Improvisation and health

This chapter focuses specifically upon the use of musical improvisation for health and well-being. It considers the fundamental features of improvisation and links them to possible improvements in health and well-being. A model showing the different types of communication processes involved is also presented. Improvisation has long been associated with the potential to bring about improvement in health. It is a key process used by music therapists and early texts outlining music therapy practice contained numerous examples of improvisational activities. This chapter draws these processes and potential outcomes together and explains four characteristics of musical improvisation identified as underpinning the health benefits: improvisation links conscious with unconscious processes; improvisation makes unique demands on cognition; improvisation facilitates creative interaction; and, improvisation enables the non-verbal expression of thoughts and feelings that may otherwise be difficult to express. When improvisation is viewed as a sophisticated form of social interaction, links to other non-musical contexts and the implications for health and well-being are clear.

The way forward

This chapters presents conclusions and overarching summaries of key issues, outlining implications for future research. The accessibility of an arts practice that offers creative engagement at any level of virtuosity can have a transformative effect on music education and the ways we feel about making music in our everyday lives. The location of creative agency within a group, rather than within an individual, calls for a new psychology and musicology of improvisation. These issues and other aspects of the way ahead are discussed, with suggestions for new directions in studying, making, or researching music and other improvisatory arts in years to come. In the moments of improvisation, we have opportunities: to explore our identity; to connect with other people; to make conceptual breakthroughs and gain new insights; to develop our confidence or self-esteem; to be understood; to be misunderstood; and still to have fun within an artistic and expressive environment.

What’s so special about improvisation?

This chapter reviews ways in which improvisation has been understood by musicians and psychologists, setting out key features of different theories and considering the assumptions about improvising that inform them. The chapter defines improvisation as: creative, social, ambiguous, spontaneous, and accessible. It discusses different theoretical approaches, proposing the following distinctions: practice-based theories; cognitive theories; psychodynamic theories; neuroscience theories; and ethnomusicology theories. It outlines some problems with existing theories. These include: presuming clear demarcations in the roles and functions of the composer, performer, and improviser; a focus on the products of improvisation while neglecting process; and a focus upon the individual while neglecting group processes. There is a need to challenge current perceptions of improvisation, to get more people improvising and to widen access to improvisational activities.

Improvisation and new frontiers in creative practice

This chapter draws together recent advances across musical fields to frame improvising as an innovative and vibrant way of doing creative practice at a professional level and in everyday life. It presents examples of cross-disciplinary improvised work and festivals at the cutting edge of the performing arts. Improvised music is discussed in relation to broader social and cultural change and transformations within the media and music industry. The possibilities of new digital technologies for expanding improvising are reviewed and help set the context for the proceeding chapters. It shows how group improvisation involves the spontaneous generation of novel music, dance, or art by two or more people. It describes the groundswell of interest across the arts in improvisation with artists, festivals, and venues dedicated to pushing this creative approach beyond genre boundaries.

Stones, Clouds

This chapter considers how improvisers decide what to play, the creative process of improvising together, and the relationships between performing, composing, and improvising. In particular, it discusses similarities, differences, and relationships between performing, composing, and improvising. It considers how agency is experienced and executed by an individual while they are improvising with other people. A model is presented for the process of choice that any individual undertakes when taking part in improvisation, with detailed examples provided to illustrate how the model functions. Drawing on empirical qualitative evidence from post-idiomatic free improvisers, this chapter identifies a comprehensive set of options across this spectrum that any individual improviser may take over the course of a piece to allow the group to generate music. This model also offers a less daunting challenge to the novice improviser, and a potential way round a “block” for creative practitioners.

Talking about improvisation

This chapter highlights that we understand improvisation, largely, through talking about it. Talking about music is a fundamental part of how we make sense of music. This chapter argues that spoken definitions of improvisation serve specific psychological purposes for the speaker in creating, negotiating, and maintaining a particular line of argument, and this line of argument is linked to the musical identities and broader psychological identities of the speaker. Talking about improvising is important not just because it describes improvisation, but also because it constructs musical and social realities for those engaged in the dialogue. This chapter makes the following key points: How improvisers talk about music shapes how they engage with music; musical identities are important aspect of music making; training improvisers to understand and articulate why they value the music they like should be an important part of improvisation pedagogy; and musical identities may be more important for improvisers than for other types of musicians.

A new virtuosity

This chapter explores how improvisers’ practice transforms the more they play with each other. It considers how and why one might achieve or progress as an improviser; what one might strive for in individual and collaborative improvising; how improvisational development might be apprehended; how individuals can be supported in developing as improvisers; and how improvising is shaped by the ideas we can form about it, and the range of behaviours we can imagine. We set out theoretical propositions to support the concept of development as an improviser. We also define capacities that might be associated with virtuosic improvising. We discuss the work of psychologist George Kelly, who argued that human beings are constantly testing and reshaping their individual understandings of the world, the better to predict social situations. This theory offers a mechanism to explain how improvising relationships transform over time, and how improvisers can continue to exercise creativity together in real time.

Distributed creativity and the myth of shared understanding

This chapter examines the prevalent assumption that improvisers must share understanding of what they are trying to achieve and how they are thought to do so, investigating the importance of identities and how they are constructed among co-improvisers. The role of talk between musicians in constructing understanding is examined with reference to interviews with improvisers. Implications for teaching and new creative practice are discussed with specific examples of how improvisation can be taught. Research on improvisation tends to assume that in a successful group performance, musicians must have the same conception of the quality and meaning of the music they play. This chapter compares the accounts of different improvisers within a group, to reach an explanation of whether and how these are negotiated while playing together. This chapter demonstrates that if participants feel invested in the group process, improvisation can take place to participants’ satisfaction in the absence of their shared understanding.