Improvisation, kreativitet och musikaliska gester: En studie av musikelevers improvisatoriska val

Sammanfattning: This study focuses on a group of music students’ improvisational choices over the Vchord leading to the I-chord when improvising over major II V I chord progressions. The raison d'etre for this study is the high number of II V I-progressions being used as musical building blocks in genres that have improvisation as an integral part. Although it was not within the scope of this study to establish the causality of the students’ improvisational choices it is nevertheless interesting to compare such factors as students scale-theory test results, their personal tonal preferences when listening to scales and their performances when given the opportunity to improvise freely, choosing between different scales. What we see is that the students develop strategies that demonstrate coherence between their theoretical knowledge, their listening preferences, and their performances, although some exceptions do occur. The study starts with the students being interviewed on their knowledge of possible scale choices for V-chords and a listening test where they are asked to choose which ones, of several phrases, they prefer, these phrases being made up of either notes from the Mixolydian scale or the Super Locrian scale. The focus of the teaching during this study was on the implementation of the Super Locrian scale on Vchords resolving to major I-chords where students’ performances were continuously recorded to determine the extent to which they would use either the Mixolydian scale or the Super Locrian scales when given a free choice. These recordings were also analysed for use of improvisational ‘gestures’ and how the students’ individual performances developed over time. The results showed, perhaps not surprisingly, that the students that did not appreciate listening to Super Locrian phrases in the initial interview, were less likely to use this scale in their own performances. The results also showed that the repeated use of musical ‘gestures’, commonly used by professional improvisers, are also used by beginners of improvisation.