James Oshinsky

James Oshinsky is an educator, musician and psychologist. He developed the concepts in Simple and Daring based on thirty years of working alongside master teachers of improvisation, including cellist David Darling. Jim was part of the group that created the organization Music for People, a non profit that has offered an inclusive and humanistic approach to music improvisation since the 1980s. He is the author of Music for People's guide to improvising and leading improvisation activities,...See more

James Oshinsky is an educator, musician and psychologist. He developed the concepts in Simple and Daring based on thirty years of working alongside master teachers of improvisation, including cellist David Darling. Jim was part of the group that created the organization Music for People, a non profit that has offered an inclusive and humanistic approach to music improvisation since the 1980s. He is the author of Music for People's guide to improvising and leading improvisation activities, Return to Child. Jim was the Director of the Improvisation Ensemble at Adelphi University in New York for over ten years, and developed a variety of teaching tools, including the Music Doctor Improv Cards and Picture Prompts for small ensemble settings. In the book Simple and Daring, Jim goes into depth describing the ways teachers can craft sequences of improvisation activities that foster deep engagement and social connections among the players. He links these activities to the main tenets of Social Emotional Learning, re-casting this approach to music making as Social Music Improvisation and distinguishing it from purely music performance approaches on the one hand and Music Therapy approaches on the other. As a licensed clinical psychologist, James Oshinsky, Ph.D. maintains a private practice in psychotherapy in his hometown. See less