With more than 40 years as a church musician in Canada, and as a teacher of organ at the university level, Jan Overduin shows that improvisation requires neither a virtuosic command of the instrument nor a magisterial command of music theory. The book is organized in a loosely graded fashion with exercises that are not only simple and useful, but musically satisfying from the very start. Written in an engaging and readable manner, this text will work well in both the classroom and the private study setting and can serve as a prerequisite text to Gerre Hancock's Improvising: How to Master the Art.

Oxford University Press, 1999; 236 pgs.