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Listeners' and Performers' Shared Understanding of Jazz Improvisations
Michael F Schober1, Neta Spiro2
1Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research, The New School New York, NY, USA.
Frontiers in Psychology
|November 18, 2016
Summary
Musically experienced listeners often interpret jazz improvisations differently from performers. Listener understanding of musical performances can diverge significantly, even among those with similar backgrounds.
Area of Science:
- Music Cognition
- Auditory Perception
- Jazz Studies
Background:
- Understanding shared musical meaning between performers and listeners is crucial in music cognition.
- Jazz improvisation presents unique challenges for shared interpretation due to its spontaneous nature.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how well musically experienced listeners understand jazz improvisations compared to performers.
- To examine the influence of listener experience on shared understanding with performers.
Main Methods:
- An online survey with 239 participants assessing agreement with performer- and expert-generated statements about three jazz improvisations.
- Analysis of listener agreement with statements, correlating it with listener jazz and instrumental experience.
Main Results:
- Listeners agreed more with statements performers agreed on, but individual interpretations varied widely.
- Listener agreement correlated more strongly with a commenting expert listener than with the performers.
- Greater jazz and relevant instrumental experience predicted higher agreement with performer statements.
Conclusions:
- Shared understanding of jazz improvisation between performers and listeners is limited and highly variable.
- Listeners often interpret improvisations more like external analysts than as collaborators with performers.
- Musical background influences interpretation, but individual differences remain significant in understanding musical performances.
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