0000000000684291
AUTHOR
Aaro Keipi
The inspiration in improvisation : identifying and classifying the approaches to emotion-based musical improvisation
The purpose of this study was to identify the naturally occurring approaches that musicians use to improvise and to analyse the relationships between the approach used, the improviser’s musical experience, and the quality of the resulting improvisation. 16 participants took part in three group improvisation and discussion sessions, and the improvisations of the final session (80 in total) were recorded and rated by experts on emotions- and quality-related aspects. The approaches mentioned by participants in the final session were organised into five distinct categories: technical, musical inspiration, nuanced emotion, visualized scene, and personal experience. Significant negative correlati…
Improvising on Emotion Terms: Students’ Strategies, Emotional Communication, and Aesthetic Value
Studies in musical improvisation show that musicians and even children are able to communicate intended emotions to listeners at will. To understand emotional expressivity in music as an art form, communicative success needs to be related to improvisers’ thought processes and listeners’ aesthetic judgments. In the present study, we used retrospective verbal protocols to address college music students’ strategies in improvisations based on emotion terms. We also subjected their improvisations to expert ratings in terms of heard emotional content and aesthetic value. A qualitative analysis showed that improvisers used both generative strategies (expressible in intramusical terms) and imagina…