Interfacing creativity and improvisation: Musical performance , flow, and the individual

1. Interfacing creativity and improvisation: Musical performance, flow, and the individual 2nd Jazz Education Network conference: New Orleans, LA (January 2011) Marc Duby, PhD (Professor of Music, Rhodes University Dept. of Music, Grahamstown, South Africa)

2. Steps Ahead performance Sweden 1983 “Pools” (Don Grolnick) • Flow a.k.a “optimal experience” (investigated in individuals by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi) “Scientific” creativity (the lone genius myth): in fact scientists and researchers often work in teams Flow (optimal experience): High degree of absorption in a task at appropriate level of skill Median point between extremes of anxiety (too difficult) and boredom (too easy) Key question: During Eddie Gomez’ bass solo (virtuoso performance), what is Eddie doing/experiencing? And since the contents of Eddie’s mind are presumably only known to him, on what evidence might we base our imaginings? Body language: what do we observe when the sound’s turned off?

3. Flow (optimal experience) defined “We have seen how people describe the common characteristics of optimal experience: a sense that one's skills are adequate to cope with the challenges at hand, in a goal-directed, rule-bound action system that provides clear clues as to how one is performing. Concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time becomes distorted. An activity that produces such experiences is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it, even when it is difficult, or dangerous.” (Csikszentmihalyi 1991)

4. Group flow (R. Keith Sawyer: student of Csikszentmihalyi and also occasional jazz pianist) Sawyer’s areas of research: Creativity and improvisation: children’s games, improvised comedy, business/organizational studies, jazz performance (pioneering study by Bastien and Hostager 1992) The group as a whole displays high degree of absorption in a task at appropriate level of skill Similar median point between extremes of anxiety (too difficult) and boredom (too easy) Key question: During Eddie Gomez’ bass solo, what is the rest of the group doing/experiencing?

5. Group flow defined “When a group is performing at its peak, I refer to the group as being in group flow, in the same way that an individual performing at his or her peak often experiences a subjective feeling of flow. The concept of group flow is related to Csikszentmihalyi's flow, but with a critical difference. Csikszentmihalyi intended flow to represent a state of consciousness within the individual performer, whereas group flow is a property of the entire group as a collective unit.” (Sawyer 2003)

6. “Micro-processes of interaction” (Sawyer) • Unpredictability • Collaborative nature • Dialogue between individual and group Characteristics central to the character of jazz performance and improvised encounters in general

7. Taking risks When performing or improvising live, there is certainly an element of risk-taking, requiring the courage of one's convictions as an individual to place oneself in the public arena. The consequences of failure in these circumstances can range from embarrassment to termination of employment, and musicians develop tactics for managing risk, as the free improviser Marilyn Crispell (2002) has observed.

8. Dialectic between individual (thesis) and ensemble (antithesis) through collaborative process creates a product (synthesis). Artifact (as in performance/recording/film – “freeze time”). In reality, the “music” only happens once in real time Key questions: Competition or co-operation? Process or product?

9. The team player? or “What is this thing called self?” “I learned to improvise by improvising, and I learned it always in the company of other people. So I learned as a team player rather than as a soloist. Theories of self-expression continue to baffle me.” Chris Cutler, UK avant-garde drummer (Henry Cow) In jazz historiography from Louis Armstrong to Jaco Pastorius, there is a tendency to valorize the individual which can make us forget that these individuals shone in group contexts

10. Practice as individual and as ensemble Individual practice (micro-level) – acquire, develop, and maintain musical skills integrated into muscle memory (lone genius element) Ensemble performance (macro-level) – teach musicians to apply their individual skills in a socializing environment (within Csikszentmihalyi’sgoal-directed, rule-bound action system) Influence of audience participation/expectations on performance context (Co-creators within a distributed cognition network, see Edwin Hutchins’s study on shipboard navigation outside the laboratory context: “Cognition in the Wild”)

11. Thank you for attending My thanks to JEN, Rhodes University (Grahamstown) and the National Research Foundation (SA) for their support

12. References Andreasen, Nancy M. The Creative Brain: The Science of Genius. New York: Plume, 2005. Print. Bastien, David T., and Todd J. Hostager. "Cooperation as Communicative Accomplishment: A Symbolic Interaction Analysis of an Improvised Jazz Concert." Communication Studies 43 (1992): 92-104. Print. Becker, Howard S. "The Etiquette of Improvisation." Mind, Culture, and Activity 7.3 (2000): 171-6. Print. Berliner, Paul F. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Print. Steps Ahead in Europe. Dir. Brecker, Michael, Mike Mainieri, Eliane Elias, et al. n.d. A Pianist's Guide to Free Improvisation: Keys to Unlocking Your Creativity. Dir. Crispell, Marilyn. 2002. DVD. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. New York: Basic Books, 1997. Print. de Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Tran. Steven Rendall. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1988. Print. Duby, Marc. "Soundpainting as a System for the Collaborative Creation of Music in Performance." PhD University of Pretoria, 2006. Pretoria: Web. Hutchins, Edwin. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1995. Print. Monson, Ingrid. Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and Interaction. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Print. Sawyer, R. Keith. Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration. New York: Basic Books, 2007. Print.