approach to improvisation in small-town Ontario, Canada. We discuss program design with a focus on improvisation, how Lauren changed her approach to teaching piano, online group music lessons, and mixed instrument improvisation ensembles.    Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFC9c3kPO5rJ7YD2WoScbPQ]   Get updates and exclusive community content by signing up for our email newsletter at: www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast [http://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast]   Download a free digital copy of Steve’s book, “Creativity Triggers for Musicians”. https://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/books [https://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/books]   Check out Lauren’s online music classes: https://www.bestpracticearts.com/kaleidoscope-music-kids.html [https://www.bestpracticearts.com/kaleidoscope-music-kids.html]   Check out Seattle JazzEd: https://www.seattlejazzed.org/ [https://www.seattlejazzed.org/]   Executive Producers: Lauren Best and Steve Treseler Producer: Sam Blake Theme Song: “Cold Hammered” by Steve Treseler

Creativity and Indigenous Music: An Interview with Ed Littlefield

Infinite Improvisation Podcast: adventures in music and creativity with Steve Treseler and Lauren Best.   The first episode of our interview series, a conversation with Ed Littlefield. We discuss Ed's journey studying Native Lingít music alongside jazz, community music making, composing a song for Betty White (first 10 seconds: https://youtu.be/yp0yf5PpqkA [https://youtu.be/yp0yf5PpqkA]), and much more! Ed Littlefield is a freelance percussionist, educator, and composer based out of Seattle, WA. He is Lingít from Sitka, Alaska and has released three albums featuring traditional native melodies, which he also arranged into the jazz idiom with the Native Jazz Quartet. This quartet represented the United States in South America as “Jazz Ambassadors” through the American Music Abroad program. For film he composed a song for the 2009 Disney movie The Proposal for Betty White’s character and played the percussion score and consulted on indigenous music for the 2022 documentary Exposing Muybridge. Ed has played K’alyaan in the world-premiere of Battles of Fire and Water by Dave Hunsaker and written and performed an original musical score for Eurydice by Sara Ruhl for Perseverance Theater in Juneau, Alaska. He has done sound design and composition for the world premieres of Our Voices Will Be Heard by Vera Starbard, and was the composer and cultural advisor for They Don’t Talk Back by Frank Katasse at Native voices at the Autry, La Jolla Playhouse and Perseverance Theater. He also did sound design for Off the Rails by Randy Reinholz at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Sovereignty by Mary Kathryn Nagle at Arena Stage. Most recently he composed the songs for a new play produced by the University of Illinois – Urbana-Champaign called The Neverland by Madeline Sayet. Currently he is working on a three-year project to create the first ever Lingít opera. This project will combine traditional contemporary Lingít melodies inside the western opera genre and will also include an all-indigenous cast. Ed is an active educator around the country, facilitating artist residencies for students and teachers to help them learn more about Lingít culture and music and traditional ways of knowing. Contact Ed at edwardlittlefield@hotmail.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFC9c3kPO5rJ7YD2WoScbPQ]   Get updates and exclusive community content by signing up for our email newsletter at: www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast [http://www.infiniteimprovisation.com/podcast]   Executive Producers: Lauren Best and Steve Treseler Producer: Sam Blake Theme Song: “Cold Hammered” by Steve Treseler