Everything fictitious? The role of improvisation in ragtime and early jazz

Contributors

Program

Jazz is considered a musical genre with great improvisational freedom. But the amount of improvisation was not always the same. Rags and early jazz compositions were typically published as 'sheet music' for piano (and possibly voice). Depending on the size of the ensemble, more or fewer parameters were notated in arrangements. Big bands played 'stock arrangements' with fixed parts that still left room for solos. Smaller groups used looser arrangements or even played 'freely' according to 'lead(er) sheets', which only specify a melody and chord symbols.

The lecture sheds light on how much room for improvisation there actually was in ragtime and early jazz and how much this depended on written fixation.

Prof. Philipp Teriete is Professor of Music Theory with a focus on jazz/pop/arrangement at the College of Music Fribourg and lecturer in classical music theory at the HSLU Lucerne. His research focuses on historical improvisation theory (especially romanticism and jazz) and musical education research.

The lecture is part of the FZM lecture series "Improvising: Spontaneous Creativity in Art and Everyday Life".

In the summer semester 2026, the Freiburg Research and Teaching Center(FZM) is organizing a lecture series on the topic of improvisation from various specialist perspectives and facets. In addition to ten lectures by members of the FZM and guests, which will take place on Wednesdays in the lecture hall of the University's Musicology Department, events with improvisational-musical performances or cross-genre performances are planned on five Monday evenings at the College of Music, two of which are part of the FZM event series "musik + wissen".

Here you can find the short program (pdf) (this file is not barrier-free) with all individual dates of the public lecture series.

The Freiburg Research and Teaching Center (FZM) is a joint institution of the College of Music and the University campus Freiburg with the aim of mutual networking in music-related research and teaching.