In this article, we discuss the centrality of improvisation for teaching, based particularly on readings Cassin (2014, 2020), Rancière (1991, 1999, 2013, and Bailey (1992). Our starting point is that there simply can be no teaching without improvisation, i.e., delicate practice responding to, situating, attuning to events within educational encounters cannot foreseen, but constantly call attent...

As part of a larger research study investigating humour in music therapy with persons dementia, this article details how therapists perceive, embody and experience their practice. Three focus groups ( N = 9) were organised resulting data analysed through arts-based reflexive methods.
 Building on Schenstead’s (2012) articulation reflexivity, two distinct overlapping forms thinking improvis...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to better understand communication between musicians in a free jazz improvisation in comparison to traditional jazz. Design/methodology/approach – A cybernetic informative feedback model was used to study communication between musicians for free jazz. The conceptual model consists of the ears as sensors, an auditory analysis stage to convert the acoustic s...

This paper presents research undertaken by the Bent Leather Band investigating the application of live Ambisonics to large digital-instrument ensemble improvisation. Their research aims to use spatial motion and Ambisonics as a solution to the problem of mixing large ensembles of digital instruments. Their playable approach to live ambisonic projection is inspired by the work of Trevor Wishart ...

This paper a) examines the nature of creative thinking in musical improvisation, b) examines music teachers 'confidence in their inprovisation abilities and c) proposes a model for teaching stylistic improvisation. First, factor analysis of improvisations of college jazz singers indicates that divergent thinking, as exemplified through variety, originality and elaboration of musical ideas, is l...

This paper applies methods of interactional analysis to the video recording of a musical performance in Fez, Morocco, with the understanding that performance is most essentially a communicative phenomenon (Bauman, 1984). Music and interaction are the subject of Monson’s (1996) groundbreaking work on improvisation and interaction in jazz. Monson demonstrates that “jazz can be seen as a musical l...