Search results for "Improvisation"

Are We Really Hearing in Our Heads What We Think We’re Hearing? The Role of Audiation in Musical Improvisation

2016

An important and valued part of the skill of musical improvisation is to be able to play what we hear in our head (audiation). Improvisation is a cognitively demanding activity, involving the production of musical material in real time. This requires the simultaneous involvement and coordination of many different skills, and places demands on working memory, memory retrieval, auditory and sensory-motor systems. Some recent studies support a cognitive model of improvisation which posits the deployment of stored rhythmic and melodic patterns via motor programmes. According to the theory of event coding, actions and their perceptual consequences share the same cognitive representation and beha…