Improvisational music is about listening, responding, adapting. At its heart, it mirrors the practice of critical thinking. When a improvising, the musician isn’t simply playing random notes. They’re engaging with structure, context, and intuition all at once. Hopefully drawing from a deep well of knowledge, scales, tone, rhythm, tradition, but no script. Question what’s unfolding in real time. React to others, test ideas, revise on the fly – a form of live reasoning. Critical thinking is about not having all the answers, to enjoy navigating uncertainty. Like in a good jam session, a skilled thinker listens carefully, weighs what’s being said, and considers multiple directions before making a move. Both reward curiosity and the willingness to be surprised. Improvisation also embraces failure. Critical thinking doesn’t aim for perfection but deeper understanding. When musicians improvise together, they create space for something unpredictable and often, transcendent. Interestingly, since I entered school again seven years ago, I have not found that spirit of mutual engagement to be the norm…similarly, I don’t find it the norm at jam sessions either. It might be the whole world is not at all what I imagine it to be. It might be I am imagining everything and should be suspicious of what I call I. (somewhere right now an old Jew is whispering veyzmere). That would be more memorable tune, no?