Perceptions of Teaching and Learning Creativity in Jazz Improvisation: A Qualitative Pilot Study

Roger G. Coss

Qualitative Research Design and Methods (EDUC 390)University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA)

AbstractThis study explored the way(s) creativity is experienced in teaching and learning jazz improvisation using Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity as a theoretical lens. Using a phenomenological research design, data was collected from two participants in the form of interviews, documents, and observations. Seven themes emerged on (1) the participants understandings of creativity in jazz improvisation and (2) the way in which the participants emphasize creativity in their own jazz improvisation pedagogy. This study concludes by discussing implications for Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity, research in jazz pedagogy, and postmodern curriculum development.

Keywords: music education, jazz improvisation, creativity, postmodern curriculum

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IntroductionThe overarching line of inquiry in this pilot study revolves around investigating what it means to teach creativity in music education and what implications this understanding has for postmodern curriculum development. Research on creativity in educational settings has been a topic of much discussion for the last 50 years (Fasko, 2001; Plucker, Beghetto, & Dow, 2004; Weiner, 2000). Since the 1990s, Policymakers around the world have begun to focus on creativity as “investments in their students’ and country’s future” (Beghetto, 2010, p. 449). This research has focused on defining and theorizing creativity; assessment of creativity; the relationship between learning and creativity; teaching creativity; creativity and intelligence; teachers’ and researchers’ beliefs about creativity; the context for learning creativity in the classroom; and creativity and national education policy (Andiliou & Murphy, 2010; Plucker & Makel, 2010; NACCCE, 1999; Spencer, Lucas, & Claxton, 2012). Creativity is now being seen as crucial in the “current push for more student-centered teaching and learning” that constructivists have been increasingly advocating since the mid-1990s (Fasko, 2001, p. 326; see also Plucker, Beghetto, & Dow, 2004).

In a recent literature review on the progression of creativity in educational settings, Spencer, Lucas and Claxton (2012) reminds researchers and educators that “no single model or approach has, to date, become established” (p. 11). They further suggest that this lack of a “unifying theory of creativity” makes assessing it “problematic” (p. 12). Since the National Standards for Arts Education included improvisation and composition, researchers have also discussed and debated what exactly creativity is and what it means for music education (Running, 2008; see also Consortium of National Arts Education Associations, 1994). This body of research revolves primarily around the musical activities of improvisation (Black, 2008; Hickey, 2001; Koutsoupidou & Hargreaves, 2009; Sawyer, 2006) and composition (Andrews, 2004; Barrett, 2006; Henry, 1996; Mellor, 2008; Priest, 2001; Rohwer, 1997), as well as the role of curriculum and technology in teaching creativity (Crow, 2006; Dillon, 2003; Running, 2008; Thompson, 2012). In a recent study of Greek music teachers’ understandings of creativity and the teaching conditions that may enhance or inhibit it, Zbainos & Anastasopoulou (2012) concluded that while “creativity is considered to be important and desired as a primary aim of music teaching,… it is regarded by teachers as something vague, mysterious and personal, thus its enhancement and development without training is almost unfeasible…” (p. 59; see also Odena, 2001).

The accountability movement in schools over the last few decades has marginalized the arts—music education in particular—as secondary status amid supposedly “core” subjects such as math, science, and language. In Jorgensen’s (2003) plea for transforming music education, she situates this problem as the product of a scientific worldview: a post-enlightenment reliance on rational, linear, inductive thought; technocratic means of production; and the valuing of consumption of material goods. She continues that “the result of this kind of thinking…is that the arts are devalued in society, and education is directed toward preparing children to think materialistically, restrictively, scientifically, technocratically, and commercially” (p. 25). She contrasts this worldview with a “new symbolic-centered world, relying on intuition and imagination, viewing multiple causes and perspectives, recognizing the fallibility of

understanding, embracing pluralism, and regarding the arts and the religions as valid alternative perspectives to the sciences” (p. 27).

It is within the context of this paradigmatic tension that curriculum studies is currently situated (for this introduction I will be using the terms “modern” and “postmodern” to distinguish between these two worldviews. A thorough discussion of these terms is beyond the scope of this paper. See Slattery, 2013 and Elliot, 2001 for a more detailed discussion of this subject). Slattery (2013) notes that “modern curriculum development paradigms…discourage aesthetic experiences while elevating mathematical computation, scientific methods, and reading comprehension in the core of the curriculum” (p. 245). He continues that “postmodern educators are committed to a new concept of curriculum development that will compliment the social and cultural milieu of this new era in human history” (p. 20)—one he describes as post-anthropocentric, post-competitive, post-militaristic, post-patriarchal, post-Eurocentric, post-scientistic, post-disciplinary, and post-nationalist. In attempting to make space for a new culture of schooling that makes space for the arts, Elliot Eisner (2002) argues:

I am talking about a culture of schooling in which more importance is placed on exploration than on discovery, more value is assigned to surprise than to control, more attention is devoted to what is distinctive than to what is standard, more interest is related to what is metaphorical than to what is literal. It is an educational culture that has a greater focus on becoming than on being, places more value on the imaginative than on the factual, assigns greater priority to valuing than to measuring, and regards the quality of the journey as more educationally significant than the speed at which the destination is reached. I am talking about a new vision of what education might become and what schools are for. (para. 45)

As curriculum studies addresses these kinds of issues, how does this challenge music educators to rethink and re-conceptualize creativity in music education?

Research explicitly situating creativity and music education within postmodern curriculum studies is a relatively new and emerging field (Fautley, 2004; Hanley, 2003; Hanley & Montgomery, 2005; Ross & Egea-Kuehne, 2005). How can educators and researchers in the field of music education rethink creativity with a postmodern curriculum lens? Barrett (2007) argues that “the reconceptualization of the curriculum, situated in the postmodern milieu, challenges music educators to recast beliefs and practices, rather than merely improving and refining traditional programs, materials, and organizational patterns of the field” (p. 148). The field of music education is late in engaging this curricular shift (Hanley & Montgomery, 2005).

Statement of the ProblemThere is a lack of empirical research that investigates creativity in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation. In addition, little research discusses the implications of creativity in music education for postmodern curriculum development.

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Purpose of the StudyThe purpose of this study is to explore the way(s) creativity is experienced in teaching and learning jazz improvisation through the lens of postmodern curriculum development.

Research QuestionsThis study will utilize the following research questions as a guide for inquiry:

1. In what way(s) is creativity experienced in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation?

2. How do jazz improvisation educators understand the nature of creativity?3. What pedagogical strategies are involved with teaching creativity through jazz

improvisation?4. In what way(s) is jazz improvisation informed by research in postmodern curriculum

development?

Significance of the StudyPatton (2002) notes that “researchers working within any specific disciplinary tradition strive to make a contribution to knowledge in that discipline and thereby contribute to answering the fundamental questions of the discipline” (p. 215). The significance of this study lies primarily in contributing to the scholarly understanding of what it means to teach creativity in music education—itself being a fundamental question in music education research over the last 50 years (Richardson, 1983; Running, 2008). More specifically, exploring these questions will begin to address Woodford’s (2005) concern that assumptions underlying highly prescriptive pedagogies and methodologies (similar to those articulated by Eisner above) often “stifle the individual creativity and thinking of students and teachers alike” (p. 30). After a cursory search, I have found the relationship between music education, creativity, and postmodern curriculum development lacking. While I did find some research exploring music educators beliefs and understandings of creativity in music education, I saw very little explicit and intentional connections to the broader discussion of postmodern curricular issues. This line of inquiry that I am espousing will contribute to the scholarly understanding of the dynamic relationship between these three areas of interest.

I also have personal reasons for pursuing these questions. I will admit that I am working with a rather large assumption that jazz improvisation is an important aspect of creativity, though I hope to better understand how exactly this is so. I come from an extensive jazz performing, improvising, and composing background, in addition to a relatively recently developed passion for teaching. I feel that exploring these questions have direct and immediate consequences for my own practice. I am concerned with affording my students every available opportunity and resource for fostering their creative thinking. This study will help me to better understand what aspects of my own pedagogy and methodology exacerbates Woodford’s concern I noted earlier.

Lastly, as evidenced by the final question (no. 6), this study will contribute implications and ideas for practice for educators, parents, and administrators. I intended for question no. 6 to

address Au’s (2012) concern that “curriculum studies would be better served if it were more grounded in schools and met the concrete needs of practicing teachers (p. 7). Ultimately, I hope to focus on “practice as it exists in the context of the complex social, political, and cultural relations of the material world” (Au, 2012, p. 9).

Definition of TermsFor the purpose of this study, I define creativity as “the process of bringing into being something novel and useful” (Sternberg & O’Hara, 1999, p. 251). In my use of the term improvisation, I refer to Azzara (2002) who summarizes several themes that emerge in a literature review of improvisation in music, including (1) spontaneously expressing musical thoughts and feelings, (2) making music within certain understood guidelines, and (3) engaging in musical conversation (p. 172).

Methodology

Introduction and Rationale Because the purpose of this study was to explore the way(s) creativity is experienced in teaching and learning jazz improvisation through the lens of postmodern curriculum development, I used a qualitative methodology. In discussing the ways in which research in music education is responding to the reconceptualization of curriculum over the last 30 years, Barrett (2007) acknowledges that “qualitative research—particularly ethnography, case studies, narrative research, and phenomenology—also deepens our understanding of the meaningful and situated nature of the musical experience” (p. 147). It is through qualitative methods that research best “problematizes practice, foregrounds beliefs that are normally obscured, and calls normative conceptions of teaching and learning into question” (Barrett, 2007, p. 148). Qualitative inquiry has previously been used to explore improvisation in classroom settings (Beegle, 2010). I used this same mode of inquiry to explore creativity.

Guiding Research Questions This study utilized the following research questions as a guide for inquiry:

1. In what way(s) is creativity experienced in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation?

2. How do jazz improvisation educators understand the nature of creativity?3. What pedagogical strategies are involved with teaching creativity through jazz

improvisation?4. In what way(s) is jazz improvisation informed by research in postmodern curriculum

development?

Specific Research DesignFor this study, I adopted a phenomenological design. According to Creswell (2013), a phenomenological study focuses on “what all participants have in common as they experience a phenomenon” and describes “the common meaning for several individuals of their lived

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experiences of a concept or a phenomenon” (p. 76). In this study, I define the phenomenon as the process of teaching and learning creativity through jazz improvisation.

Respondant Selection StrategiesFor this study, I identified several potential participants within 2 hours driving distance from the San Jose, CA area using purposeful, homogenous sampling, which Patton (2002) describes as apropriate to “describe some particular subgroup in depth” (p. 235). The subgroup in this study were those who experience the process of teaching and learning creativity through jazz improvisation. I ended up choosing three participants to interview and observe. I chose these participants for several reasons. First, two of the three I knew very well because I had studied jazz improvisation privately with them both. Second, all three are college-level jazz improvisation teachers and are recognized in the jazz community as excellent educators and performers in their own right. Using Appendic C as a template, I contacted them and set up appointments to meet and conduct the interview. All participants signed the consent form in Appendix A.

Data Collection ProceduresThe type of data collected focused on creating a holistic description of the phenomenon of teaching and learning creativity through jazz improvisation. This included interviews, observations, and documents. Two of the three participants were interviewed in-person, while the third participant was interviewed online via Skype. All interviews were digitally recorded. Interview questions were framed through two general questions that Creswell (2013) relates: What have you experienced in terms of the phenomenon? What contexts or situations have typically influenced or affected your experiences of the phenomenon? The interview protocol is given in Appendix B.

In addition to interviews, I observed two of the three participants as they taught a group jazz improvisation class at the university they teach at. I kept an observation journal through the entire observation and remained a fairly detached observer. I collected documents from all the participants such as class syllabi, teaching handouts, and music recordings they typically use during teaching.

Data Analysis ProceduresIn this study, I chose to analyze the data from two out of the three participants selected. This was mainly because of a lack of time to finish the project by the alotted deadline. In the analysis, both respondants chose their own pseudonyms. The first respondant chose “Delaney” as his name for this study. The second respondant chose “Andrew” as his name. Both interviews were transcribed word-for-word and read repeatedly in order to understand the phenomenon. I used Matare’s (2009, p. 197) three levels of analysis: meaning analysis, process analysis, and sub-group analysis. Through meaning analysis I focused on the aims, intentions, purposes, and meaning embedded in the text. In the second level, process analysis, I focused on how these meanings were achieved. Lastly during sub-group analysis, I searched for emergent themes. To enhance the credibility of the findings, I triangualted the data analysis through a variety of

sources—interview transcriptions, observational notes, and collected documents and media material.

Csikszentmihalyi’s (1999) Systems Model of Creativity expands the understanding of creativity as merely a mental process by recognizing the influence of cultural and social aspects. He theorizes that:

Whether an idea or product is creative or not does not depend on its own qualities, but on the effect it is able to produce in others who are exposed to it…. Creativity is a phenomenon that is constructed through an interaction between producer and audience. Creativity is not the product of single individuals, but of social systems making judgements about individuals’ products. (p. 314)

Csikszentmihalyi’s systems model of creativity consists of a dynamic interaction between the domain (or set of already existing objects, rules, representations, or notations), field (or gatekeepers in the discipline), and individual. Creativity then occurs as an individual makes a change in the domain and is accepted by the field as creative.

Role of the ResearcherAs a researcher, my role was fairly detached. During my observations of the participants as they taught in a classroom setting, I positioned myself at the back of the room and did not interupt or ask questions. During the interviews my role was mainly to ask questions and give an occasional response when asked a question.

Researcher BiasThe primary reason I developed a study revolving around the topics of music education, jazz improvisation, and creativity was because my life is saturated with these themes. I have been playing jazz piano for over 15 years and completed my Bachelors and Masters degrees in this field. I am a very passionate musician and love what I do. In addition, I am a music educator. I consistently speak with administrators and fellow educators on the role of music education in schooling contexts and I constantly hear the rhetoric that “creativity” is important. My very selection of this topic is a result of my prior interests in these areas of my life.

While I am not explicitly looking at issues of gender and race in this study, I believe it is important to note several aspects to how I construct my identity. I am half caucasion-mexican, heterosexual, protestant christian, middle-class male. These aspects to my identity shape both what I chose to study, as well as what I chose not to study. These are the lenses that I am choosing not to use, but I acknowledge them becasue they are still present.

AssumptionsIn discussing the assumptions I worked from in designing and conducting this study, I will use Gubrium’s (1988) concept of paradigm as “a way of structuring everyday experience, a way of framing events, a sense of what is real and how to prove it, and an implicit stance on ontology

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and epistemology (i.e., being and knowing)” (Hathaway, 1995, p. 541). My choice of a qualitative methodology assumes reality as a personal constuct. The way in which I assume I can best understand the way(s) in which creativity is present in the teaching and learning of jazz imporivsation is by “becoming part of the situation by understanding the participant views of it” (Hathaway, 1995, p. 544). This assumption influenced my decision to choose a qualitative methodology and conduct interviews. While in the earlier section on my role as a researcher I noted that I remained fairly detached in my data collection, I was still physically present. I was interacting in-person with the participants.

LimitationsThe primary limitation of this study is the low number of participants (N=2). While themes were found in the data collected from both participants, this study is still a thin collection of data of the phenomenon under exploration. However, while this study is lacking the perspective normally acquired through multiple participants, I do feel that I captured fairly thick descriptions of the participants and their own, individual experiences of the phenomenon.

A second limitation of this study is the lack of a classroom observation from one participant and an online-interview with the other. From Delaney I was not able to observe him teach in a classroom setting. This detracted from being able to see how his interview responses played out in practice. For Andrew, we had to conduct our interview via Skype due to schedule conflicts and distance. I felt this distanced myself from the participant.

SummaryI have discussed how a qualitative, phenomenological methodology is most appropriate for the purpose of this study: to explore the way(s) creativity is experienced in teaching and learning jazz improvisation through the lens of postmodern curriculum development. In addition, this methodology is most appropriate for answering the research questions I devised as a result of the purpose of the study.

Findings

Seven themes emerged from the analysis of the collected data. Two of these focused on the participants’ understands of the nature of creativity in jazz improvisation. The remaining five emerged from participants’ discussion of the way in which they teach creativity in jazz improvisation. Throughout this section, each theme will be discussed individually.

Coalition of the FamiliarThe participants both described their understanding of general creativity as the coalition of two familiar things into something new and personal. Delaney stated that:

“Creativity, by and large, is taking the things around us that are familiar and seeing them in a new light and making them, making them personal in whatever ways we come up

with to do that. And it’s the personal that becomes the creative part, you know.” (Delaney)

Andrew responded that creativity is “the ability to take two, uh, take different elements and put them in together into something that’s new.” They both spoke of creativity in a way that took different things that were even sometimes plain and ordinary and put them together.

The participants’ understanding of creativity was similar when they spoke about jazz and improvisation. Both participants even understood the very nature of jazz as a genre as being a creative product. They spoke of jazz itself as a “hybrid music” that came about through an “intersection of cultures” (Delaney). Jazz is creative because it is “European instruments and European harmony being fused with African call-and-response and African rhythms” (Andrew).

The way in which both participants viewed creativity in jazz improvisation was through taking “musical tones” (Andrew), or even “simple concepts” (Delaney) in music, and juxtapose them in ways that hasn’t been done before. Delaney explains:

A rhythmic example would be something I give my students and have routinely for years with, you know the song Take 5? Okay, so I say ‘okay, play Take 5’ and you play Take 5. And I go ‘now play Take 4. Now play Take 6. Now, let’s play Take 7. Now let’s play Take 3.’ And so, eh, eh the point of that is, it forces them to mentally establish what needs to, what has to be played to recognize the song. And yet, what can be left out and still remain recognizable.

Delaney has his students play Take 5, a familiar jazz standard normally played in the time signature of 5/4, and play it in a variety of other time signatures. He is connecting “familiarity and unfamiliarity” (Delaney). Creativity is also present in the juxtaposition various elements of music: melodically through the reconceptualizing of the melody in a personal way; harmonically through the juxtaposition of tonalities; orchestrally through the combination of instruments in new ways; and stylistically through playing songs in a variety of contrasting styles.

Imagination to CreationThe second way in which the participants understood the way in which creativity was present in jazz improvisation was through the transfer of imagination into creation. Creativity is using “your imagination to recreate whatever it is that’s in your imagination [unintelligible] and making an interpretation of it on, on a piece of paper or on a canvas” (Andrew). This is a skill that one participant noted as being “atrophied with the young generations” (Delaney). Their “aural imagination is undeveloped” (Delaney). Without the ability to create what is in their imagination, jazz improvisors are not able to be creative in the ways noted in the previous section.

Jazz Improvisation as a Language

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Four themes emerged by participants when they discussed the way(s) in which they teach creativity in jazz improvisation. The first theme is the dominant metaphor of jazz improvisation as a language. They spoke of “music as being a language and jazz as being a dialect” (Delaney). Jazz improvisation is a “language” in which the improvisor “speak[s] in musical tones” (Andrew). The improvisor is in “dialogue” with the other musicians, almost a sort of “musical discussion” (Andrew).

This metaphor of jazz as a language is weaved through both participants pedagogy. A child learns a language by speaking it first, and then going back later to learn the grammar, what Delaney refers to as “written forms” and “spoken forms.” Delaney explains this process:

What you have to know is you have to have that practical, um, first of all, I hear a sound. Second of all, I imaginatively use that sound to say something. Third of all, I have to know what that sound is relative to the context I’m speaking in. Fourth of all, I have to have the mechanical resources on my instrument to find that sound and manipulate that sound with the imaginative concept. And fifth of all, if you like I’ll write it down for you.

Again, embedded within this process is the theme of imagination into creation.

The Old GuysThe second theme that emerged in teaching creativity is the importance of learning from the “old guys” (Delaney). Both respondents discussed the importance of learning from experienced jazz musicians by “hanging out with the guys who were playing [at] jam sessions” or at the “club” (Delaney). Delaney notes that:

“Everyone’s always asking about developing vocabulary. ‘Okay, well, you know I should play this lick and I should do this and I should do that.’ And I say ‘no, what you should do is you should think about how the old guys learned.’ Mkay, and this is back to my experience with old guys. You know the, the, the older generation, they learned by putting on their records and wearing their records out by playing along with them.”

Listening to other jazz improvisors also occurs through recordings. Andrew speaks of great jazz musicians such as Dave Brubeck and Monty Alexander as being important in his development. When he has students listen to recordings, Andrew notes that “the student is essentially teaching themselves.” When students experience these “old guys,” whether through recordings or by interacting with them in-person, the students pick up on the nuances of how jazz as a language works.

In his jazz improvisation class, Andrew played a video clip of the great jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell playing the jazz standard Jeannine. “We learn language from our parents,” he tells the class. “In this case, our parents are recordings.”

Teacher as Guide

Another part of the process of emphasizing creativity when teaching jazz improvisation is the importance of the teacher being a guide. “We’re more of a guide, you know, through it and a mentor,” Andrew notes, “all they need is things to be thrown in front of them.” Delaney says that “I’m there as a coach, you know. I can say ‘well, check this out. What’s happening here? What do you think of this artist? Let’s…,’ you know, those things.”

Fusion of Improvisation and CompositionThe fourth theme that emerges from the participants is the importance of composition in the process of learning creative jazz improvisation. “At the highest level, I think that a person getting into composition is as important or more important than continuing to practice ii-Vs around the key circle and, you know, arpeggiating their chords and, you know, whatever” (Andrew). Teaching composition slows down the students’ “thought processes” to focus on developing ideas. Delaney ties this idea of composition into the idea of creative jazz improvisation. Compositional principals are used to fuse the familiar into a creative product. When improvisors “rephrase” melodies and change “tonalities” or “meters,” Delaney notes that “they are all really compositional principals, but they’re also basically improvisational tools.” Students developing their compositional skills helps them incorporate those ideas into their improvisation.

ExperienceThe fifth theme in teaching creativity is the importance of experience. Delaney uses an illustrative metaphor of a puppy and a scientist:

And you see the thing is, we have what I call, you know, um, well in recent times I’ve been using the puppy and the scientist. So, you got your, you know, your your your right brain if your right handed, or its opposite if you’re left handed. But you know your right brain is this experiencer. It’s in the moment. ‘Wow! What’s that? Hey cool! This is really fun!’ And then you have the scientist which walks around behind and writes everything down to remember them. Because the puppy doesn’t remember a thing. You know, it’s just there. And then it’s gone, right. And we have to have these two elements to really develop ourselves. We need both. But this goes back to the original thing I said about education and the focus of education. The easy thing educationally is to talk about the scientist. ‘Hey, here’s the facts. Just the facts, man.’ Okay, write them down. Here’s the scale. Here’s the chords. Here’s the tune. Here’s the structure of the tune. Here’s how it went. Here’s blah blah blah blah blah. What did this composer mean when they wrote this? I don’t know, the composer did it.

This metaphor of experiencing the music ties together several previous themes such as jazz improvisation as a language, learning from the old guys, and the teacher as a guide. When a child is learning a language as a young child, he first immerses himself/herself into the world of that sound. They give students “the opportunity to not be intimidated by the process.” Students have to just get into the music and try to improvise. When they have students listen to recordings by the “old guys,” they are immersing them into the world of that musical sound. In doing so, the

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teacher is not giving the students prescripted instructions of how to improvise, but rather guiding them into this process.

AnalysisIn drawing these themes together through the theoretical lens of Csikszentmihalyi’s (1999) systems model, the participants in this study discussed the teaching and learning of creativity in jazz improvisation as primarily occurring between the individual and the domain. “The domain,” Csikszentmihalyi argues, “is a necessary component of creativity because it is impossible to introduce a variation with references to an existing pattern” (p. 314). Creativity occurs as the individual “makes a change in the domain” (p. 315). The first theme of the coalition of the familiar involves taking the basic “rules” of jazz improvisation and manipulating them. This manipulation occurs as the individual manifests these changes in their imagination into a creative product.

Csikszentmihalyi also notes that “a person cannot be creative in a domain to which he or she is not exposed” (1996, p. 29). The theme of teacher as a guide emerged through both participants discussion of their role as teachers. While at a more basic level, they are teaching the basic rules or ‘nuts-and-bolts’ of jazz improvisation, they viewed their role as guides that expose students to new music and ways of thinking. The role of “old guys” is especially important for this exposure. It is through spending time with masters of the domain and listening to their recordings that students learn the rules of the domain.

The key component in the systems model is the expansion of creativity from an individual process to include the broader social and cultural aspects—what Csikszentmihalyi refers to as the field, or “gatekeepers” (1999, p. 324). He asks an important question: who is entitled to decide what is creative?” (p. 324). The themes in this study do not clearly engage in this aspect of creativity. When both participants discuss creativity in jazz improvisation, they understand it being legitimized when it become “personal,” whereas the systems model views creativity as legitimized by the gatekeepers of the field. Delaney notes that “it’s the personal that becomes the creative part.” Andrew speaks of manipulating the language of music “in a way that’s entirely individual.” Both participants understanding of creativity in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation as active between the individual and domain parts of the systems model, but nothing emerged in the area of the field and it’s interaction with the other two areas.

DiscussionThe findings of this study nuance and deepen the understanding of creativity—specifically how it is present in teaching and learning jazz improvisation. When these jazz improvisation educators discuss creativity, they do so in a way that emphasizes the basic elements of their domain and the way in which these elements are manipulated. Strategies for emphasizing creativity include teaching jazz improvisation similar to the ways in which language is taught; exposing students to other great musicians; functioning as a guide to students; incorporating composition into the learning process; and the importance of experiencing new things for the first time.

In discussing the variety of theoretical frameworks available in studying creativity, Kozbelt, Beghetto, and Runco (2010) suggest scholars ask “what aspects of this theory seem out of balance or underdeveloped, particularly when viewed in the light of the broader landscape of creativity studies?” (p. 40). As noted in the analysis, the participants’ understandings of creativity are primarily active in the individual and domain aspects of the systems model. However, the findings in this study reveal very little in the third part of the model—the field. Further research can specifically address the ways in which the field is involved in the creative aspect of jazz improvisation, as well as the field’s role in legitimizing creative jazz improvisation. The interview questions would have to be modified for this focus.

Bowman (1988) asks a key question that very little empirical research has answered: “how have (do) the most influential teachers of improvisation taught (teach)?” (p. 74). This is echoed later when Norgaard (2011) argues that “designing meaningful instruction for novices in any discipline is informed by understanding the thought processes of advanced practitioners” (p. 109). In a recent survey of empirical research in jazz pedagogy, Watson (2010) notes the limited number of studies investigating the relationship between creativity and jazz improvisation stating that “Berliner’s (1994) landmark work on the thinking processes employed by improvising jazz musicians should be extended in order to develop theoretical models upon which jazz curricula could be based” (p. 391). While there is research exploring how creativity is experienced in group and individual improvisation contexts, there is little research that explores how creativity is experienced in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation. The themes that emerged in this study contribute to the research literature an understanding the thought processes of how “advanced practitioners” in the field of jazz pedagogy emphasize creativity in their teaching.

Hanley and Montgomery (2005) discuss ways in which music education curriculum can function in light of postmodern curriculum development, particularly through constructivist learning. Music educators can focus on:

• Knowledge and beliefs are formed within the learner.• Learners personally imbue experiences with meaning.• Learning activities cause learners to gain access to their experiences, knowledge, and

beliefs. • Learning is a social activity that is enhanced by shared inquiry.• Reflection and metacognition are essential aspects of constructing knowledge and

meaning.• Learners play an essential role in assessing their own learning.• The outcomes of the learning process are varied and often unpredictable.

These characteristics are present in the themes that emerged from this study. The process of students learning from experiencing music from the “old guys” embodies learning as a

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constructed experience—constructed by the learner. Teachers are guides for students in which the learning outcomes are not always precisely predictable.

Further questions still remain after the completion of this study: What is the role of the field in Csikszentmihalyi’s system model in understanding the way creativity is experienced in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation? Do the approaches for emphasizing creativity differ according to age (e.g., elementary school, middle school, high school, post-secondary)? If so, in what way(s) are they different? How is creativity in jazz improvisation taught with respect to different student levels of improvisational development?

Appendix A: Consent FormTEACHING AND LEARNING CREATIVITY IN JAZZ IMPROVISATION: A

QUALITATIVE PILOT STUDY Dear Participant, [date]

The following information is provided for you to decide whether you wish to participate in the present study. You should be aware that you are free to decide not to participate or to withdraw at any time without affecting your relationship with the researcher.

The purpose of this pilot study is to explore the way(s) creativity is experienced in teaching and learning jazz improvisation through the lens of postmodern curriculum development. This will be done through a phenomenological research design. At this stage in the research, I generally define creativity as the process of bringing together divergent ideas.

Data will be collected primarily through interviews with the participants; observations of the participants in a setting that involves teaching or learning creativity; and the collection of documents such as lesson plans, method books, recordings, or any other pertinent audio/visual materials.

Do not hesitate to ask any questions about the study either before participating or during the time that you are participating. I would be happy to share my findings with you after the research is completed. However, your name will not be associated with the research findings in any way, and only the researcher (myself) will know your identity as a participant.

There are no know risks and/or discomforts associated with this study. The expected benefits associated with your participation are the information about understanding the teaching and learning of creativity in jazz improvisation.

Please sign below your consent with full knowledge of the nature and purpose of the procedures. A copy of this consent form will be given to you to keep. Thank you for your time!

Roger CossEd.D Student University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA)

Dr. Tom NelsonDoctoral Advisor tnelson@pacific.edu(209) 946-3253

NAME: _____________________________________ DATE: ____________________

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Appendix B: Interview ProtocolTEACHING AND LEARNING CREATIVITY IN JAZZ IMPROVISATION: A

QUALITATIVE PILOT STUDY

Research Questions

1. In what way(s) is creativity experienced in the teaching and learning of jazz improvisation? 2. How do jazz improvisation educators understand the nature of creativity?3. What pedagogical strategies are involved with teaching creativity through jazz

improvisation?4. In what way(s) is jazz improvisation informed by research in postmodern curriculum

development?

Interview Questions

Early Experiences1. Tell me about some of your earliest experiences with jazz improvisation.2. Can you tell me about some specific situations that greatly affected how you learned jazz

improvisation?3. How do you define “jazz improvisation?”4. What metaphor do you feel accurately represents your understanding of jazz improvisation?

Creativity5. Tell me about how you understand “creativity.” (Q2)6. In what ways do you think creativity is present in jazz improvisation?

Teaching and Learning7. Can you describe your role as a teacher of jazz improvisation.8. What are some strategies you use to teach creativity through jazz improvisation? (Q3)9. What do you feel are some important ways in which creativity is learned through jazz

improvisation?10. What metaphor best describes the way in which creativity is present in your own teaching

and learning of creativity in jazz improvisation?

Appendix C: Introduction Letter to Potential Participants (Template)

[Name],

My name is Roger Coss and am currently an Ed.D student at the University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA). I am conducting a pilot study of my doctoral dissertation on the topic of the teaching and learning of creativity in jazz improvisation. My Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees were in jazz studies from CSU Sacramento, so this is a topic that I am deeply interested in exploring.

I am emailing you because I am looking for participants who are involved in teaching jazz improvisation—either in a group or one-on-one setting—that would be willing to allow me to observe and take notes as they teach. In addition, I am looking for a participant who would be open to the possibility of a one-on-one interview where I would ask him/her about their experiences and strategies for teaching and learning creativity in jazz improvisation.

If you would be willing to let me observe you teach or have any further questions, please let me know. I moved down to San Jose about a year ago and am still getting to know the music scene here. If anything, I would love to meet fellow jazz players in the area!

Thank you for your time,

Roger Coss(209) 815-3981rcoss15@comcast.net

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