Critical Improvisation Studies

 

Required Readings

 

Georgina Born. “On Musical Mediation: Ontology, Technology and Creativity.” twentieth-century music 2/1 (2005): 7–36.

 

Roger T. Dean and Freya Bailes. “Cognitive Processes in Musical Improvisation.” In The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, Vol. I, edited by George E. Lewis and Benjamin Piekut, 2014. Also online.

 

Benjamin Givans. “Rethinking Interaction in Jazz Improvisation.” Music Theory Online 22/3 (2016).

 

Suggested Readings

 

Aaron Berkowitz. The Improvising Mind: Cognition and Creativity in the Musical Moment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.

 

Gianmario Borio and Angela Carone, ed. Musical Improvisation and Open Forms in the Age of Beethoven. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018.

 

Matthew W. Butterfield. “Race and Rhythm: The Social Component of the Swing Groove.” Jazz Perspectives 4/3 (2010): 301–5.

 

Eric F. Clarke and Mark Doffman, ed. Distributed Creativity: Collaboration and Improvisation in Contemporary Music. NY: Oxford University Press, 2017.

 

Dana Gooley,. Fantasies of Improvisation: Free Playing in Nineteenth-Century Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

 

Robert Hodson. Interaction, Improvisation, and Interplay in Jazz. Abingdon: Routledge, 2007.

 

Brian Kane. “Jazz, Mediation, Ontology.” Contemporary Music Review 37/5-6 (2018): 439–9.

 

Eric Lewis. Intents & Purposes: Philosophy and the Aesthetics of Improvisation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2019.

 

George E. Lewis. “Critical Responses to ‘Theorizing Improvisation (Musically).” Music Theory Online 19/2 (2013).

 

George E. Lewis, and Benjamin Piekut, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, vols. 1 & “Jazz Improvisation.” In The Cambridge Companion to Jazz, edited by Mervyn Cooke and David Horn, 114–32. 2003.

 

Rogério Luiz Moraes Costa and Stéphan Schaub. “Expanding the Concepts of Knowledge Base and Referent in the Context of Collective Free Improvisation.” XXIII Congresso da Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Música, Natal (2013).

 

Bruno Nettl and Melinda Russel, ed. In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

 

Martin Norgaard. “Descriptions of Improvisational Thinking By Artist-Level Jazz Musicians.” Journal of Research in Music Education 59/2 (2011), 109-127.

 

Jeff Pressing. “Cognitive Processes in Improvisation.” Advances in Psychology19 (1984): 345–363.

 

Jeff Pressing. “Improvisation: Methods and Models.” In Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition, edited by John Sloboda. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1998, 129–78.

 

Jeff Pressing. “Psychological Constraints on Improvisational Expertise and Communication.” In In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation, edited by Bruno Nettle and Melinda Russell, 47–67. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

 

Jeff Pressing. “The Micro-and Macrostructural Design of Improvised Music.” Music Perception 5/2 (1987), 133–72.

 

Ingrid Pustijanac. “New Graphic Representation for Old Musical Experience: Analyzing Improvised Music.” “Analysis beyond Notation in XXth and XXIst Century Music Dossier, El oído pensante 4/1 (2016), 97–113.

 

Gilad Rabinovitch. “An Analysis of Gabriela Montero’s (2012) Live Improvisation on ‘Nun Danket Alle Gott’.” Performance and Analysis Interest Group (PAIG) (2021).

 

Franziska Schroeder, Koichi Samuels & Rebecca Caines, ed. Contemporary Music Review: Improvisation and Social Inclusion 38/5 (2019).

 

Paul Steinbeck. Intermusicality, Humor, and Cultural Critique in the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s ‘a Jackson in Your House’.” Jazz Perspectives 5/2 (2011), 135–54.

 

Paul Steinbeck. “Talking Back: Performer-Audience Interaction in Roscoe Mitchell’s ‘Nonaah’.” Music Theory Online 22/3 (2016).

 

Paul Steinbeck. "Improvisation and Collaboration in Anthony Braxton’s ‘Composition 76’.” Journal of Music Theory 62/2 (2018), 249–78.