Melodic Improvisation Research Articles

Hexachord Solmization in the Classroom: A Revival of Old Practices

This article proposes the practice of hexachord solmization as a component of a "histor ically informed" theory curriculum for early-music students. Many theory treatises and singing manuals from the sixteenth century and before start with a discussion of the gam ut, hexachords, the Guidonian hand, and solmization syllables. This strongly suggests that hexachord solmization was one of the principles of contemporary music education. Analyses of musical excerpts demonstrate that a hexachord is a meaningful melodic unit rather than a random set of six tones. Its solmization syllables illuminate the inherent tonal relations around the semitone mi–fa ; furthermore, they represent expressive tone qualities in themselves—for instance, the bright mi versus the soft fa. The hexachord sys tem was still in use in eighteenth-century Italy, apart from some adjustments with regard to the emerging major-minor tonality. Most likely, young apprentices at Italian conserv atories learned the syllables before they could read the pitches. Sets of solfeggi produced by the conservatory masters for their pupils show how plain solmization patterns form the basis of the melodic art of the period. In the classroom today, hexachord solmization offers both a useful tool for a non-verbal mode of musical understanding and a starting point for melodic improvisation.

Melodic Transformation in George Garzone’s Triadic Chromatic Approach; or, Jazz, Math, and Basket Weaving

Abstract The Triadic Chromatic Approach (TCA) is a melodic improvisation technique, created by the saxophonist and jazz educator George Garzone. With the TCA, successive triads are connected by a semitone and must have different inversions. The resulting lines mysteriously resolve to any underlying harmony. This article develops transformational and Markov-chain models of the TCA, showing how this melodic process approaches a probability distribution where every pitch class is equally likely to appear. Nonetheless, theorizing the TCA is different from performing it, and insights from Garzone’s students—and the anthropology of weaving—suggest that goals are less fundamental here than characteristic gestures.

The Role of Instructional Scaffolding to Facilitate Problem Solving Skills in Music Improvisation

This study aims to investigate the role of instructional scaffolding in developing problem-solving skills in melodic improvisation among beginner piano students. Three action research cycles were implemented to identify the effectiveness of scaffolding instructions. The process of measuring students’ problem-solving skills in improvisation is audio-recorded and further transcribed onto music scores in the third action research cycle for data analysis. The findings showed a positive development and improvement in the students’ problem-solving skills and filled the knowledge void for music teachers to plan and teach music improvisation progressively. These findings were helpful for music teachers to implement future musical tasks in creative activities.

Types of musical improvisation: a classification discourse

Types of musical improvisation: a classification discourse

Transformation of folklore and the course of solfeggio

The purpose of the work is to update conception of using folklorematerial in the course of solfege. The object of the research is functioningspecific of the winter cycle rites musical component in the conditions ofthe modern information society. The subject of the study is theimprovisational component in the process of reproducing folklore materialin the solfeggio classes. In particular, there is a revival and renewal oftraditional folk rites. Changes in the ways of functioning of folkloredetermine the relevance of the chosen topic. Folklore material wassystematically used in solfeggio courses in Soviet times, but folk songsserved in Soviet textbooks as symbols rather than as examples with whichthe rite could be reproduced. In addition, the songs had to be sung in strictaccordance with the notation, that is, the improvisational component,which is an integral feature of folklore, was excluded from thereproduction of folk samples. Over past decades, textbooks have appearedthat are based on folklore solely, but in these workbooks, notated folkmelodies should be reproduced accurately and serve as a tool of intonationdifficulties overcoming. The methods of this exploration are designated asthe comparative, historical, structurally-analytical, generalizing as well asthe method of observation. Scientific novelty lies in the fact that such anapproach is offered to the development of folklore material, which relies on rhythmic and melodic improvisation. Conclusions. The use of folklorematerial in educational practice can be considered as a modern form of theexistence of folklore. The reproduction of improvisation processesinherent in folklore in solfeggio lessons is carried out by creating rhythmicand melodic versions of a given model and by performing creative tasks.

Extending the Discussion: Introductory Improvisation Applications for Elementary Educators

Based on the concepts introduced in Chandler’s article “Improvisation in Elementary General Music: A Review of the Literature” this “Extending the Discussion” article provides a rhythmic improvisation lesson for primary grades and a melodic improvisation lesson for intermediate grades to assist practicing teachers in pragmatically applying improvisation activities in their classes.

Improvisation as devotion: nāgasvaram music and ritual communication in Hindu temple festival processions

ABSTRACTThis article situates melodic improvisation in South Indian (Tamil) culture, asking why ālāpana, a melodic and unmetered genre that encourages creativity and favours time flexibility, has become the norm to accompany South Indian temple festival processions, one of the most imposing manifestations of Hindu devotion. With reference to music performance, religious praxis and history, I argue that improvisation is central to devotional, bhakti-oriented modes of worship, and part of a ritual system in which all senses are used to enhance participants’ religious experience and facilitate human–divine communication. Drawing from extensive fieldwork research in Tamil Nadu, I hope to shed new light on the production and reception of ālāpana in South Asian culture and help understand further the function and significance of sound, music, hearing and imagination in Hindu South India.

Duration of playing bursts and redundancy of melodic jazz improvisation in John Coltrane’s “Giant Steps”

Studying musical improvisation is methodologically difficult because improvisations are hardly reproducible, and no established theory exists regarding their formation. In particular it is unclear when and if jazz musicians invent new (innovative) melodic patterns or rely on previously overlearned (redundant) phrases. Other similar goal-directed activities with high complexity are production tasks such as driving a car (Tanida & Pöppel, 2006) or producing spoken language (Fenk-Oczlon & Fenk, 2009). Trade-offs between deliberate cognitive processes and automatized execution can be expected under extreme time pressure in high speed improvisation, and pauses in the musical flow could be used by musicians to engage in generative cognitive activity. Using transcriptions of John Coltrane’s improvisation of “Giant Steps” we analyzed redundancy and innovation in melodic improvisation. Half-bar units were coded for types of melodic variants. We found motor-output units (playing bursts) of around 3 seconds’ duration with a slightly higher probability of innovative patterns appearing after longer (0.5 s) pauses. Also, a systematic curvilinear trajectory of innovation was found across the piece with a peak after three-fourths of the chorus. The discussion establishes a parallel between improvisation and conversational language production with regard to the length of utterances which seem to take into account the listener’s psychological present. The possibilities of expert improvisers to engage in deliberate problem-solving during performance are also addressed.

“Play It Again, Billy, but This Time with More Mistakes”

The jazz ensemble represents an important performance opportunity in many school music programs. Due to the cultural history of jazz as an improvisatory art form, school jazz ensemble directors must address methods of teaching improvisation concepts to young students. Progress has been made in the field of prescribed improvisation activities and materials that use scales, arpeggios, and chord changes as bases for learning concepts. However, less effort has been devoted to creative improvisation, such as experimentation, personal discovery, and listening. This article describes benefits of devoting teaching time to such concepts and outlines three easy warm-ups: melodic variation, free improvisation, and limited-note exercises, all of which can be taught to young jazz ensembles along with harmonic and theory-based methods.

Dramaturgical and music-theoretical approaches to improvisation pedagogy

The aim of this article is to assess the relative merits of two approaches to teaching musical improvisation: a music-theoretical approach, focusing on chords and scales, and a ‘dramaturgical’ one, emphasizing questions of balance, variation and tension. Adult students of music pedagogy, with limited previous experience in improvisation, took part in an improvisation course during which they were given either music-theoretical or dramaturgically oriented instruction. The students’ melodic improvisations over a chordal accompaniment from the beginning and the end of the course were subjected to evaluation by a panel of expert judges. The music-theoretical instructions led to a more significant change towards improvisation judged as ‘dissonant’ and ‘independent of the chord changes’, whereas dramaturgical instructions led to a more significant change towards ‘rhythmically varied’ playing.These and other results from the expert judgments are compared to the improvisers’ self-evaluations as well as computational analyses of rhythmic entropy in the improvisations.

The Culture of Kitharôidia by Timothy Power

240 BOOK REVIEWS catalogue act as “the captioning of an implied image” – an image formed in the minds of bard and audience.4 Sammons’ study has shown that, even if we as modern readers find Homeric catalogues ugly, we cannot dismiss their importance to Homeric aesthetics. Further studies of their performativity will, I hope, demonstrate that their ugliness and awkwardness are modern misperceptions. WILLIAM BROCKLISS Brigham YoungUniversity, william_brockliss@byu.edu The Culture of Kitharôidia. By Timothy POWER. Washington, DC: Center for Hellenic Studies. Hellenic Studies Series. Harvard University Press, 2010. Pp. xiv + 638.Paper $18.95. ISBN 978-0-674-02138-9. This important book casts a flood of light on a neglected field of Greek lyric poetry . Neither the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed.) nor Brill’s New Pauly has an entry on kitharody, and Terpander, whose importance in kitharody is like Homer’s in epic, merits only a single paragraph in the OCD, and that a lightly refurbished note by C. M. Bowra from earlier editions. And yet the art of “singing to the kithara” was for centuries one of the most prominent and popular forms of Greek musical entertainment. Indeed, Power’s substantial and wide-ranging study makes kitharody key to understanding a vast body of Greek lyric, all that wassungto strings ratherthanto pipes (auloi). There are, of course, formidable problems of evidence: primary texts are scrappy until the end of the fifth century BCE, and while ancient discussions of the art are abundant (Power notes that we have as much information about kitharody as we do for dramatic or epic performance), they are late and replete with confusion and contradiction. Power copes by adopting an eclectic methodology that includes not only the documentary evidence but also pictures of kitharodes in action onmonuments, pots and wall paintings (thirteenvery legible plates are appended). To reconstruct the genre’s proto-history he uses the methods of structural linguistics (the work stems from a dissertation advised by G. Nagy). Terpander emerges as an “idealized” author (224), retrospectively gener4 David Elmer, “Helen Epigrammatopoios,” Classical Antiquity 24 (2005) 1–39. BOOKREVIEWS 241 ated from the poetry to make it intelligible to classical audiences; the obscure kitharodic “nomes” are compared with Indian râga’s as formats for melodic improvisation (227). This linguistic-anthropological approach to the “Archaic kitharodic performance tradition” (243) is supplemented with techniques of cultural studies, and so this book promises to do for kitharody what Peter Wilson and Eric Csapo have done for aulody. Opening with a “thick description” of a kitharodic performance by Nero signals that Power wants to integrate larger literary processes with specific historical instantiations. Nero serves as a leitmotiv for Part I which brings out the lastingness and popularity of the form while addressing such cultural -studies issues as whether kitharody had a distinctive erotics or gender (arguing on pp. 57–71 that women “probably” could serve as kitharodes in some contexts). A main claim of this part is that kitharody proper, the professional spectacle, only came to Rome late, and indeed that Nero’s fascination with the flamboyant formhad alot to do with encouraging its spread. Readers of Greek lyric will especially focus on Parts II–IV, which trace the art from its foundations through the developed classical forms. Power hypothesizes that both kitharody and rhapsody derived from Dark-Age phorminx-players who could provide both musical accompaniment for melic choruses or monadic presentations of heroic themes. Power’s prototypical performance began with an instrumental introduction (anabolê), followed by a brief prelude (prooimion) sung by the kithara-player and then the main choral song which the performer would accompany as kitharistês. The kernel was the middle piece, which was expanded into long, elaborate competition pieces – kitharody for lyre-singers and “Homeric”hymnsforrhapsodes. This hypothetical scenario comes to life when Power reads passages in archaic poetry as alluding to their tradition. For example, the Chian aoidos who addresses the Delian Maidens’ chorus in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is interpreted as an Alcman-type kitharist who sings solo prooimia to the maiden chorus he accompanies (202). Within the hymn, the interlude functions as a rhapsodic prooimion acknowledging its “kitharodic” lineage. (An example of...

Expertise-related deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction during musical improvisation

Musical training has been associated with structural changes in the brain as well as functional differences in brain activity when musicians are compared to nonmusicians on both perceptual and motor tasks. Previous neuroimaging comparisons of musicians and nonmusicians in the motor domain have used tasks involving prelearned motor sequences or synchronization with an auditorily presented sequence during the experiment. Here we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine expertise-related differences in brain activity between musicians and nonmusicians during improvisation – the generation of novel musical–motor sequences – using a paradigm that we previously used in musicians alone. Despite behaviorally matched performance, the two groups showed significant differences in functional brain activity during improvisation. Specifically, musicians deactivated the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) during melodic improvisation, while nonmusicians showed no change in activity in this region. The rTPJ is thought to be part of a ventral attentional network for bottom-up stimulus-driven processing, and it has been postulated that deactivation of this region occurs in order to inhibit attentional shifts toward task-irrelevant stimuli during top-down, goal-driven behavior. We propose that the musicians' deactivation of the rTPJ during melodic improvisation may represent a training-induced shift toward inhibition of stimulus-driven attention, allowing for a more goal-directed performance state that aids in creative thought.

Melodic improvisation at the age of 6–11 years: Development of pitch and rhythm

The keyboard melodic improvisations of 6–11-year-old children (N = 36) were explored for age-related development and representational types of production. The hypotheses were founded on a model of musical development by the present author. The participants heard a 24-bar ABA-formed piano-bass-percussion- accompaniment. Section A was tonal and section B was modal, lacking the tonic. Age was a significant factor in the development of the tonal hierarchy. The 6–7-year-old children's general emphasis was on the first five tones of the diatonic scale. The 8–9-year-old children preferred tones present in both sections (event hierarchical orientation). In the 10–11-year-old children's products, the tonic triad was prominent throughout the piece. The profiles of all age groups correlated positively and significantly with Krumhansl & Kessler's (1982) tonal profile, cultural models and the distribution of tones of the accompaniment. The number of rhythm motives and variations was positively correlated with age. Metre affected the selection of tones in all age groups. Age was positively correlated with the strongest beat of the measure. Several representational types were found. As the model predicted, the hierarchical structures of tonal music developed sequentially: In the first substage, children focused on either melodic-rhythmic surface or deep structures (tonality, metre); in the next substage, surface and deep structures began to coordinate, and in the final substage, they were fully integrated.

South Indian Classical Music House Concert with M. D. Ramanathan, vocalist, T. N. Krishnan, violin, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, mridangam, and: At Home with Master Musicians of Madras, Volume I, T. N. Krishnan (review)

Reviewed by: South Indian Classical Music House Concert with M. D. Ramanathan, vocalist, T. N. Krishnan, violin, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, mridangam, and: At Home with Master Musicians of Madras, Volume 1, T. N. Krishnan Matthew Allen (bio) South Indian Classical Music House Concert with M. D. Ramanathan, vocalist, T. N. Krishnan, violin, Umayalpuram Sivaraman, mridangam. Apsara Media for Intercultural Education, 1994. VHS, 60 minutes. ISBN 1-880519-17-8. $45. At Home with Master Musicians of Madras, Volume 1, T. N. Krishnan. Apsara Media for Intercultural Education, 2000. VHS, 70 minutes including 40 minutes concert footage with Viji Krishnan, violin, and Palghat T.S. Mani Iyer, mridangam. ISBN 1-880519-22-4. $50. Both videos are available from: Apsara Media for Intercultural Education, 13659 Victory Boulevard, Suite 577, Van Nuys, CA 91401. Fax: 818-785-1495. http://www.apsara-media.com. This pair of releases from Apsara Media for Intercultural Education compels careful attention for several reasons. First, it is difficult to overstate the extent to which filmmakers Amy Catlin and Fredric Lieberman have placed us in their debt by documenting and making available to the public performances by some of the greatest South Indian Karnatak musicians of the twentieth century, two of whom—vocalist M.D. Ramanathan and drummer Palghat T. S. Mani Iyer—are no longer with us. In addition, on the At Home with Master Musicians video the viewer is given a rare intimate look at musical transmission, in the family of violinist T.N. Krishnan. Both videos are based upon concert and supplementary recordings made in 1977. Since hardly any videos of performances from before 2000 are commercially available, all lovers of Karnatak music will want these now historic performances in their collection. Due to the quality of the performances and, in the At Home with Master Musicians tape, the explanation of basic musical concepts in clear and direct terms (augmented by on-screen captioning of Indian-language words), teachers will also find these to be invaluable resources in introducing students to the music of India. The South Indian Classical Music House Concert video tape contains seven compositions performed by the trio of M.D. Ramanathan, voice; T.N. Krishnan, violin; and Umayalpuram Sivaraman, mridangam (double-headed drum). The recording follows the typical progression of a Karnatak music concert, albeit truncated from the normal concert length of two-plus hours to a set of sixty minutes. The performance begins with a varnam, followed by several kritis in [End Page 172] succession (one of which, "Rama Katha Sudha," contains a brief tani avartanam, drum solo), and ends with a tillana. The program chosen by Ramanathan represents a good selection of ragas and composers, including kritis by all three of South India's famous "Trinity": Tyagaraja (1767–1847), Muttuswami Dikshitar (1776–1835), and Syama Sastri (1767–1827). These are framed by the outstanding nava raga malika (garland of nine ragas) varnam by the late nineteenth-century composer/vocalist Patnam Subramania Iyer that opens the set, and the ending tillana, a composition by the vocalist Ramanathan himself. The concert was presented before a small audience in the garden of a gracious home in the Adayar district of Chennai. The intimate listening environment is complemented by the soft sounds of birds and by the camera periodically panning the musicians, the many trees, and South Indian stone and bronze sculptures that adorn the garden. Ramanathan's warm and unusually deep baritone voice is radiant throughout the set and is heard to especially striking effect on the alapana (unmetered melodic improvisation) leading into the second piece, Muttuswami Dikshitar's "Budhamasrayami." The accompaniment given by violinist Krishnan and mridangist Sivaraman is tasteful and restrained throughout; Krishnan's violin alapanas and Sivaraman's all-too brief drum solo are models of their genres and contribute greatly to the performance. At Home with Master Musicians of Madras is really a combination of two separate programs: an intimate half hour spent with a musical family and a forty-minute concert segment, the whole knit together by the presence of violinist T.N. Krishnan. The video begins with views of the city of Chennai and quickly moves (as the on-screen caption says) "from public spaces to private...

A Longitudinal Study of Selected Characteristics of Children's Melodic Improvisations

This study is an examination of the melodic improvisations of a group of children ( N=62) for 3 years, from ages 7 through 9. Participants improvised as part of a class rondo for Orff instruments, in ABACADA form, in which the B, C, and D sections were 8-measure alto-xylophone improvisations in C pentatonic. Each participant improvised three melodies per year. A total of 558 improvisations were collected. Participants took the IMMA and a researcher-designed measure of mallet skill each year. Improvisations were examined for the presence of repeated and developed melodic motives, repeated and developed rhythmic motives, pulse adherence, phrases, and antecedent/consequent phrases. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures MANCOVA. Significant age effects emerged for repeated melodic and rhythmic motives, sense of pulse, and antecedent/consequent phrases. Post-hoc Tukey Pairwise Comparisons revealed significant differences between ages 7 and 8 in the presence of each of these characteristics. Significant differences also occurred between ages 7 and 9 for the presence of antecedent/consequent phrases, presence of repeated rhythmic motives, and pulse adherence. No significant differences emerged between ages 8 and 9 for any of the characteristics. December 8, 2004 May 9, 2005.

A Longitudinal Study of Selected Characteristics of Children's Melodic Improvisations

A Longitudinal Study of Selected Characteristics of Children's Melodic Improvisations

The Melodic Improvisations of Children Aged 6-12: A developmental perspective

The purpose of this study was to examine age-related differences in selected melodic, rhythmic, and structural characteristics of the improvised melodies of children ages 6-12. Participants (N = 280, n = 40 at each age level) improvised three 8-measure melodies in the C-pentatonic scale on an Orff alto xylophone as part of a rondo for the Orff instrumentarium. A total of 840 improvisations were collected. A three-part mallet/ motor coordination exercise provided a measure of mallet facility. Results revealed that the rhythmic, structural, and combined characteristics of children's alto xylophone improvisations change significantly with age, and appear to be independent of mallet facility. The melodic characteristics examined did not change significantly. Observed changes appear to be developmental in nature, moving toward increased motivic repetition and development, greater attention to the pulse, increased generation of rhythmic patterns, and greater structural organisation.

How Jazz Musicians Improvise

This article defends the view that theories of creativity should be computable and that only three sorts of algorithm can be creative. It proposes a central principle of algorithmic demands for jazz improvisation: a division of labor in terms of computational power occurs between the creation of chord sequences for improvisation and the creation of melodic improvisations in real time. An algorithm for producing chord sequences must be computationally powerful, that is, it calls for a working memory or a notation of intermediate results. Improvisation depends on the ability to extemporize new melodies that fit the chord sequence. The corresponding algorithm must operate rapidly in real time, and so it minimizes the computational load on working memory. The principle of algorithmic demands is supported by analysis and a computer model.

"Louis Licks" and Nineteenth-Century Cornet Etudes: The Roots of Melodic Improvisation as Seen in the Jazz Style of Louis Armstrong

"Louis Licks" and Nineteenth-Century Cornet Etudes: The Roots of Melodic Improvisation as Seen in the Jazz Style of Louis Armstrong

Reconstructing an improviser

A ‘‘rational reconstruction’’ of the jazz improvisation system implemented in [David Levitt, ‘‘A Melody Description System for Jazz Improvization,’’ MIT S.M. thesis (1981)] will be discussed. A rational reconstruction is a reimplementation of a computer program in a way which clearly reveals its basic mechanisms and the fundamental issues it addresses. Levitt’s program did melodic improvisation from an initial chord progression, based on a collection of heuristics operating over a simple constraint representation. Its rational reconstruction reveals a number of basic issues in computational aesthetics: The use of constraints to model aesthetic choice; the use of representation to encode stylistic background; and the tension between randomness and structure in creative process.