Developing Tests of Music Performance Improvisation

Abstract

This chapter presents a survey of research on the development and validation of a measure to assess instrumentalists’ ability to improvise music. It begins by framing efforts to distinguish between visual, aural, and creative forms of music performance, and the types of assessment tasks required to evaluate music performance improvisation. The chapter surveys a range of related measures that have been used to assess improvisational abilities in young developing musicians and provides a detailed description of the author’s own Test of Ability to Improvise (TAI) that he has used with beginning, intermediate, and advanced level school instrumentalists. Included also are examples of the instrume..