Why is it an imperative for arts institutions and academies to identify creative teaching in relation to creative learning as a vital way of addressing the politics of higher education? What is it about creative teaching in relation to creative learning that offers new priorities, new narratives, new forms of knowledge, new ways of ‘knowing how to speak’ and ‘knowing how to hear’ for creative teachers, artists and artist scholars? I argue that creative learning and teaching is more likely to occur when the rigid divisions between artist and scholar, teacher and student, researcher and practitioner are relaxed, creating an improvisatory space where creative learning communities jointly construct the improvisational flow of higher education classroom, studio, rehearsal and instrumental lessons. How so?