Cognition and musical improvisation in individual and group contexts

Abstract

The aims of this research are to investigate how improvisatory skills develop in individuals and \nteams. It focuses upon the effect of musical expertise in different musical genres on the \ndevelopment of improvisatory skills. Multi methods were applied in the research and classified \ninto four phases. The first phase involved a self-case study implementing deliberate self \nregulated practice based on a planned sequential model; a) sight-reading; b) memorising; and c) \nimprovising; over 8 weeks in a trained classical musician. Additionally, the self-case study used \ntwo commissioned musical compositions matched in length, harmony and structure, one in the \nclassical genre the other in jazz. In the 2nd phase, semi-structured interviews were conducted \nwith novice and expert improvisers. The final phases included experiments studying sightreading, \nmemorising and improvising as a duo and observations and interviews relating to \nensemble rehearsals and improvisation with cross genre compositions. The findings suggest \nthat learning to improvise is frustrating and anxiety provoking. Seven elements were found to \nbe important in acquiring musical skills and domain knowledge acquisition: physiological \nadaptation and developing reading music skills; establishing auditory schemata; automaticity; \nuse of memorisation strategies; analytic strategy application; and improvising to a coherent \nmusical structure. The findings also show that sight-reading and improvising share similarities \nin their characteristics when learning to improvise as a duo. Issues such as communicating to \nthe audience, performance identity and connecting to the context are essential in the duo \nimprovisation performance. The findings indicate that a 'concept of break-points' (Poole, \n1983) take place during the latter stage of the ensemble improvisation process where changes \noccur across all three elements, musical structure, social structure and communicative behavior. (Bastien \nand Hostager, 2002:21) Factors such as leadership, group member characteristic, resource, information flow, the creative environment and collateral structure can influence the quality of \ngroup improvisation performance.

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