Ontimpr0. Bibliography on Jazz Improvisation with some Abstracts
Contents
Free Jazz and Improvisation
European Free Jazz
- European Free Jazz Bibliography with book covers and abstracts
- The Free Jazz Collective Reviews of Free jazz and improvisation
- Review of Beyond Jazz: Plink, Plonk, and Scratch, the Golden Age of Free Music in London 1966–1972, by Trevor Barre, 2nd ed., Compass Press, 2016. A survey of approaches to free improvisation in London during the mid-1960s.
Improvisation Bibliography A-F with some abstracts
Alessandro, Bertinetto. “Paganini Does Not Repeat: Musical Improvisation and the Type/Token Ontology.” Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 31, no. 3 (2012): 105-126.
- This paper explores the ontology of musical improvisation (MI). MI, as process in which creative and performing activities are one and the same generative occurrence, is contrasted with the most widespread conceptual resource used in inquiries about music ontology of the Western tradition: the type/token duality (TtD). TtD, which is used for explaining the relationship between musical works (MWs) and performances, does not fit for MI. Nonetheless MI can be ontologically related to MWs. A MW can ensue from MI.
__________. “Performing the Unexpected Improvisation and Artistic Creativity. Daimon: Revista de Filosofia 57 (2012): 117-135.
- This paper looks to improvisation to understand artistic creativity. Indeed, instead of being anti-artistic in nature, due to its supposed unpreparedness, inaccuracy, and repetitive monotony, improvisation in art exemplifies and 'fuels' artistic creativity as such. The relationship between improvisation and artistic creativity is elucidated in four steps along with the concept of creativity in general and in reference to art. The paper focuses on the properties and the phenomenology and the particular demands of Emerson's writing, and ends by considering how exemplary moments of instruction in jazz are expressive of Emersonian self-trust.
Alperson, Philip. “Musical Improvisation and the Philosophy of Music.” Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies. Edited by George E. Lewis and Benjamin Piekut. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
- This chapter argues that the prevailing orienting concepts and tenets of contemporary philosophy of music—the centrality of aesthetic objects, the assumption of the mono-functionality of music, the paradigm of European classical music, and the spectatorialist perspective—do not provide the basis for an adequate understanding of musical improvisation. The essay calls for a more robust philosophical consideration of the gamut of improvisational activity, including the aesthetic aspects of musical improvisation, the range of musical and social skills made manifest by improvisers, and the deeper social meanings of the practice, including the implicit reference to human freedom and situated meanings that arise from the national, ethnic, racial, gendered, and socio-economic contexts in which the music arises. Such a view would be theoretically nuanced, empirically informed, phenomenologically sensitive, and ineliminably indexed to the manifold ways in which improvised music situates itself in the complex of human affairs.
__________. “A Topography of Improvisation”. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. LXVIII/3, Summer 2010.
__________. “Facing the Music: Voices from the Margins.” Topoi: An International Review of Philosophy 29 (2009): 91-96.
__________. “The Philosophy of Music: Formalism and Beyond.” The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics. Edited by Peter Kivy. Oxford and Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers, 2004.
__________. “Creativity in Art.” The Oxford Handbook of Aesthetics. Edited by Jerrold Levinson. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
__________. Musical Worlds: New Directions in the Philosophy of Music. Edited by Philip Alperson. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
__________. “Improvisation” and “Performance.” The Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Edited by Michael Kelly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
__________. "On Musical Improvisation". Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 43, no. 1 (Fall/Autumn 1984): 17–29. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/430189.
Aristotle. "Poetics". Translated by Richard Janko. Indianapolis, 1987.
Ashley, Richard. “Musical Improvisation.” Oxford Handbook of Music Psychology. Edited by Hallam, Susan and Ian Cross, & Michael Thaut. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Bailey, Derek. “Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music.” Revised edition. London: British Library National Sound Archive, 1992. ISBN 0-7123-0506-8.
Bakkum, Nathan C. “Out But In: Between Discourse and Practice in a London Jazz Quartet”. Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 33, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 49-70.
Barrett, Frank J. “Cultivating an Aesthetic of Unfolding: Jazz Improvisation as a Self-Organizing System.” The Aesthetics of Organization. Edited by Stephen Linstead & Heather Höpfl. Sage Publications, (2000): 228-45.
Benson, Bruce Ellis. “The Fundamental Heteronomy of Jazz Improvisation.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4 (2006): 453-467.
__________. The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Berkowitz, Aaron. The Improvising Mind: Cognition and Creativity in the Musical Moment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
- The ability to improvise represents one of the highest levels of musical achievement. An improviser must master a musical language to such a degree as to be able to spontaneously invent stylistically idiomatic compositions on the spot. This feat is one of the pinnacles of human creativity and yet its cognitive basis is poorly understood. What musical knowledge is required for improvisation? How does a musician learn to improvise? What are the neural correlates of improvised performance? In The Improvising Mind these questions are explored through an interdisciplinary approach that draws on cognitive neuroscience, study of historical pedagogical treatises on improvisation, interviews with improvisers, and musical analysis of improvised performances. Findings from these treatises and interviews are discussed from the perspective of cognitive psychological theories of learning, memory, and expertise. Musical improvisation has often been compared to 'speaking a musical language.' While past research has focussed on comparisons of music and language perception, few have dealt with this comparison in the performance domain. In this book, learning to improvise is compared with language acquisition and improvised performance is compared with spontaneous speech from both theoretical and neurobiological perspectives. ISBN: 9780199590957.
Berliner, Paul. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. ISBN 0-226-04380-0 (cloth); ISBN 0-226-04381-9 (pbk).
Biasutti, Michele. “Pedagogical Applications of Cognitive Research on Musical Improvisation.” Frontiers in Psychology 6, 2015.
Bresnahan, Aili. “Improvisation in the Arts”. Philosophy Compass 10, no. 9 (2005): 573-582.
- This article focuses primarily on improvisation in the arts as discussed in philosophical aesthetics, supplemented with accounts of improvisational practice by arts theorists and educators. It begins with an overview of the term improvisation, first as it is used in general and then as it is used to describe particular products and practices in the individual arts. From here, questions and challenges that improvisation raises for the traditional work-of-art concept, the type-token distinction, and the appreciation and evaluation of the arts.
Brown, Lee B. “Improvisation.” Edited by Theodore Gracyk and Andrew Kania. The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music. New York: Routledge (2011): 59-69.
__________. "Feeling My Way": Jazz Improvisation and its Vicissitudes: A Plea for Imperfection. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 113-123.
__________. “Postmodernist Jazz Theory: Afrocentrism, Old and New.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 57, no. 2 (1999): 235-246.
__________. “Musical Works, Improvisation, and the Principle of Continuity.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 54, no. 4 (1996): 353-369.
Cantrick, Robert. “Does "Musical Improvisation" Refer?” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, no. 2 (1985): 192-193.
Carvalho, John M. “Repetition and Self-Realization in Jazz Improvisation.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68, no. 3 (2010): 285-290.
Collingwood, R. G. The Principles of Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1938.
Crutchfield, Will. “Improvisation: II. Western Art Music: 5. The Nineteenth Century: (ii) Vocal music.” New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001.
Davies, David. “Works and Performances in the Performing Arts.” Philosophy Compass 4, no. 5 (2009): 744-755.
- The primary purpose of the performing arts is to prepare and present 'artistic performances', performances that either are themselves the appreciative focuses of works of art or are instances of other things that are works of art. In the latter case, we have performances of what may be termed 'performed works', as is generally taken to be so with performances of classical music and traditional theatrical performances. In the former case, we have what may be termed 'performance-works', as, for example, in free improvisations. Where we have performances of performed works, a number of distinctive philosophical questions arise: What kind of thing is a performed work? How is it appreciated through its performances? Is 'authenticity' an artistically relevant quality of performances of performed works, and, if so, why? How much of what goes on in the performing arts is rightly viewed as the performance of performed works? Artistic performances, whether or not they are of performed works, raise philosophical questions of their own. Can a performance itself be rightly viewed as a work of art? How do improvisation and rehearsal enter into the performing arts, and how do they bear on the appreciation of artistic performances? What role does the audience play in such performances? Does the performer's use of her own body as an artistic medium, as for example in dance performance, generate special constraints on appreciation? How, finally, does what is usually classified as 'performance art' relate to activities in the performing arts more generally construed? The paper critically survey the ways in which these questions have been addressed by principal theorists in the field.
Davies, Stephen. Musical Works and Performances: A Philosophical Exploration. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Day, William. “Knowing as Instancing: Jazz Improvisation and Moral Perfectionism.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 99-111.
- This essay presents an approach to understanding improvised music, finding in the work of certain outstanding jazz musicians an emblem of Ralph Waldo Emerson's notion of self-trust and of Stanley Cavell's notion of moral perfectionism. The essay critiques standard efforts to interpret improvised solos as though they were composed, contrasting that approach to one that treats the procedures of improvisation as derived from our everyday actions. It notes several levels of correspondence between our interest in jazz improvisations and the.
Dietrich, Arne. “Neurocognitive Mechanisms Underlying the Experience of Flow.” Consciousness and Cognition 13, no. 4 (2004): 746-761.
- Recent theoretical and empirical work in cognitive science and neuroscience is brought into contact with the concept of the flow experience. After a brief exposition of brain function, the explicit–implicit distinction is applied to the effortless information processing that is so characteristic of the flow state. The explicit system is associated with the higher cognitive functions of the frontal lobe and medial temporal lobe structures and has evolved to increase cognitive flexibility. In contrast, the implicit system is associated with the skill-based knowledge supported primarily by the basal ganglia and has the advantage of being more efficient. From the analysis of this flexibility/efficiency trade-off emerges a thesis that identifies the flow state as a period during which a highly practiced skill that is represented in the implicit system’s knowledge base is implemented without interference from the explicit system. It is proposed that a necessary prerequisite to the experience of flow is a state of transient hypofrontality that enables the temporary suppression of the analytical and meta-conscious capacities of the explicit system. Examining sensory-motor integration skills that seem to typify flow such as athletic performance, writing, and free-jazz improvisation, the new framework clarifies how this concept relates to creativity and opens new avenues of research.
Everitt, Nicholas. “The Argument From Imperfection.” Philo 9, no. 2 (2006): 113-130.
Improvisation Bibliography F-Z
Ferand, Ernst. Die Improvisation in der Musik. Zurich: Rhein‐Verlag, 1936.
Gioia, Ted. The Imperfect Art: Reflections on Jazz and Modern Culture. New York and Oxford, 1988.
Godlovitch, Stan. “Musical Performance: A Philosophical Study.” Philosophical Explorations 40, 1998.
Goehr, Lydia. The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music. Oxford, 1992.
Gould, Carol S., and Kenneth Keaton. “The Essential Role of Improvisation in Musical Performance.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 143-148.
Gracyk, Theodore. “Jazz After Jazz: Ken Burns and the Construction of Jazz History.” Philosophy and Literature 26, no. 1, (2002): 173-187.
Gritten, Anthony. “Themes in the Philosophy of Music.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 3 (2011): 342-344.
__________. “Review: The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue: A Phenomenology of Music.” British Journal of Aesthetics 45, no. 2 (2005): 197-199.
Gushee, Lawrence. Pioneers of Jazz. The Story of the Creole Band. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Haas, Andrew. “On Aristotle’s Concept of Improvisation.” Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology 2, no. 1 (2015).
- Improvisation is the origin of art and science, tragedy and comedy, acting and doing, of the self as improvising and improvised. But clearly we cannot use improvisation to explain improvisation. We cannot be satisfied with an argument that improvisation is, well, improvisational--nor simply free-play. Rather, improvisation as αὐτο-σχεδιάζεῖν, means self-schematization.
__________. “Notes on Aristotle’s Concept of Improvisation.” Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology 2, no. 1 (2015).
Hagberg, Garry L. “Jazz Improvisation and Ethical Interaction: A Sketch of the Connections.” Art and Ethical Criticism. Edited by Garry Hagberg. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.
__________. “Jazz Improvisation : A Mimetic Art ?.” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 4 (2006): 469-485.
__________. “On Representing Jazz: An Art Form in Need of Understanding.” Philosophy and Literature 26, no. 1 (2002): 188-198.
__________. “Foreword: Improvisation in the Arts.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 95-97.
__________. “Improvisation: Jazz Improvisation.” Encyclopedia of Aesthetics. Edited by Michael Kelly. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Hamilton, Andy. “The Art of Improvisation and the Aesthetics of Imperfection.” British Journal of Aesthetics 40, no. 1 (2000): 168-185.
__________. “The Art of Recording and the Aesthetics of Perfection.” British Journal of Aesthetics 43, no. 4 (2003): 345-362.
__________. “The Aesthetics of Imperfection.” Philosophy 65, no. 253 (July 1990): 323-340. DOI 10.1017/S0031819100057636.
- Ferruccio Busoni's Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music appeared in 1910. Schoenberg, in his copy of the little book, wrote critical marginal comments which crystallize two opposed outlooks in musical aesthetics. Busoni writes: Notation, the writing out of compositions, is primarily an ingenious expedient for catching an inspiration, with the purpose of exploiting it later. But notation is to improvisation as the portrait is to the living model. What the composer's inspiration necessarily loses through notation, his interpreter should restore by his own efforts.
Hodeir, André. Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence. Translated by David Noakes. New York, 1956.
Hogg, Bennett. “Enactive Consciousness, Intertextuality, and Musical Free Improvisation: Deconstructing Mythologies and Finding Connections.” Music and Consciousness: Philosophical, Psychological, and Cultural Perspectives. Edited by David Clarke & Eric F. Clarke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2011): 79-93.
Iseminger, Gary. “Sonicism and Jazz Improvisation.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68, no. 3 (2010): 297-299.
Iyer, Vijay. “Improvisation, Temporality and Embodied Experience.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 11, nos. 3-4, (2004): 159-173.
Kanellopoulos, Panagiotis A. “Freedom and Responsibility: The Aesthetics of Free Musical Improvisation and Its Educational Implications—A View From Bakhtin.” Philosophy of Music Education Review 19, no. 2 (2011): 113-135.
Kania, Andrew. “All Work and No Play: An Ontology of Jazz.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 69, no. 4 (2011): 391-403.
- Kania argues for an ontology of jazz according to which it is a tradition of musical performances but not works of art. He rejects three alternative proposals: (i) that jazz is a work performance tradition, (ii) that jazz performances are works of art in themselves, and (iii) that jazz recordings are works of art. He notes that the concept of a work of art involved (1) is non-evaluative, so to deny jazz works of art is not to judge it inferior to artistic traditions with works, and (2) is univocal across other musical traditions, so to claim there are works of art in jazz would be to use a different sense of the term than when, say, discussing classical music.
Kippen, James. “Where Does the End Begin? Problems in Musico-Cognitive Modeling.” Minds and Machines 2, no. 4 (1992): 329-344.
- Research with computer systems and musical grammars into improvisation, as found in the tabla drumming system of North India, has indicated that certain musical sentences comprise (a) variable prefixes, and (b) fixed suffixes (or cadences) identical with those of their original rhythmic themes. It was assumed that the cadence functioned as a kind of target in linear musical space and yet experiments showed that defining what exactly constituted the cadence was problematic. This paper addresses the problem of the status of cadential patterns and demonstrates the need for a better understanding and formalization of ambiguity in musico-cognitive processing. It would appear from the discussion that the cadence is not a discrete unit in itself, but just part of an ever-present underlying framework comprising the entire original rhythmic theme. Improvisations (variations), it is suggested, merely break away from and rejoin this framework at important structural points. This endorses the theory of simultaneity. However, the general cognitive implications are still unclear, and further research is required to explore musical ambiguity and the interaction of musical, linguistic, and spatio-motor grammars.
Kivy, Peter. Music, Language, and Cognition: And Other Essays in the Aesthetics of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Kocherhans, Thomas. “Improvisation as Liberation: Endeavours of Resistance in Free Jazz.” Cuadernos de Filosofía Latinoamericana 33, no. 106 (2012): 39-52.
- This investigation seeks to explore connection points between music and societal processes by linking improvised music to cultural networks and social practices. Exceeding musicological and action-theoretical reflections, the improvisation is regarded from a cultural sociological perspective, which asks how improvisational practices can be integrated into cultural, historical and discursive contexts. Taking free jazz as the scope of the investigation, it is argued that there is a necessity to discuss its characteristic improvisation in connection to the critical, radical and aesthetical practices of the African-American community. The musical practices of free jazz, therefore, can be seen as social practices in which a form of resistance is manifested through an intended liberation of the current musical and cultural order. Improvisation processes expressed in free jazz hence reflect an ethnically motivated strategy in which the ruling system of values is questioned while simultaneously offering alternative modes of expression.
Kraut, Robert. “Why Does Jazz Matter to Aesthetic Theory?”. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 63, no. 1 (2005): 3–15.
Kutschke, Beate. “Improvisation: An Always-Accessible Instrument of Innovation.” Perspectives of New Music 37, no. 2 (Summer, 1999): 147–162. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/833513.
Lewandowski, Joseph D. “Adorno on Jazz and Society.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 22, no. 5 (1996): 103-121.
- This paper offers a philosophical-political reconstruction of Theodor Adorno's engagements with jazz. Rather than considering whether or not Adorno got jazz 'right', it provides an account of how and why Adorno develops the criticisms that he does. Adorno's analysis of jazz has three interpenetrating claims emerge: (1) a rejection of jazz's sense of improvisation and spontaneity; (2) a demonstration of jazz's entwinement with the modern technologization of everyday life; and (3) a critique of jazz's pseudo-individualizing tendencies. The paper concludes with a brief consideration of the place and critical possibilities of music in Adorno's critique of modernity.
Lewis, George E. "Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives." Black Music Research Journal 16, no. 1 (1996): 91-123.
Lewis, George E., and Benjamin Piekut. The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, Volume 1. New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2016.
- Improvisation informs a vast array of human activity, from creative practices in art, dance, music, and literature to everyday conversation and the relationships to natural and built environments that surround and sustain us. The two volumes of the Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies gather scholarship on improvisation from an immense range of perspectives, with contributions from more than sixty scholars working in architecture, anthropology, art history, computer science, cognitive science, cultural studies, dance, economics, education, ethnomusicology, film, gender studies, history, linguistics, literary theory, musicology, neuroscience, new media, organizational science, performance studies, philosophy, popular music studies, psychology, science and technology studies, sociology, and sound art, among others.
__________. The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, Volume 2. Oxford University Press USA, 2016.
Laroche, Julian, and Ilan Kaddouch. “Spontaneous Preferences and Core Tastes: Embodied Musical Personality and Dynamics of Interaction in a Pedagogical Method of Improvisation.” Frontiers in Psychology 6, 2015.
Livy, Peter. Authenticities: Philosophical Reflections on Musical Performance. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Monson, Ingrid. Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
__________. “Doubleness and Jazz Improvisation: Irony, Parody, and Ethnomusicology.” Critical Inquiry 20, no. 2 (1994): 283-313.
Nachmanovitch, Stephen. “Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art.” Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc.; New York: Distributed by St. Martin's Press, 1990. ISBN 0-87477-578-7 (cloth); New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons ISBN 0-87477-631-7 (pbk).
Nettl, Bruno. “Preface.” Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society. Edited by Gabriel Solis and Bruno Nettl. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, (2009): ix–xv.
__________. Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society. Edited by Gabriel Solis and Bruno Nettl. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-252-03462-6 (cloth) ISBN 978-0-252-07654-1 (pbk).
__________. In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation. Edited by Bruno Nettl with Melinda Russell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Nielsen, Cynthia R. “What Has Coltrane to Do With Mozart: The Dynamism and Built-in Flexibility of Music.” Expositions 3 (2009): 57-71.
- Although contemporary Western culture and criticism has usually valued composition over improvisation and placed the authority of a musical work with the written text rather than the performer, this essay posits these divisions as too facile to articulate the complex dynamics of making music in any genre or form. Rather it insists that music should be understood as pieces that are created with specific intentions by composers but which possess possibilities of interpretation that can only be brought out through performance.
Nooshin, Laudan. “Improvisation as ‘Other’: Creativity, Knowledge and Power—The Case of Iranian Classical Music.” Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 128 (2003): 242–96.
Nooshin, Laudan, and Richard Widdess. “Improvisation in Iranian and Indian Music.” Journal of the Indian Musicological Society, 36/37 (2006): 104–19.
Noy, Lior, Nava Levit-Binum, & Yulia Golland. “Being in the Zone: Physiological Markers of Togetherness in Joint Improvisation.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 9, 2015.
Paradiso, Francesco. “Playin(G) Iterability and Iteratin(G) Play : Tradition and Innovation in Jazz Standards.” Epistrophy 2, 2017.
- This study draws a comparative framework between deconstructive reading of texts and jazz standards and argues both are defined by the constant play of tradition and innovation. Tradition results from repetition of a set of rules and dominant understanding of texts/tunes, while improvisations take on that tradition and generate innovations. The act of reading/playing also becomes an act of invention/improvisation that manifests a constant tension between the old that is handed down through writing/recording and the new that is generated by the reader/musician.
__________. “Creative Implications of Deconstruction: The Case of Jazz Music, Photography, and Architecture.” Dissertation. University of New South Wales, 2014.
Peters, Gary. The Philosophy of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.
- Improvisation is usually either lionized as an ecstatic experience of being in the moment or disparaged as the thoughtless recycling of cliches. Eschewing both of these orthodoxies, The Philosophy of Improvisation ranges across the arts--from music to theater, dance to comedy--and considers the improvised dimension of philosophy itself in order to elaborate an innovative concept of improvisation. Gary Peters turns to many of the major thinkers within continental philosophy--including Heidegger, Nietzsche, Adorno, Kant, Benjamin, and Deleuze--offering readings of their reflections on improvisation and exploring improvisational elements within their thinking. Expanding the field of what counts as improvisation, "The Philosophy of Improvisation" will be welcomed by anyone striving to comprehend the creative process.
Piekut, Benjamin. "Indeterminacy, Free Improvisation, and the Mixed Avant-Garde: Experimental Music in London, 1965–75", Journal of the American Musicological Society 67, no. 3 (Fall 2014): 769–824.
Rinzler, Paul E. The Contradictions of Jazz. Scarecrow Press, 2008.
Roberts, Howard, and Garry Hagberg. The Guitar Compendium: The Praxis System: Technique, Improvisation, Musicianship, Theory. 3 vols. Tübingen, 1989.
Ryle, Gilbert. “Improvisation.” Mind 85, no. 337 (1976): 69-83.
Sarath, Edward W. “Improvisation, Consciousness, and the Play of Creation: Music as a Lens Into Ultimate Reality and Meaning.” Ultimate Reality and Meaning. Edited by B. K. Adlai. Centre of Advanced Study in Sanskrit, University of Pune, 2007.
Sawyer, R. Keith. “Improvisation and the Creative Process: Dewey, Collingwood, and the Aesthetics of Spontaneity.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 149-161.
__________. “The Semiotics of Improvisation: The Pragmatics of Musical and Verbal Performance. Semiotica 108, nos. 3-4 (1996): 269-306.
Schroeder, David. “Four Approaches to Jazz Improvisation Instruction.” Philosophy of Music Education Review 10, no. 1 (Spring, 2002): 36-40.
Schuller, Gunther. Early Jazz: Its Roots and Musical Development. New York and Oxford, 1968.
Snell, Alden H., and Christopher D. Azzara. “Collegiate Musicians Learning to Improvise”. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, No. 204 (Spring 2015): 63-84.
Solis, Gabriel, and Bruno Nettl. Musical Improvisation: Art, Education, and Society. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Sudnow, David. Ways of the Hand: The Organization of Improvised Conduct. Harvard University Press, 1978. ISBN(s): 978-0262-194-679 or 0262-194-678.
Sudnow, David, and Hubert L. Dreyfus. Ways of the Hand: A Rewritten Account. MIT Press, 2001. ISBN(s): 978-0262-194-679 or 0262-194-678.
- Ways of the Hand tells the story of how David Sudnow learned to improvise jazz on the piano. Because he had been trained as an ethnographer and social psychologist, Sudnow was attentive to what he experienced in ways that other novice pianists are not. The result, first published in 1978 and now considered by many to be a classic, was arguably the finest and most detailed account of skill development ever published. Looking back after more than twenty years, Sudnow was struck by the extent to which he had allowed his academic background to shape the book's language. He realized that he could now do a much better job of describing his experiences in a way that would not require facility with formal social science and philosophical discourse. The result is a revised version of the book that carries the same intellectual energy as the original but is accessible to a much wider audience.
Thom, Paul. For an Audience: A Philosophy of the Performing Arts. Philadelphia, 1994.
Valone, James J. “Musical Improvisation as Interpretative Activity.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 44, no. 2 (1985): 193-194.
Wachowski, Witold. “Immunology of Music”?: A Short Introduction to Cognitive Science of Musical Improvisation.” Avant: Trends in Interdisciplinary Studies 3, no. 1 (2012): 182-187.
Walton, Ashley E., and Michael J. Richardson, Peter Langland-Hassan, & Anthony Chemero. “Improvisation and the Self-Organization of Multiple Musical Bodies”. Frontiers in Psychology 6, no. 313 (2005): 1-9.
William, D. A. Y. “The Ends of Improvisation.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68, no. 3 (2010): 291-296.
- This essay attempts to address the question, "What makes an improvised jazz solo a maturation of the possibilities of this artform?" It begins by considering the significance of one distinguishable feature of an improvised jazz solo - how it ends - in light of Joseph Kerman's seemingly parallel consideration of the historical development of how classical concertos end. After showing the limits of this comparison, the essay proposes a counter-parallel, between the jazz improviser's attitude toward the solo's end and Ludwig .
Witkin, Robert W. “Why Did Adorno "Hate" Jazz?”. Sociological Theory 18, no. 1 (2000): 145-170.
Young, James O., and Carl Matheson. “The Metaphysics of Jazz.” Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 58, no. 2 (2000): 125-133.
Improvisation Bibliography
Arthurs, T. (2016). Secret gardeners: An ethnography of improvised music in Berlin (2012-13). [Unpublished doctoral dissertation]. The University of Edinburgh.
Ashley, R. (2016). Musical Improvisation. In M. Thaut, S. Hallam, & I. Cross (Edo.), The Oxford handbook of music psychology (pp. 667-680). Oxford University Press.
Aucouturier, J. J., & Canonne, C. (2017). Musical friends and foes: The social cognition of affiliation and control in improvised interactions. Cognition, 161, 94-108. http01/doi org/10 1016/j cognition 7017 01 019
Bailey, D. (1992). Improvisation: Its nature and practice in music. Verso.
Bailey, D., Balanescu, A., Mackness, V., Robert, Y., and Zom, J. (1994). DB/ABTYR/JZ/VM part 1 [song]. Company 91, Volume 3. Incur Records.
Bertolani, V. (2019). Improvisatory exercises as a key to analyze group dynamics in collective improvisation: The case of the Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza. Music Theory Online, 25(1). DOI: 10.30535/mto.25.1.1
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Improvisation Instruction
Kurt Ellenberger, Materials and Concepts in Jazz Improvisation A Theory ofJazz Improvisation for Beginning and Advanced Players (Grand Rapids, MI., Keystone publication by Grand Valley State University: 2005).
Materials and Concepts in Jazz Improvisationis a comprehensive and concise compilation of the various harmonic and melodic devices used by jazz musicians. It attempts to deal with these materials, and later, the concepts, in a manner that allows for the greatest possible freedom and flexibility without resorting to mere "licks." The text presents the student and teacher with a conceptual framework explaining "why" as well as "how." It can be used by musicians at any stage of development, but it does assume a rudimentary grounding in music theory. For students and teachers of jazz, it provides a linear perspective on improvisation and harmony from the simplest to the most advanced concepts. It can function as a reference text for anyone from hobbyist to professional, providing quick and easy descriptions and definitions of the musical materials as needed in individual study, a classroom setting (e.g., jazz theory, jazz improvisation, or jazz pedagogy), in private lessons, or as a resource volume.][1] (lightly edited from original abstract)
NOTES
- ↑ Kurt Ellenberger, Abstract for Materials and Concepts in Jazz Improvisation A Theory ofJazz Improvisation for Beginning and Advanced Players (Grand Rapids, MI., Keystone publication by Grand Valley State University: 2005).