Eureka

Eureka is a web-based guidebook for faculty to help hone their students' music improvisation skills in Ear Training courses at Columbia. This resource is filled with descriptions and video demonstrations of improvisational techniques and teaching examples for use in lesson plans by adjunct faculty.

Peter M. Susser, Senior Lecturer in Music, worked closely with the CTL design, development, and media staff to develop the guidebook. The project was supported by an Office of the Provost Large-Scale Teaching and Learning Grant.

Improvisation is a platform for social diversity in the musicianship classroom that is inclusive of varying student abilities and musical interests. It is an invaluable tool in the presentation, retention and evaluation of musical skills acquisition because it is both a mode of learning and the thing that is itself learned. In the process, improvisation pedagogies build student confidence within and beyond the subject matter at hand because the improvised moment is experienced as the incarnation of an idea that is transformed into a technique.

Eureka is offered as an assist for faculty in the use of improvisation toward those goals in the Ear Training classroom at Columbia. The guidebook is organized into three parts:

1. Improvisation Types — definitions of improvisation concepts that are used to structure improvisations.
2. Ear Training Level — a catalog of improvisation techniques, organized by ear training level and elements of music.
3. Layering — suggestions for how to combine different types of improvisations as a “layering” of materials.

Videos are also available that demonstrate how to lead musicianship improvisations based on Eureka content.

The guidebook debuted in the Department of Music in Fall 2020, and is available to all Columbia instructors.