Learning to improvise: The lived experience of music and music therapy students

Lockett, Becs

Abstract

This study investigates the lived experience of learning to improvise for music and music therapy students on postgraduate courses in UK Higher Education. Findings demonstrate that learning is complex: engendering changes to identity, increased emotional regulation, intense relationships, and creating flow experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1988). It is a qualitative phenomenological, reflexive, arts-based study, drawing on performative social science (Etherington, 2004; Jones, 2021). Ten participants took part in individual semi-structured interviews combined with improvisations. The verbal interviews were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith, et al., 2009), and the music employed an adapted method of Ferarra’s (1984) phenomenological music analysis. In response to the music, the researcher hand drew graphic scores. This enabled a member checking process, in which the scores were given back to the participants together with transcriptions of the verbal data (Giorgi, 1975; Colaizzi, 1978). Drawing the scores created an unanticipated embodied researcher reflexivity, enabling a deep focus on the music data. The findings produced five themes: identity, emotions, relationships, flow, and learning. It was found that learning to improvise can influence changes to identity, including relationship to instruments and performance of gender. In addition, findings showed that learning takes place within specific musical communities, involving close relationships, and can broaden individual emotional expression. It was also found that special experiences and flow are an important aspect in development of learning, sometimes accompanied by spiritual narratives. Finally, the study suggests that there are many different ways of learning, which can begin in early childhood and continue on into adulthood, examples include: the development of musical memorisation, responding to dancers moving, and learning unfamiliar instruments. This study demonstrates that learning to improvise is nuanced and multi-faceted and can strongly influence the development of the self.

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Sep 25, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 19, 2023
• Keywords: Improvisation, Music, Music Therapy, Learning
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/7840380
• Award Date: Jun 19, 2023