Dr. Aaron Berkowitz
The ability to improvise represents one of the highest levels of musical achievement. An improviser must master a musical language to such a degree as to be able to spontaneously invent stylistically idiomatic compositions on the spot. This feat is one of the pinnacles of human creativity, and
yet its cognitive basis is poorly understood. What musical knowledge is required for improvisation? How does a musician learn to improvise? What are the neural correlates of improvised performance?
In The Improvising Mind these questions are explored through an interdisciplinary approach
that draws on cognitive neuroscience, study of historical pedagogical treatises on improvisation, interviews with improvisers, and musical analysis of improvised performances. Findings from these treatises and interviews are discussed from the perspective of cognitive psychological theories of
learning, memory, and expertise. Musical improvisation has often been compared to 'speaking a musical language.' While past research has focussed on comparisons of music and language perception, few have dealt with this comparison in the performance domain. In this book, learning to improvise is
compared with language acquisition, and improvised performance is compared with spontaneous speech from both theoretical and neurobiological perspectives.
Tackling a topic that has hitherto received little attention, The Improvising Mind will be a valuable addition to the literature in
music cognition. This is a book that will make fascinating reading for musicologists, music theorists, cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists, musicians, music educators, and anyone with an interest in creativity.
Acknowledgements
Prelude
1. Introduction
Pedagogy and learning of improvisation
2. The pedagogy of improvisation I: Improvisation Treatises of the Mid-Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
3. The pedagogy of improvisation II: Pedagogical Strategies
4.
Learning to improvise: Learners' perspectives
5. Music and language cognition compared I: Acquisition
Improvised performance
6. Improvised performance: Performers' perspectives
7. The Neurobiology of improvisation
8. Music and language cognition compared II:
Production
9. Cadenza
Coda: Constraint, freedom, and style
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Aaron Berkowitz received his M.D. from Johns Hopkins University, his Ph.D. in music from Harvard University, and his Bachelors degrees in Music (B.A.) and Biology (B.S.) from George Washington University. He has published his research in the journals NeuroImage and Twentieth Century Music,
has been an invited speaker at several major U.S. universities and conferences, and served as a guest professor in music and psychology at Tufts University. As a pianist and fortepianist he has performed throughout Europe and the U.S., and as a composer his compositions have been performed in
Europe and the U.S., including Carnegie Hall.
Generative Processes in Music - Edited by John Sloboda
Handbook of Music and Emotion - Edited by Dr. Patrik N. Juslin and Dr. John Sloboda
