The ecological dynamics of trumpet improvisation.
Cognitive processing February 1, 2024 Miles Rooney 3 citations
Music improvisation is explored through the lens of embodied cognitive science, specifically ecological and dynamical systems approaches. The article argues that improvising musicians generate musical material in real time by coordinating their bodies with instruments and environments, guided by affordances—opportunities for action that emerge from the performer-instrument relationship. A trumpet player's improvisation is described as a self-organized response to constraints, where the musician acts as an adaptive system. The work advocates that 4E approaches (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended) offer valuable insight into improvisation by taking seriously the body-instrument-environment relationship.