Habitually breaking habits: Agency, awareness, and decision-making in musical improvisation.
Joshua A Bergamin
Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences March 14, 2024 DOI: 10.1007/s11097-024-09974-x (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Population | Musicians in large contemporary improvising ensembles |
| Keywords | Music Expertise Phronesis Improvisation Participatory sense-making Pre-reflective agency |
| Key points | Argues that musical improvisation is "participatory sense-making," with decisions unfolding through feedback with the evolving musical situation. Contends that expert improvisation involves a responsive expertise and an exercise of practical rationality akin to Aristotle's phronēsis, rather than highly reflective deliberation, guided by intuitive feelings of "rightness" shaped by the norms of a particular (sub)culture. |
Abstract
In this paper, I explore the question of agency in spontaneous action via a phenomenology of musical improvisation, drawing on fieldwork conducted with large contemporary improvising ensembles. I argue that musical improvisation is a form of 'participatory sense-making' in which musical decisions unfold via a feedback process with the evolving musical situation itself. I describe how musicians' technical expertise is developed alongside a responsive expertise, and how these capacities complicate the sense in which habitual action can be viewed as pre-conscious or 'automatic.' Nevertheless, I shall argue that the self-awareness required for expert improvisation does not amount to highly reflective deliberation, arguing instead that the practice of musical improvisation involves an exercise of practical rationality, akin to what Aristotle called phronēsis. Musical decisions - as an expressive form of sense-making - are guided by feelings of 'rightness' that are experienced directly and intuitively, responding to the norms and reasons that are embedded in the instruments, sounds, and practices of a particular (sub)culture..