Create and Connect

Abstract There has been growing consensus in recent decades about the relevance of working with improvisation in music education, as a catalyst for music participation regardless of one’s background and previous experience. This chapter explores improvisation within a creative-collaborative music-making experience, taking place in a Brazilian context, where everyone participating had a voice as a creator and player. It considers improvisation as a liberatory praxis, based on the concepts of Paulo Freire, alongside the more traditional models of teaching music in Brazilian higher education. Does traditional pedagogy prevent students from developing a broad range of creative skills, including improvisation, thereby limiting the opportunities for students to expand their repertoire, including popular music? Can creative-collaborative practice and its applied improvisational strategies contribute as an approach toward liberation from the traditional model? These questions are explored through the context of and reflections on practices that happened with a diverse group of students, professional musicians, and community leaders at the Federal University of Minas Gerais in 2023. This is part of a longitudinal, practice-based research project, building a dialogical international community of learners, with all the voices heard and respected as well as their social and cultural background acknowledged.