Technique: Integrating improvisation into your daily practice

Before I trained as a classical violist at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, I played jazz piano as a teenager, both in a group and in a big band. During my time at the Academy my earlier musical environment faded into the background as I became absorbed in the traditional classical world (my professor had been a student of Otakar Ševčík). In any case, at that time jazz was not taught at the Academy. After finishing my classical studies and having worked for some years in the Danish National Radio Orchestra, I was employed by the Swedish Concert Institute as a viola soloist and moved back to Sweden. I decided that I wanted to explore different genres on my viola and joined not only a jazz group run by the professor of improvisation at the Royal College of Music, but also a leading Swedish contemporary music group. In doing so I discovered that there are more connections between these two worlds than I had initially imagined, and it was at this time that I began to research amplified stringed instruments…