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The aim of this paper is to analyse how pedagogues are designing for children’s play situations in schools. Based on design-based research and play design methods, the paper analyses three empirical examples using three theoretical concepts: play order, reflection in action and improvisation. A core argument of the paper is that the way in which pedagogues constantly observe, improvise and reflect on pedagogical practice is evident in how specific play designs are carried out. It is the capacity of professional pedagogues who understand play and children’s perspectives and who consciously think about what they do while doing it, acting in the situation based on a specific reflection. This paper contributes to design for play activities, which are being developed in conjunction with the field of development within design practices and design research.

演劇には、いわゆる芸術として鑑賞する従来の形に加えて、参加者が自ら創作に関わり、演じ、さらに鑑賞者にもなるという応用演劇という形式がある。この応用演劇が極めて動的なコミュニケーションを作り出す場として位置づけられ、現代では教育に関わるさまざまな場面で応用されている。本稿では、まずコミュニケーションの形式や、コミュニケーションと演劇との関係といった、実践を論じる上での理論的な背景を示す。その後、宮城教育大学での教育実践を中心に、大学教育の中で演劇をどう用いてコミュニケーション能力が育成できるかについて、実際の参加者のコメントの計量的解析をしつつ報告する。この分析からは、演劇的な手法を用いた新たな試みにおいて、授業の枠という一定の制限はあるものの、工夫次第では非言語および言語的コミュニケーション、自由な想像力、協調性、身体表現力、チャレンジする力など、さまざまなコミュニケーションの可能性を参加者から引き出す場としての有効性が確認できた。, In addition to the traditional form of theater that is appreciated as an art form, there is also a form of applied theater in which participants are involved in the creation, performance, and appreciation of the play. This applied theater provide participants with opportunities to create highly dynamic communication, and is applied in various educational settings today. In this report, we first present a theoretical background on the forms of communication and the relationship between communication and theater. After that, we report on how applied theater can be used in university education to cultivate communication skills, focusing on educational practice at Miyagi University of Education, with quantitative analysis of actual participants' comments. This analysis confirms the effectiveness of this new trial using theatrical techniques as a venue for drawing out from participants various communication possibilities, including nonverbal and verbal communication, free imagination, cooperation, physical expression, and the ability to take on challenges, depending on how it is devised, despite the certain limitations of the class framework.

This Window-Of-Practice contribution focuses on a teaching experience where elements of on-site teaching were successfully transferred to an online theatre workshop for English learners at a German university in 2021. The sequence of activities was also presented at the 8th Scenario Forum Symposium. The text describes the stages of trust-building, character-creation based on a visual prompt, character-exploration and improvisation of short scenes with the created characters and focuses on how the online environment (in this case the video conference platform Zoom) can be creatively used to let learners make theatrical experiences and foster a collaborative atmosphere between participants in physically remote locations

The article discusses the concept of organisational improvisation and reveals why it is important for contemporary organisations. Organisational improvisation is more and more acknowledged as a relevant field of management research; however, heads of most organisations still believe that detailed plans accompanied by various bureaucratic procedures are important, and that improvisation is a sign of failure, is risky and is to be avoided. The article discusses the three levels of improvisation (individual, interpersonal and organisational) pointing out its possibilities and advantages. Peculiarities of organisational improvisation are provided along with the results of a case study of public institution Jazz Academy. In this way, this article is the first study of organisational improvisation in Lithuania. The aim of the article is to reveal the peculiarities of organisational improvisation.

This article examines the spiritual dimension of jazz performance by looking at first-person accounts of improvising musicians and locating their experiential descriptions within a spiritual framework. The spiritual context is here defined as the realm of invisible processes that support and underpin the visible and auditory dimensions of improvised music. By collating evidence through first-person accounts, a series of themes emerge (wonderment, force, inspiration, letting go, happening, connection, being yourself, meaning and staying in the present), which, when seen as parts of a holistic process, can provide important components that are often missed in jazz education and jazz performance.

Participatory art allows for the spectator to be a participant or a viewer able to engage actively with interactive art. Real-time technologies offer new ways to create participative artworks. We hereby investigate how to engage participation through movement in interactive digital art, and what this engagement can awaken, focusing on the ways to elicit improvisation and letting go. We analyze two Virtual Reality installations, ''InterACTE'' and ''Eve, dance is an unplaceable place,'' involving body movement, dance, creativity and the presence of an observing audience. We evaluate the premises, the setup, and the feedback of the spectators in the two installations. We propose a model following three different perspectives of resonance: 1. Inter Resonance between Spectator and Artwork, which involves curiosity, imitation, playfulness and improvisation. 2. Inner Resonance of Spectator him/herself, where embodiment and creativity contribute to the sense of being present and letting go. 3. Collective Resonance between Spectator/Artwork and Audience, which is stimulated by curiosity, and triggers motor contagion, engagement and gathering. The two analyzed examples seek to awaken open-minded communicative possibilities through the use of interactive digital artworks. Moreover, the need to recognize and develop the idea of resonance becomes increasingly important in this time of urgency to communicate, understand and support collectivity.

This motion-sensing phenomenological inquiry explores relational flow moments experienced by five professional tap dance artists in improvisational inter-action with jazz musicians to better understand the meaning of feeling relational flows in inter-activities. Guided through the Function-to-Flow conceptual framework, interviews and study with the five research participants focused on the functional capacities required to feel relational flows (e.g. movement repertoire and listening being), the form and structures of feeling relational flows (e.g. visible, audible, animatable and tangible forms of relational flows), and the feelings of relational flow experiences (e.g. connecting to, disconnecting from and transcending the self, Other and spiritual world) to discern meaning from inter-active, improvisational jazz-tap experiences. A motion-sensing phenomenological approach, which combines Max van Manen's hermeneutics with Michel Henry's material phenomenology of life to turn not simply to the things themselves but to the how of their appearing - that is, to the affective resonances of living, of bodily being - enables a primacy of sensorial attunement to the affects of kinaesthetic being or the feelings of being a body in motion. Interviews with the participants reveal meanings of relational flow in improvisational tap dance practices, and align with Maxine Sheets-Johnstone's call to phenomenologically inquire into the extraordinary experiential movement realities of professional dancers to deepen our understanding of the effect of their honed kinetic capacities. This inquiry seeks to not only deepen our knowledge of relational flow experiences, but also to add to research on tap dance, improvisational practice, and dance education more broadly.

Ce mémoire présentera formellement trois pièces représentatives de mon parcours au programme de maîtrise en composition et création sonore. Le thème de la présentation de ces pièces est Le compositeur-interprète : l’influence de l’interprétation et de l’improvisation sur le procédé de la composition. Les pièces seront présentées dans une forme d’analyse formelle avec explications d’influences retrouvées en dehors de la musique classique. Les pièces ne seront pas présentées dans leurs ordres chronologiques de composition mais dans un ordre qui démontre une évolution vers un style de composition que j’espère personnel et original., This dissertation will formally present three pieces that best represent my time in the Masters in Instrumental Composition program. The theme presented by the use of these pieces is The composer-performer: the influence of performing and improvising on the process of composing. The pieces will be formally analyzed and contain explanations of the non-classical influences shown in them. They will not be presented in a way that shows their chronological order of composition but in a manner I hope shows the evolution of a personal and original style of composition.

Grime music has been central to British youth culture since the beginning of the 21st century. Performed by MCs and DJs, it is an Afrodiasporic form that developed on street corners, on pirate radio and at raves. Level Up: Live Performance and Creative Process in Grime Music offers the first long-form ethnographic study of grime practice; it questions how and why artists do what they do; and it asks what this can tell us about creative process and improvisation more widely. Based on research conducted in London’s grime scene—facilitated by the author’s long-standing role as a DJ and broadcaster—this book explores the form’s emergence before taking a magnifying glass to the contemporary scene and its performance protocol, exploring the practice of key artists and their crews living and working in the city. The resultant model of creative interaction provides a comprehensive mapping of collective social learning in London’s informal cityscape, offering new ways to conceptualise improvisatory practice within ensembles.

In this article, I show the relationship between philomathic occasional poetry and poetic improvisation. Based on the analysis of the autographs of two selected works – Jamb dla Jana II by Tomasz Zan and Odezwa spod stołu by Teodor Łoziński – I justify the thesis that jambs presented during name-day parties are examples of improvisations in writing. The analyzed works are intensified by the two most characteristic features of jambography – the dizzying speed of creation and the resulting underdevelopment, mediocrity of poetic expression. I pay attention to the complementation of linguistic and material codes, i.e. the enhancement of the given features included in the verbal layer of the works by the way they are written in autographs. In the second part of the article, I consider the possibilities of introducing modifications to works of an improvised nature – I introduce the category of “correction by repetition” and describe it, referring both to Jamb dla Jana II and Odezwa spod stołu, as well as to other texts left over from Philomath fetes. W tym artykule wskazuję związki filomackiej poezji okolicznościowej z improwizacją poetycką. Na podstawie analizy autografów dwóch wybranych utworów – Jambu dla Jana II Tomasza Zana i Odezwy spod stołu Teodora Łozińskiego – uzasadniam tezę, że jamby przedstawiane podczas imieninowych fet to przykłady improwizacji w piśmie. Analizowane utwory intensyfikują dwie najbardziej charakterystyczne cechy jambografii – zawrotną szybkość tworzenia (Zan) i wynikające z niej niedopracowanie, bylejakość wypowiedzi poetyckiej (Łoziński). Zwracam uwagę na uzupełnianie się kodów lingwistycznych i materialnych, tj. wzmożenie podanych cech zawartych w warstwie słownej utworów poprzez sposób ich zapisu w autografach. W części drugiej artykułu zastanawiam się nad możliwościami wprowadzania modyfikacji do utworów o improwizowanym charakterze – wprowadzam kategorię „poprawiania przez powtórzenie” i opisuję ją, odwołując się zarówno do Jambu dla Jana II i Odezwy spod stołu, jak i do innych tekstów pozostałych po filomackich fetach.

Policies are continually subjected to turbulence and crises. Interest in policy robustness as a fundamental way to deal with what cannot be foreseen is increasing. Thus, there is a flourishing stream of literature suggesting that policies need to be designed to be agile and flexible. However, the associated characteristics remain undeveloped. This article fills this gap by drawing on lessons obtained from the unplanned behaviors that were adopted in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual and organizational behaviors characterized by outside the box thinking, improvisation, and fast learning yielded solutions to unexpected problems. In this article, some of these emblematic unplanned behaviors are assessed, and the research builds on the literature on policy robustness, crisis management, and organizational theory to identify three enabling conditions to design more robust policies: coordinated autonomy, training for unplanned responses, and political institutional capacity.

Language production involves action sequencing to produce fluent speech in real time, placing a computational burden on working memory that leads to sequencing biases in production. Here we examine whether these biases extend beyond language to constrain one of the most complex human behaviors: music improvisation. Using a large corpus of improvised solos from eminent jazz musicians, we test for a production bias observed in language termed easy first-a tendency for more accessible sequences to occur at the beginning of a phrase, allowing incremental planning later in the same phrase. Our analysis shows consistent evidence of easy first in improvised music, with the beginning of musical phrases containing both more frequent and less complex sequences. The findings indicate that expert jazz musicians, known for spontaneous creative performance, reliably retrieve easily accessed melodic sequences before creating more complex sequences, suggesting that a domain-general sequencing system may support multiple forms of complex human behavior, from language production to music improvisation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Introduction: Depression can be a serious problem in young adult students. There is a need to implement and monitor prevention interventions for these students. Emotion-regulating improvisational music therapy (EIMT) was developed to prevent depression. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of EIMT for use in practice for young adult students with depressive symptoms in a university context. Method: A process evaluation was conducted embedded in a larger research project. Eleven students, three music therapists and five referrers were interviewed. The music therapists also completed evaluation forms. Data were collected concerning client attendance, treatment integrity, musical components used to synchronise, and experiences with EIMT and referral. Results: Client attendance (90%) and treatment integrity were evaluated to be sufficient (therapist adherence 83%; competence 84%). The music therapists used mostly rhythm to synchronise (38 of 99 times). The students and music therapists reported that EIMT and its elements evoked changes in all emotion regulation components. The students reported that synchronisation elicited meaningful experiences of expressing joy, feeling heard, feeling joy and bodily responses of relaxation. The music therapists found the manual useful for applying EIMT. The student counsellors experienced EIMT as an appropriate way to support students due to its preventive character. Discussion: EIMT appears to be a feasible means of evoking changes in emotion regulation components in young adult students with depressive symptoms in a university context. More studies are needed to create a more nuanced and evidence-based understanding of the feasibility of EIMT, processes of change and treatment integrity.

In the face of disasters, organizations and groups collaborate continuously and fluidly, coordinating with one another in order to overcome extraordinary challenges. When researchers explored this phenomenon in-depth, they employed the concept of “improvisation.” However, there is a dearth of research in the area of “creative improvisation” relating to civic agencies that do not have special plans or approaches to disaster response. This study, therefor, aims at identifying some of the most eff ective improvisational approaches taken by civic agencies in the fi eld of communication where information, consciousness, and ideas converge. This paper classifi es cases of creative improvisation observed during the April 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes into two types and considers the respective conditions of improvisation. These are: 1) “Place-making”: by raising several cases representing “place to convergence” scattered throughout the region, the improvisational condition that can be summarized as, "Awareness of gathering to support the aff ected key places" is highlighted. 2) “Forming a commonality”: through participant observation at the "informal talk" held by local civil agencies, the interaction between agencies in the sense-making process is highlighted, thus clarifying the improvisational approaches of, "the process of realizing the role while being encouraged to participate initially," and "ingenuity to induce new movement by co-editing opposite opinions".

Drawing on goal-setting theory, the current research examines whether the indirect relationship between self-set, rather than assigned or participative, learning goals and an Uber driver’s service performance is positive and significant in an emerging work context, namely, the gig economy. In this regard, we hypothesized that there is a positive, significant relationship between self-set learning goals and a driver’s improvised ways to provide customer service. Building on metacognitive practice, we further hypothesized that a gig driver’s mindful metacognition positively moderates the relationship between improvisation and service performance. The overall hypothesis tested is that the indirect relationship between self-set learning goals and a gig driver’s service performance via improvisation is positive and significant, and this relationship is positively moderated by mindful metacognition. Data were collected from 149 gig drivers. Ordinary least squares regression-based path analyses revealed support for these hypotheses.

Analiza političkoga diskursa u konkretnom društveno-povijesnom kontekstu zemlje koja razvija demokratski sustav na zasadama totalitarne tradicije pokazuje zamjetnu prisutnost narodnih izreka, mudrosti, poslovica u javnom govoru. Navedeni primjeri (U se, na se i poda se.; Snađi se, druže.; Tko je jamio, jamio.) svjedoče o uvjetovanosti čovjekova načina komunikacije, između ostaloga, nagonskom razinom/fiziologijom, koju čovjek dijeli sa životinjskim svijetom. Diskurs u političkoj sferi proizlazi i utječe se elementarnoj egzistenciji, odnosno svakodnevnoj borbi čovjekovoj za opstanak. Iz diskursa se očituje i pojednostavljena percepcija svijeta koja se definira binarnom formulom (afirmativno-negativno, dobro i zlo, mi i oni, naši-vaši). Diskurs obilježen dinamikom prispodobivom stanju prirode, koja proizlazi iz suodnosa sile i straha, u svojem je temelju pretpolitički. Kompatibilan je s Hobbesovim definiranjem stanja prirode kao stanja permamentnog sukoba., Analysis of a political discourse in a country that develops democratic system upon the foundations of its totalitarian past demonstrates that folk sayings, and proverbs persist, to a certain degree, in the public communication. Given examples support the standpoint that communication mode is, among other things, driven by basic instincts/physiology that is common to both humans and animals. This discourse is pre-political in its essence as it stems from the state of nature and its force-fear dynamics. It is compatible with the Hobbesian state of nature defined as the state of permanent conflict. Discourse in the political sphere starts and ends with the basic subsistence, i.e. man’s daily struggle for survival. This discourse corresponds with a simplified worldview defined by binary formulas (affirmation – negation, good – bad, us – them, ours – theirs).

Improvisation is an effective way to cope with rapid changes and obtain unexpected opportunities in a complex environment. Based on the cognitive-affective system theory, this study investigates the dual mediating role of cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence between shared leadership and improvisation and the moderating role of promotion focus. We used multilevel and multi-sourced data to test the theoretical model and used a social network approach to measure shared leadership in teams. Our sample was comprised of 40 teams and 240 team members. The empirical findings indicated that cognitive flexibility and emotional intelligence mediated the relationship between shared leadership and improvisation; promotion focus moderated the relationship between shared leadership and improvisation, and the mediation effect via cognitive flexibility. This study contributes to expanding on improvisation research from the perspective of shared leadership and incorporating both the cognitive and the emotional process of the generation of improvisation into a theoretical framework from a compound perspective, which will open the black box for the mediation mechanism from shared leadership to improvisation. Furthermore, promotion focus is introduced into the research and creatively corresponds to the cognition-affection mediation mechanism, which expands the applicable scope of the regulatory focus theory.

open access article This article addresses a fundamental question concerning planning, improvisation and resilience in the context of crisis management and business continuity. We seek to explore when and how small business owner-managers respond to crisis situations and cope with associated challenges to their business operations. This question remains unresolved, despite substantial progress in the crisis management and small business literature, which still produces opposing empirical findings and theoretical arguments. While one view supports strengthening existing planned responses to crises; the other view argues and finds support for improvised responses. Drawing on inductive multiple-case study approach, we extend previous research on crisis management by focusing on its planned, improvised and resilience dimensions. The purpose is to provide empirical insights about owner-managers’ perception and response to crises in a crisis-prone environment and complement it with theoretical insights from normal accident and high reliability theories to have a balanced view of crisis management practices within small businesses. We found that crisis planning, improvisation and resilience that occurs simultaneously in the crisis management process is more valuable and enrich crisis management practices of small businesses. We conclude by proposing specific areas for future research in relation to crises and resilience in crisis-prone environment.

The purpose of this study was to examine how and in what ways a reorientation towards sound could catalyze creative critical consciousness in high school music students and university music undergraduates. Specifically, this study sought to uncover how and in what ways sonic lifeworlds: everyday sound currents streaming in/out/through participants’ lived experiences at school, home, neighborhood, park, playground, street, alleyway, train station, cyberspace could potentially excite creative aspects of knowing and being via “cultural production” (Gaztambide-Fernández, 2011) and also elicit critical ways of thinking about and responding to the world as “cultural citizens” (Benedict & Schmidt, 2014). This study stems from the premise that “sounds are systems of educational ways of beingknowingdoing” (Gershon, 2018) and is linked to struggles around knowledge, value, control, and power, and thus consequential in learning and teaching spaces. Scholars in the field of music education have recently rearticulated pedagogical possibilities of sound, citing creative and critical aspects that a thinking in, with and through sound may afford music teachers and their students (Abramo, 2014; Hill, 2018; Recharte, 2019; Thibeault, 2017). In this study, I engage with and extend these conversations and drawing from Hartmut Rosa’s theory of resonanz, suggest that a reorientation toward sound in music education spaces carries potential to catalyze creative critical consciousness. Using sound arts-based research (SABR) methods (Gershon, 2018), sensuous scholarship (Pink, 2009) and post-intentional phenomenology (Vagle, 2018), this qualitative research study highlights some of the ways a reorientation towards sound in music education curricula can open spaces for creativity and critical reflection about issues significant in students’ lived experiences.

En 2020 au Québec, la pandémie de la COVID-19 a entrainé l’annulation de nombreux événements musicaux. Outre les concerts, ce sont aussi les soirées de jam qui ont dû s’arrêter. Celles-ci rassemblent habituellement des amateurs de musique pour des séances d’improvisation collective cadrées par des règles (dites et non-dites) qui varient selon les lieux, les participants et les genres de musique. Cet article porte plus spécifiquement sur une communauté de producteurs et d’amateurs de musiques électroniques qui ont choisi de transposer dans l’environnement numérique l’événement de jam qu’ils organisaient dans des lieux physiques auparavant. Notre recherche vise à comprendre ce que la transposition numérique fait à la création collective et par quels dispositifs techniques celle-ci se matérialise. Face aux contraintes et limites tant techniques qu’organisationnelles, la raison d’être du jam évolue, passant de la musique jouée ensemble dans un même moment à la musique produite et composée collectivement. Ainsi, notre recherche montre que la volonté de développer un projet temporaire collectif commun encourage les participants à négocier avec le format de l’événement., In 2020 in Quebec, the COVID-19 pandemic led to the cancellation of many musical events. In addition to the concerts, it was also the jam sessions that had to stop. These events usually bring together music lovers for collective improvisation sessions framed by rules that vary depending on the location, the participants, and the genre of music. This article focuses more specifically on a community of electronic music producers and fans who have chosen to transpose into the digital environment the jam event they used to organize. Our research aims to understand what digital transposition does to collective creation and through which technical devices it materializes. In the face of both technical and organizational constraints and limitations, the meaning of the jam is evolving from music played together to music produced and composed collectively. Thus, our research shows that the will to develop a temporary collective, common project encourages participants to negotiate with the potential format of the event.

This written thesis supports a portfolio of composition work. This portfolio was composed to study ‘music systems’ - things that I intentionally design in order to make music happen in future. As a composer of works for computers and humans, music technology is an inherent requirement of my practice. However, I have noticed a tendency to spend a lot of time working on the technological components of these systems, but little time making music. It is easy to conflate the task of composing music with the process of using technology. I argue that this is a matter of ‘analytical framing’. A purely technological framing of what music is, and how it can be worked on, is clearly reductive. To present experiment with different framings, I identify a set of systems that were used to compose my portfolio and ask what they are made of. I produce technical, temporal, communicative, social and ethical answers to this question; each of these new analytical framings respectively unpacked in a specific chapter of this thesis. This reveals that my compositional practice, as a total structure made manifest through the content of my portfolio, can be framed as a complex music system in itself. Crucially, this system is populated by general musical behaviours that are consistent across multiple different framings of what my practice is. My primary argument is that interesting things happen when these abstract behaviours are identified, sorted and instantiated into new works of music. As a contribution to contemporary music discourse, my portfolio documents a novel set of approaches to working with music and systems. From a theoretical standpoint, my multi-framed definition of ‘music system’ helps sidestep a commonly encountered problem in electronic music studies: an over-fixation on technicity which elides social and cultural context. Moreover, this project helps ingrain a practice-orientated understanding of music systems design, by concluding that music systems exist most significantly (i.e. most practically) as iterative, playful and emergent processes of modulating sound perception through time.

Flow is a specific state of consciousness when people are completely immersed and concentrated on a task, that they lose the sense of time, and feel as if doing things unconsciously. This article aims to provide a brief overview of the flow in music, focused on music performance, and shed light on aspects such as psychological correlates, occurrence and educational applications. Our objective is to build a bridge between theory and practice examining the implications of flow for improving the musical practice. Several studies analyse flow in various musical activities, including improvisation/composition, listening and performance. Music improvisation is considered one of the most crucial pedagogical tools for promoting flow from the early years of music education on. Flow in music performance is the most extensively studied, and practical implications to facilitate optimal experience and flow conditions could be developed. In the final part of the article, educational strategies for inducing flow are proposed based on the nine characteristics of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).

Syftet med arbetet är att förbättra min improvisationsförmåga genom att analysera kända gitarrister inom genren fusions användande av harmonik och teknik i sitt solospel och implementera dessa idéer i mitt eget spel. Jag avgränsade analysen till fyra solon som hade olika egenskaper för att få en översiktlig bild av byggstenarna i fusiongitarristernas improvisation. Resultatet av arbetet var tre improvisationer i genrerna pop, rock och fusion där jag implementerade de idéer jag lärt mig över bakgrunder jag själv skapat. Arbetet är ämnat för dem som spelar rock/pop och vill utveckla sin improvisationsförmåga.

This article tells the story of University of Strathclyde Mediation Clinic through the eyes of its founder. Taking its first case in 2012, by the start of 2021 it will be providing a free mediation service in 16 of Scotland’s 39 sheriff courts,1 covering more than half the country's population. Yet it started with no plan, no budget and little theory. Writing in the first person, the author makes the case that mediation clinics, like mediation itself, call for improvisation. While mediators may plan and train, learning frameworks for action and a body of expert knowledge, they must then encounter complex, fallible people and the unpredictable dynamics of conflict. Responding well is arguably more important than reparation. And so it has been with the mediation clinic. The clinic was triggered by student demand and was shaped by its volunteers; it adapted to law clinic gatekeepers and negotiated with university administration; and it reinvented itself through contact with the courts, with hundreds of clients and, most recently, with a pandemic. Each interaction has shaped it. Strathclyde Mediation Clinic is a work in progress, as it must be if it is to fulfil the hope of pracademia: bringing the academy into the world and the world into the academy.

This dissertation argues (1) that musical improvisation is any performer’s real-time handling of that excess of musical properties not encoded by any set of instructions, nor foreseeable by the performer herself, that we find in any performance; (2) that, hence, every musical performance is improvisatory in a lesser or greater degree; (3) that every performance stems from a (not necessarily textual) set of instructions, as long as no musical occurrence takes place ex nihilo or in an alleged normative void; (4) that there can be no musical work detached or independent from a performance, by virtue of what I’ve called the minimum sensorial requirement; and (5) that a form of Carnapian deflationism is the best ontological strategy to address mind-dependent, cultural entities such as musical works. As a consequence of the above, (6) a musical work should be considered an unrepeatable, improvisatory and hybrid entity, a physical/normative object (understood in a deflationary, non-realist fashion), the aggregation of a set of instructions (a particular abstract artefact) and a performance (a concrete object).

Syftet med arbetet var att undersöka om lärare kan avdramatisera ämnet improvisation och därigenom göra ämnet lättare att närma sig för eleverna. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för arbetet är det sociokulturella perspektivet. Undersökningen har genomförts på individuella gitarrlektioner på ett estetiskt gymnasieprogram där eleverna har fått öva på improvisation genom olika övningar. Innan lektionsserien genomfördes en intervju där det visade sig att de elever som hade lite erfarenhet av improvisation hade mycket ångest och oro kopplat till momentet, medan de elever som hade mer erfarenhet av improvisation uttryckte en avslappnad inställning till ämnet och en glädje över att improvisera. Efter lektionsserien visar det sig att samtliga elever påverkades i en positiv riktning. De elever som hade en mer negativ relation till improvisation vågade mer och uttryckte mer glädje över ämnet. De elever som redan hade en positiv inställning uttryckte att de fått fler verktyg för improvisation.

Music education majors report low exposure to creative musical activities (CMAs) despite increased discourse surrounding the inclusion of CMAs in standards, curricula, publications, and practice. The purpose of this study was to compare preservice music teachers’ (PMT) and music teacher educators’ (MTE) experiences with CMAs. We used an anonymous survey instrument to explore definitions, perceived importance and preparedness, and the incorporation of CMAs within undergraduate music education curricula. MTEs and PMTs valued the inclusion of CMAs in preK–12 curricula, PMTs felt most prepared to teach arranging and least prepared to teach composing with their future preK–12 students, and PMTs valued and desired more opportunities to practice CMAs in undergraduate curricula. MTEs should consider integrating these activities as regular components in undergraduate music curricula.

Denna forskningsstudie undersöker ifall musiklärare på svenska folkhögskolor använder sig utav pedagogik som involverar att tala om paralleller mellan musikalisk improvisation och lingvistik. För att förklara närmare vad detta innebär så beskriver studien först vad tidigare forskning säger om vad det innebär att improvisera, exempelvis hur aktiviteten fungerar neurologiskt och kognitivt för att senare enklare kunna illustrera parallellerna till lingvistik. Studien dokumenterar även och citerar befintligt utländskt undervisningsmaterial där parallellerna skrivs om för att senare kunna jämföras med det svenska undervisningsområdet. Sedan så beskrivs studiens frågeställningen i närmare detalj och studiens använda forskningsmetod förklaras. Senare i studien så beskrivs själva processen för undersökningen och de insamlade resultaten dokumenteras. Studien avslutas med ett diskussionskapitel där genomförandets brister diskuteras och iterationer inför möjligt kommande uppföljningsarbete spekuleras.

Jag har undersökt sätt att integrera ett mer rytmiskt fokus i min improvisation som kontrabasist, och hur det rytmiska fokuset påverkat min improvisation. Jag har jämfört inspelningar och transkribtioner från innan och efter jag började applicera mer rytmik i mina soloinsatser, med målet att hitta skillnader mellan de två och se huruvida de skillnaderna är positiva eller inte. Som forskningsbakgrund har jag tittat på vilken roll kontrabasen har i ensemblen historiskt och hur den interagerat med resten av gruppen. Slutligen har jag också undersökt på vilka olika sätt den rollen har fyllts, och hur de i sin tur utvecklats genom åren.

In this bachelor thesis in the field of artistic research, the author’s aim was to gain practical and experience-based knowledge on how to access their inner voice in the process of composing notated contemporary music. The theoretical framework was obtained from theories on compositional craft, composers’ voice and a concept from the rhetoric, mimesis, was used as a model for the approach to creating composition exercises. The procedure of the bachelor thesis started with semi-structured interviews with four professional composers, who were asked about their compositional processes. Based on the results of the interviews, a composition exercise, called mimesis-exercise, was created for each of the interviewee, and then performed by the author. After each mimesis-exercise was finished, a reflective evaluation on the process was written. A summary of each interview is presented in the implementation and detailed descriptions on how the compositional process was conducted for each of the four mimesis-exercises are presented in the results part. The artistic production of the bachelor thesis consists of five new pieces, each composed for one of the ensembles: SATB-choir, string ensemble, organ (two pieces), and solo trombone. The four research questions were answered through a thematic analysis and reflective texts. The conclusions made during the process of the bachelor thesis was that the author experienced an enhanced understanding and connection to both the compositional process and the sounding material produced. The experience of composing, both the pieces which was part of the project, but especially those composed close after the thesis’s end, was more emotional and personal than the author experienced before the start of the bachelor thesis. The author reflected on how her development and discovering of her compositional voice was made through the procedure of the mimesis-exercises. The conclusive texts of the bachelor thesis add accounts for experience-based and personal perspectives to previous research on composer’s voice.

Detta arbete är till för musiker som vill förbättra sitt solospel på sitt instrument och lära sig mera och metoder för hur man kan förbättra sitt spel. Med det här arbetet har jag transkriberat trumsolon och analyserat väldigt bra trummisars trumspel för att se vad jag kan kan lära mig av det. Under arbetsprocessen har jag även assimilerat deras sätt att spela för att försöka efterlikna deras sound och på så sätt kunna utvecklas och bli en skicklig solist på trumsetet. Jag har studerat koncept och fraser som jag gillar från solona för att kunna applicera dem när jag själv tycker att det passar. Jag har spelat in mig själv med en gitarrtrio när vi improviserar tillsammans på några av mina favorit jazzstandards för att kunna skapa improvisatoriska, händelserika och musikaliska kompositioner ihop. Målet med detta arbete har varit att utvecklas till att bli en mera kreativ solist på trumsetet och uppnå ett eget sound.

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur man kan arbeta med improvisation med trumsetselever på ett sätt som främjar deras skaparglädje och kreativitet. Studien genomfördes med totalt fyra elever. Två eleverna fick en 40 minuter lång lektion var, och två elever fick en 40 minuter lång lektion tillsammans. Efter varje lektion genomfördes en semistrukturerad intervju, med syfte att undersöka hur eleverna upplevde lektionen. Lektionerna bestod av olika övningar som inkluderade att säga en textrad från låten Zwampen högt och samtidigt ändra textens rytm, att hitta på olika sätt att spela textens melodi på trumset, att använda yttre begränsningar genom ett kreativitetsverktyg kallat ”idéhjulet”, samt att skicka idéer fram och tillbaka mellan varandra. Studiens resultat pekar på olika aspekter som skulle kunna uppmuntra till kreativitet och skaparglädje i improvisationsundervisning för trumset: struktur kontra frihet, att struktur och yttre begränsningar kan underlätta vid improvisation; den sociala aspekten, att den kommunikativa dimensionen av improvisation lyfts fram; och stegvis utveckling kontra flexibilitet, att undervisningen inte nödvändigtvis behöver följa en stegvis ordningsföljd.

Syftet med detta arbete är att ta reda på hur jag som instrumentalist på bästa möjliga sätt kan lära mig att spela eller främst improvisera inom genren fusion. Det görs genom dels en analys av det egna spelet. En analys som omfattar mitt improvisatoriska spel. Övningar skapas för att komplettera vad som anses vara bristfälliga färdigheter i mitt improvisationsspel. Samt en mer ingående analys av gitarristen Guthrie Govan. Där jag tittar på vilka aktivt spelmässiga val han gör i sina improvisationer. Det för att försöka synliggöra hur han väljer att spela i sina improvisationer. Dessa två metoder knyts sedan ihop i mina egenskrivna verk och improvisationer. Resultaten består främst av vunnen kunskap som rör sig inom improvisationsämnet, transkriptioner & inspelningar.

This is a cross-disciplinary thesis consisting of both acoustics science research and practice-led research focused on improvised music performance. In very different ways, both types of research focus on how a person’s surrounding environment affects voice production. The thesis describes two experiments: a behavioural laboratory talking experiment and singing practice experiment with research outcomes including an original framework for singing practice and a recorded work of ensemble improvised music. Key aspects of both experiments are (i) vocal production response to the acoustic environment, (ii) acoustics that optimise the environment for a singer or talker, and (iii) the acoustic environment created by a retroreflective array whereby sound is reflected back to the person. The experiments can be summarised as follows: 1. A behavioural laboratory experiment A talking experiment that investigates how the sound of one’s own voice (autophony), with alterations in gain and spectral balance, influences conversational speech production. The experiment addressed the question: can acoustic treatments with a frequency bias, like a retroreflective array, influence voice production, optimising a room for comfortable conversing? 2. A practice-led singing experiment A singing experiment was completed in three stages. Stage one (i) was the design of a practice framework that facilitated the discovery and creative development of singing techniques and musical materials. The design incorporated empirical research about autophony and voice production response to room reflections and environment sound and an approach to skill acquisition based on the ecological dynamics theory called the constraints-led approach. Stage two (ii) was fifteen-months of recorded self-regulated singing practice within the practice framework. Stage three (iii) applied the vocal skills and musical materials discovered and developed in stage two to recorded ensemble improvisation.

I denna undersökning har jag studerat min improvisatoriska musikalitet och hur den förändras av instrumenten jag spelar, nämligen kontrabas och elbas. Sammanlagt fyra improvisationer, två på varje instrument på två olika jazzstandarder, spelades in med hjälp av egenproducerade backing tracks. Improvisationerna transkriberades och analyserades sedan i syfte att utöka min förståelse för hur mitt musikaliska uttryck påverkas av mina huvudinstrument. Detta arbete har resulterat i större insikter om mig själv som improvisatör och musiker samt om de båda instrumentens möjligheter och begränsningar.

Syftet med denna studie var att utforska hur resultatet skulle utforma sig inom en musikalisk improvisation där inspirationsmaterialet även skulle härstamma från mig i form av poesi och hur jag som musiker eventuellt kunde utvecklas utifrån detta. En ytterligare aspekt av detta som jag har velat utforska har varit huruvida min egen roll som lyssnares uppfattning och känsla av dikten och dess budskap kan förändras utifrån hur min musikaliska improvisation utformar sig. Denna studie har hjälpt mig att utvecklas i mitt förhållningssätt till improvisation och dess förmåga att emotionellt beröra människor i kombination med poesi. Det har även hjälpt mig att på ett mer självständigt sätt förhålla mig musikaliskt till min egen poesi och hur den kan presenteras för potentiella lyssnare och publik.

Par son intensité, la pandémie de Covid-19 a révélé la vulnérabilité des organisations tout en témoignant de capacités de réponses collectives imprévues. Cet article montre que le contexte extrême a engendré de multiples ruptures, mais aussi des improvisations collectives, propices à l’expérimentation et à l’apprentissage, portées par des valeurs de solidarité., The intensity of the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the vulnerability of organisations, while at the same time demonstrating unforeseen collective response capacities. This article shows that the extreme context generated multiple disruptions, but also collective improvisations, conducive to experimentation and learning, supported by values of solidarity.

El artículo muestra formas en que algunos elementos de la vida cotidiana se transforman en insumos musicales para la composición de seis piezas de jazz para piano solo, trío y cuarteto. Con esto se busca aportar a la resignificación del jazz en un contexto musical local con la creación de piezas basadas en ritmos de músicas tradicionales de algunas regiones de Colombia y dos géneros populares: la balada y el latín jazz. Para esto, se considera una compilación integral de herramientas musicales y técnicas para mejorar la forma de improvisar o componer en el piano, sugeridas por Fred Hersch y Bert Ligon. Además, se presenta una colección de acordes transcritos desde fragmentos de audio de Fred Hersch. Luego, se describe el proceso compositivo y el análisis musical de cada una de las seis piezas, desde los elementos conceptuales que fueron fuente de inspiración. Finalmente se muestran las reflexiones y conclusiones más importantes en este proceso de composición y estudio de la improvisación jazz., The article shows ways in which some elements of daily life are transformed into musical inspirations for the composition of six jazz pieces for piano solo, trio and quartet. This article also seeks to contribute to the redefinition of jazz in a local musical context with the creation of pieces based on traditional music rhythms from regions of Colombia, and two popular genres: the ballad and latin jazz. For this, a comprehensive compilation of musical tools and techniques to improve the way of improvising or composing on the piano suggested by Fred Hersch, and Bert Ligon is considered. Also, there is a collection of chords from transcriptions of audio fragments by Fred Hersch. Then, the compositional process and the musical analysis of each of the six pieces are described, from the conceptual elements that were a source of inspiration. Finally, the most important reflections and conclusions in this process of composition and study of jazz improvisation are shown.

The Punto cubano is a musical genre from Cuba, declared Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2017. Over the past century, numerous investigations have focused on its musical characteristics itself, leaving aside its dimension as a cultural practice, which has led to various preservation and transmission processes. This article proposes precisely its assessment as a cultural practice, based on the importance and role that various artistic expressions have within this musical genre and the community character of their parties. It takes as a reference the previous work El punto cubano en Mayabeque. Tendencias de desarrollo (2013-2016) (Carricaburu, 2019), based on an analysis of studies on gender, addresses aspects of its relationship with the Cuban cultural identity and focuses its gaze on the proposal of validation of the cultural practice concept for this case, by analyzing the practices carried out in the western province of Mayabeque. In short, starting from an intense field research work and the comparative analysis of numerous peasant tunes recorded on the field, we propose to demonstrate the stable and continuous practice of the punto cubano in this province. El punto cubano es un género musical oriundo de Cuba, declarado por la UNESCO Patrimonio Inmaterial de la Humanidad en 2017. En el transcurso del pasado siglo, numerosas investigaciones han puesto el foco en sus características musicales propiamente, dejando a un lado su dimensión de práctica cultural, la cual ha propiciado diversos procesos de preservación y transmisión. Este artículo propone precisamente su valoración como práctica cultural, a partir de la importancia y el papel que diversas expresiones artísticas tienen dentro de este género musical y el carácter comunitario de sus fiestas. Toma como referencia el trabajo previo El punto cubano en Mayabeque. Tendencias de desarrollo (2013-2016) (Carricaburu, 2019). Partiendo de un análisis de los estudios sobre el género, aborda aspectos de su relación con la identidad cultural del cubano y centra su mirada en la propuesta de validación del concepto práctica cultural para este caso, mediante el análisis de las prácticas realizadas en la occidental provincia de Mayabeque. En definitiva, nos planteamos, a partir de un intenso trabajo de investigación de campo y el análisis comparativo de numerosas tonadas campesinas grabadas in situ, evidenciar la práctica estable y continuada del punto cubano en esta provincia.

The individual experience of everyday city life is essentially an everyday improvisation among other people. It is in urban settings where socially structured formations of daily life meet purely individual situated experience in myriads of spontaneously created and shaped assemblages of everyday life. The visual perception of space, sonic orientation in a given place and olfactory plus tactile experience of the environment are the basic aesthetic performances in cultivating a common urban reality. The author discusses specificities of anthropological knowledge derived from first-hand experience of the life of other people in the field. To cope with the complexity of everyday urban improvisation, the author employs two ancient Greek terms to define the space of human interaction: aisthēsis, i.e., sensory perception, and the complex meaning of the Latin verb colere, from which the term culture is derived. The triangulation of everyday improvisation through the sensorial essence of everyday life complements the employment of two other ancient Greek terms, praxis and poiesis. The basic empirical materials used to discuss everyday improvisation in an urban environment are collected narrations of sensory perception and individual lives from sensobiographic walks in Ljubljana, Turku and Brighton. Historically, in the West, the dominance of the senses has shifted from sound, touch and smell, orienting people in orally designed cultural domains, to sight. Smelling is specific embeddedness in place. Its paradoxical position of sensing outside air deeply inside, integrated in breathing, but not always sensing anything special. At the crossroads of distant and close, inner and outer, olfactory experience is simultaneously existentially idiosyncratic and collectively shaped. The paper’s main point is that there are no clear limits between the experienced past and the present. However, both are aesthetically and culturally inscribed in specific registers of individual, social, cultural and embodied memories. The same stands for an ethnographic practice. Everyday life is a continuum of living, weaved together from many discontinuous contingencies. It consists of incongruent, incomplete and chaotic shifts. Repetitive social activities bring order into this everyday mess: rituals and work. For this reason, repetitive music is inevitable for establishing a common ground of the everyday. If ethnography ever touches reality, it is a continuous improvisation in everyday life, shared, collective, and peculiar individual improvisation.