This paper will present an ongoing ethnographic trailing research study (Finne et al. 1995) on the learning centre Improbasen [the Impro base] aimed at children from the of 8 to 15, situated in Oslo, Norway, which offers instrumental tuition in jazz improvisation. In light of the overall topic for the symposium, the presenter will discuss challenges and possibilities for musical and creative development among children through examples from the study´s preliminary results. There are numerous studies on instrumental tuition directed at children within the western, classical tradition (Hallam 2008, MacPherson 2016), and creative musical activities in the school classroom (Burnard and Younker 2010). The studies that do investigate learning practices in jazz are often concerned with formal practices in higher education (college, conservatoires) (e.g., Watson 2010). The absence of research on instrumental tuition on jazz improvisation directed at children indicates that such teaching practices are rare. Moreover, current theorizing on improvisation often concentrates on the social and interactive musical communication and non-idiomatic, genre-free improvisational expressions (MacDonald et al. 2012). Although this development can be seen as a reaction to previous cognitivist and rule-based theories, the physical and technical aspects of learning to play an instrument while learning to improvise are seldom addressed, or even characterized as inauthentic, “technicist” approaches (Parsonage et al. 2007, referring to Purcell 2002). A possible reason might be that the research has concentrated on musicians with a presumably already high level. We know from little to nothing about these jazz musicians beginnings. The purpose of the study is to document, analyze and evaluate the pedagogical approaches and the learning processes among the students, regarding learning content, activities, strategies, organization and social interaction between participants, from a sociocultural perspective (Engeström 2001), to increase reflection on tuition in jazz improvisation for children. The presentation of preliminary findings will concentrate on three characteristic features concerning Improbasen; a) organization of learning content, which consist of tunes from the mainstream jazz repertoire and a practical-analytical approach to chords and scales; b) musical scaffolding through the constant presence of musical frameworks such as groove and form; and c) rigging of collaborative situations of various degrees of peripheral participation, which provide the students with rich opportunities to play and perform together.