This article presents the results of a qualitative study that explored how freedom in music can stimulate creative development in students. A series of musical and pedagogical activities, called Creative Freedom, which involved favourable conditions for autonomy and creative agency, was developed. This study was conducted between 2013 and 2018 in…

This study explores young people's arts participation through music-making in Finland and the factors that may regulate that participation. It seeks to understand the construction of active modes of arts participation in and through adolescents' musical life courses. The interview study was conducted with young people (N = 18) participating in…

The purpose of this study is to explore the life and work of Pierre Sancan (1916-2008), an exemplary piano teacher who, like many masters in the apprenticeship tradition, is chiefly remembered today by his pupils alone. An all-round musician, Sancan had early success as a composer when he won the Prix de Rome in 1943, and enjoyed a flourishing…

This article is a review of literature that conceptualizes the practice of collective free music improvisation as a sociocommunicative endeavor, with its appended value and implications to musicians and music learners. Researchers have revealed that this conceptualization breaks down cultural and stylistic music boundaries to establish…

The cypher, a circle of MCs improvising rhymes in a collaborative jam session, is a relatively unexplored topic in hip hop. Through its focus on community and reciprocity, the cypher represents a crucial nexus of sociability that enables researchers to examine the shifting positionalities and communicative practices of audience members and…

Critical analyses of experimental music and free improvisation have uncovered multiple educational benefits embedded within this broad collection of genres. However, by rooting this work primarily within formal classrooms, scholars have yet to discover how musicians conceptualise teaching and learning within communities outside of schools. To…

This paper investigates the impact of Dalcroze Eurhythmics on fostering creativity and autonomy in classical instrumental pedagogy. The research took the form of an arts practice investigation which included devising, rehearsing, performing and documenting two performance events, drawing on Dalcroze Eurhythmics techniques rather than conventional…

In 2017, I developed a computer application entitled "Sanka Play," which enables audience members to participate in improvisational performances by making real-time requests to performers. In most cases of free improvisation, the audience atmosphere influences performers. While audience--performer interaction is generally nonverbal,…

A four-month research period into the practice of free music improvisation in Brazil during February-June 2014 allowed intriguing insights into how musicians think about, play and teach the music practice that is referred to as 'free improvisation.' An overview of the term 'free improvisation' with some historical context on its development will…

The purpose of this self-study of teacher education practices was to examine and improve improvisation and composition teaching practices for three university professors at the same institution. Primary data sets were individual researcher journals and transcripts of seven researcher meetings. Secondary data sets were music major surveys,…

This article reports a long-term ethnographic study on jamming and learning from an entwined artistic and educational perspective. The study investigates aspects of learning during a professional band's jamming and recording eight groove-jazz frameworks and a series of subsequent concerts with pre-academy students "sitting in." Fieldwork…

Instrumental music practice has been conceived and investigated from the perspective of self-regulated learning (SRL), i.e. how students acquire the tools necessary to take control of their own learning. SRL processes depend on variables such as ways of studying (method), time invested in practice and behavioural and social/cultural factors. Thus,…

A group of 46, first-year, primarily classically trained, undergraduate students took part in an exploratory research study on Group Ear Playing (GEP) in higher education. The students attended the "Playing by Ear" component of the Practical Musicianship module, which adopts the materials and strategies on playing by ear in the…

This paper examines the impact of creating music in an improvisational jazz style on an amateur adult musician's mind, body, and spirit. Learning jazz improvisation skills can help build more empathetic human beings, when the focus of improvisation is on reacting to what you hear in a clear and concise manner. Life skills are developed by focusing…

Today, contemporary music emerges as an experimental phenomenon trapped in the laboratory environment rather than an element of skill. Modern music, where principles such as specialism and rationality are determinative, has become difficult to understand not only for performers who carry it on the stage but also for today's audience. One of the…