The Art of Improvisation, Part 2

<p>Musical improvisation comes in many forms. A jazz player creates within the harmonic structure of a composition. A Shona <em>mbira</em> player in Zimbabwe improvises interactively with another player, and the audience, in some cases, an ancestor spirit. An Arabic <em>maqam</em> musician works within the elaborate set of rules governing the movement of melodies within one or more particular <em>maqamat</em>, or modes. How are these musicians’ experience the same? And how are they different? Musicians and scholars weigh in on this <em>Hip Deep</em> program. <strong>Produced by Banning Eyre</strong>. </p>