The Improvising Mind

Cognition and Creativity

in the Musical Moment

Aaron L. Berkowitz

OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
 OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP

United Kingdom
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries
©Oxford University Press, 2010

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

First published 2010

Reprinted 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in

a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the
prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted
by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics
rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the
above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the
address above
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Data available
ISBN 978-o-19-959095-7

Cover image: 'Improvvisione' by Louis Montegut, La Scena Illustrata,

xxii/16, 15 Agosto 1886, page 5. Courtesy of the Yale University Library.
 Dedication

To incredible improvising minds

Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson
For their music, teaching, and inspiration

To wonderful, engaging ethnomusicologist and advisor mind

Kay Shelemay
For her mentorship and support

To brilliant, sharp neuroscientist and educator mind

Daniel Ansari
For his collaboration and teaching

To pioneering, synthesizing neurologist and musician mind

MarkTramo
For his mentorship and encouragement

To compassionate, insightful physician, educator, and advisor mind

Thomas Koenig
For his support and guidance

To extraordinary, extraordinarily warm physician and

humanist minds
Leon Eisenberg (in memoriam) and Carola Eisenberg
For their inspiration and friendship

To generous and unique familial minds

David, Amy, Leah, and Daniel Berkowitz
For their love and support
 Acknowledgements

About half way through medical school, I decided that I would like to take
some time away from the M.D. curriculum to explore interests in music, cog-
nitive neuroscience, music cognition, anthropology, linguistics, and languages
(among others) before completing my medical training. I realized that
graduate study in music would allow me to study many of these areas, but
I was unsure of whether a graduate music program would accept a medical
student, and whether the school of medicine would allow for such a non-
traditional venture. I could not have imagined how incredibly supportive both
sides would be in helping me to carve out my own path. The faculty, staff, and
students of the Harvard University Department of Music and the Johns
Hopkins School of Medicine were not only endlessly encouraging and accom-
modating, but provided ideal conditions for pursuing (and combining)
my interests and passions.
To see if graduate study in music would even be a possibility for me, I emailed
Harvard Music Professor Kay Shelemay to ask her advice, since I noted in her
online biography that she had participated in the Mind/Brain/Behavior
Interfaculty Initiative at Harvard. I received an email reply from her less than
a half hour later. A wise mentor, she foresaw my entire course of study so
clearly from one single email, that I cannot help but quote from her reply
directly:
What an unusual and interesting query. I would be happy to talk with you further
about your interests. Given your dual musical and neuroscience background, the
emerging field of cognitive ethnomusicology could be a wonderful possibility. Given,
too, your interests in obtaining regular ethnomusicology training, I would think
you could consider any challenging ethnomusicology program as long as there are
institutional resources that would permit a dissertation that potentially moved into
an area of cognitive neuroscience. Y.le certainly do have resources for such an endeavor
here at Harvard, both within our department in terms of the broad ethnomusicology
offerings and in combination with colleagues across the disciplines who could provide
feedback and guidance in more technical areas that might be involved in a dissertation.

From that email to the dissertation that I completed under her guidance,
Kay Shelemaywas a wonderful mentor in every sense of the word. She recruited
me to Harvard and nominated me for the University's Presidential Fellowship
to fund my education, helped me to create a curriculum drawing from the
wi(l)dest possible range of disciplines, and recommended me for countless
viii I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

fellowships, grants, and other professional opportunities-some of the many

"resources for such an endeavor here at Harvard," that she mentioned in the
above-quoted email. She saw the possibilities latent in my original em ail
inquiry, and tirelessly helped me to realize them. Just as she predicted in the
email above, I was able to create a curriculum in cognitive ethnomusicology,
write a dissertation that moved into the area of cognitive neuroscience, and
gain feedback and guidance in more technical areas from colleagues from
across the disciplines. It is upon this dissertation research that the present book
is based. I can truly say that it is because of Kay Shelemay that I was able to
study at Harvard, and the research that I present here would not have been
possible without her mentorship, support, and guidance.
Upon my arrival at Harvard, I discovered a veritable embarrassment of
riches. One of those riches was another individual without whom this book
would not be: Robert Levin. He is undoubtedly one of the greatest living musi-
cians, and it has been a true privilege to study with him, and, for the research
for this book, to study him. Through his performances and classes, I was intro-
duced to the fortepiano and the study of historically informed performance,
both of which became central to both my study of music and to my research.
As will become clear in what follows, his incredible improvisations inspired
not only awe, but allowed me to see an ideal research nexus for the confluence
of my interests in music cognition, ethnomusicology, historical performance,
and the comparison of cognitive processes in music and language. Maestro
Levin's larger-than-life musicality is matched only by an equally boundless
generosity: he consistently made time in his touring, composing, writing, and
teaching schedule to work with me at the keyboard, coach my chamber music
projects, attend my performances, discuss my research and suggest resources,
and share his experiences through the profoundly insightful interviews that are
cited throughout the book. This book's subject matter was inspired by him,
and, no less importantly, my entire conception of music has been transformed
by his teaching, performances, and recordings. I hope that this book provides
some sense of-and tribute to-his extraordinary musicianship.
It was Robert Levin who introduced me to Malcolm Bilson and encouraged
me to take his summer fortepiano seminars at Cornell (my participation in
these was generously funded by a Harvard Music Department John Knowles
Paine Traveling Fellowship). Though I have only been able to work with
Maestro Bilson several times over the years, he has been an amazingly inspiring
teacher, endlessly generous with his time and profound musical insights in
lessons, masterclasses, conversations, and interviews. My time with him has
had a profound effect on my music-making, and I hope that the excerpts
from our interviews and lessons together do justice to his wonderful artistry,
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I ix

character, and the profound clarity with which he conveys his musical ideas to
his students. Both he and Robert Levin are pioneers in the field of historical
keyboard performance, and the opportunity to work with them during this
project was both a privilege and a delight.
Professors Christopher Hasty and Alexander Rehding at Harvard generously
agreed to serve as members of my dissertation committee. They encouraged
me to work across disciplinary boundaries throughout my time at Harvard,
and set an excellent example by the interdisciplinarity of their own far-
reaching courses and writings. Conversations with them were very helpful in
developing, shaping, and conveying my ideas from my first year as a graduate
student through the completion of my dissertation.
As should be clear from all of the above, the faculty of the Harvard Music
Department provided extraordinary mentorship and inspiration. This inspira-
tion was nurtured by the wonderfully warm and supportive environment of
the music department thanks to its wonderful staff: Nancy Shafman, Kaye
Denny, Charles Stillman, Lesley Bannatyne, Fernando Viesca, Jean Moncrieff,
Karen Rynne, and Marcus Baptiste; librarians Andy Wilson, Sarah Adams,
Douglas Freundlich, Kerry Masteller; and piano tuner Lew Surdam. The
department-and by extension its students-would not run without their
tireless efforts, constantly joyful presence, and selfless service to Harvard's
musical community. I enjoyed the chance to get to know each of them during
my time at Harvard.
The Harvard Mind/Brain/Behavior Interfaculty Initiative supported me with
a research grant to conduct the brain imaging study described in Chapter 7. My
collaborator for this research, Daniel Ansari (currently a professor in the
Department of Psychology at University of Western Ontario), generously
offered to help me realize the study for which I had procured this grant. Daniel
is an absolutely brilliant scientist, and I learned an extraordinary amount
working with him. He helped me to codify and clarify the study design, worked
countless hours designing the technical set-up and helping me to analyze the
data, and guided me in learning the art of science at every level, from conceiv-
ing of a study, to analyzing, interpreting, and presenting the results. We enjoyed
many late-night discussions on the phone, over email, and in person in
Hanover, Cambridge, and London, Ontario. As with all whom I have
mentioned so far, without his help, the research presented in this book would
not have been possible. I am also very grateful to his laboratory team including
!an Lyons, !an Halloway, Bibek Dhital, Luci van Einerem, and Nick Garcia for
patiently and generously aiding me with data analysis. Additionally, I am
indebted to Daniel's wife, Emily Abrams An sari (a classmate of mine in music
at Harvard and now a professor in the Department of Music at University of
X I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Western Ontario}, who introduced Daniel and me, and encouraged us to work
together. I also extend thanks to Tim Ledlie, who helped with the analysis of
the behavioral data from our experiments.
At Johns Hopkins, my mentor in neurology, Dr. David Newman-Toker, and
the Deans of Student Affairs Dr. H. Franklin Herlong and Dr. Thomas Koenig
were unparalleled mentors. From the moment I proposed a leave from the
M.D. curriculum to pursue a Ph. D. in music to my return six years later, their
generosity, support, advice, insights, and encouragement were unflagging.
They aided me in every step of my medical education up to and including
my transition to the beginning of my Ph.D., continued to provide their sage
counsel during my studies at Harvard, and were actively involved in helping
me to prepare my return to and completion of the M.D. curriculum. They
are model physicians, educators, scientists, and mentors, and I am endlessly
thankful for the support and flexibility they provided in facilitating a seamless
combination of a medical degree and a Ph.D. in music at two separate
institutions.
During my first year of graduate school, Christopher Hasty kindly introduced
me to Aniruddh Patel, one of the world's leading experts on comparisons
of music and language cognition. Ani has been extremely encouraging and
supportive of my work over the years, and generously offered invaluable
comments on Chapters 5 and 8 of this book, which discuss music-language
comparisons.
William Bares (a fellow graduate student in music at Harvard) and I traded
writing over the last years to provide feedback for each other. I am as grateful
to him for his insightful and astute comments as I am for the opportunity to
have read his work. Fellow graduate student at Harvard and now professor at
the University of North Carolina-Greensboro Aaron Allen found the cover
image, Improvvisazione, and kindly passed it along, generously sharing the
fruits of his research with me. Journalist Amanda Martinez and friend Jason
Ditzian (quite an improvising mind himself) both read and commented upon
this manuscript at various stages of its development, and I am thankful for
their helpful suggestions and our engaging discussions.
I began these acknowledgements with a story from nearly eight years ago,
and I will now turn to one even older. At some point in college, I heard a
National Public Radio program on music and the brain. One of the physician-
scientists interviewed was Mark Tramo, one of the pioneers in this field. There
is no way that I could have imagined that he would be a member of my dis-
sertation committee more than a decade later. As a student and later as a guest
lecturer in his ''Music, Mind, and Brain" class, I had the opportunity to study
under him directly, and learn about the field of music cognition from one of
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS j xi

its foremost leaders. His guidance, encouragement, and mentorship were an

invaluable part of my time at Harvard.
I was fortunate to have the opportunities to serve as a teaching assistant in the
music department at Harvard and as a guest professor in the departments of
music and psychology at Tufts University in 2007. I am grateful to my students
of these courses for our lively discussions about music and the mind-I probably
learned more from them than they did from me.
While serving as a teaching assistant for a music history course at Harvard, I
had the great fortune to befriend one of the course's truly "VIP" auditors:
Dr. Carola Eisenberg, pre-eminent psychiatrist, former Dean of M.I.T. and
Harvard Medical School, cofounder of Physicians for Human Rights, and one of
the most inspiring, generous, and loving human beings I have met. She intro-
duced me to her husband, Dr. Leon Eisenberg, a pioneer in psychiatry and social
medicine with an incredible wit, hum or, and intellect, and also an extraordinarily
inspirational, generous, and loving person. The three of us shared many memo-
rable evenings together during my last few years at Harvard, and they became my
"adopted grandparents" in Cambridge. Leon passed away in the fall of 2009 and
will be sorely missed, but ever-present in his influem;:e on the world and all of the
individuals who had the privilege of interacting with him. Somehow, he even
found time to read and comment upon this manuscript in an earlier iteration.
I had the great privilege of serving as a resident tutor in Cabot House during
the last four of years of my graduate work at Harvard. The stimulating and
nurturing environment of undergraduates, other tutors, visiting scholars, the
house masters Jay and Cheryl Harris, and their wonderful assistant Susan
Livingston provided my Harvard home, where I was able to conceive of and
complete the research for this book (and many other projects) amongst
engaged and engaging peers, students, and friends.
A number of libraries and their librarians generously made resources avail-
able to me for consultation in my research. John Montag of Nebraska Wesleyan
University photocopied and sent Carl Czerny's Opus 300, John Shepard and
Matthew Weber of the jean Gray Hargrove Music Library of the University of
California-Berkeley provided access to Philip Antony Corri's Original System
of Preluding and granted permission to use images from it, Sarah Adams of the
Isham Music Library of Harvard University provided access to the Andre
Ernest Modeste Grftry and James Hewitt sources and granted permission to
reproduce images from them, the Music Division of the Library of Congress
granted permission to use images from the August Friedrich Christopher
Kollmann volume, and Gaby van Rietschoten of Koninklijke Brill NV granted
permission for the use of images from a microfiche of the Johann Gottfried
Vierling treatise.
xii I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am extremely grateful to Martin Baum, the Senior Commissioning Editor

for Psychology, Psychiatry, and Neuroscience at Oxford University Press,
whose enthusiasm for this book and support of my work on it was encouraging
from my initial proposal to the current printing. His assistant Charlotte Green
was incredibly kind, supportive, and helpful at all stages of the publication
process. Production editors jennifer Lunsford and Abigail Quanrud and copy
editor Gayathri Bellan were warm, patient, prompt, precise, and infinitely
helpful in all aspects of the production process, making it an enjoyable and
easy process. I would also like to thank Catharine Carlin at Oxford University
Press in New York for her initial interest in the book and for connecting me to
Martin Baum.
Last but not least, my family has stood by me and my endeavors for as long
as I can remember. They have been a constant source of love, wisdom, advice,
support, and encouragement, and have traveled to an inordinate number of
my concerts, talks, and various academic and professional rites of passage of all
sorts over the years.
Though these acknowledgements have been rich in superlatives and insist-
ence that the present work would not have been possible without the support
of the individuals thanked, these sentiments are meant with utmost sincerity.
I dedicate this book to each and every one of the people mentioned above,
and I thank them again for their friendship, mentorship, encouragement, and
support during what I will remember as enjoyable, fruitful, stimulating, and
inspiring years at Harvard and Johns Hopkins.

Aaron Berkowitz
Baltimore, 20 I 0
 Prelude

On Saturday April2!, 2001, Robert Levin filled in for Alfred Brendel as the
piano soloist in a performance of Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra-on just a few hours' notice. From the stage,
Levin announced, "I should warn you, the cadenzas are going to be impro-
vised!" According to Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer, "He might equally
well have said, 'Fasten your seat belts!'" 1 One review of his performance
described his improvisations as follows:
His improvisation of cadenzas ... showed extraordinary daring: his solo ravings in
the fourth concerto first movement cadenza reached such a level of brilliant madness
that it seemed as if Beethoven himself were seated at the keyboard. His control here
was fabulous. The intervveaving of themes from the work during the cadenza showed
a fine intellectual understanding, coupled with a drive to make Levin's Steinway at
once an instrument of fine music and the outlet of the manic and despairing genius
of the composer of the work driving the soloist to heights of excellence ... Conductor
Seiji Ozawa narrowly missed a nasty accident during this cadenza. He stood nervously
watching the pianist's hands, quite unsure when the Devil would leave Levin alone
and allow the orchestra to come back and bring the work to its conclusion. At one
point, Ozawa mistakenly raised his arms to the orchestra, dropping them just in time
to allow Levin to continue his unfinished machinations unhindered. 2

Levin's improvised cadenzas clearly put this reviewer on the edge of his seat-
and conductor Seiji Ozawa at the edge of his podium! The review is particu-
larly notable for its juxtaposition of extremes in describing Levin's
improvisations: brilliant madness versus fine intellectual understanding; Levin
under the Devil's control versus Levin's fabulous control; outlet of manic and
despairing genius versus machinations. Indeed, improvisation embodies these
dualities. As members of the audience hearing improvised music, we are fasci-
nated by the magic of its spontaneity, and yet we can also recognize the music
as within the framework of a style, be it that of Beethoven, the Baroque period,
or bebop.

1
Richard Dyer, "The Daredevil Made Levin Do It," Boston Globe, April23, 2001, Arts
Section.
2
Jonathan Richmond, "BSO, Levin Brew Brilliance," The Tech Onli11e 121, 21 (2001),
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N21/BSO_-_Ion_Richm,2la.html (accessed April 12,
2008).
xiv I PRELUDE

The same dichotomies depicted in this review can be found in Levin's own
descriptions of improvisation. In the first quotation below, he describes the
experience of improvising a cadenza. In the second, he discusses the structure
ofMozart's cadenzas.
As the orchestra starts to play the approach to the cadenza I start to think, "Well how
am I going to begin this?" ... And in some wild way, I move back and forth over the
material: this, that, something, but very often the orchestra arrives at the 6-4 chord
and I think, "I don't have any idea what I'm going to do, except that I've got to start
now." So I start to play, and I see what's going to happen ... I am both a creator and
a kind of a witness. I watch myself, and sometimes I can be quite aghast at what I do.
I remember particularly one time in Bremen playing a cadenza to the first Beethoven
concerto [Opus 15 in C major] and arriving on an F-sharp major chord, because in
Beethoven you can do things like that [i.e., modulate]. There I was on an F-sharp
major chord, six fifths away from C major and I did this and stared at the keyboard,
and at that point, literally I got outside of the whole thing and ... I looked at the keys
and I said, "Help me, get me out of here," and I literally, at that moment, fancied
the keys saying, "You got yourself into this, you get yourself out of it, this is not our
problem." I really felt the keys saying that to me. I thought, "Alright, I've got to get
going again." I started to play, and I sort of slipped on the banana peel of a diminished
seventh chord, and the next thing I knew I was twenty yards from home, and I have no
idea how it happened, but it did. 3

In contrast, in a chapter from a book on performance practice, Levin describes

Mozart's cadenzas as follows:
Mozart's cadenzas consistently display several important structural and rhetorical
features ... The typical cadenza is divided into the following sections:

l. Introduction (optional): passage-work of a bar or more that provides a virtuoso

springboard for what follows ...

2. First section, often derived from the primary group. Care is taken to remove har-
monic stability from the quoted material. This is usually done by avoiding the root
position tonic triad, whose presence would immediately destroy the tension of the
initial 6-4 with fermata ... The first section leads to an arrival on V7 or on the tonic
6-4; this is often underscored by a fermata, and an optional bridge of passage-work
leads to the second section.

3. Second section, often derived from the secondary group. Again the stability of
root position tonic is usually avoided, and non-modulating sequences are sometimes
made chromatic (or more chromatic) ... Like the first section, the second culminates
in a clear arrival, here on the tonic 6-4, elaborated by passage-work and a fermata.
Sometimes the dominant note appears alone (with octave doubling), but it is clear
that I~, not dominant, is meant.

3
Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.
 PRELUDE I XV

4. Conclusion: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the
cadenza .

. . . The generalizations above do not apply with equal validity to Beethoven's cadenzas ...
[W]hile his cadenzas may begin by quoting the primary group, then the secondmy group,
he does not feel bound to stay within the principal key and its related scale degrees .. ,
Thus a performer wishing to improvise or prepare a cadenza for a Beethoven concerto
would have fewer tonal constraints. This might seem easier, but the lack affirm guide-
lines makes the task more formidable ... 4

Levin's descriptions in these two different contexts exemplify two distinct

aspects of his musical knowledge. He can improvise cadenzas in the heat of the
moment, when time for abstract thought and planning simply does not exist,
making him equal parts "creator" and "witness." Yet, when removed from the
real-time demands of improvising, he can equally easily provide a thorough
and precise theoretical description of the form and contents of such improvi-
sations. Like the extremes in Richmond's review-brilliant ravings possessed
by the Devil on the one hand, and control and understanding on the other-
Levin's accounts reflect a similar dialectical tension between the experience of
improvised performance and the knowledge used in that process.
The ability to improvise in a style relies on an intimate knowledge of the
musical elements, processes, and forms of that style. However, the temporal
and physical constraints of improvised performance allow little or no room for
recourse to theoretical musings about such knowledge. The knowledge must
be internalized, mentally and physically, if spontaneous fluency is to be
achieved. Three questions arise with regard to this knowledge, and they will
serve as the core of the present inquiry into cognition in improvisation:
1. What is this knowledge-that is, what are the elements and processes of
which it is comprised?
2. How is this knowledge acquired and internalized?
3. How is this knowledge used in performance?
Noam Chomsky asks and seeks to answer analogous questions with regard
to language in Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use. 5 Indeed,
one goal of exploring these questions in the present study is to allow for com-
parisons between music and language as cognitive systems with respect to their

4 Robert Levin, "Instrumental Ornamentation, Improvisation and Cadenzas," in

Pe1jormnnce Practice: Music after 1600, ed. Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie
(London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 283-284.
"What constitutes knowledge of language? How is this knowledge oflanguage acquired?
How is this knowledge of language put to use?" Noam Chomsky, Knowledge of Language:
Its Nature, Origin, a11d Use (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1986), 3.
xvi I PRELUDE

underlying knowledge bases, the acquisition of this knowledge, and the use of
this knowledge in performance in these two systems of humanly organized
sound.
To answer these questions with respect to musical improvisation, I adopt
an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on the tools of historical musicology,
ethnographic interviewing, cross-cultural comparisons, and cognitive neuro-
science. I explore improvisation in Western classical music from the mid-
eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century as a case study, examining
pedagogical treatises on improvisation from this period, interviews with pian-
ists Robert Levin 6 and Malcolm Bilson 7 about how they learned to improvise
in this style, and Levin's and Bilson's improvisations from recordings and
pedagogical scenarios. 8

6 Born in 1947, Robert Levin is one of today's foremost pianists. After studies with Nadia
Boulanger in Paris as a teenager, he embarked on a tireless performing, recording, and
teaching career, while in parallel making significant contributions to musicology and
composing completions of many of Mozart's unfinished works. He is widely known
for his improvisations, including cadenzas and embellishments in concerto perform-
ances. Levin is currently the Dwight P. Robinson, Jr. Professor of the Humanities at
Harvard University, having taught previously at Hochschule fiir Musik in Freiburg,
SUNY College at Purchase, Conservatoire Americain at Fontainebleau, and the
Curtis Institute. See Robert Levin, "Curriculum Vitae," Harvard Music Department
Website, http://www.music.fas.harvard.edu/ faculty/levin.html (accessed August 10,
2008); Stanley Sadie, "Levin, Robert," in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http://www. oxfordm usicon line. co m! subscriberI article/ grove/ music/ 4 3 6 36 ( accessed
August 10, 2008).
7 Born in 1935, Malcolm Bilson is one of the pioneers of the early music movement, hav-
ing revived performance of Classical period repertoire on historical instruments (i.e.,
fortepianos) in the 1970s. His recordings of the complete pianos sonatas and concertos of
Mozart, the complete piano sonatas of Beethoven (with several of his students), and the
complete piano sonatas of Schubert on historical pianos were some of the first explor-
ations of this repertoire on period instruments, and remain landmark achievements.
Bilson is a Professor Emeritus ofCornell University, where he taught from 1968 to 2005,
and he continues to give lectures and masterclasses worldwide. See Cornell Department
of Music, "Malcolm Bilson," Corn ell Department of Music Faculty, http:/ /www.arts.
cornell.edu/music/ faculty/Bilson.html (accessed August 10, 2008); Robert Winter, "Bilson,
Malcolm," In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://v.'Ww.oxfordmusiconline.
com/subscriber/article/grove/music/43694 (accessed August 10, 2008).
8 The mid-eighteenth century to the early nineteenth century includes the "Classical style,"
that ofHaydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, among others. For discussion, see Charles Rosen,
The Classical Style (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1972), 19. In this book,
"Classical music" (with capital "C") will be used to refer to this style, while "classical
music" (with lower case "c") will be used to refer to the music that is colloquially referred
to as such.
 PRELUDE j xvii

Though musicians in many improvisation traditions learn through immer-

sion in a musical system, Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson did not learn how
to improvise in the Classical style by being immersed in the musical culture of
the eighteenth century in any traditional sense. Their learning took place in the
1970s, nearly 200 years later. The ways in which these two revivers of Classical
improvisation in the twentieth century interfaced with the materials of the
middle to late eighteenth century when learning to improvise, as well as their
own pedagogical practices and improvisations in the style, provide a fascinat-
ing example of the reconstruction of a tradition, the recreation of a link in a
process of transmission long broken. Through an examination of materials
from both the past and the present, I hope to elucidate the knowledge base
necessary for improvisation in this style and its transmission and acquisition
from the perspectives of both pedagogue and learner.
Based on Levin's description of the experience of playing cadenzas quoted
above, improvisation involves many aspects that appear to be inaccessible
to consciousness, at least in the moment of improvising. However, though
some knowledge and processes remain subconscious for the improviser, the
conscious manifestations of such knowledge and processes can be studied:
pedagogy, in which improvisers are forced to explore ways to transmit their
knowledge, either by example or through verbal description; improvisers' dis-
cussions of improvising; and the improvisations themselves. Furthermore,
examining the links between the improvisations of performers and the peda-
gogical models from which they have learned can provide additional insights
into the musical style itself, as well as its means of transmission.
Some have argued that "by its very nature-in that improvisation is essen-
tially evanescent-it is one of the subjects least amenable to historical
research. " 9 As a result of the evanescence of improvised music, we can only
speculate as to how improvised music actually sounded before the age of
recording by referring to contemporary verbal descriptions. 10 Yet improvisa-
tion is not impenetrable to historical research, as I hope to demonstrate. While
one cannot study the actual improvisations of eras past, the examination of
pedagogical treatises and improvisational models for teaching purposes from

9 Bruno Nett! et al., "Improvisation," in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://
w1vw .oxfordmusiconline .corn/subscriber/article/grove/music/ 13 738 {accessed April 4,
2008).
°
1
For discussion of contemporary accounts of improvisation in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, see Robert Wangermee, "L'Improvisation Pianistique au Debut
du XIXe Siecle," in Miscellanea Musicologica Floris van der Mueren (Ghent: Drukkerij
L. van Melle, 1950), 227-253; Valerie Goertzen, "By Way of Introduction: Preluding by
18th_ and Early I9 1h-Century Pianists," journal of Musicology 14 (1996): 299-337.
xviii I PRELUDE

earlier periods offers important insights into improvisation practices and

contemporary conceptions of musical style. 11
In order to understand the transmission of musical systems in improvisatory
traditions more broadly, I will compare my findings with those from
scholarship on pedagogy and transmission in numerous other improvisational
musical cultures including jazz, Indian music, Javanese music, South Slavic
oral epic poetry singing, and Iranian classical music. These cross-cultural
comparisons will demonstrate which aspects of the pedagogy and learning of
improvisation may be unique to eighteenth-century classical music as well as
those that may be more universal. 12
In addition to utilizing these musicological and ethnomusicological tools,
I also draw on the resources of cognitive neuroscience, assessing brain activity
during improvisation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
The findings from flv1RI studies are then assessed in light of how improvisers
view their creative processes, and how pedagogical strategies may train the
network of brain regions involved in musical improvisation.
Each of these different methodologies presents unique perspectives. In and
of themselves and through the connections between them, they allow for the
exploration of cognition in improvisation from a variety of angles.
Musical improvisation is an exceptional feat of human cognition. It is also a
highly specialized instance of a more general facet of human behavior: the
spontaneous rule-based combination of elements to create novel sequences

11 For a discussion of theoretical issues relating to reconstructing the past through a com-
bination of ethnography and examination of historical sources, see Phi lip V. Bohlman,
"Returning to the Ethnomusicological Past," in Shadows in the Field: New Perspectives for
Fieldwork in Etlmonmsicology, 2nd edn., ed. Gregory F. Barz and Timothy J. Cooley (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 246-270. For other ethnomusicological studies of
classical music, see Peter Jeffery, Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology
in the Study of Gregorian Chant (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Bruno
Nettl, Heartland Exwrsions: Ethnomusicological Reflections on Schools of Music (Urbana,
IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995); Henry Kingsbury, Music, Talent, and Petformance:
A Conservatory Cultural System (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2001); K.K.
Shelemay, "Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on
Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds," Ethnomusicology, 45 (2001): 1-29.
12 After a period of criticism of and objection to cross-cultural comparisons in ethnomusi-
cology, there have been several relatively recent defenses of the use of a comparative frame-
work. See for example: Alexander L. Ringer, "One World Or None? Untimely Reflections
on a Timely Musicological Question," in Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of
Music: Essays on the History of Etlmomusicology, ed. Bruno Nettl and Philip Bohlman,
187-200 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991); Andrew Killick, "Road Test
for a New Model: Korean Musical Narrative and Theater in Comparative Context,"
Et1momusicofogy47 (2003): 180-204.
 PRELUDE j xix

that are appropriate for a given moment in a given context. Broadly speaking,
improvisation is a central component of all human action. One need only to
think of righting one's self after a slip on the ice-a novel series of flailing
dance-like movements unlike those previously rehearsed for dance, and yet, a
combination of actions constrained by the possible movements of the joints
and muscles, and their positions at the moment of slipping.
So too can spontaneous speech be considered improvisatory. When speak-
ing, one draws on prelearned words, phrases, and rules for their use. Yet one is
also capable of describing events, thoughts, and feelings that one may have
never described before. Thus, speech and movement are to a large degree
improvised, in that they require novel combinations of pre-existing elements
to fit the ever-changing contexts and situations that one faces. One constantly
responds spontaneously to the surrounding environment, be it in adapting
one's walking to the changing terrain under foot, or planning and producing
one's speech in concordance with the conversational context at hand. 13
Thus, beyond exploring cognition in musical improvisation in the present
study, I also hope to provide insights into more general cognitive phenomena
beyond music that similarly involve spontaneous, novel, rule-based behavior.
Specifically, I will compare musical improvisation and how one learns to
improvise with spontaneous speech and language acquisition, respectively.

Overview
Chapter 1 serves as an introduction, defining improvisation and providing a
background for the study of cognition in improvisation, including discussion
of learning, memory, and comparisons between language and music.
Following the introduction, I have divided the book into two main parts.
Part I (Chapters 2-5) focuses on pedagogy and learning in improvisation (cf.
Questions 1 and 2 on p. xv), while Part 11 explores cognition of improvised
performance (cf. Question 3 on p. xv).
In Chapters 2 and 3, I examine pedagogical treatises on improvisation from
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These treatises provide
insights into the prerequisite skills and knowledge required for improvisation,
and the means by which these skills and knowledge were transmitted from
pedagogue to student. Which elements of the style are explicitly conveyed, and

13 The improvisatory nature of human behavior is eloquently described by philosopher

Gilbert Ryle in his article "Improvisation," Mind 85, no. 337 (1976): 69-83 (Quoted in
the Coda of this book). See also R. Keith Sawyer, "The Improvisational Performance
of Everyday Life," journal of Mundatze Behavior 2 (2001): 149-162 and Creating
Conversations: Improvisation in Everyday Discourse (Cresskill: Hampton, 2001).
XX I PRELUDE

which are only demonstrated rather than discussed verbally? How could
a learner use these treatises to develop improvisational fluency? Chapter 2
provides background on the treatises themselves, discusses the prerequisites
necessary for learning to improvise as described by the treatises' authors, and
presents the contents of these treatises. Chapter 3 explores the pedagogical
strategies used by the treatise writers. For each teaching tactic described, I dis-
cuss the cognitive processes that would appear to be necessary for learning to
improvise by way of such pedagogical strategies. I also present examples from
the present-day improvisation pedagogy of Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson
from my own experiences beginning to learn Classical improvisation from
them.
In Chapter 4, I approach learning to improvise in the Classical style from the
perspective of the learner, drawing on interviews with Robert Levin and
Malcolm Bilson. How did they go about reviving the practice of Classical
improvisation? What were their learning processes? Throughout Chapters
2-4, I compare the pedagogical strategies and learning processes for Classical
music with those in the improvisational traditions of other musical cultures.
Chapter 5 compares music and language cognition from the perspective of
acquisition. Based on the findings of Chapters 2-4 and relevant research and
theoretical work on language learning, in this chapter I compare answers to the
first two questions posed on p. xv for music and language (What is the knowl-
edge base? and How is it acquired?).
After studying the knowledge base necessary for improvisation, how this
knowledge is acquired from the complementary perspectives of pedagogical
treatises and learners, and how this learning process compares to language
learning in Part I, in Part I! of the book (Chapters 6-9), I turn to cognition in
improvised performance. In Chapter 6, I explore how the knowledge base
described in Chapters 2-4 is put to use in performance, again drawing
on interviews with Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson. What is the experience
of improvising for the performer? What can be discovered about cognition
in the moment of performance from the study of this experience? As in
Chapters 2-4, I compare these findings with those from studies of other
musical cultures.
In Chapter 7, I present research on the neurobiological basis of improvisa-
tion as studied with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which
I conducted in collaboration with cognitive neuroscientist Daniel Ansari.
I will discuss our neurophysiological findings along with those of others in the
context of the insights gleaned from the interviews described in Chapter 6.
Chapter 8 compares music and language cognition from the perspective of
performance. Here, I examine the findings of Chapters 6-7 for musical
 PRELUDE I xxi

improvisation in the context of the theoretical and neuroscientific study of

linguistic production, specifically spontaneous speech. In so doing, I compare
music and language with respect to Question 3 from p. xv (How is knowledge
used in performance?).
In Chapter 9, I take the Mozart-style cadenza as a case study. just as a cadenza
in the Mozart style interweaves themes from the concerto movement preced-
ing it, this chapter intenveaves the themes from all of the previous chapters. I
examine what is written in eighteenth-century pedagogical treatises about
cadenzas, the model cadenzas that Mozart composed, interviews with Robert
Levin on cadenza improvisation, and analyses of transcriptions of Robert
Levin's own improvised performances of cadenzas in the Mozart style.
The Coda offers some final reflections on topics explored throughout the
book.

'* *
In this book, I seek to combine manifold methodologies (historical examina-
tion of treatises, interviews, cross-cultural comparisons, musical analysis, and
brain imaging) and draw on research from an equally eclectic variety of disci-
plines (musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, cognitive psychology/
neuroscience, and linguistics). In so doing, I hope to shed light on the similarly
diverse and interconnected facets of the improvising mind, and the possible
parallels between these and analogous aspects of language cognition.
 Contents

Dedication v
Acknowledgements vii
Prelude xiii
Introduction
Defining improvisation: Spontaneous creativity
within constraints 1
Stylistic constraints 2
Performance/Performer constraints 3
Learning and memory 7
Implicit and explicit learning 7
Implicit and explicit memory 8
Declarative and procedural memory 8
Comparisons of music and language 10

Part I Cognition in the Pedagogy and Learning

of Improvisation
2 The pedagogy of improvisation I: Improvisation
treatises of the mid-eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries 15
The treatises of the present study 18
Prerequisites for learning to improvise 24
Formulas in the pedagogy of improvisation 27
Cadences 31
Rule of the octave 33
Movimenti 34
Conclusion 35
3 The pedagogy of improvisation 11: Pedagogical strategies 39
Transposition 41
Transposition cross-culturally 42
Transposition, automatization, and proceduralization 42
xxiv I CONTENTS

Variation 46
Variation cross-culturally 50
Variation: Concepts for cognitive economy 52
Recombination 56
Combinatoriality in eighteenth-century musical thought 64
Recombination cross-culturally 67
Recombination, transitional probabilities, and
statistical learning 69
Models and the acquisition of style 73
Conclusion 77
4 Learning to improvise: Learners' perspectives 81
Incubation, internalization, and assimilation: Exercises
and repertoire 82
Rehearsal: Finding paths through the knowledge base 88
Learning to improvise through improvising in performance 94
Learning through teaching 94
5 Music and language cognition compared I: Acquisition 97
Competence and performance: Perceptual competence
and productive competence 97
The knowledge base in language and music 100
Phonology 102
Morphology, the lexicon, and semantics 103
Syntax 107
Acquisition of the knowledge base in language and music 108
Phonology 109
Semantics, syntax, and pragmatics 109
Nativist approaches to language acquisition: Noam Chomsky
and universal grammar Ill
Empiricist approaches to language acquisition: constructivism and
cognitive-functional usage-based linguistics 112
A cognitive-functional usage-based approach to learning
to improvise 115
Conclusion 118

PART 11 Cognition in Improvised Performance

6 Improvised performance: Performers' perspectives 121
Creator and witness 121
Creator and witness cross-culturally 125
(No) memory and improvisation: A neuropsychological
explanation for the creator-witness phenomenon 128
 CONTENTS I XXV

7 The neurobiology of improvisation 131

Studying music cognition in the laboratory 131
The neural correlates of improvisation 1: Berkowitz and Ansari
(2008) 132
Study design 132
Behavioral results 136
Quantification of rhythmic improvisation: lnterpress interval
variability 137
Quantification of melodic improvisation: Variety of note
combinations and percentage of unique sequences 137
Brain imaging results 138
The neural correlates of improvisation 11: Limb and
Braun (2008) 142
Conclusion 144
8 Music and language cognition compared II: Production 145
Speaking and improvising: Theoretical perspectives 146
Speaking and improvising: Neurobiological perspectives 150
9 Cadenza 153
Cadenza pedagogy in the eighteenth century 154
Definition of cadenza 154
TUrk's guidelines for cadenzas 155
Models: Mozart's cadenzas 157
Background 157
Structure 158
Mozart's cadenzas to the first movement ofK. 271; Nr. 16 (Figure 9.8)
and Nr. 15 (Figure 9.9) 162
Cadenzas Nr. 16 and Nr. 15 162
Cadenza Nr. 16 continued 162
Cadenza Nr. 15 continued 164
Robert Levin's Mozart cadenzas 165
Note on the transcriptions 166
Levin l (Figure 9.10) 166
Levin 2 (Figure 9.11) 168
Levin 3 (Figure 9.12) 170
Conclusion 174
Coda Constraints and freedom: Improvisation in music,
language, and nature 177

Bibliography 185
Index 197
The Improvising Mind
 Chapter 1

Int roduction

In this chapter, I define terminology and concepts that will b e drawn upon
throughout the succeeding chapters. First, I explore two definitions of
improvisation, one from the nineteenth century and the other from the present
day, high lighting their common core concept: spontaneous creativity within
constraints. Following the discussion of the re levance of these aspects of
imp rovisa tion to the p resent study of cognition in improvisation, I present
some important concepts from the cogn itive psychology of lea rning and
memory that serve as usefu l too ls in understanding the material of the chapters
that follow. Finally, I introduce the notion of comparisons between music and
language cognition. Such comparisons will recur throughout the book, and
I will focus on them in depth in Chapters 5 and 8.

Defining improvisation: Spontaneous creativity

within constraints
Ca r! Cze rny, one of the foremost music pedagogues of the nineteenth centllly,
a student of Ludwig van Beethoven, and the teacher of Franz Liszt, defined
improvisation as follows:
. . . [T]he talent and the art of improvising co nsist in t he spinning o ut, during the ver)'
performance, o n the spur of the m omen t, and without special immediate preparatio n,
of each original or even b orrowed idea into a sort o f musical composition whic h,
albeit in much freer form than a written work, nevert heless must be fashioned into a n
organized totalit)' as far as is necessar)' to remain comprehen sible and interesting. 1

Over 150 years later , th e autho rs of the Grove Dictionary of Mu sic define
improvisation as:
T he creation of a musical work, or the fina l form of a musical work, as it is being pe r-
formed. It ma)' involve the work's immediate compositio n b)' its performers, or the
elaboration or adjustment of a n existing framework, or an )'thing in between. To some
extent ever)' performance involves e lem ents o f improvisation , although its degree

1
Car! Czern)'• A Systematic l11trodllctio11 ro Improvisnrio11 011 the Pia11o[orte, Op. 200, Vienna
1836, translated and edited b)' Alice L. Mitchell ( New York: Lo ngman, 1983), I.
2 I INTRODUCTION

varies according to period and place, and to some extent every improvisation rests o n
a series of conventions o r implicit rules. 2

Though the first definition comes from a m usician of the nineteen th cen-
tury, and the second fro m music scholars of the twentieth century, they are
essentially equivalent. Both definitions highlight that while improvisa tion
requires spontaneous creativity, this creativi ty is constrained by "conventions
or implicit rules" to make the improvisa tion "an organized totality" that is
"comprehensible a nd interesting." 3 T he co nstraints governing improvised
performance fall into two broad categories: musical (i.e., stylistic) constraints
and performance/performer (i.e., physical/physiological) constraints. 4

Stylistic constraints
When one hears improvised music, one can generally identify the style of the
music with some confidence (e.g .• jazz, classical, rock, etc.), even though the
ac tual music is improvised and thus novel. For a ny im provisation in a style
to be understood by listeners as "in a style," it must draw on the musical mate-
ria ls and processes defined by the musical culture of which it is a part. T he
improviser's choices in any given moment may be unlimited, but they a re not
unconstrained. M ihaly Csikszentm ihalyi, a psychologist specializing in the
study of creativity, explains:
Contrary to what o ne might expect from its spo ntaneous nature, musical improvisa-
tion depends very heavily o n an implicit musical tradition, o n tacit rules .. . It is only
with referen ce to a thoroughly internalized body of works performed in a coherent
St)'le that improvisatio n can be performed by the music ian and understood by the
audie nce. 5

2 Bruno Nett! et al. , " Imp rovisat io n, " in Grove M11sic On/ine. Oxford Music Online,
http://www .oxfordm usiconline .com/ subscriber/a rticle/grove/music/13 738 ( accessed
April4, 2008).
3 For a review of a wide range of published d efinitions of improvisation, see Bruno Nett!,
" Introduction: An Art Neglected in Scholarship," in In the Course of Performmrce: Studies
in tile World of Musical Improvisation, ed. Bruno Nett! and Melinda Russell (Chicago, IL:
U niversity of Chicago Press, 1998), 10- 12.
4 Barry ). Ken ny and Martin Gellrich refer to these as "externally generated" and " internally
generated" constraint s, respectively in Barry ]. Kenny and Martin Gellrich, " Improvisation,"
in Tile Science a~rl Psychology of Music Petfomwnce: Creative Strategies for Teaching and
Learning, e d. Richard Parncutt and Gary McPherson (New York: Oxford University Press,
2002), 11 7.
M ih aly Csikszentmihalyi and G ra nt jewell Rich, "M usical Improvisati on: A Syste ms
Approach ," in Crea tivity in Performance, ed . Keith Sawyer (Green wich , UK: Ablex
Publishing, 1997), 51. This interaction of creativity and constraint is nicely summarized by
psychologist P.N. Johnson-Laird's NONCE definition of creativity: "Creativity is Novel fo r
 DEFIN ING IMPROVISATION: SPONTANEOUS CREATIVITY WITHIN CONSTRAINTS I 3

Music theorist Leo nard Meyer's definition of musical style also highlights
this interaction of choice and constraint:
Style is a replication of patterning, whether in human behavior or in the artifacts pro-
duced by human behavior, that results from a series of choices made within some set
of constraints .. . [which] he has learned to use but does not himself create ... Rather
they are learned and adopted as part of the historical/cultural circumstances of indi-
viduals or group. 6

The rules and constraints of a musical style still allow for infinite possibilities,
just as languages with a finite number of words (the lexicon) and a finite set of
grammat ical rules (syntax) can still allow for an infinite number of possible
sentences. In language, this phenomenon is referred to as "discrete infinity."7
In both music and language, constraints provide a common ground for com-
munication between the perform er and the audience, or between the speaker
and the listener. The constraints on the improviser in the moment of perform-
ance do not come only from the conventions of the musical style at hand,
however. The need for rapid, real-time thought and action pose an additional
set of limitations within which the improviser must work.

Performance/Performer constraints
In the following discussion of performance/performer constraints, I draw on
the work of the late psychologist and improvise r Jeff Pressing, arguably the
most important pioneer in theorization a.b out the cognitive basis of improvi-
sa tion. Through his writin gs, h e d eveloped a highly nuanced framework for
discussing improvisation from the perspective of cognitive psychology, draw-
ing on extensive experience as a musician and a background as broad as it
was deep in psychology, music theory, musicology, and ethnomusicology. 8

the individual, Optionally novel for society [i.e., novelty fo r society does not occur in all
creative acts, and is thus nonessential to the definition ], Nondeterministic [i.e., .. . alterna-
tive possibilities occur at many points in the process . . . differe nt outcomes [can occur
from] the same internal state a nd the same input .. . ], dependent on Criteria/Constrains,
a nd based o n Existing ele ments (" raw mate ria ls") (P .N . Johnso n-Laird, "How Jazz
M usicians Improvise," Music Perception 19 (2002): 419-420 (emphasis in original)).
6 Leonard Meyer, Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 3. In the sa me book, in a passage on co mposition that could
equally describe improvisa tio n, Meyer states that, "Choosing a m ong alternatives ...
depends upon the existence of a set of constraints that establishes a repertory of alterna-
tives from which to choose, given some specific compositional context" (7-8) .
7 T his concept has b een described a nd explored exte n sively in the writings of Noam
Chom sky, some of which are cited in the bibliography a nd discussed further in Chapter 5.
8 See Australia Adlib , "In Memoria n Jeff Pressing," ABC Radio National, http://wwv;.abc.
net.au/arts/adlib/stories/s85841 8.htm (accessed March 7, 2008) .
4 I INTRODUCTION

Given the clarity and precision with which he described the elements of his
theoretical model of cognition in musical improvisation, I will provide many
of his explanations in his own words before describing their relevance to the
present study.
Pressing described the cognitive processes necessary for improvisation as
follows:
The improviser must effect real-time sensory and perceptual coding, optimal atten-
tion allocation, event interpretation, decision-making, prediction (of the actions of
others), memory storage and recall, error correction, and movement control, and
further, must integrate these processes into an optimally seamless set of musical state-
ments that reflect both a personal perspective on musical organization and a capacity
to affect listeners. 9

Given this impressive list of mental activities that an improviser must juggle at
any given moment, Pressing posited several "tools" that serve to circumvent
what he called "the rather severe constrains on human information processing
and action." 10 Two of these tools, the referent and the knowledge base, are
described here. These tools are not only necessary for efficiency of cognitive
processing in real-time performance, but also provide the musical materials
necessary for improvising in a particular style. Stylistic constraints thus aid in
alleviating performance constraints.
Pressing defined the referent as "an underlying formal scheme or guiding
image specific to a given piece, used by the improviser to facilitate the genera-
tion and editing of improvised behaviour ... " 11 Ethnomusicologist Bruno
Nett! has used the term "model" for the same phenomenon, describing that
the improviser "always has something given to work from-certain things that
are at the base of the performance, that he uses as the ground on which he
builds." 12 Referents are essentially musical materials or formal structures that

9 Jeff Pressing, "Psychological Constraints on Improvisational Expertise and Communi-

cation," in In the Course of Peifonnance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation, ed.
Bruno Nettl and Melinda Russell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 51.
10 Ibid., 51.
11 Jeff Pressing, "Cognitive Processes in Improvisation," in Cognitive Processes itt the
Perception of Art, ed. W. Ray Crozier and Anthony J. Chapman (Amsterdam: Elsevier,
1984), 346-347.
12 Bruno Nett!, "Thoughts on Improvisation: A Comparative Approach," The Musical
Quarterly 60 (1974): 11. Nettl's full description of the term "model," contextualizing the
above quotation, is as follows " ... [E] ach musical culture has its set of musical macro-
units, e.g., songs or pieces or modes ... the degree to which the sound realizations of the
unit are similar varies with the culture, comprising the system of musical conceptualiza-
tion, the question of freedom for the performer, etc. ... all musics [have] basic musical
entities which exist and are performed ... The improviser ... always has something given
 DEFINING IMPROVISATION: SPONTANEOUS CREATIVITY WITHIN CONSTRAINTS I 5

are used as the basis for improvisation. For example, Levin describes what
could be considered the referent for a cadenza in the Mozart style in the quota~
tion on pages xiv and xv of the Prelude. His description of this referent includes
the structure of the cadenza, the types of musical materials that are used, and the
events that take place in each formal section. Pressing's examples of referents
in various musical styles include the theme of a theme and variations, the
melody type (e.g., in Indian raga, Arabic maqam, Persian dastgah), and the
bass line. 13
Pressing described the role of the referent in cognition during improvised
performance as follows:
... [T]he referent provides material for variation [so] the performer needs to allocate
less processing capacity (attention) to selection and creation of materials ... [and
allows for] pre-analysis ... construction of one or more optimal structural segmenta-
tions of the referent and also a palette of appropriate and well-rehearsed resources for
variation and manipulation, reducing the extent of decision-making required in per-
formance ... Specific variations can be precomposed and rehearsed, reducing the
novelty of motoric control and musical logic of successful solutions of the improvisa-
tional constraints, and providing fallback material ... it reduces the attention required
on the task of producing effective medium to long-range order, since the referent, in
part, provides this. 14

The referent thus provides the underlying or overarching structural outline for
an improvisation, and/or, in some cases, the material upon which one impro-
vises. Thus, the process of learning and rehearsing the referent provides raw
materials for the improvisational knowledge base that can be drawn upon in
the moment of performance.
This referent is only part of the larger knowledge base necessary for improv-
isation. Pressing described this knowledge base as follows:
Improvisational fluency arises from the creation, maintenance and enrichment of an
associated knowledge base, built into long term memory[:] ... materials, excerpts,
repertoire, subskills, perceptual strategies, problem-solving routines, hierarchical
memory structures and schemas, generalized motor programs, and more ..

to work from-certain things that are at the base of the performance, that he uses as the
ground on which he builds. We may call it his model ... a series of obligatory musical
events which must be observed, either absolutely or with some sort of frequency, in order
that the model remain intact" (9-12). To avoid terminological confusion, I will use
Pressing's term "referent" rather than Nettl's term "model" (though they both essentially
describe the same phenomenon), since the term "model" will be used to describe peda-
gogical models for learning in later chapters.
13 Pressing 1984, 348.
14 Pressing 1998,52.
6 I INTRODUCTION

[The knowledge base] encodes the history of compositional choices and predilections
defining an individual's personal style ... 15

The improviser's knowledge base thus includes referents, in addition to the

types of stylistically appropriate materials that are used to realize them in the
moment of performance. Nettl's concept of "building blocks" similarly
describes this feature of the knowledge base. 16
From the perspective of cognition in improvised performance, Pressing
described that the referent and knowledge base allow for "conscious attention
[for] the allocation of central cognitive processing ([i.e.,] decision making) and
... unconscious or automatic attention [for] the allocation of peripheral cogni-
tive subroutines: perceptual analysis ... and pre-coded motor sequences ... " 17
That is, by internalizing certain features of a musical language so that they can
be conceived of and generated as units when improvising, real-time music-
making on a note-to-note level can proceed with some degree of automaticity. 18
The limited resources of attention can thus be devoted to higher-level musical
processes (e.g., relationships between events, form, feel, etc.).
These two levels, more conscious processing of higher-level musical flow
and more subconscious semi-automatized action on the microlevel, return us
to the dichotomies in the review that opened the Prelude, and Levin's contrast-
ing descriptions of his improvisation in two different contexts. Some conven-
tions and rules are accessible to consciousness (e.g., the referent for a Mozart

15 Ibid., 53-54.
16 "A musical repertory, composed or improvised, may be viewed as the embodiment of a
system, and one way of describing such a system is to divide it theoretically into its com-
ponent units ... the building blocks which tradition accumulates and which musicians
within the tradition make use of, choosing among them, combining, recombining, and
re-arranging them. These building blocks are, even within a single repertory, of many
different orders. They are the tones selected from a tone system; they are melodic motifs;
they are harmonic intervals and interval sequences in improvised polyphony; they are
types of sections" (Nettll974, 13).
17 Pressing 1984, 356. For additional discussion of the referent and knowledge base in
improvisation, see Kenny and Gellrich, 2002.
18 As psychologist P.N. Johnson-Laird describes in his theoretical model of jazz improvisa-
tion, "Some acts of creation occur in real time, and do not allow the individual to go back
and revise earlier thoughts ... Such creations depend on the artist internalizing the tacit
principles of an existing genre along with idiosyncratic variations ... The constraints
must therefore be adequate to produce acceptable improvisations, and they must be in a
fOrm that can be used rapidly and without the need for much computational power .
The artist is acquiring a skill that depends on tacit procedures in which conscious propo-
sitional knowledge has little part to play." P.N. Johnson-Laird, "Jazz Improvisation: A
Theory at the Computation Level," in Representing Musical Structure, ed. Peter Howell,
Robert West, and Ian Cross (London: Academic Press, 1991), 322.
 LEARNING AND MEMORY I 7

cadenza as described in the second quotation from Levin at the opening of the
Prelude), while others may function without conscious awareness.
Improvised performance in any tradition requires years of training to acquire
the rules, conventions, and elements of the style that make up the knowledge
base. Before exploring the nature of this training in Part I of the present study
and how the acquired knowledge base is used in performance in Part 11, I will
set the stage for these discussions by providing some background on the
psychology of learning and memory in the following section.

Learning and memory

Learning and memory are inseparable. Psychologist Arthur Reber, whose
research has focused on learning, states that:
... [L]earning and memory are so intimately interconnected ... There can be no
learning without memorial capacity; if there is no memory of past events, each occur-
rence of an event is, functionally, the first. Equivalently, there can be no memory of
information in the absence of acquisition; if nothing has been learned, there is nothing
to store. 19

Both learning and memory can be subdivided into implicit and explicit
processes. The implicit/explicit distinction refers to the degree to which these
processes involve conscious awareness.

Implicit and explicit learning

Implicit learning is defined as "the acquisition of knowledge about the under-
lying structure of a complex stimulus environment by a process which takes
place naturally, simply and without conscious operations ... a nonconscious
and automatic abstraction of the structural nature of the material arrived at
from experience of instances." 20 By contrast, explicit learning is "a more con-
scious operation where the individual makes and tests hypotheses in a search
for structure ... [;] the learner searching for information and building then
testing hypotheses ... [;] or, because we can communicate using language ...
assimilation of a rule following explicit instructions." 21 The key to distinguish-
ing between implicit and explicit learning is the lack of conscious effort in
the former and the presence thereof in the latter. It is possible, however, to
learn something explicitly, all the while acquiring additional knowledge

19
Arthur Reber, Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge: An Essay on the Cognitive Unconscious
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 109.
20 Nick Ellis, "Implicit and Explicit Language Learning-An Overview," in Implicit and

Explicit Learning of Languages, ed. Nick Ellis (London: Academic Press, 1994), 1-2.
21 Ibid., 1-2.
8 I INTRODUCTION

about it implicitly. For example, when one memorizes phrases in a foreign

language, one may explicitly focus on a specific feature of the words, phrases,
sounds, and structures to be learned, but one also inevitably internalizes
additional attributes of the language implicitly in the process. 22 Thus, "it is
probable that a mixture of implicit and explicit learning is involved in many
tasks." 23 How implicit and explicit learning interact in the development of
improvisational skill will be explored in Part I.

Implicit and explicit memory

The implicit/explicit distinction can also be applied to memory, where implicit
memory is typically defined as "memory that does not depend on conscious
recollection," and explicit memory as "memory that involves conscious
recollection." 24 The relationship between the implicitness/explicitness of
learning and the nature of the resultant knowledge stored is not always a direct
one, and these relationships can change over time. That is, something learned
implicitly can be brought to the light of consciousness by analysis or through
the need to make implicit knowledge explicit (e.g., in pedagogy). Proceeding
in the opposite direction, some believe that explicit knowledge can be rendered
implicit "through practice, exposure, drills, etc ... " 25 Thus, one can view
knowledge as falling along an explicit-implicit "continuum." 26 The distinction
between implicit and explicit memory is related to the declarative/procedural
distinction.

Declarative and procedural memory

Declarative memory refers to the ability to recall facts and events, whereas
procedural memory describes the knowledge of skills. Declarative memory
and procedural memory are sometimes referred to as "knowing that" and

22 For example, one could memorize several sentences, one pedagogical goal of which was
to demonstrate word order, but case declination could be learned passively in that pro-
cess, or vice versa. For discussion of interactions between implicit and explicit learning,
see Dianne Berry and Zoltan Dienes, Implicit Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Issues
(East Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993); N.C. Ellis {ed.) Implicit and Explicit
Learning of Languages (London: Academic Press, 1994).
23 Michael W. Eysenk and Mark T. Keane, Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Hrmdbook, 5th
edn. (East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2005), 214.
24 Ibid., 569. For further discussion of implicit and explicit memory, see Daniel Schachter,
Searching for Memory: The Brain, The Mind, and the Past (New York: Basic Books, 1996),
161-191. I discuss implicit and explicit memory in improvised performance in Chapter 6.
25 Susan M. Gass and Larry Selinker, Second Language Acquisition, A11 Introductmy Course,
3rd edn. (New York: Routledge, 2008), 243.
26 Ibid., 243.
 LEARNING AND MEMORY I9

"knowing how," respectively." Generally, declarative knowledge is thought to

be consciously accessible, whereas procedural knowledge is thought to be inac-
cessible to consciousness. 28 For example, one knows "how to ride a bike," but
one does not have conscious access to exactly how one is actually maintaining
one's balance. However, it is not necessarily the case that all declarative knowl-
edge is explicit and all procedural knowledge implicit. 29 For example, the
intentiotts that control actions can explicitly represent to some degree "the
input conditions, the action, the outcome, and the link between them," which
then operate on unconscious procedures for the implementation of those
actions. 30 With regard to improvisation, differing degrees of consciousness for
different levels of procedural musical knowledge exist, as was evident in Levin's
contrasting perspectives on improvisational knowledge presented in the
Prelude. The access to and use of such knowledge in improvised performance
will be discussed in Chapter 6, and compared to analogous processes in spon-
taneous speech in Chapter 8.
Procedural memory includes what is often colloquially referred to as "muscle
memory" or "motor memory." As Robert Levin stated in one interview, in his
improvisations, the fingers themselves play a "fateful role" in determining the
outcome of an improvisation. 31 Jazz pianist and scholar Vijay Iyer has simi-
larly described that "For musical performers, the difference between musical
and human motion collapses to some degree; the rhythmic motions of the
performer and the musical object overlap." 32 That is, one cannot necessarily
separate the musical from the bodily in describing knowledge and action in
improvisation. 33 The role of motor learning and memory in the design of

27 Eysenck and Keane, 233-247,557, 562; Benjamin Brinner, Knowing Music, Making Music
(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995), 39. As Johnson·Laird describes,
"Knowledge for generating ideas is unconscious and embodied in procedures. It is knowl-
edge of how to do things. But, knowledge for evaluating ideas can be conscious and
embodied in beliefs. It is knowledge tlwt something is the case" (Johnson·Laird 2002,
421-422 (emphasis in original)).
28 Eysenck and Keane, 456.
29
For discussion, see Gass and Selinker, 243.
30 Zoltan Dienes and Josef Perner, "A Theory of the Implicit Nature of Implicit Learning,"

in Implicit Learning and Consciousness: An Empirical, Philosopl1ical, and Computational

Consensus in the Making?, ed. R.M. French and A. Cleeremans (East Sussex: Psychology
Press, 2002), 78.
31 See Chapter 6 for further discussion of this quotation and the experience of improvised

performance from the perspective of the improviser.

32 Vijay lyer, "Embodied Mind, Situated Cognition, and Expressive Micro-Timing in

African-American Music," Music Perception19 (2002): 395.

33 Additionally, Iyer describes that, "The often implied characterization of the symbolic as

high-level and the embodied as low-level is misleading, for these functions may interact
10 I INTRODUCTION

pedagogical materials as well as in learning how to improvise will be explored

further in Chapters 3 and 4.

Comparisons of music and language

Music and language are both systems of organized sound that are both unique
to humans and ubiquitous across all known human cultures, though the
sounds and systems for organizing them differ across cultures. 34 Language is
capable of specific semantic reference, providing for precision in communica-
tion. Music appears to lack such precision in most cases, but communicates
powerfully in different ways, perhaps accounting in part for the near-universal
use of music in diverse cultural contexts from ritual to entertainment. These
similarities and differences between language and music have inspired com-
parisons between them by scholars from a wide variety of disciplines including
philosophy, anthropology, music theory, musicology, ethnomusicology, psy-
chology, and cognitive neuroscience, to name just a few. 35 In the moment of
performance, language and music share, most broadly, three loci for compari-
son: the producer (speaker/musician), the listener, and the sound system itself
used to communicate between the two.l6 Additionally, music and language
can be compared from the perspectives of pedagogy and learning.
Research in cognitive neuroscience has been carried out to compare music
and language perception and comprehension, and there has been extensive
theorizing by music theorists and ethnomusicologists comparing music and
language as sound systems, research that will be discussed in Chapter 5.
However, relatively little attention has been given to the comparison of cogni-
tive processes in musical and linguistic production.
What does musical "production, entail? There are different types of musical
production (e.g., composing, performing precomposed music, and improvising),

with each other bilaterally. In particular, one should not claim that the high level
processes 'direct' the low-level, for in some cases it is not clear that there is any such
hierarchical organization ... " (Ibid., 408.) Iyer thus proposes a "heterarchical intercon-
nectivityofbodyand mind" inimprovisation. Pressing suggests the same in "Improvisation:
Methods and Models," in Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance,
Improvisation, and Compositio11, ed. John Sloboda (Oxford and New York: Oxford
University Press, 1988), 136.
34 Aniruddh Pate!, Music, Language, and the Brain (New York: Oxford University Press,
2008); Erin McMullen and Jenny Saffran, "Music and Language: A Developmental
Comparison," Music Perception 21 (2004): 289-311.
35 See Chapter 5 for discussion and review.
36 Cf. Jean-Jacques Nattiez' three semiotic levels: politique (poietic), esthesique (esthetic),
and neutre (neutral) as described in Fondements d'une Semiologie de la Musique (Paris:
Seuill, 1975).
 COMPARISONS OF MUSIC AND LANGUAGE 111

and one can seek analogues of these processes in linguistic production. In the
case where the act of composition is entirely separate from the act of perform-
ance, composition is most analogous to writing in language: the real-time
constraints of performance are removed, allowing for starting and stopping,
erasing, reorganization, etc. In the case of performing precomposed music,
presuming that the goal is the replication of a composition in the moment of
performance, this is most analogous to rhetoric or theater: a memorized (or
read) speech or part in a play is produced in real time, but not actually con-
ceived of in real time. The performance act in such instances can thus be
thought of as one in which the performer does not exactly create, but rather
recreates. While both writing and preplanned speeches are important aspects
of language, spontaneous speech is the most common aspect of linguistic
production. Yet it is also one of the most miraculous: an infinite variety of
phrases can be constructed in the moment to respond to the context of the
discourse underway. The musical process most closely comparable to this is
improvisation.
In a large proportion of the world's musical traditions, the composer and
performer are not only one and the same, but the music is, to varying degrees,
invented in the moment of performance. Of course, the circumstances of per-
formance are such that any performance, even of a previously memorized,
precomposed piece will have some improvisation as the performer reacts to the
unique circumstances of the performance such as place, audience, performer's
mood, etc. From this minimal amount of spontaneous decision-making to the
creation of the entire musical fabric in real time, different musical traditions
run the gamut in the degree to which performances are improvised. 37 Similarly,
spoken language is a "complex mix of creativity and prefabrication." 38 Exploring
cognition in improvisation thus provides a new angle for music-language com-
parisons: that of spontaneous production (see Chapter 8).
The metaphor of an improviser "speaking a musical language" is quite com-
mon.39 Is learning to improvise music comparable to learning a language?
What insights can be gleaned from the comparison of the acquisition of these
two sound systems? While music and language learning have been compared,

37 Pressing sketched a continuum of improvisatory freedom in several musical traditions,

with traditional Japanese music and Western classical music being most constrained, and
free jazz and alap of North Indian (Hindustani) music being most free (1984, 347).
38 Rosamond Mitchell and Florence Myles, Second Language Learning Theories (London:
Arnold, 1998), 12.
39 See for example: Paul Berliner, T11inkingin]azz: The InfiniteArtofimprovisation (Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Ingrid Monson, Saying Something: jazz
Improvisation and Interaction (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
12 I INTRODUCTION

this has only been from the perspective of perceptual competence, that is, the
ability to recognize, understand, and appreciate music in one's culture, and
how this ability may develop. 40 An improvising musician, like the native
speaker of a language, has acquired a musical competence able to be used for
both comprehension and production. Thus, the study of how the improviser
acquires this productive competence can be compared to the process of
language acquisition, and the knowledge base acquired can be compared to that
for language (see Chapter 5). Although these music-language comparisons are
made primarily in Chapters 5 and 8, they also occur throughout the book,
where useful and relevant.

40 Such comparison of music and language acquisition has been explored in Erin McMullen
and Jenny Saffran, "Music and Language: A Developmental Comparison," Music
Perception 21 (2004): 289-311. See Chapter 5 for discussion.
Part I

Cognition in the
Pedagogy and Learning
of Improvisation
 Chapter 2

The pedagogy of improvisation 1:

Improvisation treatises of the
mid-eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries

Dear Miss Cecilia,

You are aware that music is in some measures a species of language by which may be
expressed those passions and feelings with which the mind is burthened or affected.
It is also known to you that we are able to play on any musical instrument, and more
particularly on the pianoforte, much which has 11either been written down before, nor
previously prepared or studied, but which is merely the fruit ofa momentmy and accidental
inspiration. This is called extemporizing.
Sud1 extemporaneous performcmces cmmot naturally, and indeed ought not to assume
the strict written forms of written compositions; nay, the very freedom and inartificial
nature of m eh productions gives them a peculiar charm; and many celebrated masters,
such as Beethoven and Hummel, have particularly distinguished themselves in tl1is art.
Although, for tl1is purpose, and indeed for music in general, a certain share of natural
talent is required, still extemporizing may be studied and practised according to certain
principles; and I am convinced that any body, who has attained to more than a moderate
skill in playing is also capable, at least to a certain degree, of acquiring the art of playing
extemporaneously. But for this purpose it is requisite to commence this sort ofpractice at
an early period (wl1ich, alas! Most players neglect); and that we should lea m to indefati-
gably apply tlw experience which we have gained by studying tl1e compositions of others,
to our own extemporaneous performances.
At present, as your execution is so considerably formed, and as you are beginning to
make a progress in tlwrough-bass, you should attempt, sometimes whett alone, sometimes
in the presence of your teacher, to connect togetl1er easy chords, short melodies, passages,
scales, arpeggioed chords; or, which is much better, leave it to your fingers, to effect this
connection, according to their will and pleasure. For extemporizing possesses this singular
and puzzling property, that reflection and attention are of scarcely any service in the
matter. We must leave nearly every thing to the fingers and to chance.
At first this will appear difficult to you; what you play will seem unconnected, or even
incorrect; you will lose that courage and confidence i11 yourself which are so necessary to
this purpose. But ifyou do not allow yourself to be frightened by this, m1d will repeat these
attempts day after day, you will perceive that your powers will become more developed
16 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

from week to week; 011d, with a more extended knowledge of thorough-bass, you will soon
learn also to avoid faults against harmony.
At first, you must attempt to extemporize only short movemellts, somewhat similar to
preludes or cadences. By degrees you must wdeavour to extend these, by interweaving
longer melodies, brilliant passages, arepeggioed chords, &c. If, in default of ideas of your
own readily offering themselves, you should avail yourself of sucl1 as you have leamed
from other compositions, such assistance is always vety excusable.
The scale-passages, and the chords of transition which connect them, are a good means
offilling up any little chasm, when no melodious ideas happen to strike tl1e player.
You k11ow that all music may be reduced to simple chords. just so, simple chords con-
versely serve as the ground-work on which to invent and play all sorts of melodies, passages,
skips, embellishments, &c.
When you have devoted a considerable time to a rational practice in the way here
pointed out, you will feel astonished at the great improvement and the variety ofapplications
of wl1ich the talent for extemporizing is capable[, .. ]
But for all this is required:
Great and highly cultivated facility and rapidity offinger, as well as a peifect command
of all the keys and of every mechanical difficulty. For you may easily imagine, Miss, that
the happiest talent avails nothing, when the fingers are incapable offollowing and obeying
its dictates. Besides this, it also requires imimate acquaintance with the compositions of all
the great composers; for only by this means can one's own talent be awakened, wltivated,
and strengthened, so as to enable us to produce music of our ow11 invention.
To this as you k11ow, must be added a thorough practical knowledge of harmony; and,
lasty,~ I repeat once more,~u own indefatigable and rationally applied industty.
Therefore, dear Miss, exercise yourself cheerfully and courageously in this very honor-
able branch of the art. If the labour is great the pleamre and reward wl1ich you may gain
tl1ereby are still greater [... ]
~Carl Czerny (1839) 1

In this letter, Czerny describes the basic prerequisites for learning to improvise
in the style of this time: a knowledge of harmony ("progress in thorough-
bass," "perfect command of all the keys," "a thorough practical knowledge of
harmony"), stylistic formulas ("chords, short melodies, passages, scales, arpeg-
gioed chords"), and repertoire ("intimate acquaintance with the compositions
of all the great composers"), as well as well-developed technique ("great and
highly cultivated facility and rapidity of finger").
Czerny also outlines the stages oflearning through which the student should
pass in improvisational training. He advises the student to learn to improvise
by attempting improvisation. In that process, he or she can begin by "connect-
ing together easy chords" and other such musical elements. Though this may
at first be "difficult," "unconnected," and even "incorrect," continued practice

1 Carl Czerny, Letters to a Youllg Lady on the Art of Playing the Pianoforte, from the Earliest
Rudiments to the Highest Stage of Cultivation, Vienna 1839, trans. J.A. Hamilton
(New York: Firth, Pond and Co., 1851), 74-77 (emphasis in original).
 THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I j17

will lead to further development of the improviser's "powers." The improviser

will soon be able to create "short movements" such as "preludes and cadences,"
and eventually, he or she will acquire the ability to "extend these."
But how can a student of improvisation arrive at the final goal, where simply
"leaving nearly everything to the fingers and to chance," as Czerny suggests,
will produce stylistically idiomatic improvisations? In Levin's descriptions of
improvisation in the Prelude, we saw a similar contrast: Levin can provide an
explicit description of some aspects of his knowledge base, yet he also refers to
being both a "creator" and a "witness" in the moment of performance. What
is the nature of the "indefatigable and rationally applied industry" that will
lead the student to acquire the knowledge base in a manner fit for spontaneous
use in improvised performance?
This chapter and the one that follows seek to answer these questions through
an examination of the keyboard improvisation treatises for amateurs and
music students of the middle-to-late eighteenth and early nineteenth centu-
ries. As ethnomusicologist Benjamin Brinner states in his study of competence
and interaction in Javanese gamelan performance, "the organization of knowl-
edge for transmission is one ofthe most readily accessible conceptualizations
of competence." 2 The treatises examined here provide rich insights into how
the competencies necessary for keyboard improvisation in the middle-to-late
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were conceptualized and codified
for transmission.
The authors of these pedagogical treatises were ostensibly accomplished
improvisers themselves. They likely learned through training far more rigor-
ously than could be conveyed in a treatise geared toward students. 3 In writing
pedagogical texts, these authors were forced to distill their knowledge in order
to make it accessible to amateurs eager to learn the art of improvisation. Some
of this knowledge was surely implicit, and the fundamentals of it would need
to be made explicit for the learner. In turn, this explicit knowledge transmitted
through the treatises would have to be conveyed in such a way so as to render
it eventually implicit for the learner, so that the budding improviser could call
on it in the moment of performance even when, in Czerny's words, "reflection
and attention are of scarcely any service in the matter." Of course, not every-
thing can be distilled by the pedagogue 4 Thus, in addition to the codification

2 Benjamin Brinner, Knowing Music, Making Music (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1995 ), 45.
3 For discussion of this issue with regard to composition pedagogy in this period, see Robert
Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 426.
4
For discussion of this issue with regard to composition pedagogy in this period, see
Gjerdingen 2007, 426.
18 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

of simple formulas (the "chords, short melodies, passages, scales, [and]

arpeggioed chords" mentioned by Czerny), these treatises often present model
improvisations. Through models, implicit and inarticulable aspects of style
can be demonstrated rather than explained, allowing for internalization of
these underlying features. Furthermore, the recommended modes of rehearsal
espoused by the treatises' authors embrace pedagogical strategies that empower
the learner with both a knowledge base and the ability to navigate it in real
time. An improviser, like the learner of a language, must acquire not only
vocabulary and grammatical rules, but also fluency in their spontaneous use.
The goal of this chapter is to explore what the authors of these treatises put
forth as core elements of the knowledge base in this style. I begin with a pres-
entation of the treatises selected for the present study and relevant background
information. This is followed by a discussion of the prerequisites necessary for
learning to improvise as presented by the authors of the treatises. Following
this explication of background competence, I will describe formulas, the pri-
mary means through which the elements of the knowledge base are transmit-
ted. In the next chapter, the pedagogical strategies of the treatises will be
discussed, drawing cross-cultural comparisons with improvisation pedagogy
in other traditions, and speculating as to the cognitive processes underlying
the acquisition of knowledge through these teaching techniques. While the
present chapter focuses on the fundamentals of what needs to be learned in
order to improvise in this style, the following chapter focuses on how this
material is taught and learned.

The treatises of the present study

Western classical music has a rich history of documenting its own develop-
ment through theoretical and practical treatises. The pedagogy of improvisa-
tion is no exception. As early as the ninth century, treatises such as the Musica
enchiriadis discussed improvised vocal polyphony, and the practice of writing
pedagogical works on improvisation has continued to the present day with
modern manuals for church organists, for example. 5 The period from the
mid-eighteenth century through the early nineteenth century witnessed a par-
ticular proliferation of pedagogical treatises, as the rise of the middle class
produced a growing cohort of amateur music makers. 6 Prevalent among such

5 For comprehensive discussion of the history of improvisation in Western music, see Ernst
Ferand, Die Improvisation in der Musik (Zurich: Rhein· Verlag, 1938) and Improvisation in
Nine Centuries of Western Music: An Anthology (KOln: Arno Yolk Verlag, 1961).
6 For discussion of a similar pressure of a need for "knowledge for all" driving a distillation
of musical practice into practical music theory in Javanese music, see Marc Perlman,
 THE TREATISES OF THE PRESENT STUDY 119

amateur musicians were keyboard players, leading to a seemingly dispropor-

tionate number of such treatises for keyboard, although )ohann )oachim
Quantz's 1752 Versuch einer Anweisung die Fiote traversiere zu spielen and
Leopold Mozart's 1756 Versuch einer grundlichen Violinschule are notable
exceptions. These treatises were probably intended to be studied with the help
of a teacher, as some treatises explicitly reference what role the teacher can play
in the use of the treatise. 7
I have chosen to focus here on keyboard treatises for clavichord, harpsi-
chord, and pianoforte from this period, as opposed to those for organ, for
several reasons. Treatises for organ would have been written predominantly
for professional organists. Though there were undoubtedly amateur organists,
it was highly unlikely that amateurs would have owned their own organs, while
many households would have possessed keyboard instruments of other sorts.
Additionally, organ music in this period was almost entirely sacred, while
other keyboard music was largely secular. These factors contributed to a greater
demand for amateur treatises for non-organ keyboard instruments. Authors of
instructional manuals for organ could ostensibly rely on the fact that their
readers were professionals, and thus would likely already have a certain degree
of musical knowledge. Keyboard treatises for amateurs, on the other hand,
would have to serve an audience with a wider range of musical abilities. These
manuals thus required the presentation of basic fundamentals of the musical
language, as well as pedagogical strategies that catered to the uninitiated. These
features make them ideal for a study of the essentials of musical knowledge and
its transmission in this period.
Two caveats about treatises written for amateurs have been raised in other
studies of improvisation. First, as musicologist Valerie Goertzen writes, such
treatises may not "take into account the range of possibilities open to accom-
plished artists ... [and] it is often not possible to know to what extent an
author sought to reflect prevailing custom, to correct what he perceived as
abuses, or to promote what he considered to be good habits in the student." 8
Second, as Robert Levin describes, "of the authors whose treatises contain
detailed descriptions of the use and methods of improvisation, C.P.E Bach is

Unplayed Melodies: Javanese Gamelan and the Genesis of Music T!Jeory (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 2004), 117-126.
7 See, for example, Daniel Gottlob TUrk, School of Clavier Playi11g, or, Instructions in Playing
tl1e Clavier for Teachers and Students, Leipzig and Halle, 1789, trans. Raymond H. Haggh
(Lincoln, IN: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 17-18.
8 Valerie Goertzen, "By \V ay of Introduction: Preluding by 18th- and Early 19th-Century
Pianists," The ]oumal of Musicology 14 ( 1996): 306.
20 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

the only one whose music elicits the same respect as his writings ... "9 In spite
of the potentially limited scope of some of these manuals and the relative lack
of fame of some of their authors, these treatises for amateurs offer valuable
insights. Not only do they depict contemporaneous conceptions of the ele-
ments of the musical language, but they also allow for the study of the peda-
gogical strategies used to enable students to internalize these elements in such
a way as to make them available for spontaneous musical creation.
The nine treatises selected for study here span the period from C.P.E. Bach
(a transitional figure between the Baroque and Classical periods) to Car!
Czerny (a transitional figure between the Classical and Romantic periods), and
include authors from Austria, England, France, Germany, and Italy. I have
selected treatises devoted solely to improvisation, with the exception of two:
C.P.E. Bach's and Daniel Gottlob TUrk's treatises contain entire sections on
improvisation, but also cover other material. This distinction is important
because treatises aimed at amateurs or students that deal exclusively with
improvisation must either provide instruction in the prerequisite knowledge
and skills necessary for improvisation, or at least state what these prerequi-
sites should be. With the exception of Bach's and Vierling's treatises (and
perhaps also Czerny's), these manuals are clearly geared toward novice ama-
teurs; Bach's is considered to be a more advanced course in keyboard play-
ing.10 Despite these differences, in this chapter and the one that follows,
I describe the common elements of these treatises in their codification of
musical knowledge for transmission and in the pedagogical strategies that
they employ.
Below, I list the treatises examined in chronological order, with brief back-
ground on the authors, and, for more well-studied treatises, brief background
on the treatises themselves.
Bach, C.P.E., Versuch Uber die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen [Essay on
the True Manner of Playing Keyboard Instruments]. Berlin, 1753 (Part
One) and 1762 (Part Two), translated and edited by William ). Mitchell.
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1949).

9
Bruno Nettl et al., "Improvisation," In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music On line, http://
ww>v .oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/ article/grove/music/ 13 738 ( accessed April 4,
2008). (This quotation is from Robert Levin's section on "Instrumental Music" in the "The
Classical Period" section of the "Western Art Music" section of this Grove Music entry.)
10
Thomas Christensen, "C.P.E. Bach's Versuch and its Context in Eighteenth-Century
Thorough-Bass Pedagogy," in C.P.E. Bacl!, Musik fiir Europa, ed. Hans Giinter Ottenberg
(Frankfurt: Die Konzerthalle, 1998), 369-370; Ralph Kirkpatrick, "C.P.E. Bach's 'Versuch'
Reconsidered," Early Music4 (1976): 388.
 THE TREATISES OF THE PRESENT STUDY I 21

Car! Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), the second son of).S. Bach,
was one of the most important composers of the second half of the
eighteenth century, and served as a court musician to Frederick the
Great. The Versuch has been called "the most important lSth_century
German-language treatise on the subject [of keyboard playing]." 1 1
Published in two independent parts, the first part ( 1753) covers finger-
ing, execution of ornaments, and performance, and the second ( 1762)
discusses thorough-bass, accompaniment, and improvisation.
Kollmann, August Friedrich Christopher, An Introduction to the Art of
Preluding and Extemporizing in Six Lessons for the Harpsichord or Harp,
Opus 3 (London: R. Wornum, 1792).
August Friedrich Christopher Kollmann (1756-1829) was a German
music theorist who also served as an organist in Germany and, from
1782, in Londonl2

Vierling, Johann Gottfried, Versuch einer Anleitung zum Priiludieren fUr

UngeUbtere m it Beyspielen [Essay on an Introduction to Preluding for the
Untrained with Examples] (Leipzig: Breitkopfund Hiirtel, 1794).
)ohann Gottfried Vierling (1750-1813) was a German church composer
and organist who studied with the renowned eighteenth-century theorist
).P. Kirnberger.U
Ttirk, Daniel Gottlob, Klaviersclwle, oder Anweisung zum Klavierspielen
fUr Lehrer und Lernende [School of Clavier Playing, or, Instructions
in Playing the Clavier for Teachers and Students] (Leipzig and Halle,
1789). Translation, introduction and notes by Raymond H. Haggh
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982).
Daniel Gottlob Turk (1750-1813) was a German theorist and composer
whose Klavierschule has been referred to as "the last textbook of that first

11 Christoph Wolff et al., "Bach," in Grove Music On line. Oxford Music Online, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40023pgl2 (accessed August 12,
2008).
12 Erwin R. Jacobi, "Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann als Theoretiker," Arcltiv fiir
Musikwissenscltaft 13 (1956): 263~70; see also Michael Kassler, "Kollmann," in Grove
Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://W'.vw.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/
article/grove/musicll5291pgl (accessed August 12, 2008).
13 Karl Paulke, "Johann Gottfried Vierling, 1750~ 1813," Archiv fiir Musikwissenschaft 4
(1922): 439-455. See also Ronald Diirre, "Vierling, Johann Gottfried," in Grove Music
O~tline. Oxford Music Online, http:l/w\vw.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/
grove/music/29334 (accessed August 12, 2008).
22 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

generation [i.e., the generation of C.P.E. Bach] of teaching manuals of

keyboard instruments ... " 14 It is a manual for clavichord covering basic
musical skills (e.g., how to read music), fingering, execution of orna-
ments, improvised ornamentation, and execution. The chapter on exe-
cution is considered an important source for eighteenth-century
performance practice. 15

Gretry, Andre Ernest Modeste, Methode Simple pour Apprendre aPreluder

[Simple Method for Learning to Prelude] (Paris 1801).

Andre Ernes! Modeste Gretry (1741-1813) was born in Belgium

and later lived in France, where he was a noted composer of opera
comique. 16
Hewitt, James, Il Introductione di Preludio, being an easy method to acquire
the art ofplaying extempore upon the piano-forte, interspersed with a variety
of examples, showing how to modulate from one key to another, and from
which a knowledge of the science of music may be acquired (New York:
). Hewitt's Musical Repository [1810?]).

)ames Hewitt (1770-1827) was born in England and moved to America

in the early 1800s, where he taught, conducted, composed, and
published music in Boston and New York.l' Through succeeding
generations, his family was an important one in American music. 18 On
page 2 of his treatise, Hewitt states:

14 Erwin R. Jacobi, "Tiirk, Daniel Gottlob," in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http:/ I www. o xfo rdm u si co nl in e. co m! subscriberI article/ grove/ music/ 28 60 7 (ac cessed
August 12, 2008).
15 The sections of TUrk's treatise dealing with improvisation will not be discussed in this

chapter, since his approach differs substantially from that of the other treatises. It is
concerned only with embellishment, variation, and cadenzas, and teaches these through
models and discussion of aesthetics, without recourse to explicitly spelled-out harmonic
progressions as in the other treatises. TUrk's models and aesthetic criteria for cadenzas will
be explored in detail in Chapter 9.
16 David Charlton and M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet, "Gn~try, Andre-Ernest-Modeste," in Grove
Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http:/{W\'1\v.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/ arti-
cle/grove/music/43361 (accessed August 12, 2008).
17 John W. Wagner, "Hewitt, James," in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://

W\VW.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/12961 (accessed August 12,

2008).
18 John Tasker Howard, "The Hewitt Family in American Music,'' The Musical Quarterly 17
(1931), 25-39.
 THE TREATISES OF THE PRESENT STUDY I 23

In Justice to Mr. Gretry, I confess to have avail'd myself of the assistance of a

work of his, from which I have taken some of the examples that compose the
following Treatise; the liberal part of the Profession, I hope will not censure me,
for selecting from the works of a great master.

In fact, his treatise is essentially a verbatim translation of Gretry's

Methode Simple Pour Apprendre il Preluder, supplemented by additional
musical examples, four sample preludes, and a section on the "capricio"
[sic].
Corri, Philip Antony, Original System of Preluding. Comprehending
instructions on that branch of piano forte playing with upwards of two
hundred progressive preludes in every key and mode, and in different styles,
so calculated that variety may be formed at pleasure (London: Chappell,
1810).
Philip Antony Corri (c. 1784-1832) was the son ofDomenico Corri, an
Italian composer and teacher who had moved to England in 1771. P.A.
Corri began his career as a composer and teacher in England, where
he was one of the founders of the London Philharmonic Society and the
Royal Academy of Music. From 1817 to the end of his life, he taught,
performed, and composed in Baltimore, Maryland, where he was known
as Arthur Clifton.' 9 The Original System of Preluding is the fourth part
of Corri's L'anima di musica, a keyboard treatise, in which, as described
on the title page "the first part treats the rudiments of music and theory
of music in general, the second part of practice and fingering with tvventy-
seven exercises, twenty easy progressive lessons, the third part of musical
expression and style (which are reduced to System) with suitable
examples." L'anima di musica has been called "the most extensive and
thorough pianoforte tutor of its time. "20
Czerny, Carl, Systematische Anleitung zum Fantasieren auf dem Pianoforte,
Opus 200 [A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on the Pianoforte]
(Vienna 1836). Translated and edited by Alice L. Mitchell, (New York:
Longman, 1983).

19 Peter Ward Jones et al., "Corri," in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music On line, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/ article/grove/music/0656Spg4 ( accessed August 12,
2008).
20 ]. Bunker Clark, "The Piano Works of P. Antony Corri and Arthur Clifton, British-
American Composer," in Vistas of American Music: Essays and Compositions in Honor of
William K. Keams, ed. Susan L. Porter and John Graziano (Warren, MI: Harmonie Park
Press, 1999), 157.
24 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

Carl Czerny (1791-1857) was an Austrian composer, pianist, and

pedagogue who, as mentioned previously, studied with Ludwig van
Beethoven and taught Franz Liszt. Though his legacy is largely due to his
pedagogical works, 21 he was also a prolific composer. 22 The Systematische
Anleitung zum Fantasieren, Czerny's first pedagogical work, was
published in 1836, though it was likely written seven or eight years
earlier. 23 In this work, "Czerny covers the entire musical and circum-
stantial gamut of improvisation as it was known in his day ... no facet
of the subject that can conceivably be taught is left untouched." 24

Czerny, Car!, The Art of Preluding, as Applied to the Piano Forte, Consisting
of 120 Examples of Modulations, Cadences, and Fantasies in Every Style,
Opus 300, edited by John Bishop (London: R. Cocks, ea. 1848).

Op. 300 is a collection of121 Preludes preceded by a page ofV-1 cadences in

all keys and five short progressions in C major and c minor "which may be
transposed into all the other keys." Czerny writes on the cover "NB This
Work forms the znd Part of the Art of Improvisation by the same Author."
Aside from mentioning that the introductory progressions may be played in
all keys, this volume contains only music (i.e., model preludes) and no text.

Prerequisites for learning to improvise

Several treatises explicitly state the prerequisite competencies necessary before
approaching the study of improvisation. For example, C.P.E. Bach introduces
his chapter on improvisation by stating that improvising a fantasia requires" .
. . a thorough understanding of harmony and acquaintance with a few rules of
construction ... [and] natural talent ... "25 Vierling states:

21 In addition to Op. 200 and Op. 300, discussed here, these pedagogical works include:
School of Velocity, Op. 299; School of Fugue Playing, Op. 400; Complete Theoretical and
Practical Pianoforte School, Op. 500; School of Practical Composition, Op. 600; School of
Dexterity and Various Collections of Etudes, Op. 740. For discussion, see Alice Levine
Mitchell, "A Systematic Introduction to the Pedagogy ofCarl Czerny," in Music and
Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang, ed. Edmond Strain champs and Maria
Rika Maniates (New York: Norton and Co., 1984), 262-269.
22 Stephan D. Lindeman and George Barth, "Czerny, Car!," in Grove Music On line. Oxford
Mu sic 0 nline, http:// v.n,vw.oxfordmusi coniine. com/subscriber/art id e/grove/ m usic/070 30
(accessed August 12, 2008).
23 Alice Mitchell, "Translator's Foreword," in A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on
the Pianoforte (New York: Longman, 1983), xii.
24 Alice Levine Mitchell1984, 268-269.
25 C.P.E. Bach ( 1753/1762), Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard InstrwnetJts, trans. and
ed. \Villiam ]. Mitchell (New York: W.W. Norton, 1949), 430.
 PREREQUISITES FOR LEARNING TO IMPROVISE I 25

To devise a prelude itself, the following four areas of study are essential:

I. Some knowledge of thorough-bass

2. Typical modulation from one key to another key

3. One must know the setting of each chord

4. One must understand [how to make] longer notes into shorter ones

I anticipate that some who want to use this text with benefit must at least understand
as much figured bass as the triad and the seventh chord with their inversions and
know how to handle them together with ninth and 5-4 chord. I will skip this study
here, as there is no lack of good pedagogical books on figured bass. 26

Czerny describes the following prerequisites:

First, nattlral aptitude ... [which] consists of inventive power, lively imagination,
ample musical memory, quick flow of thoughts, well formed fingers, etc.

Second, thorough training in all brancl1es of harmony, so that the adroitness for proper
modulating would have already become second nature for the performer.

Third, finally, a completely pe1jected technique of playing (virlflosity), thus the highest
degree of dexterity of the fingers in all difficulties, in all keys, as well as in evetything
that pertains to the beautiful, pleasing and graceful performance.27

In addition to stressing the importance of adequate talent and technique for

learning to improvise, these three treatises also demand a prerequisite knowl-
edge of harmony and/or thorough-bass. Indeed, the concepts of harmony and
thorough-bass were nearly inseparable at that time, as "the term [thorough-
bass] came to stand for the science of harmony in general." 28 Thorough-bass
refers to a system of musical shorthand in which a bass line is presented with
numerical symbols (in most cases) indicating the appropriate harmony to be
played. There was no shortage of manuals on the art of accompaniment from

26
Original German reads: Urn ein Vorspiel selbst zu erfinden, sind folgende vier EtUde
erforderlich: (1): Einige Kentnisse vom Generalbass; (2) Regelmiissige Ausweichungen
van einem Ton in andere TOne; (3) Muss man der Sitz jedes Accordes wissen und; ( 4)
liingere Noten in kiirzere zu veriinderen verstehen. Ich sehe zum Voraus, class derjenige,
welcher sich dieses Versuchs mit Nutzen bedienen will, wenigstens soviel vom Generalbass
verstehe class er den Dreiklang und den Septimen-Accord mit ihren Verwechslungen,
nebst den Nonen und Quartquinten-Accord zu behandeln wisse. Ich i.ibergehe dieses Eti.id
hier, weil es an guten Lehrbuchern, die vom Generalbass handeln, nicht mangelt. Vierling,
3 (English translation mine).
27 Carl Czerny, A Systematic Introduction to Improvisntion 011 the Pialloforte, Opus 200,
Vienna, 1836, trans. and ed. Alice L. Mitchell (New York: Longman, 1983 ), 2 (emphasis
in original).
28 Peter Williams and David Ledbetter, "Thoroughbass," in Grove Music Onli1Je. Oxford
Music 0 nli ne, http:/ IW\V\V. oxfo rdm usiconline .cam/subscriber Iart ide/ grove Im usicl2 78 96
(accessed August 12, 2008).
26 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

a thorough-bass, as Vierling notes. The aim of such texts was to teach the basic
principles of chord structure (the notes comprising a given chord), voicing
(the distribution of the individual voices of the chord), voice leading (the
proper linking of each chordal voice from chord to chord), idiomatic solutions
for common as well as exceptional harmonic progressions, treatment of
dissonances, and the numerical symbols used in the figured bass system. 29
In contrast to the required prerequisite harmonic fluency put forth by Bach,
Vier ling, and Czerny, Corri states, "It is not my intention to touch on the
subject of thoro Bass, I shall not confuse the Pupil with its laws of avoiding
octaves, fifths &c. but only give Examples for the Ear to catch, which will be
soon habituated." 30 Thus, Corri seeks to allow even the most novice amateur
immediate access to an education in improvisation. Similarly, Kollmann,
Gn~try, and Hewitt begin without any mention of prerequisites, and start from
essentially the same point as Corri, introducing scales, chords, and simple
harmonic progressions. Though the treatises by these authors do not require
their readers to have gained previous fluency in thorough-bass, in their
introductory lessons on chords, they present some of the harmonic material
that is considered prerequisite by C.P.E. Bach, Vierling, and Czerny. While
they do not state prerequisites explicitly, the treatises of Corri, Kollmann,
Gretry, and Hewitt thus demonstrate the minimum background necessary for
the inexperienced neophyte seeking initial improvisational instruction.
Additionally, to use Corri's words, they craft their exercises so that the ear
can "catch" the basic principles of tonal harmony and voice leading, and
"habituate" them. That is, their materials are designed for implicit learning, as
will be explored further in Chapter 3.
Proficiency in harmony is a necessary prerequisite in improvisation training
in this style due to the fundamental role that harmony plays in tonal music.
Additionally, however, there is a more practical reason for which one needs
proficiency in harmony and thorough-bass in order to progress to the study of
improvisation: these improvisation treatises teach predominantly through the
presentation of a series of bass lines and their associated harmonic progres-
sions in order to provide the novice improviser with a stock of formulas.
Whether geared toward the complete beginner or the more advanced student,
harmony and harmonic progressions were thus seen as both a fundamental
prerequisite framework and the currency by which the raw materials of

29 For comprehensive discussion, see F.T. Arnold, The Art of Accompaniment from a
Thorough-Bass as Practiced in the XVIIth and XVIIItl1 Centuries (London: Oxford
University Press, 1931).
°
3 Corri, 83.
 FORMULAS IN THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I 27

improvisation could be transmitted. 31 These harmonic formulas, discussed in

the remainder of this chapter, form the core repertory for improvisation at the
most basic level of musical structure.

Formulas in the pedagogy of improvisation

In their landmark study on the oral tradition of South Slavic epic singing,
Milman Parry and Albert Lord developed the concept of the formula: "A group
of words which is regularly employed under the same metrical conditions to
express a given essential idea." 32 Parry and Lord described that in this tradi-
tion, in essence, it is a repertoire of such formulas that is transmitted in the
learning process and subsequently used in improvised performance. They sug-
gested that it is through the use of these formulas and their organization into
themes that singers could craft tales of great length spontaneously. Such lengthy
and yet relatively consistent tales (from singer to singer and over the course of
one singer's career) were found not to result from verbatim memorization.
Rather, singers were discovered to be drawing on a knowledge base of formulas
and a system for their variation within the constraints of the tradition. This
oral-formulaic theory has also been applied to the study of Gregorian chant33

31 In Thomas Christensen's 1998 article on C.P.E. Bach's Versuch (see footnote 10 ofthis
chapter), he draws a distinction between thorough-bass treatises that drew on Rameau's
inversional theory and those, like C.P.E. Bach's that did not. In the treatises examined
here, aside from Bach's, only Vierling's appears not to adopt inversional theory explicitly,
presenting a sort of advanced thorough-bass course as it relates to improvisation, as does
Bach (Christensen 1998, 369; Kirkpatrick, 388). Corri simply presents the common and
seventh chords and their inversions. Gn~try and Hewitt make their debt to Rameau even
more explicit by actually writing out the fundamental bass on a separate staff (and even
recommending that it be sung with the exercises). No figured bass symbols are found in
the treatises of Gretry and Hewitt.
Kollmann presents the common chord and its inversions but figures the bass in the
cadential and other patterns he presents. Though he does not specifically mention a
necessary prerequisite knowledge of thorough-bass to use his treatise, he does not explain
the figures, thus implying that it would have been expected that his readers would have
been familiar with them. That said, the first presentation of each bass pattern is realized in
the right hand, perhaps allowing those with no previous training in thorough-bass to
ignore the figures if they did not understand them.
Vierling follows completely in the tradition of C.P.E. Bach, presenting the greatest
number and variety of bass formulas with figures. Like C.P.E. Bach's treatise then,
Vierling's may be seen as a more advanced course in improvisation than Corri's or
Kollmann's. For discussion, see Christensen 1998.
32 Milman Parry, quoted in Albert B. Lord, T7Je Singer ofTales, 2nd edn., ed. Stephen Mitchell
and Gregory Nagy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 4.
33 Leo Treitler, "Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant," The
Musical Quarterly 60 (1974): 333-372.
28 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

and jazz improvisation. 34 While these studies of jazz improvisation have sought
to identify and categorize formulas from improvised performances, the trea-
tises under examination in the present study afford the opportunity to exam-
ine which formulas were deliberately selected by pedagogues for transmission
of this particular tradition.
For the purposes of this study, I define musical formulas as musical materials
equally useful for possible insertion into an improvisation and for transmis-
sion of fundamental aspects of the musical language in a distilled or simplified
fashion. 35 In the latter function, these formulas can be considered "memes ...
units of learned cultural transmission ... passed down orally via formal and
informal meetings between younger and older musicians." 36 The structural
patterns that underlie these formulas are examples of what music theorist
Robert Gjerdingen has called musical schemata, the archetypal patterns that
define a musical style. 37 lndeed, Gjerdingen remarks that "a hallmark of the
galant style was a particular repertory of stock musical phrases employed

34
Gregory Eugene Smith, "Homer, Gregory, and Bill Evans? The Theory of Formulaic
Composition in the Context ofJazz Piano Improvisation" (PhD diss., Harvard University,
1983); Luke 0. Gillespie, "Literacy, Orality, and the Parry-Lord 'Formula:' Improvisation
and the Afro-American Jazz Tradition," International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology
of Music 22 (1991): 147-164; Thomas Owens, "Charlie Parker: Techniques of
Improvisation" (PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 1974).
35
As Peter Jeffery notes, the "translation" of Parry's definition of formula in o~al epic poetry
to formula in music is not without its difficulties, since, "melodies do not include groups
of words, they do not necessarily operate within metrical conditions, and they rarely
express ideas of the sort that words do" (Peter Jeffery, Re-Envisioning Past Musical
Cultures: Etlmomusicology in the Study ofGregorian Chant (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1992), 90). Additionally, Jeffery suggests that what could be defined as a
formula (i.e. for him, something that repeats with a certain range of variability, perhaps
with a syntactical function if setting text, and operating within the context of complete
melodies), would vary widely from culture to culture (Jeffery, 87-98). While Jeffery is
concerned with difficulties in finding a definition of formula adequate to describe what
occurs in Gregorian chant, the definition provided above describes the more general
phenomenon of a formula in a musical context.
36 i\1ih<ily Csikszentmih<ilyi and Grant Jewell Rich, "Musical Improvisation: A Systems

Approach," in Creativity in Performance, ed. Keith Sawyer (Greenwich, CT: Ablex

Publishing, 1997), 53.
37 Gjerdingen's definition of schema is developed and explored through enlightening analy-

ses in A Classic Turn ofPhmse: Music and the Psychology of Convention (Philadelphia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988) and Music in tl1e Galant Style (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007). A schema can be defined as a "configuration of inter-related
features that define a concept" (J. Michael O'Malley and Anna Uhl Chamot, Learning
Strategies in Second Language Acquisition (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990),
23). Concepts and schemata will be discussed in further detail in Chapter 3.
 FORMULAS IN THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I 29

in conventional sequences," referring to this collection of schemata as "a code

of conduct ... a carefully taught set of musical behaviors.'' 38
Two levels of such formulas are presented by eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century improvisation treatises for keyboard instruments. The first, more
basic level consists of bass lines and their associated harmonic progressions.
These form the structural basis for any tonal improvisation in this style. With
these underlying patterns internalized in the mind, ears, and fingers, a stylisti-
cally appropriate musical surface can be superimposed upon them. Such a
surface structure requires another stock of formulas, which are also presented
by some of the treatises. The materials used in the creation of a musical surface
represent the second level of formulas. This second level of formulas consists Y.

of ways to realize underlying harmonic progressions idiomatically, for exam-

ple through the use of melodic figures, ways of arpeggiating chords, etc. The
two levels of fonnulas described here correspond with Heinrich Schenker's
ideas about improvisation, which are developed throughout his writings and
summarized by John Rink as follows:
Improvisation rests upon two principles: first, like composition itself, the act of
improvisation involves the prolongation of a remote structure-a "basic plan" or
model-which is linked directly to the middleground or background; second, the
prolongation of that structure in improvisation takes place through diminution,
specifically, diminution of the fundamentalline. 39

To use JeffPressing's terminology, the first level corresponds to the referent, a

structure or template of events out of which an improvisation can be crafted
(the underlying schema); the second level represents the rest of the knowledge
base, the materials used to realize the musical surface of the underlying
referent. 40
While harmonic progressions are generally presented by the treatises in a
somewhat systematic, simplified, and thus stylistically neutral fashion (i.e. in
block chords), aspects of melody and musical surface are usually taught
through models that provide examples of such figures in context. This could
indicate that the style of the time was not thought to be verbally articulable in
systematic terms, and could only be demonstrated through examples, as will

38 Gjerdingen 2007,6. "Galant" refers to the elegant, courtly style of the eighteenth century.
For discussion of the term and its use, see Gjerdingen 2007,5-6.
39 John Rink, "Schenker and Improvisation," foumal of Music The01y 37 (1993): 8. Schenker
uses the term "diminution" to mean "embellishment in a general broad sense." See
Heinrich Schenker, Ernst Oster, and Oswald Jonas, Free Composition: Volume III of New
Musical Theories and Fantasies (Hillsdale, MI: Pendragon Press, 2001): 93-95. (Quoted
definition of diminution is from note 6 on page 93 of this source.)
40 Pressing's concepts of referent and knowledge base are discussed in Chapter 1.
30 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

be discussed in Chapter 3. Another possibility was that knowledge of the con-

temporaneous style was simply taken for granted. That is, perhaps pedagogues
assumed that the music that would have been heard and played by any student
seeking to learn how to improvise would have provided ample exposure to the
musical language of the time, both aurally and through the practice of repertoire.
The structural harmonic formulas presented are part of a larger body of
instructional bass lines known as partimenti. 41 These partimenti served first and
foremost to train students in the art of accompaniment from a thorough-bass.
In that process, however, practice of partimenti ingrained the patterns that
underlay the musical style of the time firmly in the pupil's mind, ear, and hands.
Training usingpartimenti thus laid the groundwork for both thorough-bass
realization and for composition. 42 On his website devoted to the study of the
partimento tradition, Robert Gjerdingen writes that for a student learning
from partimenti, "the result was fluency in the style and the ability to 'speak'
this courtly musical language. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, the elite ranks of court composers across all of Europe were heavily
populated with graduates of partimento instruction." 43
Gjerdingen classifies three broad categories of patterns in partimenti:
cadences, the rule of the octave (see later discussion) and special moves (movi-
menti). Nearly all of the improvisation treatises in the present study provide
examples of cadences and the rule of the octave (exceptions will be discussed
in the appropriate sections on each type of formula below). Treatises that are
either more substantive or geared toward a more advanced audience include
varying amounts and types of more advanced movimenti. 44 Gjerdingen points

41 For discussion, see Karl Gustav Fellerer, Der Partimento-Spieler: Ubungen im Genera/bass-
Spiel und in Gebundener Improvisation (Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1940); Gjerdingen
2007, 465-480.
42 "Advocates of the partimenti approach were convinced that thorough-bass was mainly a
keyboard skill, one best learnt through the memorization of idiomatic harmonic progres-
sions and finger patterns acquired through habitual repetition. This belief contrasted
sharply with the prevailing view (especially popular among many German musicians of
the time) that thorough-bass was more of a compositional skill ... " (Thomas Christensen,
"The Regie de !'Octave in Thorough-Bass Theory and Practice," Acta Musicologica 64
(1992): 114).
43 Robert Gjerdingen, "About Partimenti," Monuments ofPartimenti, http://faculty-web.
at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/partimenti/aboutParti/histOverview.htm
(accessed February 15, 2008).
44 Czerny's treatise differs from the others in that it is organized by forms rather than formu-
las. That is, he does not present cadences, the rule of the octave, etc. in Op. 200. (In Op.
300, however, he demonstrates several simple cadential progressions before presenting
the preludes.) Czerny mentions the prerequisite necessity of "thorough training in har-
mony," and in his chapter on preludes in Op. 200, he provides short model progressions,
 FORMULAS IN THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I 31

out that partimenti often contained "hundreds of pages of music," while the
improvisation treatises for amateurs examined here are substantially shorter
(as are the improvisation chapters oflonger, more general keyboard treatises).
What were the specific patterns thought to be necessary to provide the founda-
tion for basic improvisational skills, and how would their presentation provide
"Examples for the Ear to catch" of the fundamentals of tonal harmony for the
untrained novice, as Corri describes?

Cadences
In the more basic treatises, examples of cadential harmonic progressions often
follow immediately after the introductory lessons on individual chords. For
example, Corri's preludes, in what he calls the first and second styles (Figures
2.la and 2.lb, respectively), are simple cadences and come directly after the
presentation of the common and seventh chords. Similarly, Kollmann's Lesson
2 presents cadences (some examples of which are found in Figures 2.2a and
2.2b) immediately following Lesson I 's introduction of major and minor
chords.
Cadences serve as fundamental knowledge for improvisation for a multitude
of reasons. First, cadential passages are examples of partimenti, formulas that
provide possible materials to be used in improvisation. Second, in basic trea-
tises that require no prior training in thorough-bass, these cadences present a
clear and simple introduction to the distribution of chordal voices and voice-
leading. Third, cadence formulas represent the fundamental underlying

Key f (; Major, {' ~lujor.

....
I -- 'I

n::::n{•.!.hth)(v•rrut) . ... ~
~ ~
-<

I
1'-
(a) "' (b)
Fig. 2.1 (a) Corri, prelude in first style. (b) Corri, prelude in second style.

which are then composed out (see "Models and the Acquisition of Style" in Chapter 3).
For other forms (e.g., fantasies), however, he provides a theme that is varied and devel-
oped, rather than a harmonic plan. Indeed, Czerny's treatise is the latest examined here,
and as the musical style changed, so too did its means of transmission.
32 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

•• 1£! Pofitioa •

Fig. 2.2a Kollmann Lesson 2, showing different positions of chords in the right hand.

harmonic relationships in tonal music: by internalizing simple progressions

(e.g., I-V-I or I-V~1), important chord-to-chord and more general fun-
damental relationships in the tonal hierarchy can be learned implicitly. Fourth,
specific cadential figures, when used to form an actual cadence (i.e., rather
than as simply the basis of a longer composed/improvised-out progression),
are used to end phrases. By denoting a boundary between a previous phrase
and the subsequent one, cadences offer an important locus at which to focus in
order to ascertain stylistic properties of the music at hand. For example, what
types of phrase can follow ones like the previous phrase? How many harmonic/
phrasal!motivic events or units have passed since the previous cadence? By
enhancing the perceptual salience of such figures for the listener, explicitly
learned cadences provide an anchor point for the development of awareness to
diverse surrounding features in music that is heard or performed. Analogously,
in foreign language learning through classroom instruction, it has been pos-
ited that" ... explicit knowledge may help the learner to notice features in the
input that would otheliVise be ignored ... providing 'hooks' on which to hang
subsequent implicit knowledge," 45 and that "awareness (through attention) is
necessary for noticing which in turn is essential for learning."46
A musician seeking to internalize a style to the degree to which he or she can
improvise in that style must develop a subconscious understanding of count-
less relationships that cannot possibly be articulated in treatisesj many of these
relationships will be subconsciously discovered and internalized through lis-
tening (to one's self, others, and compositions in the style). Cadences thus

45 Rod Ellis, "A Theory of Instructed Second Language Acquisition," in Implicit and Explicit
Learning of Languages, ed. Nick Ellis (London: Academic Press, 1994), 97-98.
46 Susan M. Gass and Larry Selinker, Second Language Acquisition, An Introductory Course,
yd ed. (New York: Routledge, 2008), 248. For further discussion of attention, noticing,
and awareness as they relate to foreign language learning, see Rosamond Mitchell and
Florence Myles, Second Language Learning Theories (London: Arnold, 1998), 138-140;
Richard Schmidt, "Attention," in Cognition and Second Language Instruction, ed. Peter
Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 3-32.
 FORMULAS IN THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I 33

t ~i§Djl
Tid'
¥"1:!#1 c Ffl
or g

I I I Ir ~-ifEl
iMn/Jjt,f-JJ±;JsJt
~4 or .Li_~1

Fig. 2.2b Kollmann Lesson 2 (continued), showing more cadences.

]!-'

serve not only as important materials for improvisation, but provide a broader
and deeper understanding of underlying tonal principles for the novice.
This lays a foundation both for more advanced improvisation and for the
learning of stylistic features from music that is heard and performed.

Rule of the octave

The rule of the octave (rCgle de l'octave) consists of an ascending and descend-
ing scale in the bass, each scale degree being harmonized with a chord above it
(Figures 2.3a-c). As music theorist Thomas Christensen notes in an article
detailing the history of this pedagogical tool, it was meant to serve both those
learning to compose and those learning to improvise, since both required a:
... knowledge of grammatical harmonic progressions, [for which] a simple formula
like the regie proved useful ... It made concrete otherwise abstract concepts of mode,
key, and harmonic coherence. At the same time it showed how these concepts could
be put into practical use by both the performer and composer ... 47

For improvisers, the rule of the octave, like cadences, provides for explicit learn-
ing of formulaic material for practical use in performance, while simultaneously
allowing for implicit learning of principles of tonal harmony and voice leading,
since the rCgle provides the "quintessential harmonic expression of a mode." 48
As Christensen has also noted, 49 C.P.E. Bach called the regie "the briefest and
most natural means of which a keyboardist, particularly one oflimited ability,
may avail himself in extemporizing: with due caution he fashions a bass out of
the ascending and descending scale of the prescribed key ... " 50
By not including the rCgle, Corri's treatise represents the most basic manual
examined here, providing only cadential formulas and figuration as the most

47 Christensen 1992, 92.

48 Ibid., 106.
49 Ibid., 110.
50
Bach 1753/1762 trans. W. J. Mitchelll949, 431.
34 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

, 36 6334
6 6 7 ~-. ... ~-· ~ 6 6

~M=§ 1 6 ~ 3 6 f
!]fP-+JIJLr
3 j 1
J-@§ 6 ~ 6
7

lf_6_ " 6 ~ •-q i_ 6 If -

~a:-=; __ Ei~J%-=F¥£1
7 6 ~ • If 6 6 6 • 1 6 t
Fig. 2.3a Vierling, rf:gle in major and minor. (Illustration from BRILUIDC's collection
"Musicology" on microfiche.)

fundamental materials for improvising. In Czerny's Opus 300, the latest of

those examined here, he presents cadences but does not demonstrate the rule
of the octave, ostensibly because it was by then an outmoded thorough-bass
formula.

Movimenti
Movimenti, or "special moves," provide opportunities for the learner to internal-
ize patterns more complex than the regle. Unlike the regle, movimenti are not
strictly diatonic, and can move by leaps in addition to steps. Figure 2.4a shows
some diatonic progressions (all of which are sequential) and Figure 2.4b demon-
strates some modulatoryprogressions. Representing more complicated bass lines
for use in improvisation, movimenti also allow for the acquisition of a more
nuanced knowledge of tonal possibilities,

re=,_
-~u
-~s 8--'-'----- · -
~

_
-e- -er o
-e=-
-_
:gj
e-=e:::o-
-
Basse fondamentale.
- -
Fig. 2.3b Gretry, regie showing fundamental bass (see note 31),
 CONCLUSION I 35

Fig. 2.3c Kollmann Lesson 5 showing different chord positions in the right hand.

Conclusion
As Czerny describes in the letter that opened this chapter,'' ... all music may
be reduced to simple chords. Just so, simple chords conversely serve as the
ground-work on which to invent and play all sorts of melodies, passages, skips,
embellishments, &c." Harmonic progressions thus provide a pedagogical
pivot. Analysis of music can be facilitated by reduction to its underlying chords,
and musical improvisation and composition involve using these very same
chordal formulas as the groundwork for invention. These explicitly presented
formulas can serve as material for use as-is in improvisation at an early stage of
learning (as in Czerny's description of ''connecting easy chords together" in
his letter to Miss Cecilia). Later, these chord progressions provide an underly-
ing referent that can be expanded upon in improvised performance. Harmony
plays a similar role as the bedrock of improvisation in jazz. As Gregory Smith
writes, "the harmonic framework is the factor in the preconceived material of

c) 6 J 6 J l'i' 6 -e-
~ . -
- .0
n~•-'=1 -===
0 _:_•-•
-1=--t=:
C~=i -

~ 6J 6S 6S

Fig. 2.4a Vierling, diatonic movimenti. (Illustration from BRILUIDC's collection

"Musicology" on microfiche.)
36 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

~ @tj '!ldi. ~-"t; I:. . IF

Fig. 2.4b Hewitt, modulatory movimenti.

a jazz improvisation that is constant, and the factor that most consistently
restrains or guides the free play of the performer's melodic invention." 51
In addition to providing material for performance, formulas also serve an
important role in refining the novice's perception of music. Rehearsal of

51 Smith, 156.
 CONCLUSION I 37

codified cadences, versions of the regie de l'octave, and movimenti allows for the
implicit internalization of important relationships in the tonal system. In turn,
internalization of this knowledge cues a noticing of such formulas in music
heard and performed, facilitating further acquisition of additional musical
features from this input.

Merely presenting cadences, the rule of the octave, and movimenti in a peda-
gogical treatise does not assure that they will be internalized and spontaneously
accessible for rapid recall and execution by the student in the heat of an impro-
vised performance. Moreover, as noted above, these formulas were not
intended to be produced verbatim at all times, but rather to serve as a struc-
tural basis for improvisation. In jazz as well, Philip Johnson-Laird explains a
distinction between the explicitness of harmonic knowledge and the less con-
scious aspects of melodic style:
Jazz musicians know by heart the chord sequences on which they improvise. These
sequences are consciously accessible and readily communicated ... Musicians also
have in their heads a set of unconscious principles that control melodic improvisation.
This procedural knowledge ... enables musicians to improvise in real time. Sl

The treatises examined in this chapter "readily communicate" the "con-

sciously accessible" chord sequences. However, in so doing, how do they instill
the "set of unconscious principles that ... enabl[eJ musicians to improvise in
real time"? Clearly just reading or playing through the treatises' examples once
or twice will not provide sufficient training for improvisation. The improviser
must develop "brains in the fingers," as described in the following quotation
about learning to play thorough-bass:
Hand in hand with this development of the mental apprehension of combined sound,
it is of the first importance, in playing from figures, to develop what may be called
"brains in the fingers," namely, a quick and almost automatic response of the muscles
to the mental impression derived through the eye; and no one need disdain to avail
himself of any means by which this end may the more speedily be attained. 5 3

While thorough-bass training was designed to train the pupil's eye-hand (and
eye-hand-ear) coordination to automatically realize the figures presented,
improvisation requires that the "brains in the fingers" be able to produce
music in the absence of any visual input. That is, the improviser's "brains in

52 P.N. Johnson-Laird, "How Jazz Musicians Improvise," Music Perceptio11 19 (2002): 439. I
have restricted cross-cultural comparisons in this chapter to jazz because ofthe shared use
of harmonic formulas. For a broader discussion of musical formulas in improvisation and
the transmission of musical style, see the Coda.
53 Arnold, 892.
38 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION I

the fingers" must be able to respond to the demands of the ear and the moment,
whereas the thorough-bass player's response to these is cued and constrained
by visual instructions. Pedagogical strategies for improvisation must thus not
only inculcate the above-described formulas in the student's knowledge base
(and fingers), but also achieve an organization of this knowledge base toward
the development of stylistic fluency in spontaneous performance. In the next
chapter, I describe the pedagogical approaches used by treatise writers to
develop the improviser's "brains in the fingers."
 Chapter 3

The pedagogy of improvisation 11:

Pedagogical strategies

)eff Pressing distinguishes between an expert's knowledge base and that of a

novice as follows:
One difference between experts and nonexperts is in the richness and refinement of
organization of their knowledge structures ... The novice has a set of techniques that
are incomplete in detail and poorly linked ... [and thus] strongly context-specific .
Links between techniques and materials are sparse, limiting the capacity for gener-
alization. The distinguished expert has materials that are known in intimate detail,
and from differing perspectives, and the materials or modules are cross-linked by
connections at various levels of the hierarchical knowledge structure ... improvisa-
tional fluency arises from the creation, maintenance and enrichment of an associated
knowledge base, built into long-term memory. 1

In order to learn how to improvise, the formulas described in the previous

chapter must first be internalized, creating a knowledge base in long-term
memory. Once instilled in memory, however, the elements of the knowledge
base must be organized and refined-"enriched" in Pressing's words-if the
learner is to have the kind of instant and creative access to them that is neces-
sary for improvisation. The authors of the treatises introduced in the previous
chapter converged upon four basic pedagogical strategies to accomplish these
goals: transposition, variation, recombination, and the use of models that
exemplify these processes in musical context. Learning a formula in various
transpositions or varied realizations allows for acquaintance with the material
''in intimate detail, and from differing perspectives," while learning how ele-
ments can be recombined, provides for "cross-linking," and "connections"
between materials, to use Pressing's terminology. These strategies serve not
only to develop the knowledge base so that it can be effortlessly drawn upon in
the moment of improvised performance, but are themselves musical processes
that are essential for improvisation. That is, when improvising just as when

1 Jeff Pressing, "Psychological Constraints on Improvisational Expertise and

Communication," in In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical
Improvisation, ed. Bruno Nett! and Melinda Russell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 53.
40 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

learning, these processes come into play (e.g. transposition of a motive to form
a sequence, variation to develop a motive, and recombination of several motives
to create continuous musical flow.) In Pressing's terminology, formulas consti-
tute musical "objects" that must be committed to memory so that they can be
produced spontaneously when improvising, while transposition, variation, and
recombination are "processes" that must be learned and rehearsed so that they
can be used to develop formulas in improvised performance.2
Thus, in using these very processes as pedagogical strategies, the treatise
writers also introduce the procedural tools necessary for improvised perform-
ance. This was indeed well known to Czerny, who comments on the need to
rehearse with " modulation " (transposition), "figuration" (variation), and
"combining" (recombination). In the following quotation, Czerny describes
how these processes are also fundamental to the very act of improvisation:
Now, before 1ve proceed into the next chapter on true full fledged fantasy-like improv-
isation, it must be mentioned once again that the student has to familiarize himself to
the greatest possible degree of perfection with all subject materials dealt with hitherto,
in all types of keys, figurations, and modulations. For these skills .. . are to a certain
extent the very components of improvisation itself, without which the performer
would never attain the capability of combining the diverse ideas and motives with
each other. 3

2 " [There! is a distinction between what may be called "object mem ory" and " process
memory": the musical improviser typically practices in two ra ther distinct ways. O ne
method is to practice the executi on of specific forms, m otives, scales, arpeggios, or less
traditional musical gestures, so that such musical objects and generalized representations
of them are entered into long- term object memory in conceptual muscular and musical
coding. A second method is to practice the process of co mpositional problem-solving:
transpositions, development, and variation techniques and methods of combining a nd
juxtaposition are practices in many musical contexts with many different referents. This
experience (along with actual performances) forms the basis of long-term "process mem-
ory." One result of the first practice method is the creation of small m otor programmes or
units of action. Continued practice refin es these programmes producing even greater
economy of action ... " (Jeff Pressing, "Cognitive Processes in Improvisation," in Cognitive
Processes in tire Perception ofArt, ed. W. Ray Crozier and Anthony ). Chapman (Amsterdam:
Elsevier, 1984), 355). These "objects" and " processes" are referred to as the "hardwa re"
and "software" of the improvisat ional knowledge base in Barry ). Kenny and Martin
Gellrich " Improvisation ," in Tire Sciwce a~d Psycirology of Musi c Performance: Creative
Strategies for Teaciring and Leaming, ed. Richard Parncutt and Gar y McPherson (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 130. While Kenny and Gellrich argue that the hard-
ware and software "must be practiced systematically and separately," here I propose that
the "processes" ("software") also serve as the pedagogical and rehearsal tools used in order
to learn the "objects" ("hardware").
3 Car! Czerny, A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation 011 tl1e Pianoforte, Op. 200, Vienna
1836, translated and edited by Alice L. Mitchell (New York; Longman, 1983), 40-41.
 TRAN SPOSITIO N I 41

In thi s chapter, I will discuss how each of these pedagogical st rategies is "
incorporated in to the treatises, how sim ilar processes are util ized in a wide
va riety of musical cultures in the pedagogy of improvisatio n, and, drawing on
concep ts and research from cognitive psychology, how these pedagogical
approaches could lead to the creation and development of a knowledge base fit
for use in the spontaneous generation of idiomatic music in the moment of
performance. This knowledge base must not only be replete with stylistically
id iomatic elements like the formulas described in the previous chap ter, but
also able to be accessed immediately and fluently in the moment of improvisa-
tion. Here, J explore the ways in which s uch a knowledge base is developed ,
from the perspective of pedagogy; in the next chapte r, I examine the develop-
ment of improvisational skills from the point of view of the learner.

Transposition
After presen ting several examples of preludes, Czerny advises his readers,
"Natura lly, one must transpose these and similar examples into all keys ... " 4
T his is a common suggestion in these treatises. Co rri and Kollmann go one
step further, presen ting many of the patterns in their treatises in all keys for the
student. Whi le transposing formulas to all keys obviously provides the neces-
sary familiarity with such patterns in each key, a broader pedagogic purpose is
also served. T hrough rote rehearsal of any formula in all keys, the student can
in terna lize the funda mental tonal rel ationships underlying the formu la. That
is, the memorization of parallel instances of the same underlying chord pro-
gression can instantiate a more abstract representation of the progression in a
key- neutral fashio n (i.e., I- IV-V- I rather than specific instances, e.g., C major- F
major-G major-C major in the key ofC major). A novice learner of the type for
whom such treatises were developed may have had only limited abstract har-
monic knowledge, or may not have had such knowledge readi ly accessible in
the hands for performance. The rehearsal of cadences and other progressions
in all keys allowed for the implicit learning of the fundamenta ls of to nal har-
mony an d voice leadin g. While Pressing sta tes that " Part of the effect of
improvisationa l practice is to make motorically tran spa rent by over-learning
what has been conceptually mastered," 5 the opposite may also occur: through
motoric practice and over- learning of th e same materia l in all twenty-four
keys, the underlying relationships of tonality may be conceptually ma stered.

4 Ibid., 11.
5 Pressing 1998, 53.
42 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

Transposition cross-culturally
Transposition is an equally importan t tool in learning to improvise in a number
of musical traditions. In jazz, "beyond developing the control to use vocabu-
lary patterns instantly ... artists typically pursue the goal of mastering them in
all keys ..."6 Jazz and classical music both use a tonal harmonic framework, in
which the concepts of keys and transposition are fundamental. However, a
similar pedagogical strategy can be fo und even in traditio ns not based in a
harmonic system. No rth Indian (Hindustani) Classical music uses a system of
modes (ragas) and rhythmic cycles (talas). An improvisation is typically in a
raga, staying within that mode and using and developing its characteristic
melodic materials while adhering to a particular tala. Musicians rehearse by
"internalizing these formulas and applying them to the repertory of ragas and
talas." 7 Analogous to the use of transposition to different keys in tonal systems
such as jazz and Western classical music, Hindustani musicians thus apply a
similar principle, prac ticing realiza tions of underlying formul aic musical
materials in various modes and rhythmic frameworks.

Transposition, automatization, and proceduralization

Learning formulas in all keys to the point at which they can be performed
instantly and without preplanning is an essen tial component of learning to
improvise in a style. Fundamental formulas must become au to matic.
Automaticity is thought to be an essential component of complex skill learn-
ing, and can be defin ed as " fast, unconscious, and effortless processing." 8
Automatization occurs through repeated rehearsal, and can be described as a
shift from controlled processes relying on short-term memory to automatic
sequences in long-term memory. 9 For example, when trying to remember a

6 Paul Berliner, Th i11ki11g ill jazz: The llljilliteArtofllllprovisatioll (Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), I 15- 11 6. Berliner's description of the fu nction of transpositio n in
learning to improvise is similar to wha t I have described above fo r improvisation in the
eighteenth a nd nineteenth centuries: "Through the rigors of transposition exercises, artists
develop intimate knowled ge of the c hara cte ristics o f the ir vocabula ry: each phrase's
precise length, its particular ... character, its harmonic complexion, its contour profile,
its intervallic structure, and its span. In m otor terms, control over each version's unique
finger ing patterns increases its compatibility with those of prospect ive adjoining figures
and, through physical ease of movement, encourages particular coupli ngs" ( 11 5- 116).
7 Thorn Lipiczky, "Tihai Formulas and the Fusion of 'Composit ion' and ' Improvisation' in

North Indian Music," TlzeMusica/Quarterly 7 1 ( 1985): 158.

8 Susan M. Gass a nd Larry Selinker, Seco11d Ln11gunge Acquisitio11, All llltrodt/Ctory Course,

Jrd edn. (New York: Routledge, 2008), 231.

9 For review, see Rosamond Mitchell and Flo rence Myles, Seco11d Lmrgrmge Lenrui11g Theories
(London: Arnold, 1998), 85- 86. As Pressing notes, "The change from controlled processing
 TRANSPOS ITION I 43

new phone number just long enough to get to the phone and dial it correctly,
one rehearses it over and over again (maintaining it in short-term memory),
produces it rapidly but deliberately, and then forgets it. A well-known phone
number (in long-term memory from repeated rehearsal over time) can be
produced automatically. In fact, it may be easier to produce such a memorized
number without conscious reflection than to explicitly recall it away from the
telephone touch pad. Similarly, one may see a cadence formula in a treatise
and remember it just long enough to produce it at the keyboard, but only
through repeated rehearsal in all keys can the underlying schema become
embedded in long-term memory so as to be produced automatically in what-
ever tonal context the improviser finds himself or herself.
The process of automatization is conceived of in John Anderson's adaptive
control of thought (ACT ) model of lea rning 10 as "knowledge compilation ...
a progressive shift from the use of declarative knowledge to that of procedural
knowledge, and an increase in automaticity." 11 According to Anderson's "
theory, this occurs through two processes, which he calls proceduralization
and composition.
Proceduralization creates what Anderson refers to as production rules. These
production rules "reduce or eliminate the necessity to search through long- term
memory during skilled performance." 12 When first learning to play an instru-
ment from notation, one must associate the visual symbol for each note with the
note name, and that note name with the proper fingering and/or position on the
instrument (declarative knowledge). When reading from notation, one must
therefore go through a multi-step process. For example, the note in the second

to auto matic mo tor processing as a result of exten sive skill rehearsal is an idea of lo ng
standing" {JeffPressing, " Improvisation: Methods and Models," in Ge11emtive Processes in
Music: The Psychology of Pe1forllla11ce, Improvisation, a11d Composition, ed. John Slobo da
(Oxfo rd and New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 139).
10
Anderson's ACT m odel was developed over the course of several publications. For exam -
ple, see J.R. Anderson: The Arc/zitecture ofCognition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press 1983) ; The Adaptive Cha racter of Thought (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawre n ce Erlbaum
Associates, 1990); Rules of the Mind (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993);
J.R. Anderson and C. Lebiere, The Atomic Co111ponellts ofThougllt (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 1998). For further discussion o f the model, see Michael W . Eysenck
and Mark T . Ke ane, Cog11itive Psychology: A Student's Ha11dbook, 5th edn. (East Sussex:
Psychology Press, 2005), 455-459. For application of the model to fo reign language learn-
ing, see: Robert M. DeKeyser, " Automaticity and Automatizatio n," in Cognition a11d
Second Language !IIStntction, e d . Peter Ro binso n (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 200 1), 132-133; Mitchell and Myles, 87-92 . For a critical evaluation of Anderson's
theory, see Eysenck and Keane, 459 .
11 Eysenck and Keane, 456.
12 Ibid., 456.
44 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

space of the treble clef is '(A," the fingering/position is to put fingers x and y on
keys/positions q and r, etc. Eventually, the fingerings are proceduralized, allow-
ing for an immediate association between the visual symbol for the note and the
physical action of how to play it, without the need for conscious calculation of
the intermediate steps.
Composition, according to Anderson, "improves performance by reducing
a repeated sequence of actions to a more efficient single sequence.'' 13 In musi-
callearning, one example of composition is in the learning of passagework,
where one first learns the individual notes of a passage, but eventually acquires
the ability to initiate and execute the entire passage without thinking of each
individual component.
It can also be argued, as Michael Paradis does for instructed foreign language
learning, that what Anderson might refer to as proceduralization and compo-
sition are not processes of converting declaratively known rules to implicitly
subconscious procedures. Rather, Paradis suggests that one learns procedural
processes not by proceduralizing explicitly learned rules, but as a result of
rehearsing the mattifestations of these rules:
Practice does not convert explicit knowledge to implicit competence. The explicit
knowledge is the knowledge of the m le ... "Practice" is not practice of the mle ... "Practice"
is the practice of the utterances in which the rule is implemented, whether or not the
speaker has explicit knowledge of the rule. Moreover, the automatic production (or
comprehension) of an utterance cannot concurrently involve controlled processes
such as the use of metalinguistic knowledge. While practice improves procedural
learning, attention is focused on the result, not the preprocess. The process (which is
not open to introspection) is what is practiced; the linguistic data or metalinguistic rule
is what is known ... 14 What is automatized is not the explicit knowledge of rule .
but its application. 15

Thus, in contrast to Anderson's idea ofproceduralization (through which

declarative knowledge becomes procedural), Paradis argues that it is the
rehearsal of the manifestations of declarative knowledge (i.e., the utterances
themselves rather than the rules that govern them) that facilitates the automa-
tization of the production of utterances that obey those explicitly understood
rules. In learning to improvise, practice involves, among other activities, repeti-
tion of formulas in order to internalize them. This type of rehearsal is similar

13 Ibid., 456.
14 Michael Paradis, "Neurolinguistic Aspects of Implicit and Explicit Memory: Implications
for Bilingualism and SLA," in Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages, ed. Nick Ellis
(London: Academic Press, 1994), 404 (emphasis in original). "Metalinguistic" refers to
explicit knowledge about linguistic rules.
15 Ibid., 401.
 TRANSPOSITION I 45

to what Paradis describes: even if the rules and functions of the formula may
be explicitly known and understood, what gets automatized is the application of
those rules and functions.
Broadly speaking, researchers in this field posit two possible general results
of automaticity: "a process of gradual quantitative change (speed-up) in the
execution of the same task components ... [or] ... qualitative change (restruc-
turing, i.e., selection and configuration of task components).'' 16 That is,
automatization may result from more rapid retrieval and execution of ele-
ments from memory, or through reorganization of the knowledge in memory
to create rules that facilitate rapid production. 17 In reality, both types of process
are likely active. 18 No matter which theoretical explanation one prefers, the end
result is the same: rehearsal leads to automaticity in production of memorized
elements or sequences thereof.
The pedagogical and rehearsal tool oftransposition allows for the knowledge
base to grow, filling it with formulas in all keys that can be reproduced instan-
taneously and automatically. In addition, consciously or implicitly, the student
of improvisation comes to understand that he or she needs simply to recall an
underlying schema (e.g., a cadence formula) that can be performed in a number
of keys, rather than memorizing a large collection of the individual realizations
of the schema. Thus, rehearsing numerous transpositions of a musical figure
not only expands the contents of the knowledge base, but also commences the
process of organizing this acquired knowledge of individual elements for effi-
tient and effective use in the moment of performance. Yet a knowledge base of
memorized formulas and their underlying schemata leaves the learner far from
the ability to improvise. A novice improviser with only this knowledge can be
compared to a foreign language learner who has memorized a vocabulary list
and verb conjugation tables and their underlying principles, but is unable to
converse in real time. The knowledge base is further expanded and enriched as
the learner discovers how its individual elements can be elaborated upon and
how they interrelate. 19 Variation and recombination, discussed in the following

16 Dekeyser, 126.
17 Ibid., 132~4.
18 Ibid., 150.
19 D.E. Rumelhart and D.A. Norman (1978 and 1981) describe four processes involved in
acquiring a cognitive skill that appear relevant to this process: accretion (acquisition of
new information), restructuring (development of new ways of understanding and organ-
izing this information), tuning (development of knowledge/skills through practice), and
analogy (development of relationships between new and existing knowledge). See D.E.
Rumelhart and D.A. Norman, "Accretion, Tuning and Restructuring: Three Modes of
Learning," in Semantic Factors in Cognition, ed. ].W. Cotton and R. Klatzky (Hillsdale:
Erlbaum, 1978), 37-53; D.E. Rumelhart and D.A. Norman, "Analogical Processes in
46 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

sections, begin the process of reorganization of the knowledge base toward

these goals.

Variation
Learning a formula in various keys can foster a stronger representation of the
formula's components and internal relationships. Learning the range of pos-
sible variants of any formula provides not only a much larger and more diverse
stock of material with which to improvise, but also a more nuanced knowledge
of the stylistic properties and possibilities of the underlying formulas. Pressing
describes the pedagogical strategy of variation as follows: "One common teach-
ing system is always to represent several versions of each new concept or move-
ment sequence, so that the student intrinsically thinks of variation and a certain
controlled fuzziness. " 20
As shown in Figure 3.1, Kollmann presents several variants of the regie de
!'octave. The first two systems demonstrate four possible realizations of the
same bass, while the bottom three systems provide examples of interpolation
of chromatic movement in the bass. C.P.E. Bach also adopts the strategy of
presenting several variants of the rule of the octave. Bach provides seventeen
different figurations, showing how the simple figure can provide for formida-
ble diversity in its realization. 21 As Thomas Christensen has noted, "by learn-
ing the regle de !'octave in all keys, as well as its most common variations and
diminutions, the student had a wide repertoire of possible harmonic and
melodic inventions upon which to draw."22
In Figure 3.2, Vierling presents ten distinct realizations of one of the movi-
menti he presented a few pages earlier. In the five on the left and the first on the
right, the bass line varies rhythmically but maintains its melodic shape, while
the right hand varies in texture and figuration. The next four variations on the

Learning," in Cognitive Skills and Their Acquisition, ed. J.R. Anderson. (Hillsdale: Erlbaum,
1981), 335-360. For discussion, see]. Michael O'Malley and Anna Uhl Chamot, Leaming
Strategies i11 Second Language Acquisition (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990),
29; Greg Kearsley, "Modes of Learning {D. Rumelhart and D. Norman)," TIP: Theories,
http://tip.psychology.org/norman.html {accessed August 21, 2008).
20 Jeff Pressing, "Cognitive Processes in Improvisation," in Cognitive Processes in the

Perception of Art, ed. W. Ray Crozier and Anthony ]. Chapman (Amsterdam: Elsevier,
1984), 350.
21 C.P .E. Bach, Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, Berlin 1753/1762,

translated and edited by William J, Mitchell (New Yark: W. W. Norton, 1949), Figure 4 72
on pp. 432-433.
22 Thomas Christensen, "The Regie de !'Octave in Thorough-Bass Theory and Practice,"
Acta Musicologica 64 (1992): 107.
 VARIATION I 47

Fig. 3.1 Kollmann, variations on the regie de /'octave.

{=:£-~ ' ' ~p:

... ~

Fig. 3.2 Vierling, variations on bass line and its realization (see text for discussion).
(Illustration from BRILUIDC's collection "Musicology" on microfiche.)
48 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

right show variation in both the realization of the underlying bass progression
in the left hand and in the material of the right hand. Czerny adopts a similar
strategy in his chapter on preludes in Op. 200, presenting a simple chord pro-
gression followed by several possible realizations. In Czerny's chapters on
improvisation based on themes in the same treatise, numerous variations of
the given thematic material are presented for each thematic idea.
Variation is also a pedagogical tool in the present-day teaching of Classical
improvisation. In my own lessons with Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson,
when I have added embellishments, they have often responded by demonstrat-
ing numerous alternative possibilities for embellishing the musical figure at
hand. In a master class with Malcolm Bilson, 23 I ornamented the repeat of the
following figure from the second movement of Franz joseph Haydn's Sonata
in B Minor, Hob. XVI:32 (Figure 3.3a):

Fig. 3.3a Measures 6-7 of the second movement of F.J. Haydn's Sonata in 8 Minor,
Hob. XVI:32 .

. . . by embellishing it with a grace note as follows (Figure 3.3b):

njt ;;
~

Fig. 3.3b The same figure, which I embellished with an E#grace note in the second
measure.

23 Malcolm Bilson, Master Class with the author as participant, Cornell University Summer
Fortepiano V{orkshop 2007, August 6, 2007.
 VARIATION I 49

Bilson said of this variant, "that's the kind of thing I would really avoid ...
[In Hayd n's Hob. 49], the second movement is highly deco rated, and never
with a thing like that . .. Let's see ... listen .. ." Bilson then played the follow-
ing va riant (Figure 3.3c):

-
"•........___....~
Fig. 3.3c Bilson's first variant of the same passage (sixteenth note figure inverted).

" ... for instance . .. to make a real va riant .. ." Then Bilson played two addi-
tional variants (Figures 3.3d and 3.3e):

-- -
<
I
j ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~
t "• "iJ
"----'
Fig. 3.3d Bilson's second variant (eighth note pickup varied).

Fig. 3.3e Bilson's third variant (both pickup and sixteenth note figure varied).

"... you can do th ings li ke that ... or someth ing li ke that ... "
50 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

Bilson first explained that my ornament was not something that Haydn actually
does in his compositions, thus drawing on his knowledge base of Haydn 's own
ornamentation practices. Then, through demonstration rather than explanation,
he improvised several possible variants, first varying the sixteenth notes of the
downbeat figure (Figure 3.3c), then varying the upbeat figure (Figure 3.3d),
and finally varying both (Figure 3.3e). In so doing, he conveyed some of the
many possible variations on the realization of the underlying material.

Variation cross-culturally
The process of learning a musical style through varied realizations of underly·
ing schemata appears in a wide variety of musical traditions. Consider the fol·
lowing four quotations. The first three describe learning to improvise in three
different musical traditions, and the fourth provides a discussion of modal
improvisation more broadly.
South Slavic epic poetry:
... [T]he singer has not had to learn a large number of separate formulas. The common·
est ones which he first uses set a basic pattern, and once he has the basic pattern firmly
in his grasp he needs only to substitute another word for the key one .. , [T]he particular
formula itself is important to the singer only up to the time when it has planted in his
mind its basic m old. When this point is reached, the singer depends less and less on
learning formulas and more and more on the process of substituting other words in the
formula patterns ... [T]he really significant element in the process is rather the setting
up of various patterns that make adjustment of phrase and creation ofphrases by mwlogy
possible. Were he merely to learn the phrases and lines ... acquiring thus a stock of them,
which he would then shuffle about and mechanically put together in juxtaposition as
inviolable fixed units, he would, I am convinced never become a singer. 24

Jazz (describing an analysis of Bill Evans' improvisations):

... [T]he process does not involve a large number of melodic maneuvers ... but a lim-
ited number of consistent ways for moving about the keyboard ... There is no reason to
suppose that the patterns identified here are memorized and fitted together ... since the
basic patterns can be easily modified and embellished to fit a variety of rhythmic-harmonic
situations. And they can be readily used to create other melodic figures by analogy. 25

Javanese gamelan:
An essential characteristic ofJavanese musical practice is the acceptance-indeed the
expectation-of reinterpretation or paraphrase, rather than note-perfect imitation or
free improvisation ... [In] the Javanese situation , .. there is no fixed "text" to be

24 Lord, 36-37 (emphasis mine).

25 Gregory Eugene Smith, "Homer, Gregory, and Bill Evans? The Theory of Formulaic
Composition in the Context of]azz Piano Improvisation" (PhD diss., Harvard University,
1983), 206-208 (emphasis mine).
 VARIATION I 51

memorized verbatim, yet the scope of a performer's freedom is not large, being
restricted mainly to choice of pattern and realization of patterns from stocks of pos-
sibilities.26 [T]hrough the drawing of connections and analogies, interpretation involves
adapting and re-creating musical practices, patterns, and the like within mw's own frame
of reference. Through inference an individual discovers order and utilizes that order to
create and act upon analogies .. ,27

The use of variants to transmit style is in fact a feature of nearly all modal improv-
isation traditions, as has been described by ethnomusicologist Benjamin Brinner:
Modal improvisation ... can be understood or at least delimited in this way: a wealth
of variants forces a student to deduce the "ground rules" and successful strategies of
sound production, patterning, and manipulation-what is possible, what is prefera-
ble, and what is to be avoided. It also forces flexibility and develops transformational
abilities. This method of acquiring competence is prominent in jazz and in various
Middle Eastern and South Asian musics, it is also typical ofJavanese gamelan ... The
musical products of such inference are rich expressions of the logic perceived in a
musical system by its primary users, managers, and modifiers. 28

These quotations describe a learning strategy involving variation that appears

similar to what is being sought by the pedagogical treatises under examination
here. Formulas are learned not as fixed phenomena, but as flexible frameworks
for future improvisations. In each of these traditions, only a limited vocabu-
lary of underlying patterns appears to be necessary, though the variations
upon them allow for a proliferation of possibilities. If each of the variations
were internalized as a unique and isolated musical possibility, the vast number
of them would prove staggering in its demands on memory. This could para-
lyze the improviser in performance rather than aid her/him. While learning
variants provides what psychologist David Rubin has called a "collection of
instances" for use in improvisation, the learner must achieve an efficient
organization of such instances if he or she is to draw upon them spontaneously
in the moment of performance. 29 Thus, equally as important as learning
variants is the learning of their interrelations. Indeed, each quotation above
refers to the formation of analogies between variants, as I have highlighted.

26 Brinner, 156~7.
27 Ibid., 118 (emphasis mine).
28 Ibid., 119.

29 As nicely summarized by psychologist David Rubin in his cognitive study of oral tradition,
"Exposure to variants ... is the main learning device ... from this exposure and from
practice singing, the singer develops the skills needed to perform ... [This] need not
involve conscious explicit knowledge ... the internal representation of the constraints
learned can be conceived of as a collection of instances, associative networks, or even sys-
tems of rules ... " (David Rubin, Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of
Epic, Ballads, and Counting-out Rhymes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 307).
52 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

To better understand the cognitive processes involved in converting the knowl-

edge base from a "collection of instances" to an efficiently organized network,
I turn to research on the cognitive psychology of concepts and conceptual
development.

Variation: Concepts for cognitive economy

Concepts can be defined as "mental representations of classes of objects or
other entities." 30 A remarkable, often taken-for-granted aspect of our memory
system is the ability to identify a wide variety of members of a conceptual
category, despite substantial variation in the perceptual attributes of the indi-
vidual members of that category. Consider the example of the concept "dog."
Despite the large differences between different species of dogs in terms of size,
shape, pattern of hair, behavior, etc., one can easily recognize such animals as
belonging to the category of "dog." Even seeing a species of dog that one has
never encountered before, there is little risk of confusing this new example
with other categories of four-legged, furry animals (e.g., cats, bears, etc.}.
Concepts allow" ... abstracting away from our experience to develop ...
cognitive economy ... by dividing the world into classes of things to decrease
the amount of information we need to learn, perceive, remember, and
recognise. " 31
Given the speed and efficiency of access to knowledge required in improvisa-
tion, such "cognitive economy" in organization of the improvisational knowl-
edge base is crucial. In the cognitive psychology literature, two of the main
views of how conceptual knowledge is represented are the prototype approach
and the exemplar approach. 32 According to the prototype view, "concepts
have a prototype structure; the prototype is either a collection of characteristic
attributes or the best example (or examples) of the concepts ... [T]here is
a typicality gradient [i.e., an accepted range of what is typical for membership
in the conceptual category] which characterizes the differential typicality of
examples of the concept. "33 That is, one judges new objects, situations, etc. as

30 Eysenck and Keane, 294.

31 Ibid., 293.
32 For an overview of the psychology of concepts, see Eysenck and Keane, 293-313. For an
in-depth examination of past and current research in this domain of psychological
inquiry, see Gregory Murphy, The Big Book of Concepts (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,
2002). For an interesting and convincing application of the psychology of concepts and
categories to motivic analysis, text-music relationships, and broader issues in music
theory, see Lawrence Zbikowski, Conceptualizing Music: Cognitive Stmcture, Theory, aud
Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
33 Eysenck and Keane, 298.
 VARIATION I 53

belonging to a previously learned category if they match attributes of some

average, abstracted summary representation of category members.34
Prototypes, then, are akin to the underlying musical schemata that can be real-
ized in varied ways, as described in Robert Gjerdingen's analyses mentioned in
the previous chapter. 35
In the exemplar approach, it is thought that "instead of having a prototype
... that is a list of all the characteristic features abstracted away from members
of this category ... we just have a store of all the instances ... encountered in
the past." 36 Thus, when encountering a new potential member of a given
category, one would search one's memory for similar instances or exemplars to
judge whether this new potential member indeed fits the criteria for inclusion
into this category. 37
Of course, the prototype and exemplar approaches are not mutually exclu-
sive; "the prototype view does not deny that people learn and remember exem-
plars ... and ... the first time one encounters a category member, the only
prototype one can form would be based on that single exemplar ... "38 Indeed,
in the pedagogy of improvisation, both types of processes appear to be at play:
the presentation of innumerable variants of formulas in pedagogy allows the
learner to fill the well of exemplars, which also provides the opportunity to
abstract their characteristic features in order to instantiate a more general pro-
totype of a given formula. Within the conceptual categories of the knowledge
base, core archetypes can coexist with the many varied ways of realizing them.
The flexibility in realization of an underlying schema is fundamental to the
notion of formula as described in the previous chapter, and as it has been
applied to a wide variety of oral traditions. 39 The range of variation of a
formula is a key element of any style, and variants thus serve as vehicles for
transmitting stylistic norms, in addition to their function of providing plenti-
ful possibilities for use in performance.
In a discussion of concept learning, psychologists Susan Carey and
Barbara Sarnecka explain the process of incorporating new information into
a framework that is already replete with prior knowledge. The process of con-
ceptual development as they describe it is one of increasing connection between

34 Ibid., 297-8; Murphy, 41-48.

35 For discussion of schemata in the prototype approach see Murphy, 47-48.
36 Eysenck and Keane, 301.
37 Murphy, 49.
38 Ibid., 64-65.
39 Such conceptual models for performance by Constantin Brailoiu (for European oral
traditions), Simha Arom (for African music), ]ames Cowdery (for Irish music), and
James Porter (for Scottish music) are reviewed by Zbikowski, 216-217.
54 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

individual components by means of(( ... analogical reasoning, inductive leaps,

[and] inference ... "40 These processes of analogy, induction, and inference
during learning foster future flexibility in the navigation of the knowledge base
in performance. As Benjamin Brinner describes with regard to learning variants
in Javanese gamelan music:
Beyond direct, explicit instructions, corrections, or explanations proffered by a teacher
or mentor, a musician is forced to rely on personal powers of deduction, developing
an individualized understanding of the way things work in a particular music. 41 ..•
[W]hen the student has repeated opportunities to hear a passage but that passage is
played differently each time, an essentially inferential, interpretive and creative process
of learning and lmowing is favored over rote memorization or verbalized explanations and
instructions. 42

The knowledge base formed in this way rather than through "rote memori-
zation or verbalized explanations" is thus organized for spontaneous action
rather than mere recall. Concepts underlying individual formulas can be
organized into higher·level categories of musical materials that have particular
musical functions (e.g., cadences) or that have the capacity to accomplish
specific musical-physical goals when improvising (e.g., how to get from one
note (or place on the instrument) to another in a certain number of beats or
notes). 43 Thus, in the moment of performance, the improviser need not be
faced with the overwhelming task of consulting a cumbersome collection of
possibilities at any given moment, but can instead draw from a conceptually
organized system of knowledge. For example, the improviser could anticipate
the need for a cadence, and the ears and/or body could then either choose a
variant suitable to the musical situation at hand, or invent a modified solution
based on the learned range of suitable variation allowed within the conceptual
category of "cadence" in that particular style.
In sum, rehearsal of variants of a given formula yields an abundance of
possible material for improvisation. Learning variants also allows for more
efficient organization of the knowledge base, categorizing formulas in terms of

40 Susan Carey and Barbara W. Sarnecka, "The Development of Human Conceptual

Representations: A Case Study," in Processes ofChange in Brain and Cognitive Development,
ed. Yuko Munakata and Mark H. Johnson (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006),
487. The context of this quotation is as follows," ... symbols have meanings in relation to
one another, but are not yet interpreted ... in terms of antecedent mental representation.
Once the symbols and the relations among them are learned, they serve as placeholders,
waiting to be filled in with richer and richer meanings ... gradually made through ana-
logical reasoning, inductive leaps, inference ..
41 Brinner, 119.
42 Ibid., 122.
43 See Chapter 4 for further discussion.
 VARIATION I 55

their underlying schemata by analogy, induction, and inference. In addition,

the range of acceptable variation is an important parameter of any given musi-
cal style, affording a shared understanding of the musical system between
performer and listener in a given cultural context. 44 Rehearsal with variants
develops the intmae~lb often implct~undersag of this range of
variation of the elements of the knowledge base. Improvisation in any style
requires a richly organized knowledge base that can be accessed quickly and
efficiently in the heat of performance. Variants and their underlying concepts
help to create such economy in the knowledge base, and thus allow the learner
to '(develop broader understanding than is evident from the information sup-
plied by any particular [instance]." 45
Despite the expansion of the knowledge base and the refinement of its
organization afforded by variation, the individual musical elements remain
isolated entities, and the budding improviser's spontaneous fluency remains
limited. At this stage, the improviser is like the language learner whose vocabu-
lary has grown, and who has internalized rules for inflecting the vocabulary
(e.g., how verbs can be conjugated and their tenses changed, how adjectives
can be made masculine or feminine, etc.), but has not yet achieved the ability
to spontaneously describe a situation, tell a story, or make a joke. A further
step in organizing the knowledge base for spontaneous performance involves
learning how its elements (and their underlying schemata) interrelate to create
the linear flow of improvised music in time. 46 The pedagogical strategy used to
achieve this goal is recombination.

44
For analyses of schemata and their range of variation in galant music, see Gjerdingen 1988
(especially pp. 68-98) and 2007. For further discussion of conceptual musical models as
elements of cultural knowledge, see Zbikowski, Chapter 5.
45 O'Malley and Chamot, 24 (in a discussion of schemata in language learning).
46
This analogy is more or less congruent with one proposed by Kenny and Gellrich, which
I discovered only very late in my research after formulating my own analogy: "Two basic
stages in the acquisition of improvising skills can be distinguished, which can be under-
stood in terms of a linguistic analogy. In the first stage oflearning a language words and
grammatical rules are acquired, and in the second students explore their various possi-
bilities of combination and application. Improvisers similarly need to first master the
hardware of improvisation: patterns, parts of melodies, chord progressions and melodic
patterns. Only then can the software of improvisation be developed-systematic rules
that assist with constructing melodies, phrases, and larger musical ideas, working with
motifs, and establishing relationships among different parts of the improvisation" ( 129-
130). Here, however, I propose that these are not separate "stages," but that what they call
"software" (essentially stylistic rules and improvisational processes) can facilitate the
learning of what they refer to as "hardware" (essentially formulas and schemata) and
rehearsal of"hardware," can allow for the passive internalization of the rules that they
refer to as "software." See also footnote 2 of this chapter.
56 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

Recombination
Improvisation demands not only instant access to musical-motor patterns
and processes for varying them, but also the ability to combine those patterns.
This combination is necessary not only linearly (i.e., the stringing together of
ideas in an improvisation), but also at a more "micro" level, combining and
recombining smaller elements to form new musical entities.
On the title page of Corri's treatise, he writes that he includes "above two
hundred progressive preludes in every key and mode and in different styles, so
calculated that variety may be formed at pleasure." How do treatise writers
instruct students in the art of combining elements, allowing for variety to be
formed at pleasure?
Corri offers six styles of preludes. The "First Style" consists of the chord
progression I-V7-I in block chords, presented in all keys (see Figure 2.1a). The
"Second Style" presents the progression I-V~ 7 -I in block chords in all
keys (see Figure 2.1b). The "Third Style" uses the same progression as
the "Second Style," but with arpeggios on each chord, presented in all keys
(Figure 3.4). The "Fourth Style," which Corri calls "Coda's [sic] or Finales,"
consists of scalar or arpeggiated flourishes on I, with three to five codas in each
key (Figure 3.5). For the "Fifth Style," called "Cape's [sic] or Introductions,
with suitable Coda's [sic] forming entire Preludes," there are three to
five examples in each key, which are each two measures in length: the
Capo measure presents an opening flourish (scalar, sequential, arpeggiated,
or some combination thereof), and the Coda measure consists of a V-I
cadence comprised of some combination of block chords and arpeggios
(Figure 3.6). The "Sixth Style," entitled "Preludes or Capriccios," is a presentation
of twenty preludes in various keys with more diverse figuration than the
previous styles, ranging from about five to about twenty measures in length
(Figure 3.7).

Fig. 3.4 Corri, example of a prelude in the "Third Style."

 RECOMBINATION I 57

Fig. 3.5 Corri, examples of "Coda's [sic] or Finales, Preludes in Fourth Style."

Corri recommends the following strategy for using his treatise:

.. [ L] earn the short preludes ... called Ist style , , . and get them by heart. After which
proceed to learn those marked zd ... The next are those of the 3d style ... the same
as the last, except being Arpeggios instead of Chords. Next follow a series of Coda's
[sic] or Finales that may be substituted for the last chord of any of the foregoing prel-
udes. And also a variety of Capo's [sic] or introductions. , . which may end with the
Codas attached to them or any other of the same key .. , the three first styles ofPreludes
may have for conclusion or finale any of the Coda's [sic] of the 4th or sth style, that is
a prelude in the key of C of either the Pt, zd or 3d style may have for its finale (instead
of its concluding Chord) any of the Coda's [sic] in C ofthe 4th style, or the Coda's [sic]
attached to the Preludes of the sth style in C. By this means and by transposing certain
preludes in different keys, the Scholar may form endless variety, and with perseverance
become so habituated to passages, Arpeggios and Modulation, tltat the Ear will impercep-
tibly guide tlze fingers, and direct the fancy to model preludes in various shapes. 47

Thus, Corri presents not only a large repertoire of simple preludes, but
composes them out of modular components that can be mixed and matched.
In addition, should the student choose not to heed Corri's advice for recombin-
ing elements from his different styles of preludes, the fifth style preludes are
themselves each comprised of various combinations of a smaller number of
elements (Figure 3.8). Not only are the Capo figures paired with a number of
different coda figures, but the Coda figures themselves (comprised ofV-1
with different types of arpeggio figures) are modular, made up of different
combinations of their internal elements (Figure 3.9). Finally, Corri's sixth style
preludes, while substantially more far-ranging in the types of materials they
employ, do include figures from the other styles of preludes, thus reinforcing
interconnections between the different motives presented earlier in the treatise.

47 Corri, pp. 83-85 (emphasis added).

58 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

Fig. 3.6 Corri, examples of "Capo's or Introductions, with suitable Coda's forming
entire preludes (Fifth Style)."

Thus, dutiful rehearsal of all of these combinations would allow the student to
tacitly internalize the combinational possibilities of the musical materials
presented.
While Kollmann does not demonstrate recombination as explicitly as Corri,
he underscores its importance in his Preface:
It must be recommended to Masters more fully to show the different Uses that can be
made of every Example ... and how a great Number of new Passages can be invented
by using only Part of an Example, or by joining Part of one Example to another, or
how those who have already made a Beginning in the Study of Harmony can set
different harmonies over the same Bass ... or how an example can be prolonged in the
manner it begins ... 48

48 Kollmann, 3.
 RECOMBINATION I 59

Fig. 3.7 Corri, examples of "Complete Preludes or Capriccios (Sixth Style)."

Similarly, near the end ofVierling's treatise, he states, "I thus join some
studies and connect some of the cited progressions with each other." 49 He then
proceeds to present extended bass patterns featuring combinations of
previously presented exercises. Before each, Vierling notes for the student

49 Vierling, 20. Original German reads: "I eh ftige nun noch einige EtUde hinzu und verbinde
immer einige der angefuhrten Gange mit einander" (English translation mine).
60 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

,1

,_ p"''""' ' ~"· ~<h!o"i:; t~mply

~i"nd;.,l .o\- "·

;by~dohm•Y"i
d•mJ.
;,.y~o<b•r·'"-
ad lib: ~
--- -
--
)!1 the h·~

of c.
C•r"

(a)

lntfle

(b)

(c)
Fig. 3.8 Corri, recombination within Capo-Coda pairs ("Preludes in the Fifth Style").
The same opening figure is presented in three different keys. In 3.8b, however, an
ascending dominant arpeggio is added to the capo. In each of the three examples, the
Coda measure has a different variant of the figuration of the V-1 cadence.

which progressions he has combined to yield the new one. For example, as
shown in Figure 3.10, Vierling notes "Examples after 9 d, e, and f, 13, and 15."
Comparing the conglomerate progression with the original bass lines, one
notes that Vier ling has varied them, transposed them, and combined these
smaller progressions with others. In his culminating lessons, Vierling thus
combines several pedagogical strategies. In so doing, he demonstrates for the
student how knowledge of a collection of simple patterns, along with the pos-
sibilities for their transposition, elaboration, and recombination, can generate
rich and varied materials for improvisation.
 RECOMBINATION I 61

cod;--

(a) (c)

(e)
tt!::;!t; (d)
Fig. 3.9 Corri, recombination within Codas (from "Preludes in the Fifth Style").
Each Coda consists of a V-1 cadence. Clockwise from (a): (a) shows the simplest
realization: a block chord for V and a rolled chord for I (in the key of D); (b) uses
the same rolled chord for I as in 3.9a, but introduces an ascending arpeggio for V
(in the key of C); (c) uses the same rolled chord for I as in (a) and (b), but uses
an ascending-descending arpeggio on V (in the key of C); (d) uses the same realiza-
tion of V as in (c), but introduces an ascending-descending for I (in the key of G);
(e) (in the key of C) uses the same realization of I as in (d), but uses a block chord for
V as in (a).

In a present-day example of such a combinatorial pedagogical strategy,

Robert Levin has composed a unique set of cadenzas for the Mozart violin
concertos. In his preface to the cadenzas, Levin states:
In order to approximate the spirit of improvisation, at least two versions are always
offered for each fermata. Beyond that, a maximum number of combinatorial
62 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

(a)

{ bt~~
~@¥jc
{l!l't 0 I J @I r ff.-¥¥WM
G

{ ~ft,[l§~ r-:,~ i~E?

~­

(e)
{ =dfr-_c~m9'¥ -~El {e:;M~I#±t
-~jfp'
Fig. 3.10 Vierling, recombination. 3.10d represents recombination of 9. d, e, and
f (a), 13 (b), and IS (c). 3.1 De demonstrates a variation of the bass line in 3.1 Od with
a right-hand realization. (Illustration from BRILUIDC's collection "Musicology" on
microfiche.)
 RECOMBINATION I 63

possibilities have been purposefully built in. Thus, the player can assemble many
different cadenzas from the basic alternatives. 5°

In Levin's cadenzas, openings provide several choices for continuation, and

these continuations themselves can be interlinked in various ways, allowing
the performer to choose his/her path through a large number of possible com-
binations. Levin described in an interview:
I've composed them in such a way as to be didactic. I consider those published caden-
zas to be a treatise on the art of improvisation without any text ... So what this means
is that the person can learn Cadenza A and can learn Cadenza B, and they can play
either one of them, but then there are all these places where they can jump back and
forth, and by the time they've done that, they've got maybe twenty different options.
And ideally once they've tried and they've played all twenty options, they close the
book and they say, "I'm just going to do it, I get it" ... I'm counting on the fact that
people who have a series of solutions that work may in fact try other solutions and
realize that they don't work so well, but the idea I've had in this large number of alter-
natives mirrors, in terms of the textual presentation, what goes on in your head when
you're improvising. si

Levin thus clearly articulates that by presenting combinatorial possibilities he

seeks to allow the performer to internalize combinatorial principles. So calcu-
lated are his cadenzas, then, that after careful study of them, variety may be
formed by the student at pleasure (to use Coni's words). Levin's articulation of
his pedagogical strategy suggests the possibility that pedagogues of improvisa-
tion two centuries earlier may have had similar ideas in mind when constructing
their treatises.
In lessons as well, Levin and Bilson often demonstrate possible combina-
tions of ornamentation in adjacent passages. In these sorts of demonstrations,
they provide a window into their own knowledge bases of implicit idiomatic
interconnections between musical figures in the style. In the example from the
master class with Malcolm Bilson above (Figure 3.3), his third variant (Figure
3.3e) is a combination of his first two (Figures 3.3c and 3.3d).
The idea of presenting a set of elements and then demonstrating the numer-
ous possible permutations that can result from combining them in different
ways is not unique to the improvisation treatises of the period. Use of such a
combinatorial strategy falls in line with a broader trend in eighteenth-century

50 Robert Levin, Cadenzas to Mozart's Violin Concertos (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1992),
Preface.
51
Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10,2007.
64 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

music and culture: a fascination with the idea of ars combinatoria, "the method
through which two or more elements can be combined." 52

Combinatoriality in eighteenth-century musical thought

Ars combinatoria is thought to have originated in the philosophy of Raman
Lull, a thirteenth-century Spanish philosopher. The concept was further devel-
oped by seventeenth/eighteenth-century scientist and philosopher Gottfried
Wilhelm Leibniz as a way of generating material for the analysis and synthesis
of existing knowledge. In his 1666 dissertation Dears combinatoria, Leibniz sug-
gested that using combinatorial principles can create new knowledge through
the combination of elements from the inventory of pre-existing knowledge. 5 3
Ars combinatoria figures prominently in the musical culture of the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries. 54 One example is JosefRiepel's composition
treatise Anfangsgriinde zur musicalischen Setzkunst (Fundamentals of Musical
Composition) from the mid-eighteenth century, a treatise more or less contem-
poraneous with the improvisation treatises examined here. 55 Although Riepel
mentions ars combinatoria in a footnote only, this implies that the concept was
certainly familiar in musical pedagogy. 56 Music theorist Stefan Eckert describes
Riepel's use of ars combitwtoria as follows:
Riepel begins the Anfangsgriinde by establishing an inventory of compositional material
which ranges from individual notes to measures, groups of measures, minuet-
sections, and finally whole minuets ... While [Riepel] encourages the [student] to vary
and rearrange the resulting materials, specifically discussing permutation and combi-
nation in all possible ways, he gives reasons why certain combinations are preferable
to others ... 57

52 Stefan Eckert, "Ars Combinatoria, Dialogue Structure, and Musical Practice in Joseph
Riepel's A11jangsgriinde zur musicalischen Setzkunst" (PhD diss., State University of
New York at Stony Brook, 2000), 57. Much of the following discussion is based on Eckert's
comprehensive and insightful dissertation. For discussion of further examples of ars
combinatoria see Sebastian Klotz, Kombinatorik und die Verbindungskiinste der Zeichen in
der Musik zwischen 1630 und 1780 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006); Leonard G. Ratner,
"Ars Combinatoria: Chance and Choice in Eighteenth-Century Music," in Studies
in Eighteenth-Century Music: A Tribute to Karl Geiringer on his Seventieth Birthday,
ed. H.C. Robbins Landon and Roger E. Chapman, 343-363 (New York: Da Capo
Press, 1979).
53 Background in this paragraph drawn from Eckert, 60-71.
54 For comprehensive review, see Klotz, 2006.
55 The use of ars combinatoria in Riepel's treatise is pursued in depth in Eckert, 2000.
56 Eckert, 98.
57 Ibid., 204.
 RECOMBINATION I 65

Like Riepel's composition treatise, the improvisation treatises discussed in the

present chapter present materials, their variations, and their rearrangements.
The improvisation treatises demonstrate which combinations are preferable
not by means of explanation, like Riepel, but by example. Music theorist
Leonard Ratner summarizes the purpose of using the ars combinatoria in
pedagogy as follows:
All the theorists who treat of permutation ... do so for a practical reason-to unlock
the imagination of the student. The method is mechanical; the materials are few and
simple; but the possibilities are unthinkably vast. 58

Outside of pedagogy, another use of this combinatorial principle in

eighteenth-century music was the Wiirfelspiel, or musical dice game. 59 Such
games were designed by composers for amateurs, and provided a matrix of
musical choices for each measure of a waltz, minuet, or other genres, with
a number given to each possible option for a particular measure. Through rolls
of dice, the player(s) of the game could compose a piece measure by measure,
based on the choice for each measure that was indicated by the roll of the dice.
At least twenty such games were published, including games by well-known
composers such as C.P.E. Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz joseph
Haydn, and Johann Kirnberger. 60 In music theorist Lawrence Zbikowski's
analysis of one of the games attributed to Mozart (K An h. C 30-01), Zbikowski
discovers that the game could generate 45,949,729,863,572,161 ( 11 16 ) waltzes! 61
Although the element of rolling dice seems to make these games a chance
operation, as Zbikowski notes, "In truth, chance played little part in the
success of the music produced by such games. Instead, what was required of
the compilers ... [was] a little knowledge about how to put the game together
and an understanding of the formal design of waltzes, etc." 62
As Zbikowski shows in his analysis, the starting point for the composer of
such a game was "not so much variations on a waltz as variations on a harmonic
plan for a waltz, using melodic fragments that served the minimal contrapun-
tal plan of the whole." 63 He demonstrates, for example, that certain measures

58 Ratner, 350.
59
See Ratner, 1979; Stephen A. Hedges, "Dice Music in the Eighteenth Century," Music a11d
Letters 59 (1978): 180-187; Zbikowski, 140-154; Klotz, 2006.
60 See Hedges, 1978 for discussion and list of sources. As noted by Hedges: "The 'galant'
middle class in Europe was playing with mathematics. In this atmosphere of investigation
and cataloguing, a systematic device that would seem to make it possible for anyone to
write music was practically guaranteed popularity" ( 184-185).
61 Zbikowski, 148.
62 Ibid., 142-143.
63 Ibid., 148.
66 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

had only one possibility no matter what number came up on the dice (e.g., the
eighth measure of a sixteen-measure waltz), while others had different choices
for each roll of the dice. 64 "Shaping each of the trillions of waltzes that might
be generated by the game is a template that regulates the degree and kind of
variation that can occur within the sixteen-measure framework." 65
Of course, materials cannot be recombined in any haphazard way; the goal
of the dice games and treatises was to show how materials could be combined
in a stylistically idiomatic fashion:
Without the act of selection, ars combinatoria remains abstract speculation. Thus,
while combinatorial methods result in the generation of many compounds-usually
more than can be used-selecting individual ones from the resulting many must be an
intrinsic part of any practical application of the ars combinatoria."66

Thus, crucial to the use of combinatorics is the ability to distinguish which of

the generated combinations are worthwhile. This is a subtle component of a
style that is perhaps difficult to codify explicitly. However, be it through matri-
ces and rolls of the dice, or recombination of elemental materials in improvisa-
tory models or composition treatises, composers and pedagogues are afforded
a means through which to communicate these more implicit aspects of style.
Beyond the popularity of the dice games and the pedagogical purposes of trea-
tises, ars combinatoria was a ubiquitous feature of eighteenth-century music
more generally, as described by Ratner:
... [T[he process by which the games were put together reflects a substantial view of
musical construction, one that permeates the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In
this view, the play of musical elements is controlled so as to achieve a coherent and
persuasive flow of rhetoric. At this time in musical history, it was possible to codify the
mechanical elements of musical composition more dearly than at any other time.
Arrangements of such elements, though uncountable in practice, were intelligible and
limited. 67

Though Czerny suggests that one must know how to "alternate the passage-
work with suitable sections," 68 his treatises do not show any evidence of mod-
ularity or recombination, but rather demonstrate composings-out ofharmonic
progressions or variations on and/or development of thematic materials.

64 Ibid., 149.
65 Ibid., 149.
66 Eckert, 58.
67 Ratner, 345.
68 Czerny 1836, 11.
 RECOMBINATION I 67

Whereas Corri's instructions highlight what sections may be interchanged,

Czerny provides the following suggestion for working with his models:
... [I]t cannot be my intention to present completely worked out models. Only the
rudiments, only the approximate progression of ideas lend themselves to written dem-
onstration in this case, and, as such can always act as guide for the performer. I indi-
cate here and there the places where an extended development might be necessary, in
which the student has to put himself to the test also. 69

Throughout his models, Czerny writes suggestions in footnotes that indicate

locations where musical material could be further developed or extended.
Thus, Czerny's Systematische Anleitung zum Fantasieren, written only a half-
century later than the other treatises examined here, situates itself as a nine-
teenth century work, making use not of building blocks and their possible
arrangements, but rather of fully formed models that exemplify development
of a theme. As the musical style evolved from the eighteenth century to the
nineteenth century, so too did the pedagogical tools devised to transmit it. 70

Recombination cross-culturally
Recombination is a feature of improvisation in a wide variety of musical tradi-
tions. Numerous musical ethnographies use this very term to describe how
improvisers spontaneously craft musical flow in the moment of performance.

69 Ibid., 52.
70
Eckert underscores the ubiquity and importance of the ars combinatoria in the eighteenth
century as compared to the nineteenth century: "While ars combinatoria allowed for a
modular conception of music, the nineteenth century, which preferred organicist atti-
tudes, required a 'linear' model. A 'modular' process works with predefined patterns and
musical building blocks that are assembled and then rearranged, exchanged, and so on,
whereas the linear model, resembling organic growth, requires a compositional attitude
that opposes the combinational flexibility implied by ars combinatoria" (Eckert, 56-57).
Eckert continues by convincingly relating these conceptions to the epistemes of the
Classical and Modern ages espoused by Michel Foucault in The Order of Things: An
Archeology of the Human Sciences ( 1966).
Similarly, in Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), the late music theorist Leonard Meyer remarked:
"Eighteenth-century composers constructed musical dice games while nineteenth century
composers did not. For the motivic variability that results from throwing dice to 'choose'
measures is tolerable-that is, it works, only because the functions of successive measures
are fixed ... (329) ... [W]hat constrained the choice of figures [in seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century music] were the claims of taste, coherent expression, and propriety,
given the genre of work being composed, rather than the inner necessity of a gradually
unfolding, underlying process [as in nineteenth century music]" (193). See also John
Rink, "Schenker and Improvisation," Journal of Music Theory 37 (1993): 12.
68 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

Consider the following four quotations describing recombination in four dif-

ferent musical traditions:
In Hindustani (North Indian Classical) music, ethnomusicologist and sitarist
Step hen Slawek describes:
... [S]omething has to be there to do next. And since what is there is not concrete or
written down, it must be something remembered and reproduced intact on the spot,
or something created extemporaneously by recombining stored musical information
in a new way that is appropriate to the musical situation of the moment .. .7 1

In his study of Irish music, James Cowdery uses the term recombination spe-
cifically to describe:
Complex permutations based on melodic pools , .. certain melodic moves are seen to
belong together not as a fixed chain of events but more as a system of potentialities ..
. motives can recombine in various ways, expanding or contracting, to make new
melodies which still conform to the traditional sound. 72

In jazz improvisation, ethnomusicologist Paul Berliner describes rehearsal for

improvisation as follows:
In the natural course of artists' musings in the practice room, they focus on exploring
the potential of particular figures. They might hold one of them in mind, perhaps or
perform it repeatedly, while hying out its combination with other vocabulary patterns
.. as individual figures encounter one another in thought, they can produce various
types of imaginative unions .. .7 3

Lord's singer of tales, described in Chapter 2, "never stops in the process of

accumulating, recombining, and remodeling formulas and themes, thus per-
fecting his singing and enriching his art. "74
Learning how to recombine musical materials allows for the improviser-
in-training to begin to form links between the individual elements of her/his
knowledge base (e.g., formulas, variants, etc.). By creating a network of stylisti-
cally idiomatic paths through this knowledge, learning through recombination
helps to take the improviser to the stage where" ... the Ear will imperceptibly
guide the fingers. , .,"as Corri describes in the quotation cited earlier in

71 Step hen Slawek, "Keeping it Going: Terms, Practices, and Processes of Improvisation in
Hindustani Music," in In the Course of Pe1jormance: Studies in the World of Musical
Improvisation, ed. Bruno Nettl and Melinda Russell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 356.
72 James R. Cowdery, "A Fresh Look at the Concept of Tune Family," Ethnomusicology 28
(1984): 499. See also James R. Cowdery, Tile Melodic Tradition of Ireland (Kent: Kent
State University Press, 1990), 88.
73 Berliner, 185.
74 Lord, 26.
 RECOMBINATION I 69

this chapter. Returning to Corri's system, short passages taught in isolation

create an initial set of improvisational elements. Recombining these passages
exponentially increases the improviser's potential storehouse of possibilities.
For example, if the student improviser learns ten Capo-Coda pairs, he or she
has ten musical "chunks" to play when improvising. If any capo can take any
coda in place of its original concluding coda, suddenly there are one hundred
possible options (ten possible codas for each of the ten capos). Thus, learning
by way of recombination provides for an extremely large reserve of possible
paths through the knowledge base of elemental components. This is crucial
in spontaneous performance, where the need for instantaneous creation of
musical flow is essential, as Slawek describes in the quotation above when he
says " ... something has to be there to do next."
In addition to describing similar uses of recombination in improvisation,
some of the quotations above underscore the importance of each recombina-
tion being stylistically idiomatic ("appropriate to the musical situation,"
"conform[ing[ to the traditional sound"), as was described for results of dice
games and other uses of ars combinatoria in eighteenth-century Europe.
Through the presentation of stylistically appropriate recombinations in peda-
gogy, examples of acceptable linear linkages are demonstrated. Recombination
thus provides material for the learning of how stylistic elements interact with
one another in time. These interactions between adjacent elements can be
described by transitional probabilities that reflect the likelihood that a given
event will follow another event.7 5 The learning of transitional probabilities is
also an important component oflanguage acquisition, and takes place largely
implicitly through a process known as statisticallearning.7 6

Recombination, transitional probabilities,

and statistical learning
In several articles on language learning, developmental psychologist Jenny
Saffran and her colleagues discuss the importance of transitional probabilities
in this process.7 7 Analysis oflanguages has shown that "over a corpus of speech

75 "Transitional probabilities track the contingencies between adjacent events: if event X

occurs, what is the likelihood of event Y?" (J.R. Saffran et al., "Statistical Learning of Tone
Sequences by Human Infants and Adults," Cog11ition 70 (1999): 29).
76 Most generally, "Statistical learning can be more broadly construed as attention to regu-
larities in the environment" (J.R. Saffran and E. D. Thiessen, "Domain-General Learning
Capacities," in Handbook of Language Development, ed. E. Hoff & M. Shatz (Cambridge:
Blackwell, 2007), 74).
77 See for example: J,R. Saffran et al., "Statistical Learning by 8-month-old Infants," Science
274 (1996): 1926-1928; J.R. Saffran et al., "Incidental Language Learning: Listening (and
70 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

there are measurable statistical regularities that distinguish recurring sound

sequences that comprise words from the more accidental sound sequences that
occur across word boundaries." 78 That is, syllables that eo-occur within words
have a higher probability of recurring together, whereas syllables that occur on
either side of the boundaries between words have a lower probability of recur-
ring together. These differences are thought to provide important cues for
infant language learners to begin discovering word boundaries, since the
boundaries that we perceive between printed words are actually far less distinct
and more highly variable in spoken language. 79
Through an elegant series of experiments, Saffran and her colleagues have
demonstrated that infants can implicitly learn transition probabilities of syllable
sequences, tone sequences, and visual patterns from very brief periods of expo-
sure. 80 In these experiments, sequences were designed in which certain patterns
within a three-syllable word or a three-tone melody were more likely to recur
internal to such three-element patterns than across the boundaries between one
and the next. Simply as a result of passively listening to sequences continuously
for a few minutes (two minutes for speech, three minutes for melodies), infants
were able to distinguish between examples that followed the rules and those that
did not when tested following this brief exposure. This experiment thus demon-
strated that infants are able to learn the underlying properties of words and
melodies in such sequences; that is, infants can abstract the transitional proba-
bilities from these stimuli, albeit without conscious effort.
The ability to subconsciously abstract the structural regularities of percep-
tual input is a type of implicit learning referred to as distributional analysis, or
statistical learning, "the ability to track consistent patterns in the input to
discover units and structures." 81 Additional experiments by Saffran and her

Learning) out of the Corner of Your Ear," Psychological Science 8 (1997): 101-105; J,R.
Saffran et al., "Statistical Learning of Tone Sequences by Human Infants and Adults,"
Cognition 70 (1999): 27-52; ].R. Saffran, "Constraints on Statistical Language Learning,"
Journal of Memory and Language 47 (2002): 172-196; ].R. Saffran, "Statistical Language
Learning: Mechanisms and Constraints,'' Current Directions in Psychological Scie11ce 12
(2003): 110-114; J.R. Saffran et al., "Dog is a Dog is a Dog: Infant Rule Learning is Not
Specific to Language," Cog11ition 105 (2007): 669-680.
78 ].R. Saffran et al. 1996, 1927. Corpus linguistics refers to the study oflanguage using large
samples of text (corpora) that can be analyzed using computers. One application is to the
study of large corpora of natural language. For discussion, see W-3 Corpora Project,
"Corpus Linguistics," University of Essex http://www.essex.ac.uk!linguistics/clmt/w3c/
corpus_ling/content/ introduction.html (accessed September 9, 2008).
79 For further discussion, see Chapter 5.
80 J.R. Saffran et al., 1996, 1999, and 2007a, respectively.
81 Jenny R. Saffran, "Musical Learning and Language Development," An11als of the New York
Academy ofScie11ces 999 (2003): 398.
 RECOMBINATION I 71

colleagues have demonstrated statistical learning not only in infants, but also
in older children and adults. In one study, child and adult participants per-
formed a drawing task as a distracter while passively listening to a speech
stream from an artificial language designed for the experiment. 82 Though they
were not informed that they would be tested on the sounds, in post-exposure
testing, both children and adults identified "words" that fit the patterns in the
auditory input they had heard with an accuracy significantly greater than
chance. Statistical regularities from auditory information can thus be extracted
equally robustly by both children and adults, even when they are not paying
attention to the sounds. This suggests that statistical learning is a powerful
human capacity for the subconscious extraction and representation of infor-
mation from the environment, operating throughout the life span, even when
one is not paying attention to the information at hand.
Statistical learning of transitional probabilities provides one possible explan-
ation for how some components of a musical style can be learned from a
recombinatorial pedagogical strategy. As described above, use of the ars com-
binatoria yields recombination of musical elements, and treatise writers present
only those combinations that idiomatically fit the style that they seek to teach.
Given the power of statistical learning, the transitional probabilities of how
elements are connected in the style can be internalized by the learner through
rehearsal of these examples.
Music theorist Robert Gjerdingen has shown through a veritable musical
«corpus" study of galant music (analogous to the linguistic corpus studies
described above) that such transitional probabilities do indeed exist for the
musical schemata of this style: certain schemata are more or less likely to eo-
occur in sequence, leading to well-trodden paths through the material that
composers internalized and used in their music. 83 In fact, Gjerdingen links this
way of learning to compose through the use of these patterns to improvisation
in a variety of oral traditions, describing how this method of pedagogy taught
«how to select strings of patterns that helped to fashion larger formal or narrative
designs." 84 Importantly, Gjerdingen notes that:
[T]hese probabilities-what a linguist might term "finite state grammar"-capture
only some of the knowledge of galant musicians. Successful musicians also possessed

82 J.R. Saffran et al., 1997.

83
Gjerdingen 2007, 369-398; see especially Figure 27.1 on p. 372.
84 Ibid., 370. Discussing a quotation by Paul Berliner describing jazz improvisation,

Gjerdingen states that it" ... might equally well describe how to select from the musical
storehouse of the radif for a performance of classical Persian music, or how to string
together galant schemata to create a fantasia ... oral traditions have much in common no
matter what the culture, century, or medium involved" (Ibid., 370-371).
72 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

technical knowledge of contrapuntal and harmonic patterns internal to a given

schema and knowledge of how to arrange the schemata to achieve certain aesthetic
effects ... 85

In the improvisation treatises examined here, this knowledge of "patterns

internal to schemata" is transmitted through the presentation of the schemata
themselves and their variations, while their appropriate linkage is demon-
strated through recombination. Continuing the analogy with foreign language
learning that has recurred throughout this chapter, practicing recombination
of musical materials is similar to the use of learned vocabulary and grammati-
cal structures to begin to form sentences. While transposition and variation
allow for the development of a musical vocabulary, recombination begins to
train the budding improviser in the art of musical rhetoric.
With the exception of the recombination of passagework in the above exam-
ples from Corri's treatise, most of the recombination in other treatises involves
combining harmonic progressions. As Rink states in his discussion of
Schenker's writings on improvisation: "Even though a simple progression may
serve as the harmonic foundation of an improvised modulation or prelude, in
itself it lacks musical meaning: only elaboration according to compositional
principles will transform it into meaning." 86 In the materials examined thus
far, chords and chord progressions appear to be the most explicitly codified
materials taught by these pedagogues. However, as Pressing notes, "One task
of pedagogy is to systematize ... elements, but this systematization can never
be complete." 87 Examples employing recombination and variation are used as
ways of demonstrating the aspects of underlying stylistic principles that are
perhaps less conscious and more implicit. The elaboration of these chord
progressions into full-blown stylistically idiomatic improvisations, however,
represents another level entirely. In the analogous case of jazz instructional
manuals, Gregory Smith describes:
The basic tonal materials that make up the musical vocabulary of the art lend them-
selves readily enough, it seems, to systematic and written instruction. But the ability to
create fully formed expressions with that vocabulary is learned only by hearing and
imitating those fluent in the language, and by using the language under the time con-
straints imposed by the actual performance. 88

Smith thus highlights two important points with regard to learning to create
"fully formed expressions" with the codified building blocks transmitted

85 Ibid., 373.
86 Rink, 4.
87 Pressing 1998,54.
88 Smith, 87.
 MODELS AND THE ACQUISITION OF STYLE I 73

through pedagogy. First, models by fluent improvisers must be heard and

imitated. Second, rehearsal of the act of improvisation is crucial in the devel-
opment of improvisational skill. This latter point will be discussed in the next
chapter on learning to improvise from the learner's perspective. With respect
to the former point on models, although general features of taste when impro-
vising are discussed by treatise-writers (e.g., Ttirk; see Chapter 9), detailed
discussion of how to improvise the surface level of the music is almost entirely
absent. Indeed, this aspect of a musical style seems to be the most inaccessible
to consciousness, and thus the most difficult to codify. As Czerny states in the
letter that opened Chapter 2, «reflection and attention are of scarcely any
service in the matter. We must leave nearly every thing to the fingers and to
chance." Of course, chance alone will not produce stylish and tasteful improv-
isation, unless the "chance" to which the improvisation is left can fall back on
a substantial knowledge base of idiomatic options. To demonstrate these most
unconscious, inarticulable aspects of the improvisational knowledge base,
pedagogues resort to simply demonstrating sample improvisations through
models. As has been described for instructed foreign language learning:
Formulaic knowledge can be learnt explicty~b memorizing fixed expressions from
a phrase book, for example. In many cases however, the routines and patterns that
comprise a learner's prefabricated knowledge are learnt incidentally from exposure to
input in which they occur frequently.89

In musical improvisation, as in language, essential aspects of these "routines

and patterns" must be learned implicitly from appropriate models.

Models and the acquisition of style

The constraints of style are leamed by composers and performers, critics and listeners.
Usually such learning is largely the result of experience in performing and listening
rather than of explicit formal instruction in music theory, history, or composition. In
other words, knowledge of style is usually "tacit:" that is, a matter of habits properly
acquired (internalized) and appropriately brought into play. 90

The fact that style must be absorbed rather than mastered through explicit
instruction does not prevent the treatise writers from attempting to transmit
some elements of style. Indeed, the processes of variation and recombination
of formulas discussed above demonstrate the stylistic constraints within
which these processes operate. However, as Gjerdingen notes with regard to

89 R. Ellis, 92.
90 Meyer, 10 (emphasis in original).
74 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

eighteenth-century compositional pedagogy, treatise-writers in that context

do not:
, , , separate a schema's imagined essence from its composite construction or its over-
lapping deployment ... so the rich ars combinatoria of professional compositional
practice found its only verbal explanation in the description of simple sequences of
independent figures . , . It was left to the nonverbal traditions of partimenti, solfeggi,
and actual composition to demonstrate the richer possibilities of the art. 91

Style in such treatises, as well as in the improvisation treatises examined

here, is conveyed largely through models. In models, pedagogues can commu-
nicate through music what they cannot communicate through prose. By writ-
ing out sample preludes (Corri, Czerny, Gretry, Hewitt), 92 free fantasies ( C.P.E.
Bach), cadenzas (TUrk, Levin),9 3 and other improvisatory models in various
genres (Czerny), the authors can provide a wealth of information about
musical practice by example.
C.P.E. Bach precedes his free fantasy model by presenting the bass line on
which the fantasy is based, thus demonstrating both the underlying referent (a
figured bass line) and the way in which it is idiomatically realized. Additionally,
Bach provides a narration of sorts, describing the harmonic events in the free
fantasy. Thus, he provides not only a model to emulate, but shows how it is
related to its underlying partimento progression. While the verbal description
does represent an "explicit" discussion of the model, it is restricted entirely to
harmony, thus leaving surface elements of the stylistic realization entirely
tacit.
In Czerny's chapter on preludes from Op. 200, he introduces each group of
models by showing the harmonic progression in block chords on which the
succeeding examples are based, similar to C.P.E. Bach. For the first example,
Czerny states "Since each chord can engender the greatest variety of passage-
work, then even the simplest modulation can be spun into innumerable prel-
udes, both melodious and brilliant. I select the very common progression

91
Gjerdingen 2007, 116. The partimenti to which Gjerdingen refers here are bass lines that
encompassed several schemata. Solfeggi are another type of instructional pattern used in
the eighteenth century, "a two voice composition intended to teach melodic elegance and
refinement in the context of the particular schemata codified by its companion parti-
mento" {Gjerdingen2007, 40). I did not come across any such two-voice pedagogical
examples in the improvisation treatises examined here.
92 For comprehensive review of prelude models and the practice of preluding, see Valerie
Goertzen, "By Way of Introduction: Preluding by 18th-and Early 19th-Century Pianists."
The Journal of Musicology 14 (1996): 299-337.
93 Specific cadenza models will be examined in Chapter 9.
 MODELS AND THE ACQUISITION OF STYLE I 75

[1-IV-vii'/V-IV-1]." 94 After presenting the harmonic progression, he writes,

"And now one may see what can be made out of this," and presents five pos-
sible realizations of the progression in various styles. Though Czerny does not
specifically mention the connection between the simple block-chord cadence
progressions at the beginning of his Op. 300 and the first few preludes of that
volume, several of the first ten preludes are stylistic realizations of these under-
lying referent progressions, as occurs in Op. 200. In his chapters on fantasies in
Op. 200, Czerny presents the thematic material(s) on which the improvisatory
models are based, rather than their harmonic progressions. 95
Of course, models in these treatises can provide only a limited array of pos-
sibilities, thus vastly underrepresenting what is both possible and impossible in
a given style. Clearly, a few pages of models cannot provide the learner with the
full scope of improvisational possibilities in a given style. The education pro-
vided by such treatises was meant only as a beginning, or, for those wishing
only to become minimally competent improvisers, perhaps an end and means
in itself. To learn a style takes years of exposure to repertoire and improvisa-
tions in that style. Indeed, as Czerny notes in the letter that opens the previous
chapter, the improviser needs "intimate acquaintance with the compositions
of all the great composers; so as to enable [her/him] to produce music of [her/
his] own invention." At the end of each chapter of Op. 200, Czerny has a
section entitled "For further reference," in which he directs the reader to com-
positions by him and other composers that "can serve as models." 96
In addition to the learning of repertoire, students of improvisation in this
period would have been surrounded by a rich culture of improvisation from
which they could also internalize important aspects of the contemporary
idiom. Quoting Csikszentmihalyi and Rich:
Improvisational musicians are deeply steeped in at least one musical tradition ...
[T]he shape the improvisation will take depends on this dialogue between the unique
performance and the template from which it was generated. Only after they internalize
a musical idiom, and learn the relevant performance skills, can musicians perform
spontaneous variations that can be appreciated ... The player internalizes not only
a musical tradition but inevitably also absorbs the tastes and preferences of his or her
reference group-respected predecessors, peers, audiences, and critics." 97

94 Czerny 1836 (edited and translated by Alice Mitchell1983), 6. The chord progression is
presented in musical notation, not in Roman numerals.
95 For discussion of thematic models in nineteenth-century improvisation, see Rink 1993.
96 See Czerny 1836 (edited and translated by Alice Mitchell 1983), pp. 16, 25, 40, 50, 74, 90,

113.
97
Mih<ily Csikszentmihalyi and Grant Jewell Rich, "Musical Improvisation: A Systems
Approach," in Creativity in Performmtce, ed. Keith Sawyer (Greenwich: Ab lex Publishing,
1997), 62.
76 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

Learning from models presented by treatises and repertoire is a common

feature of many improvised musical traditions. In Persian Classical music, a
student memorizes a fixed body of compositions called the radif, which con-
tains both the musical materials of the style and the characteristic developmental
processes necessary to improvise with that material. 98 Similarly, before learn-
ing to improvise in the Hindustani (North Indian Classical) tradition, the
aspiring student must learn numerous fixed compositions in the various
ragas. 99 In jazz, the novice learns not only the "standard" tunes, but spends
countless hours transcribing and rehearsing the improvised solos of the great
masters, which provides both immersion in the style and a large stock of mate-
rial to be used, combined, and varied when one begins to improvise. As the late
jazz pianist Waiter Bishop, Jr. described in an interview with Paul Berliner, "It
all goes from imitation to assimilation to innovation." 100 Quoting Pressing,
who summarizes the ubiquity of models in improvisation pedagogy:
All referent-guided improvisation systems, and even some free ones, stand in clear
relation to a parallel repertory of compositions. That is, each such improvisation tra-
dition has an associated group of devices used for development of ideas or seeds and
those devices are in general very similar to those of the allied compositional practices.
These developmental devices may be consciously learned by training but more typi-
cally are inferred by playing repertoire and imitation of teachers. 101

In the development and refinement of an improviser's knowledge base,

learning through variations allows the learner to develop analogies between
different realizations of underlying schemata, while recombination and
models demonstrate how such schemata can be idiomatically connected.

98 For discussion, see Laudan Nooshin, "The Song of the Nightingale: Processes of
Improvisation in Dastgah Segah (Iranian Classical Music)," British ]oumal of
Etlmomusicology 7 (1998): 69-116. Nooshin states" ... the process of memorizing the
radif(as well as other musical experiences) appears to provide musicians with a "pool"
of ideas, including both compositional techniques (and their underlying principles) and
specific melodic material, which can then be combined creatively in improvised
performance" (96-97).
99 George Ruckert and Richard Widdess, "Hindustani Raga," in The Garland Encyclopedia

of World Music, Volume 5: South Asia: The hzdian Subcontinent, ed. Alison Arnold
(Routledge, 1999), 64-88. "The most common way of imparting a raga to a student is by
teaching a fixed composition in it. Compositions are in fact a kind of catalogue of a
raga's configurations; one ordinarily learns many compositions in a given raga before
one really grasps the movements within it. The fact that one "knows" a few ragas will
help in rapidly assimilating others, but one must still practice each composition over
and over again until it becomes suggestive of raga movement" (82).
100 Berliner, 120.

IOI Pressing 1984, 350.

 CONCLUSION I 77

Analogies between such connections can be inferred, leading to a progressively

more nuanced implicit understanding of the combinatorial possibilities of a
musical style. Similarly, a foreign language learner reads and memorizes pas-
sages that incorporate vocabulary and grammar that may go beyond what he
or she has learned. By working with such real-world materials, the implicit
rules of idiomatic language use can be assimilated through statistical learning.

Conclusion
In comparing the books of partimenti used for advanced professional musical
training with treatises for amateurs like the ones described in this chapter,
Gjerdingen describes the former as favoring a '"ritual' model of shared sym-
bolic practices performed best by insiders ... [that] reinforced the formation
of 'prototypes' through the rote learning of'exemplars,"' and the latter as uti-
lizing a "'transmission' model amenable to reception by outsiders [i.e., as
opposed to professional musicians] ... [using] rational approaches [that] were
"theory" driven ... featur[ing] verbose, general descriptions of interest to
music consumers." 102 He describes further that:
While it is true that the writings ofJ.J. Quantz, C.P.E. Bach, and Leopold Mozat·t con-
tain a wealth of detail about eighteenth-century music, one can hardly imagine a
young boy developing into a competent court composer through even the most care-
ful reading of them. Collections of partimenti, by contrast, contained very few words
and often hundreds of pages of music. 103

In his discussion of composition treatises, Gjerdingen notes that:

The vast nonverbal knowledge that professional musicians gained through years
of studying partimenti, solfeggi, and famous scores under the guidance of a maestro
contrasts markedly with what could be imparted through words to amateur musicians.
It might not be too strong an interpretation to describe these widely read eighteenth-
century music treatises as "translations" from a ritualized, preindustrial, nonverbal
culture to a commercial, modern, verbal one.I04

The improvisation treatises for amateurs examined here appear to be a fusion

of the approaches articulated by Gjerdingen: they are a collection of prototypes
for rote learning, but designed specifically for transmission with the amateur
in mind. To use Gjerdingen's terminology, these treatises combine so-called
"rational/outsider/theory/transmission" approaches with the pedagogical

102 Robert Gjerdingen, "About Partimenti: Historical Overview," Monuments of Partimwti,

http://facultyweb.at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/partimenti/aboutParti/
histOverview.htm (accessed, February 15, 2008).
103 Ibid.
104 Gjerdingen 2007,426.
78 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

approach of "ritual exemplars/prototypes" geared more typically toward

insiders. This combination of pedagogical strategies underscores that while
some aspects of oral traditions can become literate when knowledge is dis-
cussed explicitly, language does not provide the tools for explicit presentation
of implicit knowledge in all cases. Thus, the use of written models allows for
the direct transmission of what is known and understood, but not necessarily
verbally articulable. In such cases, writing is used, but the transmission is not
literate per se; it does not involve explanation, but merely transcription of the
manifestations of implicit knowledge. 105
Examining the pedagogy of improvisation through the lens of middle-to-
late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century treatises geared toward amateurs
provides in sights into some of the fundamental musical materials of the period,
as well as the strategies utilized for transmitting them. In sum, a knowledge
base of simple formulas (cadences, regle de !'octave, movimenti) is explicitly put
forth, with practice in all keys encouraged so as to inculcate fundamental tonal
and voice-leading relationships underlying these formulas to the point of
automaticity. Rehearsal of variations of these formulas allows for both an
expansion in the contents of the knowledge base and implicit abstraction of
prototype structures on the basis of common underlying schemata through
analogy and inference. Practicing recombination of components is encour-
aged and/or demonstrated to reveal stylistically acceptable connections
between materials as well as to provide a network of possible pathways through
the knowledge base. Less tangible stylistic elements, features, and constraints
are demonstrated through the ways formulas are varied and recombined, as
well as through models. Both recombination and models allow for implicit
statistical learning of these stylistic features. The student's knowledge base can
thus be converted from an inventory of memorized formulas into a richly
interconnected system of improvisational possibilities readily accessible for
instant and creative execution in the moment of spontaneous performance.
As has been discussed throughout this chapter, analogous pedagogical strat-
egies are used throughout a wide range of improvisation traditions in a variety
of musical cultures. While much work on oral-formulaic theory has identified
formulas through analyses of performances, treatises from the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries offer an opportunity to examine which formulas
were deliberately selected by pedagogues in this particular tradition, and how
it was advised that they be rehearsed toward the goal of internalization and
fluency. In the treatises described here as well as in the teaching strategies used

105 For comprehensive and insightful discussion of orality and literacy, see Waiter Ong,
Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word (New York: Routledge, 2002).
 CONCLUSION I 79

in many other musical traditions, pedagogues have converged upon similar

solutions for the transmission of a musical style for improvisation. These solu-
tions tap into domain-generallearning processes such as proceduralization/
automatization, conceptual learning, statistical learning, analogy, and infer-
ence, all of which are also involved in language learning and acquisition of
other cognitive skills. Across a variety of domains, these cognitive faculties can
serve both to create a knowledge base and to organize it for fast, efficient, and
effective use. In his recent book, Proust was a Neuroscientist, Jonah Lehrer
writes of how the works of artists such as Marcel Proust, Paul Cezanne, Igor
Stravinsky, and others seem to demonstrate a profound intuitive understanding
of the workings of the mind:
Artists ... anticipated the discoveries of neuroscience ... Writers and painters and
composers ... discovered truths about the human mind-real, tangible truths-which
science is only now rediscovering. Their imaginations foretold the facts of the future.I06

Similarly, without being versed in the cognitive psychology of succeeding

eras, the pedagogues of improvisation discussed in this chapter intuitively
understood cognition in improvisation and the learning processes that would
provide their students with improvisational fluency.

106 Jonah Lehrer, Proust was a Neuroscientist (Boston: Hough ton Mifflin, 2007), ix. By such
"real, tangible truths," Lehrer refers to examples such as how Proust's writings indicate
a profound understanding of the workings of human memory, Cezanne's paintings
convey insightful intuitions about how the brain processes visual images, and Stravinsky's
music plays on the cognitive systems for contextualizing dissonance and understanding
patterns in auditory information.
80 I THE PEDAGOGY OF IMPROVISATION 11

***
Each manual of instruction, just like a grammar, can provide only the means to the
end. It's accurate, sensible use combined with the necessary exercise and practical
experience (which must be infinitely vast, particularly in view of the variegated nature
of the subject placed before the reader) can lead to the consummate cultivation that
dare uniquely lay claim to the name of Art ...

-Car! Czerny 107

The treatises examined here only allow for the examination of what has been
written; the discussion of the unwritten aspects of how pedagogy and learning
could have taken place from such manuals has been speculative. In the next
chapter, I explore the learning processes-the "exercise and practical experience,"
to use Czerny's words-ofRobert Levin and Malcolm Bilson in their revival of
Classic period improvisation.

107 Czerny 1836 (edited and translated by Alice Mitchell1983), 127. About learning to
improvise in jazz, Smith has similarly described, "'Internalization' is perhaps the key
word in the process of learning to improvise. Regardless of the way individual aspects of
the art are acquired-through systematic, written instruction, through private tuition or
on the bandstand-the music must be internalized in all its aspects before one can
improvise competently. That internalization comes about, in music as in language, only
through much listening and practice on one's own. Despite written transmission of the
basics, then, the process of learning to improvise remains largely an unwritten process"
(Smith, 90).
 Chapter 4

Learning to improvise: Learners'

perspectives

Examining the construction of pedagogical treatises and the strategies that

they employ allows for inferences as to how learning to improvise could have
taken place from such treatises. But what is the actual learning process from
the perspective of the learner? While accounts of improvisations from the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries survive, 1 there do not appear to be any
contemporary descriptions of the process oflearning to improvise. Over the
past 30 years, however, Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson have revived the
practice of Classical period improvisation. 2 In the eighteenth and early nine-
teenth centuries) hearing compositions and improvisations in the contempor-
ary style was commonplace. Any developing improviser would have been
immersed in the musical lingua franca. But in the 1970s, model improvisers in
this style did not exist for Levin and Bilson, and the very idea of a lingua franca,
even within classical music, had long since vanished. Not only was there a vast
diversity of contemporary styles, but also music from nearly all past periods
was actively performed, as continues today. To learn to improvise in the
Classical style required starting from scratch, reconstructing both the learning
processes and their goal: the ability to spontaneously craft stylistically idio-
matic music in the moment of performance.
Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson did just this, and their stories of how they did
so comprise the bulk of this chapter. Neither of them used the treatises discussed
in the previous chapters in the course of their learning to improvise. 3 Whether one
is learning from a treatise or not, the goal competence of instantaneously acesi~
ble stylistic fluency is the same. The learning capacities of the human mind to be

1
For discussion of contemporary accounts of improvisation, see Robert VVangermee,
"L'Improvisation Pianistique au Debut du XIXe Siecle," in Miscellanea Musicologica F/oris
van der Mueren (Ghent: Drukkerij L. van Melte, 1950), 227-253; Valerie Goertzen, "By
Way of Introduction: Preluding by 18th- and Early 19th-Century Pianists," journal of
Musicology 14 (1996): 299-337.
2 For biographical background on Levin and Bilson, see the Prelude.
3 However, they did consult the treatises to study numerous other aspects of performance
practice.
82 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

used in the development of this expertise are also identical, irrespective of the
means with which the learner interfaces. To what extent then did the trajectories
of Levin and Bilson mirror those laid out in the pedagogical texts?
From my interview data as well as cross-cultural comparison with studies of
learning to improvise in other traditions, three general aspects of the learning
process can be identified: incubation/internalization/assimilation, rehearsal,
and further development through the act of performance. These are essentially
the same as the three stages oflearning described by Albert Lord in his study of
performers of South Slavic oral epic poetry:
First stage: In this period, the singer "sits aside while others sing ... unconsciously
laying the foundation ... learning the stories ... themes are becoming familiar ...
imbibing the rhythm ... formulas are being absorbed ... "

Second stage: This stage" .. , begins when the singer opens his mouth to sing, .. His
problem is now one of fitting his thoughts and their expression into this fairly rigid
form ... [T]he young singer must learn enough ... formulas to sing ... He learns them
by repeated use ... by repeatedly facing the need to express the idea in song and by
repeatedly satisfying that need, until the resulting formula which he has heard from
others becomes a part of his poetic thought ... Learning in this second stage is a proc-
ess of imitation ... and of assimilation through listening and much practice on one's
own ... The second stage ends when the singer is competent to sing one song all the
way through for a critical audience ... "

Third stage: "Increase in repertory and growth in competence."4

I refer to these aspects of learning to improvise as processes rather than stages,

since incubation, internalization, and assimilation continue to occur through
rehearsal. Even when improvising in public, performance serves in some respects
as another type of rehearsal in learning to improvise, a learning-through-doing.
Thus, though these processes do occur sequentially as stages in an improviser's
development, they can also be seen as overlapping and interacting. The sections
of this chapter describe these three aspects of the learning process.

Incubation, internalization, and assimilation: Exercises

and repertoire
From an interview with Robert Levin:
AB: How did you learn how to improvise?

RL: It's hard to say how I learned to do it ... what I did not actually end up doing was
open up the last chapter of the Versuch {iiber die wal1re Art das Claiver zu spielen] of

4 Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, 2nd edn., ed. Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 21-25.
 INCUBATION, INTERNALIZATION. AND ASSIMILATION: EXERCISES AND REPERTOIRE I 83

Philip Emmanuel [Bach], which is probably what I should have done ... What Philip
Emmanuel Bach would have told me was that I needed the kind of education that I'd
gotten from Nadia Boulanger, 5 which was that she had made me do four-part har-
mony and counterpoint and fugue ... I had to realize figured basses at sight all of the
time ... I was doing various kinds of sight-reading all of the time, and ... from being
forced to master principles of voice leading, I essentially had in my subconscious the
syntactical understanding that underpins all tonal music ... and the question was only
going to be how to tilt that out of a stylistically neutral sort of framework ... She gave
me essentially all of the tools that I would need to do anything I wanted in music. The
question was ... "Now you've got what you need, what do you want?" When I decided
I wanted to do that [i.e., improvise], I realized slowly that I had been given these tools
and the tools would be very very useful, so I started to work at the instrument knowing
that, on the one hand, that I knew hundreds if not thousands of pieces by memory,
which I had learned over this time through the training I had gotten ... that the aware-
ness of it was tactile in terms of the fingers, but it was also syntactic and grammatical
and sensual in terms of the active awareness of progressions that were idiomatic pro-
gressions, that were idiomatic melodic figures, that were rhythmic figures that were
more or less characteristic, and from that point on I just started to run with it ... 6

What "tools" was Levin given? What are the elements of this ''syntactic, gram-
matical, and sensual" awareness? How conscious was the process of learning
these elements and rules? In further discussion with Levin about his studies
with Boulanger, he stated:
RL: You've got to learn the rules ... you know secondary seventh chords, you've got
to prepare and resolve the seventh, and in dominant seventh chords you can attack the
seventh, and in a ninth chord, you do this .

AB: So it was very conscious ...

RL: Oh absolutely. It was a matter of discipline just as practicing the piano is a

discipline ... Boulanger had her sixth chord sheets and six-four chord sheets and
dominant seventh sheets, and her cadences sheets, and we had to learn how to do all
these things. And we spent hours and hours doing them in various sorts of ways to get

5 Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) was one of the most important music pedagogues of the
twentieth century. She was born in Paris, and was an acclaimed pianist, organist, conduc-
tor, and composer, having studied composition with Gabriel Faure. She taught in Paris as
well as at the American Conservatory ofFontainebleau. Some of her most famous students
included Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, and Virgil Thomson. See Caroline Potter,
"Boulanger, Nadia," in Grove Music Ottline. Oxford Music Ouline, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/ su bscriber/article/grove/music/03 70 5 (accessed August 2 5,
2008). With respect to the discussion of pedagogical treatises of the previous chapters, it is
interesting to note that Gjerdingen calls Boulanger "one of the last French teachers in an
unbroken partimento tradition ... that extended back to the first years of the Paris
Conservatory" ... Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 480.
6 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10,2007.
84 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

absolute mastery over them ... I learned all of those things at an age that was young
enough that they became subconscious and infinitely-how shall I say?-accessible:
you know, random access memory.

AB: So that sort of provides the underpinning syntax as you said, but you also
mentioned an awareness of-you mentioned two things-an awareness of the sort
of rules ...

RL: Sure.

AB: It starts in this place; it goes to the dominant and ends on tonic ...

RL:Mm-hm.

AB: ... but you also mentioned formulas.

RL: Yes-I mean what those formulas are depends on the composer, obviously.

AB: And how did you go about learning those, what was the process there for
acquiring ... ?

RL: It was not a conscious process. I did not sit down and practice anything. I was test-
ing my random access memory and my active awareness of what I'd been hearing and
playing in this music for a very long time. You can think about a piano sonata, a piano
concerto, or string quartet, or opera aria , , , whatever piece you wish, and understand
how certain things work ... In that sense, being a good jazz pianist and a good classical
pianist are parallel but absolutely equivalent tasks, and jazz players have to learn basic
progressions and basic riffs and ways to handle virtuoso fast passages, and they learn
all of these things as a fallback. If explicit intention should fail at a certain point the
fingers can carry things on. The same thing is true for somebody playing eighteenth or
nineteenth century tonal music that requires this kind of improvisation.

AB: So ... it seems like the structural things ... to summarize ... harmonic syntax under-
lying all these styles, your acquisition, your learning of that was a very active process?

RL: Yeah.

AB: Oflabeling "this does this," and "this is the rule" .?

RL: Oh sure.

AB: And the style was intuitive ... ?

RL: That's right. 7

Levin's explanations yield numerous insights about the ways in which different
parts of his knowledge base were acquired. Levin did not initially set out to
learn "how to improvise." He received training in the fundamentals of tonal
harmony and voice leading, and rehearsed and performed large quantities of
repertory at the piano. The former gave him knowledge of the underlying
structures and idiomatic features of tonal music, while the latter provided him

7 Ibid.
 INCUBATION, INTERNALIZATION, AND ASSIMILATION: EXERCISES AND REPERTOIRE I 85

with models demonstrating how these deeper structures are realized in styli~
cally idiomatic ways. These types of knowledge-the former more distilled
syntactical formulas, the latter real music-are not totally distinct in the learn~
ing process; the very syntactical structures that Boulanger had distilled into
exercises were the same as those underlying the "hundreds if not thousands of
pieces" that Levin knew by memory. Thus, the learning of such exercises likely
also served to draw attention to salient features in the repertoire itself, aiding
in their acquisition. 8
As Levin describes above, his theoretical training with Boulanger led to
active, explicit awareness of rules and structures, whereas his sense of stylistic
formulas was developed far more implicitly. A similar contrast between active
awareness of structure and a more intangible implicit awareness of style
emerges in the following excerpt from an interview with Malcolm Bilson.
His discussion of the structure of a Mozart cadenza demonstrates a quite
conscious and explicit formulation of the design:
[Mozart's] cadenzas generally speaking ... take a certain length ... according to the
concerto movement, and they also more or less have kind of three parts, where you
start with ... [a] big flourish, and you have the lyrical part in the middle, and then you
end up with sort of another flourish, I mean it gets more complicated than that, but
it's very much a straightforward thing. 9

However, in reference to how he learned what to actually play in those sections,

Bilson said:
MB: I don't know, I just sat down and started playing and said, "I like this, I don't
like that ... "

AB: ... so for you it wasn't so much an active process of studying and saying, "Okay,
now nine out of ten times .

MB: Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

AB: ... you just lived with the music long enough that when you started doing it ...

MB: It's intuitive, period. That is to say I've never thought it through. 10

This interaction between more explicit awareness of structure (referent) and

the more implicit knowledge of style also comes into play in improvised per~
formance, as will be discussed in Chapter 6.
Levin's and Bilson's statements that they are unable to articulate how they
"learned to improvise" are mirrored in many musical traditions in which
improvisation occurs, but how to improvise is not explicitly taught. For example,

8 For discussion, see Chapter 2, "Cadences."

9 Malcolm Bilson, Interview by author, Ithaca, NY, August 12, 2007.
10 Ibid.
86 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

in the pedagogy of Iranian Classical music, Laudan Nooshin describes that

"One of the most striking aspects oflearning in this tradition in which improv-
isation plays such a central role is that pupils are not actually taught to impro-
vise as such." 11 Similarly, Gayathri Kassebaum writes that "alapana [a prelude
in free rhythm in South Indian Classical (Karnatak) music] as such is not
taught ... the ability to improvise evolves naturally and without special
effort." 12 Describing tayampaka, a genre of drumming music performed in
temples in Kerala, India, Rolf Groesbeck speaks of improvisation's "near
absence in pedagogy" despite its presence in performance of this genre. 13 How
do musicians learn to improvise without explicit instruction in this art? As
Levin suggests in quotations earlier in this chapter-and as is also the case in
many other musical traditions-a first step is the memorization of a fixed rep-
ertoire of pieces and exercises. This repertoire provides the means by which the
elements and processes of a musical style are internalized into an improviser's
knowledge base.
As described above, the incubation phase for Lord's singers of tales involves
listening to the performances of others in order to passively assimilate formu-
las and processes of composition. Similarly in jazz, getting immersed in the
jazz scene, listening to recordings, and imitating past masters are key elements
in a musician's training. 14 Often, teachers are also instrumental in providing
models to be imitated, memorized, and assimilated. While a significant part of
learning in most oral traditions involves listening to the improvisations of
skilled performers, for Levin and Bilson, pioneers in the early music move-
ment who wanted to revive the process of eighteenth-century improvisation,
such living models were unavailable. Seeking to revive a specific style of
improvisation that was nearly 200 years old, these performers had to find
another source for models: the repertoire from that period.
The repertoire of the Classical period provides the models from which the
improviser can assimilate the structures, formulas, and language of the style.
Of course, the presence of fixed, notated compositions in the Classical tradition

11 Laudan Nooshin, "The Song of the Nightingale: Processes of Improvisation in Dastgah

Segah (Iranian Classical Music)," British journal ofEtllnomusicology 7 (I 998): 73.
12 Gayathri Kassebaum, "Improvisation in Alapana Performance: A Comparative View of
Raga Shankarabharana," Yearbook for Traditional Music 19 (1987): 48.
13 Rolf Groesbeck, "Cultural Constructions of Improvisation in Tayampaka a Genre of
Temple Instrumental Music in Kerala India," Ethnomusicology 43 {199): 8, 9.
14 For discussion, see Paul Berliner, Thinking in jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Gregory Eugene Smith, "Homer, Gregory,
and Bill Evans? The Theory of Formulaic Composition in the Context of Jazz Piano
Improvisation" (PhD diss., Harvard University, 1983); David Sudnow, Ways of the Hand
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978).
 INCUBATION, INTERNALIZATION, AND ASSIMILATION: EXERCISES AND REPERTOIRE I 87

makes the learning process substantially different from traditions like South
Slavic epic poetry, which are almost entirely oral and improvised. While a long
incubation period is described above by Levin, it is different than that described
by Lord, since the Classical improvisers are not only internalizing the style by
listening to the compositions of others, but they are also doing so by actually
playing and performing these pieces verbatim. That is, the motor system of the
Classical improviser is engaged from the beginning of the learning process,
albeit not in improvisation, but in the assimilation of repertoire. From Levin's
descriptions above, the learning of repertoire was not seen as a specific prepar-
ation for improvising; the compositions learned and performed were not, at
that stage, actively mined for improvisational material. However, through
statistical learning, even without conscious attention to the underlying struc-
tures, important elements of the style can be inculcated in the mind and hands
in this process. 15 By the time Levin decided that he wanted to improvise, a
knowledge base had already been firmly established. The use of a memorized,
fixed repertoire as models from which improvisational principles can
be abstracted is common to several musical traditions, as discussed in
Chapter 3.' 6
One group of pieces from the Classical repertoire has been of particular
interest to those learning to improvise in this style: the compositions thought
to most closely resemble improvisations. 17 Quoting Levin:
... [0 ]ur notions of Mozart's improvisation stem primarily from improvisatory
composed music-the cadenzas he composed for his sister and pupils as well as his
fantasies. 18

... [W]ith embellishing, which is also an improvisational process, you look at how
Mozart takes principle themes in rondos and other places and the kinds of embellish-
ment he adds to them, and what you can say in a general and specific way about how
he does that. And there are enough examples that one can be very, very precise about
the art of embellishment in this style. 19

Like the transcriptions of improvised jazz solos, these improvisatory compo-

sitions offer musical models that may more closely represent what occurs in

15 For discussion, see Chapter 3 "Recombination, transitional probabilities, and statistical

learning."
16 For discussion, see Chapter 3 "Models and the acquisition of style."
17 For detailed and insightful analyses and discussion, see Andrew Willis, "Free variation of
repeated passages in Mozart's keyboard music" (DMA diss., Cornell University, 1994).
18 Robert Levin, "Mozart's Non-Metrical Keyboard Preludes," in The Keyboard in Baroque
Europe, ed. Christopher Hogwood (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003), 200.
For a discussion ofMozart's cadenzas as models, see Chapter 9.
19 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.
88 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

spontaneous performance beyond the playing of a fixed composition. Using

cadenzas in the Mozart style as a case study, improvisatory models from the
Classical period and their use in learning and performance will be examined in
Chapter 9.
After the pioneering revival of Classical improvisation by such luminaries as
Malcolm Bilson and Robert Levin, the subsequent generations of performers
and students have had a new set of models: the recordings and performances
of Bilson and Levin. Just as jazz musicians learn so much of their art from the
recordings of past masters and performances by present -day artists, a develop-
ing community of Classical improvisers has provided the beginnings of a sim-
ilar pool of source material for improvisation. In discussion with Levin:
AB: [Have] you ever had the experience ... of hearing someone else do it [improvise
in this style] and consciously or unconsciously thinking that might filter its way ...

RL: Sure, sure. Well it's like playing with people and hearing the embellishments that
they do and sometimes they play an embellishment that I never would have done. And
I think, "That's really good. I like that very, very much." 20

In my own experience, beginning to learn to ornament in this style, I have

found on occasion, much to my pleasant surprise, that my hand has spontane-
ously produced an embellishment that had been picked up from an analo-
gously ornamented musical moment from one ofLevin's or Bilson's recordings.
Thus, my own experience, albeit quite limited and novice, has included
instances in which I have implicitly internalized an improvisatory possibility
and produced it spontaneously without conscious access to having acquired it,
nor forethought as to how or when I would use it.
After a period of internalizing repertoire and patterned exercises, subcon-
sciously assimilating their characteristic patterns and processes, the improviser
has acquired a knowledge base. However, the ability to navigate through this
knowledge base spontaneously represents a whole new set of challenges. In the
next phase of learning to improvise, the performer must practice improvising.

Rehearsal: Finding paths through the knowledge base

Bilson describes learning to improvise in the following exchange:
AB: So when you first decided you were going to [improvise], what was the sort of
process for figuring out how to ... and making decisions in that process?

MB: I don't know I just sat down and started playing ... You start practicing ... Sit at
home and do it ... and you start to improvise ... you like what you're doing, or you
don't like what you're doing: you develop your taste, "yes I like this ... no I don't like

20 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.

 REHEARSAL: FINDING PATHS THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE BASE I 89

that"., , and at some point you don't have to say that, you just know where you're
.
gomg ... 21

Regarding learning to improvise ornaments, Bilson stated:

MB: You just sort of collect them as you play along. You sort of collect them and then
you use them as they come along.

AB: ... [put them] in the bank.

MB: In the bank. The toolbox, I call it the toolbox. 22

Bilson highlights two elements of the rehearsal phase oflearning to improvise:

developing one's taste and collecting ideas for the "toolbox." Taste signifies
both what is idiomatic in the style and what is to the liking of the improvisers
themselves. In making first attempts at improvisation, the performers engage
in constant self-evaluation, referencing the stylistic norms that have developed
over time in their knowledge base. The "tool box" refers to this knowledge base
itself, which has been internalized from the study of repertoire and exercises.
However, the ways in which the materials of the knowledge base must be
drawn upon in spontaneous invention are quite different from the types of
performance required by previously learned compositions and rote-learned
exercises. As was described in Chapters 2 and 3, the knowledge base must be
restructured and refined if it is to be an instantaneously accessible "toolbox" in
the moment of creative performance. Rehearsal of improvisation teaches the
musician how to craft, call upon, and combine musical ideas in the moment,
creating new cross-links between elements in the network of knowledge, as
well as new aural and motor pathways through that network. Pressing
observes:
For ... improvisation, it will be necessary for the performer to actually find, by prac-
tice, appropriate procedures for linking up novel combinations of action units in real-
time and changing chosen aspects of them. In other words, the ability to construct
new, meaningful pathways in an abstract cognitive space must be cultivated. 23

In an article on the origin and evolution of concepts, psychologist Susan

Carey describes several processes of conceptual change. 24 Two of these,

21 Malcolm Bilson, Interview by author, Ithaca, NY, August 12,2007.

22 Ibid.
23 Jeff Pressing, "Cognitive Processes in Improvisation," in Cognitive Processes in t1Je
Perception of Art, ed. W. Ray Crozier and Anthony }. Chapman (Amsterdam: Elsevier,
1984): 355. See also Chapter 2.
24 Susan Carey, "The Origin and Evolution of Everyday Concepts," in Cognitive Models of
Science (Minnesota Studies in thePhi/osophyofScience, Vol. X \f), ed. R. Giere. (Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1992), 89-128.
90 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

differentiation and coalescence, help to explain the reorganization of the

improviser's knowledge base during improvisational rehearsal. Through these
processes, the "meaningful pathways in an abstract cognitive space" described
by Pressing can be cultivated. In differentiation, one category is differentiated
into two or more specific subcategories; coalescence refers to the bringing
together of two or more categories into a single one. 25 Through these processes
of differentiation and coalescence, the harmonic progressions, formulas, and
processes of variation assimilated from repertoire and exercises are subcon-
sciously reclassified into types of "tools" for different musical and physical
improvisational contexts. Consider the following example from an interview
with Robert Levin, in which he demonstrates the differentiation of scalar fig-
ures based on their beginning note, ending note, and length:
RL: You learn empirically ... if you start in C major, and you lay seventeen sixteenth
notes in a row in an ascending scale starting on the tonic [C], with a I-V-I half-note
half-note quarter, that if you start with tonic, you will end up with the third note of the
scale, on the mediant [E] when you get back to the tonic, and that works very well
(Figure4.Ia). But if you start with the fifth degree of the scale [G] you will end up with
the leading tone [B] at the C major chord and that's not going to sound very good
(Figure 4.lb). And, you know, your equipment learns these things. 26

It is common for beginning pianists to learn to play scales in all keys, and
scalar passages appear in many different types of repertoire. However, the
improviser must learn "empirically," to use Levin's term, to further differenti-
ate the concept of scale. In this case, the differentiation is based on under-
standing the relationship between the starting note and ending note of scalar
passages. What was once a general category "C major scale," is further divided
into the types of scale patterns that work in specific musical-motor contexts.

• ••

I
Fig. 4.1a C major scale figure in sixteenth notes in the right hand over 1-V-1 progression
in the left hand. Right hand begins on the tonic note and ends on the mediant note.

25 Ibid., 95-98.
26 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.
 REHEARSAL: FINDING PATHS THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE BASE I 91

••
•

I
Fig. 4.1b C major scale figure in sixteenth notes in the right hand over 1-V-1
progression in the left hand. Right hand begins on the dominant note and ends
on the leading tone.

There can also be processes of coalescence by which one realizes that several
musical figures will work in a certain context (e.g., figures of a certain length,
types of passagework over certain harmonies, etc.).
The above-quoted interview with Levin continued as follows:
AB: And was that a conscious process oflearning?

RL: No ... It was not a conscious process. It was something that I was able to rely on
to a large degree because I had listened to so much music and it was there. It was there
guiding me ... I haven't sat down and said, "Well how am I going to do this?" and
"What chords am I sticking in this pile that I can't stick in that pile?" I mean, "What is
my Beethoven vocabulary, what is my Mozart vocabulary?" I'm very much aware of
those things if you ask me, "What can you do in Beethoven that you can't do in
Mozart? \Vhat can you do in Schubert, that you can't do in either one of them?" ... I
don't have to sit for a long time, I can spout it out to you. But that wasn't how I went
about doing it.

AB: That's what I wanted to ask ...

RL: I was simply depending on the subconscious information that I have assimilated
through my entire life as a listener and performer and student, which I still am, of
.
muste ... 27

Thus, these processes of differentiation (e.g., "sticking chords in piles") and

vocabulary development occur largely implicitly without conscious awareness,
as opposed to the more rote learning of explicitly presented harmonic progres-
sions as described by Levin in his training with Boulanger.
Differentiation and coalescence in the context of learning musical-motor
patterns can be considered examples of what Anderson's Adaptive Control of
Thought (ACT) model calls proceduralization. As was discussed in Chapter 3,
proceduralization refers to the creation of production rules that are thought to

27
Ibid.
92 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

be cued by specific conditions. 28 For example, in the situation described by

Levin above, being in a specific place on the keyboard and needing to get to
another one in a certain number of notes and beats provides a context for
cuing a specific production rule as a solution. The rehearsing improviser is
forced to navigate numerous musical and physical situations, resulting in the
development of what one of the leaders in psychological research on expertise,
K.A. Ericsson (with W. Kintsch) calls long~term working memory. 29 This con~
cept is nicely summarized as follows:
... [E]xperts learn how to store relevant information in long-term memory in such a
way that it can be accessed readily through retrieval cues held in working memory ..
Experts ... are more efficient at combining efficiently the resources of long-term
memory and working memory. 30

Thus, rehearsal continues the process of assimilation, leading to the acquisi-

tion of more subtle aspects of the musical language. As Bilson describes, "If
you spend time with it and you're sensitive, then you develop a sense for more
refined things." 31
Although neither of the pianists interviewed used the improvisation treatises
discussed in the previous chapters in the development of their improvisational
skills, their processes of learning and rehearsal mirror the pedagogical princi-
pies of the treatises, and appear congruous with the speculations of the previ-
ous chapter as to how one would learn to improvise from those treatises. In the
treatises, the basic harmonic vocabulary of the musical system is presented in
a distilled and explicit fashion, and authors suggest memorizing these basic
progressions. The learning process for these materials from the performer's
perspective is also one of automatization, first learning declaratively what the
progressions are, and then rehearsing them until they are completely proce-
duralized. 32 Just as the treatises do not discuss stylistic surface features in any
systematic way but rather present them through models, so too is the per~
former's learning of style a process of implicit statistical learning from a large
and diverse quantity of idiomatic examples, rather than from explicit descrip-
tion. Formulas and subtler features of the style are subconsciously categorized

28 For discussion, see Michael W. Eysenck and Mark T. Keane, Cognitive Psychology: A
Student's Handbook, 5th edn. (East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2005 ), 455-459; see also
Chapter 3, "Transposition, automatization, and proceduralization."
29 K. A. Ericsson and W. Kintsch, "Long-term \V or king Memory," Psychological Review 102
(1995):211-245.
30 Eysenck and Keane, 460.
31 Malcolm Bilson, Interview by author, Ithaca, NY, August 12,2007.
32 For discussion of these learning processes, see Chapter 3, "Transposition, automatization,
and proceduralization."
 REHEARSAL: FINDING PATHS THROUGH THE KNOWLEDGE BASE I 93

through the processes of analogy, inference, and induction during rehearsal.

This creates a highly organized and interconnected netvvork of elements in the
knowledge base, and thus, as Pressing described in the above quotation,
a number of"meaningful pathways" through this knowledge for use in impro-
vised performance.
The similarities between pedagogical strategies in the treatises and learning
processes for the performer thus demonstrate two sides of the same cognitive
coin. The end result of such training is, in Levin's words, both "active aware*
ness" and "tactile, sensual" knowledge. The former refers to the understanding
of harmony and structure from his studies with Boulanger, the latter describes
the musical material, that is, the pool of stylistic gestures and techniques for
their development gleaned from repertory models. The mix of implicit/explicit
and/or declarative/procedural knowledge alluded to in the vignettes that
opened the Prelude may thus have its source in the mixture of implicit and
explicit learning of the improvisatory knowledge base.
Other improvisation traditions share similar processes of rehearsing improv*
isation with fixed materials in order to lay the groundwork to eventually go
beyond these rudiments to artistic expression in performance. In Indian clas-
·sical music, for example, practice sessions involve ((internalizing ... formulas
and applying them to the repertory of ragas [modes/melodic materials] and
talas [rhythmic cycles] ," 33 whereas in performance, "the musician, like a chess
player, responds to everchanging musical situations by spontaneously adapt*
ing and inserting these formulas, transforming the event into a fascinating and
unrepeatable display of skill and taste." 34 As in Bilson's descriptions above,
this quotation illustrates how practice senres both to fill the toolbox and in the
cultivation of taste. Similarly, jazz musicians "must commit endless hours to
practicing improvisation-mentally simulating the conditions of live per*
formance events." 35 Simulating live performance conditions, however, can
only approximate the learning opportunities that arise through experiencing
those very conditions in actual performance.

33 Thorn Lipiczky, "Tihai Formulas and the Fusion of 'Composition' and 'Improvisation'
in North Indian Music," The Musical Quarterly 71 ( 1985): 158.
34 Ibid., 158.
35 Berliner, 205. For further cross-cultural comparisons of learning to improvise, see
Chapter 3.
94 I LEARNING TO IMPROVISE: LEARNERS' PERSPECTIVES

Learning to improvise through improvising

in performance
The hands and ears make important discoveries in the practice room. At a
certain point, however, the practice room becomes an inadequate testing
ground for improvisation, and further progress can only be made through
performance itself. 36 Levin describes:
At an earlier point, I would sit at the piano and I'd improvise six cadenzas in a row just
to sort of see whether I could. And I gave up doing that, because doing it in the prac-
tice room is just useless, it really is, because you get frustrated because it's an act of
communication, and if there's nobody listening, it just doesn't workY

Similarly, as has been described for foreign language learning, "the automati-
zation of implicit knowledge seems to require opportunities for using it in
natural communication." 38 Just as Bilson said that in order to learn, one must
simply "sit down and do it" in the practice room, the early stages of improvis-
ing in public provide a new opportunity for learning-through-doing. Through
the pressures of live performance, new situations arise, and solutions to those
situations serve to further expand and interconnect the knowledge base of
improvisational materials. There is no substitute for the experience of impro-
vising in performance when learning to improvise, and skill development and
refinement continue throughout the improviser's performance career. Javanese
musicians interviewed by Benjamin Brinner expressed a similar sentiment
when they said, "My experience is my teacher." 39

Learning through teaching

In spite of the fact that so much of what is learned in improvisation is done so
implicitly, remaining intuitive, one cannot help but be struck by the precision
of the description of stylistic elements by some improvisers (for example, the
excerpt from the article on cadenzas by Levin quoted in the Prelude).
Complementing the intuitive taste discussed above, these extremely detailed
verbal descriptions demonstrate a highly nuanced explicit understanding of
some of the components of the knowledge base. As noted above, Levin describes
that he can "spout out" that knowledge now, but that he did not acquire it

36 As in Lord's third phase, "growth in competence" (Lord, 25). See above.

37 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10,2007.
38 Rod Ellis, "A Theory of Instructed Second Language Acquisition," in Implicit and Explicit
Learning of Languages, ed. Nick Ellis (London: Academic Press, 1994), 99.
39 Ben jam in Brinner, Knowing Music, Making Music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995), 133.
 LEARNING THROUGH TEACHING I 95

through a process of active, explicit learning. Rather, this more explicit under-
standing of the improvisational knowledge base arose when he began to teach.
Through teaching, improvisers are forced to grapple with what had been
previously only intuitive. As Levin explains:
If I hadn't spent my whole life devoted to teaching, then perhaps I might not have
approached all of this in that way. Because after all, as a performer, I have no obliga-
tion to explain anything to anybody: the performance is a text, and let other people
such as yourself dissect it and decide what it is. But if I wish to teach people, I believe
that I have a responsibility-and it is one that I believe is not only professional, it's a
moral responsibility-to give people everything that l know , .. I've been a teacher
because of my own intellectual curiosity and ability that l have developed to commu-
nicate what I know. I've had to look below the surface and ask, "Well why? Well how?
Well what?" ... It's interactive all the time: sometimes I'm explaining something to
somebody and you realize that you've just stumbled on something that's momentous
for yourself. .. 40

The desire to communicate his knowledge in pedagogical contexts forced

Levin to peer beneath the veil normally separating subconscious aspects of his
knowledge base from his conscious, analytical mind. In so doing, concepts
initially developed implicitly are made explicit and can thus be subjected to
more conscious examination.
AB: When you're actually improvising does that analytical knowledge ever come to
bear in any kind of conscious way?

RL: Not consciously, but substantively obviously. 41

This more explicit exploration of Levin's intuitive inventory of improvisa-

tional knowledge base thus leads to further refinement and differentiation of
his knowledge. This newfound understanding then apparently filters back into
the more implicit, less conscious aspects of performance. The inner world of
improvised performance, in terms of both conscious and unconscious proc-
esses will be the subject of Chapter 6. Before turning to improvised perform-
ance in Part 11 of this book, the following chapter compares the musical
knowledge base and its acquisition for use in improvisation as described in this
chapter and the two preceding chapters with knowledge and learning of
language.

40 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10,2007.

41 Ibid.
 Chapter 5

Music and language cognition

compared 1: Acquisition

Competence and performance: Perceptual competence

and productive competence
All neurologically healthy individuals with normal hearing who are exposed to
language acquire what is referred to as linguistic competence, "the inner, largely
unconscious knowledge of the rules [of the language]." 1 Additionally, all such
individuals acquire the capacity for performance, "the expression of the rules in
everyday speech." 2 Thus, "competence and performance distinguish the indi-
vidual's abstract knowledge and the use of this knowledge." 3
Using the everyday sense of the word "competence," one can describe lin-
guistic competence and performance as two types of competence: perceptual
competence and productive competence, respectively. While these two com-
petencies ostensibly operate using the same linguistic knowledge base, percep-
tual competence allows for the comprehension of the speech (or writing or
sign language) of others using this knowledge base, while productive compe-
tence provides for the generation of communicative utterances based upon
this knowledge. 4 It is well documented that infant language learners' percep-
tual competence tends to develop in advance of productive competence. 5

1
Jean Berko Gleason and Nan Bernstein Ratner, The Development of Language, 7th edn.
(Boston: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009), 18.
2 Ibid., 18.
3 Ibid., 229.
4 In Rules a11d Representations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), Noam
Chomsky defines "grammatical competence" as " ... the cognitive state that encompasses
all those aspect of form and meaning and their relation, including underlying structures,
that enter into that relation, which are properly assigned to the specific subsystem of the
human mind that relates representations of form and meaning," and "pragmatic compe-
tence" as" ... the ability to use such knowledge along with the conceptual system to achieve
certain ends or purposes" (59).
5 For review, see Gleason and Ratner, 117; Erin McMullen and Jenny Saffran, "Music and
Language: A Developmental Comparison," Music Perception 21 (2004): 289-311.
98 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

That is, during certain stages of development, child language learners can
understand far more than they can produce.
Perceptual competence and productive competence also exist in music.
Perceptual competence is the ability to recognize and comprehend the music(s)
of the culture(s) to which one has been exposed. To maintain a precise analogy
with language, I define productive competence in music as the ability to
generate novel stylistically idiomatic music in real time, i.e., the capacity
to improvise. Although all normally developing human beings exposed to
language develop both perceptual and productive competence for the
language(s) to which they are exposed in their environment, this is not the case
for music. All members of a given culture exposed to the music of that culture
acquire some level of perceptual competence, while not all members develop
the ability to produce music. Ethnomusicologist John Blacking described this
universality of the basic perceptual competence for music within a culture,
emphasizing that while only a small percentage of people in a culture may
be classified as "musicians" (i.e., performers), perceptual competence is
ubiquitous. 6 Moreover, a musical tradition cannot exist without such
competent listeners. Blacking's ethnographic and theoretical work has
been borne out in a variety of experimental contexts: Daniel Levitin, both a
musician and a prominent researcher in music cognition, demonstrated that
people with and without musical training show strikingly accurate memory for
musical pitch in songs that they have heard frequently, some nearing "perfect
pitch" memory; 7 with musician and computer scientist Perry Cook, Levitin
showed that memory for absolute tempo is comparably robust in individuals
both with and without musical training. 8
Thus, while people traditionally referred to as "non-musicians" (i.e., non-
performers) may lack productive competence entirely, they have substantial
expertise about their own musical culture, passively and unconsciously
acquired through exposure to an environment rich in music (e.g., radio, televi-
sion, movies, iPods, performances, etc.}. As John Sloboda, one of the leaders in
the field of music psychology, has described:
Although people vary quite widely in the level of sophistication to which they have
developed their ability to make sense of music, the available evidence points to the
conclusion that the vast majority of the population have acquired a common receptive
musical ability, clearly evident through experimental demonstration, by the end of the

6 John Blacking, How Musical is Man (Seat tie: University of\Vashington Press, 1973).
7 D.]. Levitin, "Absolute Memory for Musical Pitch: Evidence from the Production of
Learned Melodies," Perception a11d Psychophysics 56 (1994): 414-423.
8 D.]. Levitin and P.R. Cook, "Absolute Memory for Musical Tempo: Additional Evidence
that Auditory Memory is Absolute," Perception and Psychophysics 58 ( 1996): 927-935.
 PERCEPTUAL COMPETENCE AND PRODUCTIVE COMPETENCE I 99

first decade of life, regardless of accomplishment in any particular sphere of musical

pe1[ormance, and regardless of having been in receipt of any formal musical education or
training. 9

The ability to generate novel, stylistically appropriate music, however,

appears to only be possible with extensive training. This is, of course, partially
a result of the fact that highly cultivated physical skills are necessary for the
performance of music, be they vocal or instrumental. The generative capacity
to invent music likely exists in everyone, like the analogous aptitude for
language. For example, children improvise songs based on adult models in
parallel with learning to speak. 10 However, if the means for expression (that is,
vocal or instrumental skills) are not cultivated, the potential for spontaneous
musical production cannot be realized and developed. During Johann Sebastian
Bach's childhood, he was surrounded by music and musicians, and one can
imagine that he was exposed nearly as much to tonal music as he was to
German. 11 In such an environment, it is not hard to imagine how, given early
training on an instrument, the ability to speak the musical language fluently
through improvisation would develop nearly spontaneously, as does the
capacity for spontaneous speech.
In many musical cultures, to be a performing musician means to have the
ability to improvise music: the composer and performer are not separate spe-
cializations, and much of musical performance is improvised to varying degrees.
While this was once the case in Western classical music, it is now quite common
for highly skilled performers in this tradition to be incapable of true produc-
tion, that is, the generation of novel music in the style(s) in which they perform
(composition), let alone spontaneous composition (i.e., improvisation). Thus,
even some of Western society's most praised classical musicians lack true pro-
ductive competence entirely. This may explain in part why a large proportion
of the research examining music acquisition and competence has focused
almost entirely on perceptual competence. 12 For example, in a thorough

9 John Sloboda, "Musical Ability," in The Origins and Development of Higl1 Ability, ed.
G. Back and K. Ackrill (Chichester: Wiley and Sons, 1993), 107 (emphasis in original).
For review of the development of musical expertise in the musical system to which one is
passively exposed, see John A. Sloboda, "Musical Expertise," in Toward a General Theory
of Expertise, ed. K.A. Ericsson and J. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1991), 153-171.
°
1 For review and discussion, see W.J, Dowling, "Development of Musical Schemata
in Children's Spontaneous Singing," in Cognitive Processes in the Perception of Art, ed.
W.R. Crozier and A.]. Chapman (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1984), 145-166.
11 For comprehensive discussion of Bach's life, see Christoph Wolff, ]ohann Sebastian Bach:
The Learned Musician (New York: W,W, Norton, 2000).
12 For review, see McMullen and Saffran 2004; Aniruddh Pate!, Music, Language, and the
Brain (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
100 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

and insightful review of infant learning of music and language, psychologists

Erin McMullen and Jenny Saffran focus on "the acquisition of tacit compe-
tence, that is, musical and linguistic knowledge, rather than the skills required
to produce those systems." 13 Their review thus discusses perceptual compe-
tence rather than productive competence. The study of improvisers allows for
the examination of individuals who have acquired both perceptual and pro-
ductive competence in a musical system. Musicians who have learned to impro-
vise can therefore be compared to language learners from the perspectives of
both types of competence.
Before making a comparison of the learning processes in language and
music, I will describe the elements of their respective knowledge bases. In so
doing, I will define some of the terminology used in the study of language and
language acquisition, seeking analogues of such concepts in music. Following
this, I will discuss some theories of how this knowledge base is thought to be
acquired in language and describe the relevance of such work to music acquisi-
tion. This chapter thus provides explorations of the first two questions posed
in the Prelude regarding knowledge of music and language (What is known?
and How is it learned?). I adopt a framework similar to that of McMullen and
Saffran's review of perceptual competence in music and language, discussing,
as they do, first "What is Learned" (the knowledge base), and then "How it is
learned" (acquisition). I will incorporate and discuss their findings and ideas,
and also expand upon them to include the acquisition of the capacity for
musical production as gleaned from the study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century improvisation treatises and interviews with Robert Levin and Malcolm
Bilson, described in the previous three chapters.

The knowledge base in language and music

The knowledge of language includes:
+ Phonology, "sounds and rules for combining them to make words."
+ Morphology, "rules governing morphemes ... [which are] the smallest unit [s] of
meaning in a language."

+ Syntax, "rules for how to combine words into acceptable phrases and sentences."
+ Semantics, the "mental dictionary, or lexicon ... meaning system."
+ Pragmatics, "social rules" for language use.
"The speaker who knows all this has acquired communicative competence." 14

13
McMullen and Saffran, 291.
14 These definitions come from Gleason and Ratner, 19-22; 465-483.
 THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC j101

Table 5.1 Analogies between the knowledge bases required for linguistic and musical
competence

Language Music

Basic Sound Phonology/ PitcheS/intervals, durations, and timbre

System Prosody

Constructions Morphology/ FormulaS/Schemata

Lexicon/Semantics
Rules Syntax and Stylistic conventions of schemata: range of variation
Pragmatics and possible combinations

The components of musical knowledge can be described in similar general

terms. Most basically, language and music consist of sound elements, a
vocabulary of basic meaningful units constructed from those elements, and
a system of rules for combining these units into idiomatic and meaningful
utterances that are appropriate in a given context (Table 5.1). My intent
here is not to posit precise parallels between these terms in music and
language, as has been attempted with varying degrees of success in the past. 15
Rather, I seek broad analogies between general features of the musical and
linguistic knowledge bases that will allow for what will hopefully be meaning-
ful speculations when comparing the acquisition of musical and linguistic
knowledge for perceptual and productive competence. That is, I do not try to
determine what the precise musical correlate of a linguistic concept is, per se,
but rather what broad category of analogous musical knowledge such a
linguistic concept can describe.

15 Jean-]acques Nattiez, Fondements d'une SCmiologie de la Musique (Paris: Seuill, 1975);

John Sloboda, "Music as a Language," in Music and Child Development: Proceedings of the
1987 BiologyofMusicMakingConference, ed. F. \Vilson and F. Roehman (St. Louis: MMB
Music Inc., 1989), 28-43; Steven Feld and Aaron A. Fox, "Music and Language," Annual
Review of Anthropology 23 (1994): 25-53; Pate!, 2007. For review, discussion, and critique
of comparisons of music and language, see Harold Powers, "Language Models and
Musical Analysis," Etlmomusicology 24 (1980): 1-60; Steven Feld, "Linguistic Models in
Ethnomusicology," Etlmomusicology 18 (1974): 179-217. Perhaps one ofthe most famous
attempts to draw a self-described "quasi-scientific analogy between verbal and musical
terms" was made by Leonard Bernstein in his 1973 Norton Lectures at HmYard University,
published as The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (The Charles Eliot Norton
Lectures) (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976). Bernstein's speculations have not
gone unchallenged; see for example Allan Keiler, "Bernstein's "The Unanswered Question
and the Problem of Musical Competence," The Musical Quarterly 64 (l978): 195-222.
For discussion, see Pate!, 240-241.
102 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

Phonology
In language, phonology refers to the sound system: the sounds (e.g., conso-
nants, vowels, etc.), the rules for combining them to make words, and the
prosody (rhythm, stress, and intonation patterns). 16 A given language makes
use of a subset of all possible sounds and ways of combining them. This is evi-
dent both in the difficulty that can arise in producing foreign sounds for a
language learner (e.g., the rolled "r" in French for English speakers or the r!l
contrast in English for Japanese speakers) 17 and in the challenge of perceiving
contrasts that do not exist in the native langue (e.g., the four different "d"
sounds and four different "t" sounds of Hindi for non-native speakers).
Phonemes are the smallest units of sound used by a given language. 18
Similarly, musical systems draw a selection of pitches from a potentially
infinite range of possibilities, both in terms of audible frequencies (20-20,000 Hz)
and in terms of acceptable intervals between pitches used in a given musical
system. These pitches (and the resultant intervals between them), like pho-
nemes, are the smallest sound units of the musical system in the pitch
dimension.
Both phonemic contrasts and intervals are subject to categorical perception. 19
For sounds:
Categorical perception refers to two related phenomena. First, sounds that lie along a
physical continuum are perceived as belonging to distinct categories, rather than
changing gradually from one category to another. Second, sounds of a given deg:r_~
of physical difference are much easier to discriminate if they straddle a category
boundary. 20

For example, between a minor second and a major second (in the Western
tonal system) there is an infinite number of possible intermediate intervals. If
a set of intervals is generated with all of these intervals falling between a minor
second and a major second, listeners (accustomed to Western tonal music)
will classify them as either one or the other (i.e., listeners will not classify any
as ((falling in between"). Listeners will also be better able to distinguish between
two such intervals if they fall on either side of the listener's boundary between

16 Gleason and Ratner, 19.

17 For review, see Patel, 68.
18 Michael W. Eysenck and Mark T. Keane, Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook, 5th

edn. (East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2005), 342 and 562; Gleason and Ratner, 19 and
477.
19 Categorical perception of intervals is more common in musicians than non-musicians,
and can be variable amongst musician groups. For review and discussion of this data, see
Patel, 25-26.
20 Ibid., 24.
 THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC j103

the two than if they both fall on one side. 21 Categorical perception is a useful
feature of interval perception, since intervallic size is not flxed in performance
and depends on musical, ensemble, and contextual factors. 22
For phonemes, this means that if one uses a computer algorithm to progres-
sively transform the sound "p" to that of "b," and selects 20 intermediate
sounds, listeners would classify individual sounds as either "p" or "b," with a
clear cutoff point. While listeners would be able to tell two instances apart
perceptually, they would not consider examples on one side of their boundary
to be different letters; all examples would be heard as "p" or "b." 23 As with
intervals, this is a useful aspect of the perceptual faculty for sound categories:
phonemes can take on different sounds depending on their context, and can
sound different when produced by different speakers. Yet, one must be able to
understand all of these instances as belonging to the same category, or else the
task of comprehension would become extraordinarily unwieldy. Given that
intervals and phonemes both appear to be subject to categorical perception,
cognitive neuroscientist Aniruddh Patel, one of the foremost experts in com-
parisons of music and language cognition, has proposed that "music and lan-
guage share cognitive mechanisms for sound category learning (shared sound
category learning mechanism hypothesis)." 24

Morphology, the lexicon, and semantics

In both language and music, basic elements of sound are combined to form
units of meaning. In language, the smallest unit of semantically meaningful
sound is the morpheme. 25 Words are concatenations of morphemes that
represent objects, people, places, ideas (nouns); actions (verbs); descriptors
(adjectives); temporal and spatial relationships (prepositions); etc. A compe-
tent speaker of a language has a mental lexicon, or vocabulary. This lexicon's
units include not only words, but also prefixes/suffixes (derivational
morphemes, e.g., "-ed" (to make the past tense), "-s" to pluralize, etc.) and
complete multiword constructions (e.g., idioms):
Work in corpus linguistics26 has led us to the increasing recognition that formulas
and routines play an important part in every day language use by native speakers;

21 For a comprehensive review, see Edward M. Burns, "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning," in
The Psychology ofMusic, 2nd edn., ed. Diana Deutsch (San Diego: Academic Press, 1999),
219-231.
22 Ibid., 231-240.
23
For discussion, see Eysenck and Keane, 345.
24 Pate!, 72.
25 Gleason and Ratner, 20.
26 Corpus linguistics is defined in Chapter 3 in the section "Recombination, transitional
probabilities, and statistical learning."
104 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

when we talk, our everyday ... utterances are a complex mix of creativity and
prefabrication. 27

In drawing an analogy with the linguistic concept of the lexicon, I define the
musical lexicon as the vocabulary of idiomatic melodic~ rhythmic figures, the
elements of which they are comprised, and, in the case of Western classical
music and jazz (both of which use a harmonic framework), chords and har-
monic progressions as well. That is, the lexicon contains the formulas and
schemata of a given musical style as described in Chapter 2, as well as the
pitches and rhythmic elements of which they are made.
In his 1973 Norton Lectures, Leonard Bernstein described difficulty in his
attempts to find precise analogies between morphemes, words, and sentences
in language and motives, phrases, and sections in music. 28 Considering that
the linguistic lexicon contains morphemes, words, and idiomatic construc-
tions (i.e., multiword utterances stored as units), the general idea of a lexicon
for musical materials of varying length, composition, and complexity can be
adopted relatively unproblematically for comparisons between language and
music with respect to this aspect of the knowledge base.
One can describe words as belonging to particular grammatical classes
(noun, verb, adjective, etc.) or other types of more real~wodbs func~
tional categories (e.g., actions or objects that occur in certain contexts). 29
A word in one grammatical category can be transformed to another gram-
matical category. For example, the addition of morphemes can change words
from singular to plural ("cat" into "cats"), present to past ("taste" into
"tasted"), verb/noun into adjective ("(to) spice" into "spicy"), etc. In these
cases, on one level, the underlying essential meaning of the word is the same;
only the grammatical inflection has changed, altering the syntactic properties
of the words. Yet, on another level, the meaning has also changed: one is
different from many, the past signifies something separate from the present,
and to do an action is different from describing an object's property. Moreover,
pragmatically, the situations in which one would find, for example, one cat
versus many cats, or a spice as opposed to something spicy, can indeed be quite
different.
Musical schemata can also have varied realizations but still be identified
as belonging to a particular category (e.g., a cadence, an opening figure,
a modulatory figure, etc.). A musical schema contains an underlying architecture

27 Rosamond Mitchell and Florence Myles, Second Language Learning Tl1eories (London:
Arnold, 1998), 12.
28 L. Bernstein, 57-65.
29 Gleason and Ratner, 108-115.
 THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC 1105

with various possible surface realizations. Realizing the musical surface in

different ways can achieve different aesthetic effects (e.g., major versus minor
key, a chord progression realized in block chords versus dense counterpoint
versus flowing arpeggios under a melodic line, etc.). 30 Variant realizations of a
schema are still considered instances of the underlying schema, though their
effect and affect change based on their surface features and context. Thus,
broadly speaking, schemata and their diverse realizations are not unlike
transformations of words between grammatical categories, or varying ways of
realizing underlying multiword constructions (e.g., "I will give X toY," where
X and Y are the direct and indirect object, respectively, and "will give" can be
substituted with other tenses ("am giving," "gave," "have given,") or other verbs
(e.g., "take," "throw," "sell")). Both musical schemata and elements of the
linguistic lexicon (be they words or constructions) can undergo modification
of their surface realization, maintaining their identities on one level, while
taking on new identities based on the nature of the variation and the surround-
ing musical or linguistic context.
Making a precise analogy between the semantics oflanguage and the "mean-
ing" aspect of the musical lexicon is less straightforward. The question of what
musical "meaning" entails has been explored by numerous music theorists and
philosophers. 31 Clearly, except in certain circumstances (e.g., programmatic
music), the units of musical discourse do not refer to objects or concepts in the
outside world in the way that words do. 32 Yet musical schemata certainly build
up significance (broadly defined) based on how and when they are used in
relation to immediately adjacent schemata in a composition or improvisation,

3° For a comprehensive analysis and discussion of musical schemata in the galant style, see
Robert Gjerdingen, Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press,
2007).
31 For review and discussion of work in musical "semantics," see Pate!, 305-308.
32 While what "musical meaning" entails is a subject of great debate, it is largely agreed upon

that music can be meaningful: through culturally defined association (e.g., a bugle call for
taps has come to signify "funeral"); a specific association created within a piece of pro-
grammatic music (e.g., the idee fixe in Berlioz) or through the associations created by
individual listeners as a result of the moments at which, the places where, and/or the indi-
viduals with whom they have heard pieces or styles of music. Of course, in most such cases,
this "meaning" will lack the specificity possible with language; one cannot imagine music
referring to this chair and no other, at t!Jis moment and no other, and in this place and no
other. Although music is thus generally incapable of precise semantic reference, this is
hardly a "defect" of music. Indeed, the possibility for music to be meaningful in a way that
is in some respects amorphous and intangible is part of what allows for it to arouse the emo-
tions and create states of mind encountered infrequently through the use of language.
106 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

over the course of a whole piece, and through the broader context of use
throughout a stylistic repertory.33
However, discussing combinations of schemata to create meaning already
brings us beyond the realm of individual units and into the arena of rules for
their combination (i.e., syntax). Thus, though individual schemata may have
"various traits, structures, meanings, and contingencies," 34 these arise not only
out of their intrinsic properties, but also as a result of both their immediate
musical context and their historical context.
It can be argued that words acquire and convey meaning in a similar way.
Isolated words indisputably imply meanings when presented alone: "table"
clearly refers to a specific type of object; "to run" describes a specific type of
action. Yet words also require both immediate and historical context-both in
terms of the rest of the sentence (syntax), and the communicative/social situa-
tion (pragmatics)-to gain full and precise meaning. "Table" can refer to a
specific object in space and time ("Put the papers on that table") or a general,
less precise element of an expression ("I wait tables at a restaurant"). If I am a
carpenter, and my foreman says, "Make me a table," this acquires significance
over time that is quite different than if I am a statistician and my colleague
demands, "Make me a table." Similarly, both linguistic and pragmatic context
determine the meaning of"run" in the following instances: '(Run for your life,"
''I'm going for a run," ''I'm going to run errands," "I've run up quite a tab."
Thus, beyond the intrinsic meanings of words themselves and the further sig-
nificance created by their surrounding linguistic context, the relationship
between the speaker and listener (in both the past and in the moment of com-
munication) represent another level of context in meaning construction. In
language as in music, units of meaning take on specific communicative sig-
nificance and function only by way of interaction with other elements in time.
The boundaries between semantics and syntax and between semantics and
pragmatics are therefore not quite so clear-cut. As Patel describes, "musical
syntax, like linguistic syntax, exhibits a strong structure-meaning link." 35

33 Gjerdingen, 369-398.
34 Ibid., 357.
35 Patel, 259. See also Susan M. Gass and Larry Selinker, Secottd Language Acquisition, An
Introductoty Course, 3rd edn. (New York: Routledge, 2008), 12 ("Referential meanings
are clearly not the onlr way of expressing meaning ... the way we combine elements in
sentences affects their meaning ... syntax and meaning interrelate."); Nick C. Ellis,
"Constructions, Chunking, and Connectionism: The Emergence of Second Language
Structure," in The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition, ed. Catherine J. Doughty
and Michael H. Long (Maiden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003), 84 ("Theories of grammar
have increasingly put more syntax into the lexicon, and correspondingly less into the
rules."); Jens Allwood, "On the Distinctions Between Semantics and Pragmatics," in
 THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC I 107

In sum with regard to the lexicon, an important underlying similarity

between music and language is that the knowledge base for both can be said to
include stored elements and constructions that can undergo transformations.
Such transformations create surface variants that can be identified as both
unique and related to an underlying schema. In addition to transformations of
these underlying structures to form variants, these structures (and their vari-
ants) can be combined to form longer strings of language or music. The way in
which these combinations take place in a given language or musical idiom can
be defined as syntax.

Syntax
Syntax in language is defined as "the rules for how to combine words into
acceptable phrases and sentences and how to transform sentences into other
sentences. " 36 Patel defines musical and linguistic syntax more broadly as "the
principles governing the combination of discrete structural elements into
sequences." 37 Patel's discussion of musical syntax focuses on scales, chords,
and keys as the elements of such sequences in which musical syntax functions.
These are certainly important components of musical syntax, and are the ones
that appear to be acquired passively as part of normal perceptual competence,
as described earlier in this chapter. For an improviser, perceptual competence
with respect to these elements has largely developed by the time the stage of
improvisation is reached. The temporal demands of improvisation require
internalization of the lower-level features of scale, chord, and key so that the
improviser can think-and act-at the level of schemata. Patel's definition of
musical syntax can also be applied to schemata: there are syntactical rules gov-
erning the make-up of a schema and the limits of its variation, as well as rules
that determine how individual schemata are linked in musical discourse. Thus,
musical syntax with respect to schemata can be defined as the ways in which
musical schemata are created and combined in a given style.
In conclusion with respect to the knowledge bases for music and language,
the musical "objects" and "processes" described by )eff Pressing and elabo-
rated upon in Chapters 2 and 3 can be seen as analogous to the lexicon and the
syntax that governs its use in language. 38

Crossing the Boundaries in Linguistics: Studies Presented to Manfred Bierwisch, ed. W. Klein
and W. Levelt (Dordrecht: Reidel, 2001), 177-189.
36 Gleason and Ratner, 21.
37
Pate!, 241.
38 The idea of musical syntax has been applied to phrase structure, metrical structure, and
harmonic structure in a variety of contexts. See Fred Lerdahl and Ray Jackendoff,
A Generative Theory of Tonal Music (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983); Alton P. Becker and
108 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

Having explained possible points of analogy between the elements that

comprise musical and linguistic knowledge, I now turn to a discussion of the
acquisition of this knowledge in these two cognitive systems.

Acquisition of the knowledge base in language

and music
As discussed above, all members of a society appear to passively acquire some
level of basic perceptual competence in music through exposure, with no
formal training. However, even among trained musicians, few develop true
productive competence as I have defined it here (i.e., the ability to improvise).
In language learning, it is known that perceptual ability often develops in
advance of productive ability: infants can understand more than they produce
at certain stages of development. In a sense, non-improvisers remain in an
extreme version of this "stage" eternally: they are able to comprehend music,
but lack the skills to spontaneously produce novel idiomatic musical discourse.
Music acquisition with respect to perceptual competence has been explored
elsewhere, 39 and thus I will focus here on the acquisition of schemata, since
these are the currency of improvisation pedagogy and performance, as
described in the previous three chapters.
An improviser gains some level of tacit perceptual competence passively,
as do all members of a musical community, but must also achieve productive
competence. The only way to do so is through production. In language
learning, it has been remarked that "hearing one's own sound productions
and how they match up with the speech of adults is a crucial element of learn-
ing ... "40 In learning to improvise too, it is through the act of production
that one gains productive competence and further refines perceptual
competence. Indeed, in both language and music, the two interact: the
more knowledge one has of how to produce and reproduce linguistic utter-
ances or the elements of a musical style, the more nuanced the ability to

]udith 0. Becker, "A Grammar of the Musical Genre Srepegan," Journal of Music Theory
23 (1979): 1-43; For review, discussion, and critique, see D.W. Hughes, "Grammars of
Non-Western Musics: A Selective Survey," in Representing Musical Structure, ed. P.
Howell, R. West, and I. Cross (San Diego: Academic Press, 1991), 327-362; Powers, 1980.
As Lerdahl and Jackendoff state of their linguistics-influenced generative theory, and as
Pate! has also noted of their work, the goal was not to compare musical and linguistic
syntax per se, but to use linguistic tools to approach musical analysis (Lerdahl and
}ackendoff, 5; Patel240-241).
3
9 For reviews, see: McMullen and Saffran, 2002; Pate!, 2007.
40 Gleason and Ratner, 75.
 ACQUISITION OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC 1109

perceive-and hence acquire-greater subtleties of the language or musical

system being learned.

Phonology
Early in infancy, infants can distinguish between any vowel and consonant
(whether native to the mother tongue or non-native). By six months of age, ~
however, infants can only distinguish vowel contrasts of the language(s)
to which they have been exposed, and by about one year of age their conso-
nant perception is similarly shaped by their surrounding input. 41 Attunement
to the sound contrasts of one's native language thus occurs quite early in
development.
Analogously, infants are more adept than adults at discerning certain pitch
or temporal modifications of melodies and rhythms. For example, if a melody
is changed by altering one note, but that note still remains tonally plausible,
infants detect this change more easily than adults, since they ostensibly lack the
"bias" of experience that adults use in judging these deviations. By school age,
infants attune to the properties of the musical system to which they are exposed,
just as in language.42
Since such perceptual competence is acquired early, passively, and long in
advance of the development of improvisational skills, and since there are years
of training in exercises and fixed repertoire necessary before a musician begins
attempting full-scale stylistically idiomatic improvisation, it is reasonable to
assume that at the stage at which one learns to improvise in a given musical
system, the basic elements of the sound system (e.g., the possible notes) are in
place. Thus, I will not pursue "phonological" acquisition in language and
music any further here beyond this basic background.

Semantics, syntax, and pragmatics

As described in Chapter 1, learning and memory are intimately intertwined.
McMullen and Saffran underscore this point: "For successful learning to occur,
young learners must be able to represent musical experiences in memory,

41 For reviews, see Gleason and Ratner; 67-69; McMullen and Saffran, 292; Pate!, 69-70.
42 S.E. Trehub, et al., "Infants' and Adults' Perception of Scale Structure," foumal of
Experimental Psychology 5 (1999): 965-975; S.E. Trehub, "The Developmental Origins of
Human Musicality," Nature Neurosciwce 6 (2003): 669-673; E.E. Hannon and
S.E. Trehub, "Tuning in to Musical Rhythms: Infants Learn More Readily than Adults,"
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (2005): 12639-12643; E. E. Hannon
and S.E. Trehub, "Metrical Categories in Infancy and Adulthood," Psychological Science
16 (2005): 48-55. For review, see McMullen and Saffran.
110 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

permitting the subsequent accumulation and manipulation of knowledge." 43

Similarly in language, to get from mere imitation of what is heard to the con~
struction of novel utterances (that have perhaps never been heard) requires
performing cognitive operations on the acquired knowledge to determine its
underlying rules and properties. Evidence that this occurs in infant language
learning comes from children's errors such as "I goed" and "he runned." These
are clearly not imitations, since children would never have heard these errors
spoken by competent speakers. They represent overgeneralizations of rules the
infants themselves have discovered, albeit without conscious effort to do so
(i.e., here: past tense for regular verbs is formed by adding "-ed," but the rule
has been misapplied to irregular verbs).
But how does an infant know which elements to store in memory in the first
place? In language acquisition, boundaries between successive elements (words
and phrases) must be determined. That is, in order to acquire words, a devl~
aping learner must be able to perceptually segment the speech stream. 44
This task is quite difficult, because the boundaries we are used to seeing in
written language are much fuzzier, and at times indistinguishable, in actual
spoken speech. 45 Once an infant language learner has segmented some speech
and learned a few words, he or she can begin to discover the meanings
and grammatical properties of those words, which facilitates further segmn~
tation of the speech stream and hence further word learning through what is
referred to as a "bootstrapping" process. 46 The typical characteristics of infat~
directed speech (e.g., slower, longer pauses between phrases) are thought to
highlight such boundaries to facilitate the learning process, and infants show
preference for listening to speech with such properties. 47 A similar infant pref~
erence for pauses at phrase boundaries has been demonstrated for musical
materials. 48
In the improvisation treatises examined in Chapters 2 and 3, extracting and
explicitly presenting cadential figures for rehearsal could serve the same facil~
tating role as exaggeration of prosodic features in infat~drec speech:
rehearsal of cadential patterns by a novice will draw attention to such patterns
when they are heard in compositions or in the improvisations of others. As
discussed in Chapter 2, cadences serve as very useful loci to which to direct

43 McMullen and Saffran, 300.

44
Gleason and Ratner, 147; Eysenck and Keane, 343-344.
45 J.R. Saffran et al., "Statistical Learning by 8-month-old Infants," Sciwce 274 (1996):
1927.
46 For review, see Gleason and Ratner, 147.
47 Ibid., 147; McMullen and Saffran, 294-295.

48 For review, see McMullen and Saffran, 295.

 ACQUISITION OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC 1111

attention, since they provide information about phrase-to-phrase relation-

ships. Just as segmenting the speech stream can serve to bootstrap the infant
into syntax, segmenting the musical stream can bootstrap the musical learner
into a more nuanced understanding of recombination at the phrase-to-phrase
level, an important element of musical syntax. Once the elements of language
(morphemes, words, and constructions) or music (pitches, rhythms, formu-
las, and schemata) are parsed and stored in memory, further analysis toward
an understanding of their appropriate use and the rules that govern their com-
bination can be undertaken.
The speed and precision with which infants acquire full perceptual and
productive competence in language with no formal instruction and little effect
of external feedback is nothing short of miraculous, and there is substantial
theoretical debate about how this occurs. The notion that an interaction is
necessary between the mind of the learner and the linguistic exposure gained
from the environment is uncontroversial. 49 However, the innate contributions
brought to the table by the learner are disputed. Below, two broad theoretical
frameworks for language acquisition will be described, the nativist approach
advocated by Noam Chomsky and his adherents, and the empiricist approach
of constructivism (specifically the cognitive-functional or usage-based
approach supported by Michael Tomasello, among others). Following the
presentation of these two views, I will suggest how such frameworks for lan-
guage learning can be applied to learning to improvise, based on the findings
of Chapters 2-4.

Nativist approaches to language acquisition: Noam Chomsky

and universal grammar
Noam Chomsky and his followers have posited that an innate, genetically deter-
mined language faculty is necessary to account for the rapid acquisition of lan-
guage in all its complexity, the universality of this process across cultures (in
normal individuals) without explicit teaching or effective feedback, and the abil-
ity to appropriately learn how to produce infinite possible phrases from expo-
sure to only a limited sample of the target language ("poverty of the stimulus").
Humans are endowed with an innate universal grammar, according to Chomsky,
and exposure to the surrounding linguistic environment facilitates the setting of
parameters, depending on the language to which an infant is exposed. Thus, in
this view, a large proportion of linguistic knowledge is innate and a "language
organ" matures in interaction with input from its linguistic environment.

49 Gleason and Ratner, 230.

112 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

Language learning according to this view is seen as distinct from other types of
learning, requiring its own special cognitive apparatus. 5°

Empiricist approaches to language acquisition: constructivism and

cognitive-functional usage-based linguistics
In contrast to this nativist position, other views are empiricist, requiring little
or no innate knowledge, and suggesting that language can be acquired through
domain-generallearning processes. 5 1 What are these learning processes and
how they can be applied to language acquisition? Early in infancy, children
have the abilities to:
... form perceptual and conceptual categories of"similar" objects and events ... [,]
form sensory-motor schemas from recurrent patterns of perception and action ... [,]
perform statistically based distributional analysis on various kinds of perceptual and
behavioral sequences ... [and] create analogies (structure mappings) across two or
more complex whales, based on the similar functional roles of some elements in these
different wholes.s2

In a theory of language learning known as the constructivist view, these gen-

erallearning mechanisms are thought to be sufficient to acquire mastery over
one's native language through exposure; no innate knowledge is necessary.
"Learning is seen as simple instance learning ... which proceeds based on
input alone; the resultant knowledge is seen as a network of interconnected
exemplars and patterns rather than abstract rules. " 53 The constructivist view is
eloquently summarized as follows:
Constructionist views oflanguage acquisition hold that simple learning mechanisms
operating in and across human systems for perception, motor action, and cognition
while exposed to language data in a communicatively rich human social environment
navigated by an organism eager to exploit the functionality of language are sufficient

° Chomsky's original theoretical ideas were put forth in Sy11tactic Structures (The Hague:
5

Mouton, 1957) and Aspects of tl1e Theory of Syntax (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965), and he
has since developed, refined, and revised them in a monumental body of subsequent
publications. Chomsky's theories are explained in a format more geared to the general
public by Steven Pinker in The La11guage Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language
(New York: Harper Collins, 2000), and summarized in Gleason and Ratner, 237-247. For
a critique ofChomsky's theories, see Michael Tomasello, "Language is Not an Instinct,"
Cognitive Development 10 (I 995): 131-156 and Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based
Theory of Language Acquisition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 284-289.
51 The learning capacities themselves, however, may be innate. For discussion, see:

J.R. Saffran and E.D. Thiessen, "Domain-General Learning Capacities," in Handbook of

Language Development, ed. E. Hoff & M. Shatz (Cambridge: Blackwell, 2007), 79-80.
52 Tomasello 2003, 4. For discussion of categories/concepts, schemata, distributional analysis/
statistical learning, and analogy, see Chapter 3.
53 Gass and Selinker, 220.
 ACQUISITION OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC I 113

to drive the emergence of complex language representations ... They emphasize the
linguistic sign as a set of mappings between phonological forms and conceptual mean-
ings or communicative intentions; thus, their theories of language function, acquisi-
tion, and neurobiology attempt to unite speakers, syntax, and semantics, the signifiers
and the signifieds. They hold that structural regularities of language emerge from
learners' lifetime analysis of the distributional characteristics of the language input
and, thus, that the knowledge of a speaker/hearer cannot be understood as an innate
grammar but rather a statistical ensemble of language experiences that changes slightly
every time a new utterance is processed. 54

This is in marked contrast to the nativism of Chomsky's theories and their

proponents, as underscored here:
Thus the constructivist view is that language learning results from general processes of
human inductive reasoning being applied to the specific problem oflanguage. There
is no language acquisition device specifiable in terms of linguistic universals, princi-
ples and parameters, or language-specific learning mechanisms [all components of
Chomsky's theories]. Rather, language is cut from the same cloth as other cognitive
processes, but it is special in terms of its cognitive content. Learners' language comes
not directly from their genes, but rather from the structure of adult language, from the
structure of their cognitive and social skills ... 55

In one such constructivist approach, the cognitive-functional or usage-based

view of Michael Tomasello, patterns oflanguage are thought to be acquired,
understood, and used for specific communicative purposes through domain-
generallearning processes combined with the infant's abilities to follow, guide,
and share attention to objects and events with others and imitate goal-directed
and/or communicative behavior. 56 Key to this theoty is the idea that language
learning and production are driven by communicative intent. 57
According to Tomasello (and others he reviews), infants do not always com-
pletely parse the speech stream into component words, but also acquire larger
unparsed constructions, such as "I wanna do it," "lemme-see," and "where the
bottle," which are reproduced as whole units in the appropriate communica-
tive context. 5 8 In addition to these so-called frozen constructions, infants
produce early multiword utterances such as "more [noun]," "where's [noun],"

54 Nick C. Ellis 2003, 63-64.

55 Nick C. Ellis, "Memory for Language," in Cognition and Second Language Instruction,

ed. Peter Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 38 (emphasis in

original).
56 Tomasello, 5-7.
57 "The various tribes of constructivism ... all share a functional-developmental, usage-

based perspective on language" (N.C. Ellis 2003, 63).

58 Tomasello, 38.
114 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

"[noun] gone," "I [verb]," and "[verb] it" called pivot schemas. 59 Tomasello
argues that such pivot schemas do not have syntax per se, since word order can
be variable, and changes in word order do not alter the meaning of the con-
struction. For example, "more [noun]" and "[noun] more" have equivalent
meanings for the infant speaker at this stage. 60 More advanced early multi-
word constructions with signs of syntactical marking are referred to as item-
based constructions. These show early use of word order and case marking
(indication ofrole), for example, "[giver] give [recipient] [object]," and "[subject]
kick [object]."61
Both pivot schemas and item constructions have slots that can be filled by
appropriate members of the category in the phrase. At this stage of linguistic
development (until around age two-and-a-half), Tomasello argues that "syn-
tactic competence is best characterized as simply an inventory of independent
... constructions that pair a scene of experience and an item-based construc-
tion, with no structural relationships among these construction [s]. "62 That is,
children at this point in development have acquired this inventory and can use
it with some flexibility (i.e., through filling slots) to convey communicative
intention. However, they have not yet discovered underlying patterns and
parallels between constructions, nor reorganized the inventory into its compo-
nent parts, nor abstracted underlying functions from the pool oflearned utter-
ances. Through domain -generallearning procedures including pattern-finding,
statistical learning, and analogy, children intuitively discover underlying sche-
mata and their relationships, allowing language development to proceed rap-
idly.63 Lexical and grammatical development are thus intertwined in this
theory: a certain critical mass of words and constructions must be acquired for
the purpose of developing generalizations across them, and the development of
these abstractions facilitates phrase parsing and hence further word-learning. 64
One is clearly not conscious of the processes that Tomasello describes when
learning one's native language. However, the process oflearning a foreign lan-
guage in a classroom setting, of which one is much more conscious, can be
traced in this framework. One begins by learning vocabulary and phrases. In
this phase, one's knowledge base contains only a small number of words and
constructions, and the contexts in which one can effectively communicate are

59 Tomasello, 114-115.
60 Ibid., 115-117.
61 Ibid., 117-120.
62 Ibid., 121.
63 Ibid., 143-193.
64
Ibid., 93. The full exposition of and evidence for Tomasello's theory of language acquisi-
tion can be found in Tomasello 2003.
 ACQUISITION OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC 1115

quite limited as a result. At this earliest stage of language learning, one may
only be able to produce a small number of fixed phrases without any knowl-
edge of the meanings of the individual components of these phrases. For exam-
ple, one learns to translate "my name is)) into French as "je m'appelle."
"le m'appelle" literally means "I call myself' (or translating the word order
literally,"! myself call"). Only later does one come to understand the individ-
ual words and meanings of"je,)) "m( e),)) and "appelle,)) and that "appelle)) is a
conjugation of the verb "appeller." As one's knowledge base expands to
encompass a broader range of vocabulary and constructions, one begins to
learn the rules that govern their use (explicitly through instruction and/or
implicitly through statistical learning). As a result, communicative compe-
tency gradually increases, transforming from fixed phrases to increasing flexi-
bility, and finally, to fluency.
The constructivist view oflanguage acquisition can be summarized as "an
acquisition sequence ... from formula, through low-scope pattern to
construction.)) 65 The resultant linguistic knowledge base of such constructions
and their interrelations, formed in the manner described by Tomasello above,
can be described as:
... a structured inventory of speakers' knowledge of the conventions of their language,
usually described by construction grammarians in terms of a semantic network, where
schematic constructions can be abstracted over the less schematic ones which are
inferred inductively by the speaker in acquisition. 66

A cognitive-functional usage-based approach to learning

to improvise
The constructivist usage-based functional approach just outlined appears to
align quite congruously with what has been described for "music acquisition))
by improvisers as gleaned from the exploration of the organization of knowl-
edge in treatises and discussions with improvisers about their learning proc-
esses in Chapters 2-4. Through treatises, models, and/or repertoire, a novice
improviser learns an inventory of constructions (musical formulas and sche-
mata). These are first reproduced and rehearsed "verbatim,)) but with the
possibility of varying one or more elements in more or less constrained ways
(like Tomasello's pivot schemas and item-based constructions). Through
continued learning of a wider variety of constructions, their variants, and
how they combine with one another, domain-general processes of analogy,
distributional analysis, statistical learning, and pattern-finding facilitate the

65 Nick C. Ell is 2003, 64.

66 Ibid., 66.
116 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

development and organization of the knowledge base, as rules and principles

are abstracted to create a "semantic network" similar to that referred to in the
quotation that closed the previous section. Thus, as in language acquisition,
musical "vocabulary" and "syntactical" development are intertwined: the more
organized the knowledge base becomes, the more readily constructions and
patterns can be acquired from repertoire and improvisations heard and
performed.
Additionally, production in the context of rehearsal and performance allows
for feedback (hand-ear, ear-hand, and audience-performer), as does the
success or failure of communicative purpose and intent in the developing lan-
guage learner. As has been described for foreign language learning, "the output
component represents more than the product of language knowledge; it is an
active part of the entire learning process." 67 Indeed, Tomasello states that the
"central processing tenet" in cognitive-functional usage-based linguistics is
that "language structure emerges from language use.,, 68 Similarly, as was
described in Chapter 4, Robert Levin felt that to truly learn to improvise, he
needed to do so not just in the practice room, but in public performance, since
improvisation is an "act of communication.',
In Music in the Galant Style, music theorist Robert Gjerdingen discusses
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozarfs early development as a composer through an
analysis ofMozart's juvenilia. 69 This account appears similarly congruous with
constructivist theories of language learning. In his analysis, Gjerdingen dem-
onstrates how Mozart proceeds from imitation and replication of schemata
(not always used in appropriate context) through codification of schemata use
(e.g., range of variation) and acquisition of new schemata, to assimilation and
mastery ("mature understanding of combinations and subtle contingencies
between and among schemata" 70 ). Gjerdingen summarizes:
As he absorbed a variety of prototypes and exemplars, Mozart internalized their
various traits, structures, meanings, and contingencies, becoming a fluent speaker
of galant musical "prose" by perhaps age eight and a minor artist of galant musical
"poetry" by perhaps age ten.7 1

The constructivist cognitive-functional usage-based linguistic approach thus

appears to provide a framework for understanding the musical knowledge base

67
Gass and Selinker, 490.
68 Tomasello, 5.
69 Gjerdingen 2007,333-358.
70 Ibid., 355.
71 Ibid., 357.
 ACQUISITION OF THE KNOWLEDGE BASE IN LANGUAGE AND MUSIC I 117

and its acquisition toward the goal of productive competence in both composers
and improvisers.
Tomasello's theory, like Chomsky's, attempts to describe infant language
acquisition, that is, acquisition of the mother tongue(s) without explicit teach-
ing. In instructed foreign language acquisition, the initial problem of word
segmentation is solved in part, since words and phrases are taught in terms of
their components, and often presented visually as well as aurally. Of course,
foreign language learning does not occur exclusively through rote memoriza-
tion and instructed grammatical rules, though these can help. Features of
instructed languages are also implicitly abstracted from constructions that are
both explicitly learned and heard in examples of speech: "even for classroom
learners, there is a consensus that much grammar learning takes place without
conscious awareness." 72 Thus, instructed language acquisition draws on many
of the same cognitive resources to represent and analyze learned constructions
of languages as does native language acquisition, even though the learner's
conscious awareness of and attention to some of these aspects may be differ-
ent. Indeed, constructivist theories have been applied to instructed language
learning in addition to native language learning. 73
Learning to improvise also appears to include both entirely intuitive and
explicitly instructed processes. If one is learning from a treatise or a teacher,
like learning a foreign language from a textbook and/or in a classroom, some
elements are presented as entities, and some rules and examples of their utili-
zation are taught. The treatises examined in Chapters 2 and 3 are designed
similarly to language textbooks for foreign language learners. Language text-
books generally present vocabulary, grammatical rules (e.g., verb conjuga-
tions, word-order principles), and examples of phrases and longer passages
that present the vocabulary and rules in natural context. Analogously, the
improvisation treatises present individual chords (vocabulary), formulas
(vocabulary as well as examples of grammatical rules governing the combina-
tion of elements), and models that serve as examples of how the previously
presented materials interact with one another in musical context. Even with
explicit presentation in improvisation treatises and instructional language
textbooks, some of what is learned comes from the largely subconscious
processes of analogy, pattern- finding, and statistical learning involving both
explicitly learned structures from pedagogical examples and exposure to musical
repertoire heard and played, or natural language heard, spoken, or read.

72 Mitchell and Myles, 89.

73 For review and discussion, see N.C. Ellis 2001 and 2003.
118 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 1: ACQUISITION

Although Robert Levin says he did not set out to "learn to improvise," he
explains that the foundation for doing so came not only from intuitively learn-
ing the characteristics of the repertory in the style(s) in which he improvises,
but also from learning the fundamental structures underlying tonal music
distilled by the exercises of Nadia Boulanger. The first represents more of a
"native language" learning process, while the second mirrors the rote learning
of rules, phrases, and words in instructed language learning. In all cases how-
ever, the underlying cognitive processes that categorize and organize the
knowledge are likely the same. Indeed, processes such as analogy, procedurali-
zation/automatization, and distributional analysis/statistical learning that I
have used to explain learning to improvise, and that are also thought to be
involved in language learning, are also considered to be important in the
acquisition of more general cognitive skills.74

Conclusion
Comparing language and music cognition from the perspective of the acquisi-
tion of productive competence reveals many parallels, suggesting the possibil-
ity that learning to speak and learning to improvise could be acquired by
domain-generallearning mechanisms. As described above, Patel proposes a
shared sound category learning mechanism hypothesis for both language and
music (for phonemes and intervals) as part of perceptual competence. Although
experimental evidence would of course be required to extend this hypothesis
to shared learning processes for the musical and linguistic lexicons and syntax
in productive competence, the theoretical discussion here could provide a
framework for doing so.
In Chapter 8, I will compare music and language cognition with respect
to the act of production, since "the psycholinguistic processes involved in
using ... knowledge [i.e., performance] are distinct from those involved in
acquiring new knowledge."75

74 For discussion of general theories of cognitive skill acquisition described here and in
Chapters 2-4 as applied to language acquisition, see: Robert M. DeKeyser, "Automaticity
and Automatization," in Cognition and Second Language Instruction, ed. Peter Robinson
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 132~; Mitchell and Myles, 87-92;
J, Michael O'Malley and Anna Uhl Chamot, Learning Strategies in Second Language
Acquisition (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 16-55.
75 Rod Ellis, "A Theory of Instructed Second Language Acquisition," in Implicit and Explicit
Learning of Languages, ed. Nick Ellis (London: Academic Press, 1994), 107 (emphasis in
original).
Part 11

Cognition in Improvised
Performance
 Chapter 6

Improvised performance:
Performers' perspectives

Mozart [says in a letter to his sister about improvising] "I just do the first thing that comes
into my head." Well . .. so do I . .. anything can happen! Absolutely anything! Including
that I fall . .. and make a complete fool of myself . .. 1

I am both a creator and a kind of a witness-! watch myselfand sometimes I can be quite
aglwst at what I do. 2
-Robert Levin

Creator and witness

Improvisers often describe a somewhat mysterious relationship with the per-
formance experience, as was evident in the quotation from Levin that opens
the Prelude and Czerny's description of improvisation quoted at the beginning
of Chapter 2, in which he states that " ... extemporizing possesses this singular
and puzzling property, that reflection and attention are of scarcely any service
in the matter. We must leave nearly everything to the fingers and to chance."
For anyone who performs in any way in front of an audience, it quickly
becomes clear that the act of performance is psychologically singular. Even for
a piece of music, a dance, or a speech that has been memorized, rehearsed, and
re-rehearsed, with dress rehearsals in the same space and at the same time of
day as the up coming event, the actual performance feels qualitatively different.
For the improviser, the stakes can be considered to be even higher: while
the act of improvisation has been rehearsed, the variables left open to
the moment are far greater than in any other type of performance. It should

1 Robert Levin, "Lecture I" Harvard University Course "Literature and Arts B-52: Mozart's
Piano Concertos," Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, September 19,
2005.
1
Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.
122 I IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE: PERFORMERS' PERSPECTIVES

thus come as no surprise that Levin calls improvising "living on the edge" 3
and "a high wire act." 4 What does the improviser think about, plan, and
experience in the moment of improvisation?
In the following interview excerpt, Levin describes some of his earliest exper-
iences improvising in public.
In the earlier times when I had very little practical experience in doing it, the fear of
failure was greater. You know, you want to make the omelets, you break the eggs, and
you had to get past that sort of terror. And the way I had to do that was to think more
actively about where I was. You know that there are benchmarks in the cadenza: first
you've got to do something of this kind, and then you have to do something of that
kind, and then you come to the trill and you're done. You have a sense of how far you
can stretch that without ending up with a cadenza which is twice as long as a Mozart
cadenza would be .

Here, Levin notes that early in his improvising career, one strategy for orient-
ing himself was to think about the sequence of events, and their relative
amounts of time. That is, he held the structural referent firmly in mind. '
However, this strategy did not always work, as Levin describes in the following
quotation:
In the earlier stages, I would lie awake in the hotel room trying to rest three hours
before a concert thinking about a possible plot line for a cadenza. It was something
that I felt at that time that I'd better have some idea, even if I wasn't writing anything
down. It was a question of getting from point a to point b, from point b to point j,
from j to x, and from x back to r. And I would sit there saying "let's see: I could use
such and such a theme, and I could take that in a sequence, that would take me to such
and such, okay alright fine, then I could use this other theme, and I could use such and
such there, and then get over then uh-huh, and then I could do this, okay and that
would get me around to the 6-4 chord, and then a few flourishes and I'd be done.
That's good, okay, I do this, and then I do that, and that's fine, okay good ... " And
what I liken this to is, in order to get to our house for dinner on Saturday, you know
you get on the Mass[achusetts] [Turn]pike, and you go out Mass pike, and you go out
to Weston, and you get off the exit there to route 30, and you turn left on route 30, and
you go 3.4 miles till you get to the Exxon station, you go right there, you go past the
schoolhouse, take the first left, and we're the first house on the right. The problem is
that you then get into the concert and start to work and suddenly your mind goes into
overdrive and you don't do one of those things, or you forget them, or you just go in

3 Robert Levin, "Lecture 8" Harvard University Course "Literature and Arts B-52: Mozart's
Piano Concertos," Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, October 14,
2005.
4 Robert Levin, "Lecture I" Harvard University Course "Literature and Arts B-52: Mozart's

Piano Concertos," Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, September 19,
2005.
Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.
 CREATOR AND WITNESS I 123

another direction, so if you turn right on route 30, instead ofleft, you never get to the
Exxon station, you never get to the schoolhouse, you never get to dinner. And that's
what started to happen to me. And as I was playing and flailing, I was trying to remem-
ber something that it was too late for me to look over my shoulder and remember,
because it wasn't there anymore. And I began to realize you're just going to have to let
go of it and go wherever you go. The way jazz people do: you have this syntactical
thing just the way they have their formulas, you've got the basics of architecturally
how a cadenza works and its sectionalization, which can be abstracted from all of these
cadenzas, and then you just have to accept the fact that there's going to be some
disorder. 6

This vignette is rich in images of attempts to consciously use the structural

referent to plan for and guide a process that ultimately relies much more
on intuition in the heat of performance. While Levin's mind can plan a series
of events when the constraints of the performance situation are absent, once
he starts playing, the experience is quite different, as he describes further
here:
When I play, I am reacting ... your fingers play a kind of, how shall I say, a potentially
fateful role in all this, because if your fingers get ahead of your brain when you're
improvising, you get nonsense or you get emptiness. If your brain gets too far ahead
of your fingers, your fingers break down, because they're not keeping up with your
train of thought. So the two of them have a rather essential and highly explosive sort
of inter-relationship and ... I never, and I mean never, say "I'm going to modulate to
f-sharp major now," or "I'm going to use a dominant seventh now," or "I'm going to
use a syncopated figure now ... " I do not for one millisecond when I'm improvising
think what it is I'm going to be doing. I don't say, "Oh I think it's about time to end
now ... "7

This balancing act between the mind and the fingers implies the interaction
of the explicit intentional declarative knowledge of what Levin wants to (or
thinks should) happen, and "letting go" to allow the more subconscious
implicit procedural knowledge of the style and its internalized motor patterns
to flow. Levin's plans for the shape of the cadenza (the referent) operate at a
different conscious, temporal, and motor level than that of the micro-decisions
that need to be made at the note-to-note, finger-to-finger level. That level is
served largely by stored musical-motor formulas of the knowledge base that
are executed in real time as fully formed whales, and recombined with one
another without the need for conscious reflection. Thus, one can imagine that
if one particular figure leads to another through subconscious musical-or
physical-association, Levin could find himself having "missed the Exxon

6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
124 I IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE: PERFORMERS' PERSPECTIVES

station," or in the situation in which he found himself in Bremen described in

the Prelude.
Although Levin describes having a brief moment at the fermata before a
cadenza to plan the beginning of his improvisation, once he starts playing, the
"highly explosive sort of inter-relationship" between brain and fingers begins:
RL: It's true: I get to a big fermata, I think, "What am I going to do now? Oh, I'll do
that." So there's a bit of that, but not the sense of doing it every two bars. There's no
time for that.

AB: So what level can you plan when you're actually in the heat of a cadenza?

RL: You can't really; you're absolutely beholden to your subconscious.

AB: So are you almost an observer when you're doing this?

RL: Well, I wish I had the coolness to be an observer. Obviously my adrenaline is

pumping at quite a rate but ... to a large extent I'm completely dependent upon
neural processes that I'm not controlling ... 8

Malcolm Bilson explained to me that many of the ornaments he adds in

performance are ones that he has discovered in his practicing and has decided
to reproduce in subsequent performances. However, when a new ornament
does emerge spontaneously in performance, he too describes a sort of observa-
tion process while improvising:
MB: Now when I make ornaments, occasionally I'll make some brand new ornament
in a concert, but it's usually an ornament I've done at home ...

AB: And what happens when you create a new one in performance? You said some-
times something new will come out.

MB: Yes and sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't like it. 9

By stating "sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't," Bilson implies that, like
Levin, he too is observing and reacting to his fingers and ideas in addition to
guiding them.
In the quotations from Levin above, it is clear that all of the knowledge that
he so explicitly relates in articles, lessons, and interviews is simply not the cog-
nitive currency with which he deals in the moment of improvisation. Rather,
he relies on his internal ear, his fingers, and his experience. Trained in the basic
musical building blocks to such a degree of automatization/proceduralization
that these elements can be performed without conscious planning, what does
Levin actually think about while improvising?

8 Ibid.
9 Malcohn Bilson, Interview by author, Ithaca, NY, August 12,2007.
 CREATOR AND WITNESS CROSS-CULTURALLY 1125

Sometimes the mind is saying, "This isn't going very well," or the mind is saying,
''Don't go in that direction, turn in another direction" ... There you are going down
the bobsled ... and suddenly there's a curve, and you just you respond to it. As you're
heading upward in a scale you realize, "Uh-oh, I'm going to have to introduce a couple
chromatic semitones there otherwise I'm going too high," and sometimes you get
unlucky. But most of the time, you know, you get reasonably lucky. 10

It appears that, for Levin, what the "mind is saying" is quite general, evaluating
or steering the course of events from a distance. This aligns quite congruously
with Pressing's ideas discussed in Chapter 1: the internalization of the referent
and knowledge base allow for somewhat automatic generation of the micro-
structure of the music from moment to moment, allowing the allocation of
conscious attentional resources to higher-level musical processes. Once reach-
ing the stage of"letting go," growing confidence in the ear, hands, and subcon-
scious competence can allow the improviser to submit freely to the moment of
performance. "Letting go" means allowing the proceduralized/automatized
sub-elements, processes, and structures of the knowledge base to guide the
improviser from moment to moment, as he or she steers the "bobsled" at a
more global level. After a style has been thoroughly internalized, the impro-
viser can "leave nearly everything to the fingers and to chance" (to use Czerny's
description from the letter quoted at the beginning of Chapter 2), because that
"chance" draws upon the performer's accumulated musical knowledge and
experience. Given Levin's extraordinary knowledge base, rich in both mater-
ials and their interconnections, it comes as little surprise that he tends to get
"reasonably lucky" most of the time (an understatement, to say the least, for
those of us who have had the privilege of hearing him do this).
Improvisers in many musical traditions provide similar accounts of the crea-
tor/witness phenomenon, inaccessibility to consciousness of much of what
occurs during improvisation, and a leading/following dichotomy with relation
to the body. This suggests an underlying commonality in these aspects of cog-
nition in improvisation across diverse musical cultures.

Creator and witness cross-culturally

In Patricia Nardone's insightful phenomenological analysis of interviews with
jazz musicians about improvisation, she describes several dialectics that convey
the creator-witness dichotomy, summarizing them as," ... ensuring sponta-
neitywhile yielding to it ... [,] being present and not present to musical proc-
esses: a divided consciousness ... [,] exploring a musical terrain that is familiar

10 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September lO, 2007.

126 I IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE: PERFORMERS' PERSPECTIVES

and unfamiliar ... " 11 In Paul Berliner's ethnography of jazz musicians, he

refers to the creator-witness phenomenon using the terms of "inventor" and
"recipient." 12 Berliner describes the interaction of the body and mind of
the improvising jazz musician in similar terms as Levin's "highly explosive
inter-relationship" between the brain and fingers:
... [T]he ideas that soloists realize during performances depend as much on the
body's own actions as on the body's synchronous response to the mind ... The body
plays an even more active role when, through its motor sensory apparatus, it interprets
and responds to sounds and physical impressions, subtly informing or reshaping
mental concepts . 13

Analogous to the observational aspect of improvised performance described

above by Levin and Bilson, Berliner relates what one jazz musician calls the
"third ear that oversees the whole business ... thafs what tells you what to do
when you solo," and another describes as "constantly reacting." 14 Berliner
summarizes that there thus exists a "paradoxical relationship between musical
actions calling for a passive performance posture and others calling for precise
artistic control." 15

11 Patricia L. Nardone, "The Experience of Improvisation in Music: A Phenomenological

Psychological Analysis," (PhD diss., Saybrook Institute, 1997), 157. On pages 127-128,
she describes some of these dialectics in more detail: "One dialectic process is that while
improvising musicians are present to and within the musical process, they are also con-
comitantly allowing musical possibilities to emerge pre-reflectively, effortlessly, and
unprompted. Conversely, while musicians are outside the improvisational process and
fully observant of it, they are paradoxically directing and ensuring the process itself. A
second dialectical paradox is that in improvisation there is an intention to direct and
ensure spontaneous musical variations while allowing the music itself to act as a guide
toward an unfamiliar terrain. Conversely, while allowing musical possibilities to emerge
pre-reflectively, effortlessly, and unprompted, improvising musicians paradoxically
intend the music toward a familiar domain. A third dialectical paradox is that while being
present to and within the process of musical improvisation, musicians concomitantly
allow the music to guide them toward an unfamiliar terrain. Conversely, while being out-
side the musical process and fully observant of it, musicians paradoxically intend the
music toward a terrain that is familiar to them."
12 Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994), 208. The context of this quotation is as follows: "As exciting ideas
flood their imaginations, continually presenting new melodic options, improvisers articu-
late them so effortlessly that they feel at times like recipients and conveyers, rather than
inventors, of ideas."
13 Ibid., 190.
14 Ibid., 207.
15 Ibid., 219.
 CREATOR AND WITNESS CROSS-CULTURALLY I 127

Stephen Slawek, an ethnomusicologist and sitarist who has studied

Hindustani (North Indian) music under Ravi Shankar, describes the encour-
agement he received from one of his accompanists, Ish war Lal Misra. Misra
suggested that he needed to '"let go' and follow the flow of a rhythmic/melodic
pattern and it would come out automatically ... " 16 Slawek describes further,
"When the performer is free of all inhibitions, an ecstatic state of effortless
creativity ensues." 17 This appears to be quite similar to Levin's realization,
discussed above, that he could only succeed in improvisation if he was able to
"let go of it and go wherever you go."
Renowned Arab musician and ethnorhusicologist Ali Jihad Racy describes
an "ecstatic" state similar to what Slawek reports:
A musician may,,, develop modal ecstasy if he or she actually performs in a certain
mode for a period oftime, long enough to feel the captivating effect of the maqam
[mode] and to sense an effortless and ineffably effective power to create music in that
mode. 18

These are just a few examples of what appears to be a shared narrative of the
experience of improvisation cross-culturally. This sense of complete absorp-
tion in the act of improvising, in which the improviser seems to merge with the
music and transcend everyday consciousness, has been referred to as "flow" by
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, 19 and appears to be similar to what has been
described in trance states by ethnomusicologist Judith Becker. 20
Similar to what Becker describes as "trance amnesia," 21 Levin has expressed
that he has absolutely no memory for what he has improvised after he has fin-
ished: "After I'm finished doing it, I ... have no idea what I played, because stay-
ing on the surface of the water isn't easy ... "22 This makes for a seeming paradox:
how can Levin~or any improvse~b both creator and witness, inventor and

16 Stephen Slawek, "Keeping it Going: Terms, Practices, and Processes of Improvisation in

Hindustani Music," in In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical
Improvisation, ed. Bruno Nett! and Melinda Russell (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 338.
17 Ibid., 338.
18 Ali Jihad Racy, "Improvisation, Ecstasy, and Performance Dynamics in Arabic Music," in

In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation, ed. Bruno
Nett! and Melinda Russell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 101.
19 Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper

and Row, 1990).

20 Judith 0. Becker, Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 2004).

21 Ibid., 144.
22 Robert Levin, "Lecture 8" Harvard University Course "Literature and Arts B-52: Mozart's
Piano Concertos," Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, October 14,2005.
128 ]IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE: PERFORMERS' PERSPECTIVES

recipient, simultaneously playing the music and being played by it? This conflu-
ence of phenomena appears incongruous: how does the performer proceed vvith
a somewhat unconscious recombination of internalized formulas that come
through the fingers, a more conscious but still slightly veiled-from-consciousness
"responding" to the improvisation as it mysteriously unfolds byway of"neural
processes that one is not controlling" (to use Levin's words), and an inability to
remember what has occurred immediately aftenvard? Is not some memory of
what is occurring during the improvisation necessary if the performer is to make
it from point a to point b? Or can this only prove to be a hindrance, as described
in the vignettes from interviews with Levin presented at the beginning of this
chapter? In an attempt to provide partial answers to these questions, in the next
section I return to the concepts of implicit/procedural memory and explicit/
declarative memory introduced in Chapter 1.

(No) memory and improvisation: A neuropsychological

explanation for the creator-witness phenomenon
Research suggests that implicit and explicit memory may be subserved by two
distinct cognitive systems. 23 This idea emerged in part from studies of amnesic
patients, and has been supported by more recent brain imaging studies of
normal individuals. 24 Amnesia can be described as either anterograde or retro-
grade. Anterograde amnesia refers to a diminished (or absent) memory capac-
ity for what occurs after the onset of amnesia, that is, a difficulty in forming
new memories. Retrograde amnesia describes a decrement (or total loss) of
memory for what has occurred prior to the onset of amnesia, that is, a problem
with the retrieval of memories from before the amnesia began.
In many patients with anterograde amnesia, explicit/declarative memory is
impaired far more than implicit/procedural memory (e.g., the ability to learn new
skills). Patients with anterograde amnesia can improve their performance over
time on tasks (demonstrating intact implicit/procedural memmy), although they
may be unable to remember any of the processes and events that have occured
while learning these tasks (demonstrating impaired explicit/declarative memory).
In what has been referred to as one of the worst cases of amnesia ever known,
Clive Wearing developed both anterograde and retrograde amnesia secondary

23 For overview and evaluation of work in this area, see Michael W. Eysenck and Mark T.
Keane, Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook, 5th edn. (East Sussex: Psychology
Press, 2005), 230-247.
24 For review and discussion of the literature on explicit and implicit memory, amnesia, etc.,

see Eysenck and Keane, 210-214, 229-259; Daniel Schachter, Searching for Memory: The
Brain, The Mind, and The Past (New York: BasicBooks, 1996), 161-191.
 A NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION FOR THE CREATOR-WITNESS PHENOMENON 1129

to a viral infection of the central nervous system. 25 His amnesia is near-complete,

leaving him trapped in a state of continual newness, as if each moment is his
first. Attempts at training his memory through a diary failed. Moments after
writing in it, he was unable to recognize the diary or why his handwriting was
in it, having no recollection of having written an entry just a few instants earl-
ier. The diary recorded a mere "line by line succession of astonished
awakenings." 26 Wearing is still able to talk, demonstrating that linguistic struc-
ture and the motor patterns necessary to carry it out remain intact, and he is
still able to perform basic activities (e.g., walking, shaking hands, etc.). Still, he
cannot remember what he says (or what others say) for long enough to main-
tain a meaningful conversation, and he does not remember the actions that he
has performed moments after performing them. He describes his conditions as
"the same as death ... no difference between night and day ... no thoughts at
all, precisely like death ... one night twenty years long with no dreams. "27
A conductor, keyboardist, and musicologist before his illness, Wearing has
amazingly maintained the ability to play, conduct, and even improvise in spite
of his amnesia. Clearly, his improvisation cannot be guided by any kind of
"memory,, in the traditional sense-short- or long-term-given the extent of
his amnesia. Yet the musical-motor procedures that he internalized before his
illness somehow steer him from moment to moment in his music-making, as
in his talking and walking. As neurologist Oliver Sacks describes:
Each time Clive sings or plays the piano or conducts a choir, automatism comes to his
aid. But what comes out in an artistic or creative performance, though it depends on
automatisms, is anything but automatic ... once Clive starts to play, his "momentum,"
as Deborah [his wife] writes, will keep him, and keep the piece going ... incapable of
remembering or anticipating events because of his amnesia, [he] is able to sing and play
and conduct music because remembering in music is not, in the usual sense, remember-
ing at all. Remembering music, listening to it, or playing it, is entirely in the present. 28

What Sacks refers to as "automatism," represents the internalized improvi-

sational knowledge base described in Chapters 2-5: musical materials and the
stylistic norms for their variation and recombination acquired through years

25
Wearing's story is described in: Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain
(New York: Knopf, 2007), 187-213; Deborah Wearing, Forever Today: A Memoir of Love
and A11mesia (London: Doubleday, 2005); ]ad Abumrad, "Memory and Forgetting,"
Radio Lab, New York Public Radio WNYC, June 8, 2007, http://mediasearch.wnyc.org/m/
audio/ 1161 0304/memory_and_forgetting_radio_lab.htm?q =memory+and +forgetting
(accessed April25, 2008); Jane Treays, Tl1e Man with the 7 Second Memory, Television
Documentary (United Kingdom: Granada Television, 2005).
26 Abumrad, Radio Lab Broadcast.
27 Ibid.
28 Sacks, 209-212.
130 I IMPROVISED PERFORMANCE: PERFORMERS' PERSPECTIVES

of musical training. Through rehearsal, this knowledge base becomes highly

organized and interconnected, allowing for instantaneous navigation through
its nearly infinite inter linkages and the musical materials encountered along
the way. As Pressing describes:
The ... feeling of automaticity, about which much metaphysical speculation exists in
the improvisation literature, can be simply viewed as a natural result of considerable
practice, a stage at which it has become possible to completely dispense with conscious
monitoring of motor programmes, so that the hands appear to have a life of their own,
driven by the musical constraints of the situation ... In a sense, the performer is
played by the music.29

The creator-witness phenomenon could result from this automaticity of access

to the elements of the knowledge base and the pathways that connect them. The
improviser as "creator" may begin with an idea, but as soon as the idea passes
through the hands, the fingers may lead spontaneously and subconsciously to
another element of the knowledge base. This subconscious transition to new
material may seem to be merely "witnessed" by the performer, who responds to
where he or she then arrives, steering the "bobsled" again (to use Levin's term)
as "creator." Thus, a constantly evolving dialogue emerges between the initia-
tion of the musical flow and the response to it, a seemingly near-universal
characterization of the experience of improvisation across cultures.
Wearing's story, both tragic due to his personal struggle and triumphant
with respect to his reclaiming of the present moment through music, gives a
fascinating window into the improvising mind. The knowledge base of a musi-
cal style appears to become internalized at a level as deep as the fundamentals
oflanguage and movement, allowing the improviser to explore it effortlessly in
performance. Musical flow from moment to moment magically manifests,
without a need to know or remember where one has been or where one is
going. In improvised performance, the boundaries between creator and wit-
ness, past and future, and music and musician dissolve into the musical
moment.
In the next chapter, we will peer into the improvising brain, searching for
the neural correlates of the phenomena described in this chapter and those
preceding it. After this neurobiological complement to the present chapter, in
Chapter 8, I compare the findings of these chapters with analogous phenomena
in spontaneous speech.

29 JeffPressing, "Improvisation: Methods and Models," in Generative Processes in Music: The

Psychology ofPe!formance, Improvisation, and Composition, ed. John Sloboda (Oxford and
New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 139. See Berliner 1994, 798 (note 39) for
discussion of this quotation with respect to jazz.
 Chapter 7

The neurobiology of
improvisation

Studying music cognition in the laboratory

The scientific study of any cognitive phenomenon requires a balance between
ecological validity and scientific interpretability. Ecological validity refers to
the extent to which a psychological experiment represents a real-world situa-
tion. If the laboratory study of a process such as learning or memory uses
stimuli or testing procedures that are too far removed from the ways in which
these cognitive activities take place in the real world outside of the laboratory,
the relevance of the results can be limited. However, the closer to real-world
complexity that one approaches in an experimental context, the greater the
number of variables that come into play, which can lead to difficulties in inter-
preting results with precision.
Given the complexity of music and music-making, any study of music cog-
nition must confront these issues. In designing a brain imaging study of
improvisation with my colleague Daniel Ansari, we sought to balance the con-
cerns of ecological validity and experimental interpretability. Improvisation is
a complex phenomenon, involving spontaneous decision-making, motor
sequencing, memory, emotion, planning, attention, and countless other cog-
nitive processes. While it would have been fascinating to give subjects free
reign to improvise however they so chose, it would have been extremely diffi-
cult to interpret the results of such a study; nearly the whole brain would have
been involved and it would have been difficult to draw any precise conclusions
as to what roles specific brain regions were playing in improvisation. We
instead chose to design a task that was improvisatory, seeking to isolate and
study the spontaneous, generative aspect of improvisation. Our goal was not to
look at the full spectrum of musical improvisation per se, but to use the fact
that musicians improvise as a window into the neural substrates of the more
general phenomenon of the spontaneous generation of novel motor sequences.
Unbeknownst to us, at the same time as we were conducting our study, another
group was working on a brain imaging study of improvisation using a quite
different approach, the results of which were published nearly simultaneously
132 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

with our own. 1 After discussing our experiment, I will describe theirs and the
complementary insights that our studies provide together.

The neural correlates of improvisation 1: Berkowitz

and Ansari (2008)
Study design
The subjects for our study were classical pianists. 2 It may at first seem counter-
intuitive to use classically trained musicians for a study of improvisation rather
than jazz musicians, since, aside from rare exceptions, classically trained musi-
cians generally do not improvise. However, to have chosen self-identified
improvisers (e.g., jazz musicians) would have required finding a way to objec-
tively measure and compare their experience and skill in improvisation to assure
a relative uniformity of the subject cohort, which we deemed problematic.
Classically trained musicians would certainly be able to perform the simple
improvisatory tasks that I will describe below, but, in general, would have rela-
tively minimal experience with improvisation. This allowed for a more uniform
pool of subjects with regard to both skill and experience in improvisation.
We examined brain activity in subjects during an improvisational task using
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). 3 fMRI studies generally com-
pare a task eliciting the cognitive process( es) of interest with some control task.
In designing an fMRI study, one goal is to match control tasks with experimental
tasks on several factors, so that when brain activity during these tasks is compared,
precise conclusions can be drawn about the pattern(s) of brain activity seen in the
experimental condition(s). For example, Daniel Levitin and Vinod Menon
studied the perception of musical structure with fMRI. 4 In the experimental
condition, subjects listened to musical examples. In the control condition, the
subjects listened to the same music "scrambled." The scrambled music was

1 Charles J. Limb and Alien R. Braun, "Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical

Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation," PLoS ONE 3 (2008): el679. doi:
10.13711 journal.pone.0001679.
2 For the full details of our study, see Aaron L. Berkowitz and Daniel Ansari, "Generation of
Novel Motor Sequences: The Neural Correlates of Musical Improvisation," Neurolmage
41 (2008): 535-543.
3 flvlRI uses a magnetic field to assess changes in blood oxygenation in the brain: brain areas
more active during a given cognitive task have higher metabolic activity, needing-and
hence removing-more oxygen from the blood flow to those regions. This change in oxy-
genation of the blood (blood oxygen level dependent [BOLD] signal) can be measured and
used to assess changes in activity in brain regions during a cognitive task, albeit indirectly.
4 D,J. Levitin and V. Menon, "Musical Structure is Processed in 'Language' Areas of the
Brain: A Possible Role for Brodmann Area 47 in Temporal Coherence," Neurolmage 20
(2003): 2142-2152.
 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF IMPROVISATION 1: BERKOWITZ AND AN SARI (2008) 1133

comprised of fragments about a third of a second long that were randomly rea~
dered and strung together. The control condition thus matched the acoustic
qualities of the experimental condition, but removed the structural coherence of
the music. Had the authors merely compared the brain regions active when lis~
tening to music with brain activity at rest (or listening to a sustained tone or
another simple acoustic stimulus), countless brain areas would have been
involved, many of which may not necessarily have been specifically related to the
perception of musical structure (e.g., they may have been involved in general
attention, basic auditory processing, etc.). Precise attributions of function to
networks of brain regions involved would have thus been compromised. By
subtracting subjects' brain activity in their control task (listening to scrambled
music) from that in their experimental task (listening to regular music), what
ostensibly remained were the areas responding only-or to a greater degree-to
the specific task of processing music with coherent structure.
In our study, subjects performed four different tasks designed to provide
variable degrees of improvisatory freedom. These tasks were executed with
the right hand on a five-key piano-like keyboard (middle C-G; white keys
only), and the subjects heard what they played in real time through scanner-
safe headphones. In one task, the subjects continuously invented five-note
melodies ("Melodic Improvisation"). In a task that served as a control to the
melodic improvisation condition, the subjects played any of seven prelearned
five-note patterns in any order of their choosing ("Patterns"). Before the
experiment, we showed the subjects seven extremely simple patterns: five
consecutive presses of any key (CCCCC, DDDDD, EEEEE, FFFFF, GGGGG),
an ascending scale (CDEFG), or a descending scale (GFEDC). These patterns
were easily imitated by the subjects immediately, which demonstrated both the
simplicity of the patterns and that they did not create a substantial memory
load, since no significant learning phase was necessary in order to remember
them. In patterns conditions, subjects were told to play the patterns in any
order of their choosing during the experiment. This maintained an aspect of
spontaneity in the patterns conditions, but without the creative intention and
novelty generation of melodic improvisation conditions. Our control condi-
tion in the melodic domain thus matched our experimental condition with
respect to real-time spontaneous decision-making. The comparison of these
conditions therefore allowed the novel, generative aspect of melodic improvisa-
tion to be studied in relative isolation.
Both "Patterns" and "Melodic Improvisation" tasks were performed with or
without a metronome click at quarter note= 120, or two beats per second (one
beat per 500 milliseconds), creating four tasks in total. Subjects were instructed
that when they heard a metronome click in the headphones they were to play
one note per click. When no metronome was present, subjects were asked to
134 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

improvise rhythms to the melodies or patterns that they were playing

("Rhythmic Improvisation"). The combination of patterns versus made-up
melodies and metronome versus no metronome yielded a 2 x 2 factorial design
(Figure 7.1).
The use of four tasks in a 2 x 2 design allowed us to examine the neural activ-
ity in rhythmic improvisation alone (Patterns/Rhythmic Improvisation versus
Patterns/Metronome), melodic improvisation alone (Melodic Improvisation/
Metronome versus Patterns/Metronome), and with both types of improvisa-
tion combined (Melodic Improvisation/Rhythmic Improvisation versus
Patterns/Metronome). Additionally, it allowed for the elucidation of the brain
areas commonly activated by both rhythmic improvisation alone and melodic
improvisation alone. Since rhythmic improvisation involves invention in time,
and melodic improvisation involves invention in terms of pitches (and, motor-
ically speaking, in space), these two types of musical novelty would be expected
to have overlapping but partially distinct neural correlates. 5 We were particu-
larly interested in the brain regions commonly active in both Melodic and

Patterns Melodic Improvisation

without Metronome with Metronome

Melody constrained Melody jmorovised

Rhythm im{l.rovised Rhythm constrained

Patterns Melodic Improvisation

with Metronome without Metronome

Melody constrained Melody imorovised

Rhythm constrained Rhythm im(lrovised

Melodic Freedom
Fig. 7.1 Task design of Berkowitz and Ansari (2008).

5 For discussion of the neural correlates of melodic and rhythmic performance, see: S.L.
Bengtsson, et al., "Dissociating Brain Regions Controlling the Temporal and Ordinal Structure
oflearned Movement Sequences," European journal of Neuroscience 19 (2004): 2591-2602;
S.L. Bengtsson and F. Ullen, "Dissociation Between Melodic and Rhythmic Processing During
Piano Performance from Musical Scores," Neurolmage 30 (2006): 272-284.
 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF IMPROVISATION 1: BERKOWITZ AND ANSARI (2008) 1135

Rhythmic Melodic
Improvisation Improvisation

Fig. 7.2 Conjunction analysis.

Rhythmic Improvisation conditions, since these brain areas would ostensibly

be involved in spontaneous musical generation most generally, irrespective of
whether the domain was rhythmic or melodic. We assessed this overlap
through a conjunction analysis (Figure 7.2).
Of course, real-world improvisation does not typically occur in the setting
we provided for our subjects in the laboratory, namely, having them lying with
their heads immobile in a small tube, playing a five-key keyboard placed on
their laps. This is hardly the setting of a packed concert hall, a jazz club, or a
Javanese gamelan. We did not seek to recreate the richness of a true improvi-
sational setting in the laboratory (which would, in any case, be nearly impos-
sible), but rather, as stated above, to isolate and study the neural correlates of
the spontaneous, creative aspect of improvisation. Thus, even our control
tasks afforded some spontaneity (i.e., choosing which pattern to play at any
given moment), though much less than in our improvisation conditions.
The comparison of our experimental and control tasks therefore demonstrated
the network of brain areas specifically involved when improvisatory freedom
increases with respect to rhythm, melody, or both.
Another difference betvveen our study design and real-world improvisation is
that, as has been discussed throughout this book, improvisers draw on a store
of prelearned patterns, combining them in novel ways in performance. The
ability to be led nearly subconsciously from moment to moment, as improvis-
ers describe, relies in part on the recombination of previously learned musical-
motor sequences. In our flviRI study, we used prelearned patterns as our control
condition, rather than as our experimental condition. However, these
136 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

prelearned patterns were highly simplified, and, in themselves, devoid of much

musical interest. Thus, we hypothesized that subjects would not have much
musical or creative intention when they played these patterns in any random
order. In contrast, the Melodic Improvisation condition required musical inten-
tion when combining notes to form five-note melodies, and attempts at novelty
in creating new combinations throughout the experiment. It is possible that the
subjects could make "musical" decisions about the order in which they played
the prelearned patterns, rather than merely sequencing them completely arbi-
trarily. However, even if they did, this would still offer far less improvisatory
freedom than the creation of novel five-note melodies (i.e., one decision every
five notes in the former; one decision per note, or perhaps a more complex deci-
sion about each five-note group in the latter). Comparing Melodic Improvisation
and Patterns conditions thus allowed for a graded comparison in the amount of
spontaneous novel decision-making required in the different tasks.
While our tasks do not reflect certain aspects of improvisation as it occurs in
the real world, our study uses the fact that musicians can improvise to examine
the real-time generation of novel auditory-motor sequences. Thus, we hypothe-
sized that the neural network(s) found to be involved in our Improvisation
conditions compared to our control conditions would be active because of
spontaneous, novel musical-motor sequencing. We accepted, however, that
our study did not capture the full spectrum of cognitive processes that occur
in real-world improvisation, but only examined a specific subset of those
processes. As Robert Frances, one of the fathers of music cognition research,
describes with regard to experimental research in music perception:
This is a patient science and philosophy of which the sole prerequisite is to aim at
discovering the real, without any extraneous additions. This specifidty is the price of
true synthesis ... psychological experimentation cannot be other than circumspect. Its
conclusions must be interpreted and placed in their proper sociological and historical
contexts. 6

Thus, following Frances, in the conclusion to this chapter, I will contextualize

our brain imaging results in light of the discussions of improvisation from the
sociological and historical perspectives of previous chapters.

Behavioral results
Before examining our brain imaging data, it was important to examine the
subjects' behavioral responses to assure that they did indeed play with more
rhythmic variety when they were asked to improvise rhythms as compared to

6 Robert Prances, The Perceptio11 of Music, trans. \V. ]ay Dowling (Hillsdale: Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, 1988), S-6.
 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF IMPROVISATION 1: BERKOWITZ AND ANSARI (2008) I 137

Metronome conditions, and that they played with more melodic novelty in
Melodic Improvisation conditions as compared to Patterns conditions.? We
developed three measures to broadly assess these trends: interpress interval varia-
bility (to assess rhythmic improvisation), variety of note combinations (to assure
that subjects played patterns when they were supposed to do so), and percentage
of unique sequences (to study the degree of novelty of improvised melodies).

Quantification of rhythmic improvisation: lnterpress interval

variability
Interpress interval variability measured the percentage of durations between
two successive key presses that did not fall between 350 and 650 ms. Since the
metronome click fell once every 500 ms, we expected that, when playing with
the metronome, a smaller percentage of subjects' interpress interval durations
would fall outside of this window. When improvising rhythms, we expected a
greater degree of interpress interval variability, that is, a greater percentage of
inter-press durations that did not fall between 350 and 650 ms. As expected, the
percentage of durations falling outside of the 350-650 ms window was signifi-
cantly greater when the metronome click was absent (Rhythmic Improvisation)
as compared to when it was present.

Quantification of melodic improvisation: Variety of note

combinations and percentage of unique sequences
We used two measures to assess melodic improvisation: variety of note combin-
ations and percentage of unique sequences. The first allowed us to confirm
that the subjects played patterns during the Patterns conditions. The second
allowed us to assess the degree of novelty in the improvised melodies.
The variety of note combinations measurement assessed the percentage of
notes played that fell either on the same note as was played immediately before
it, or on an adjacent note. In Patterns conditions, subjects played either five
sequential presses of the same note, an ascending scale, or a descending scale.
Therefore, the only points when the subjects would not be playing the same note
as was just played or an adjacent note would be when changing from one pattern
to another. Thus, we expected that in the Patterns conditions, the majority of
key presses should fall on the same note as or the note adjacent to the previous
note played. In Melodic Improvisation conditions, we anticipated a greater vari-
ety of note combinations, that is, a smaller percentage of key presses on the same
key as just played or on an adjacent key. This is indeed what we found.

7 Complete details oft he data acquisition and analysis can be found in Berkowitz and Ansari
(2008).
138 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

The percentage of unique sequences measure assessed the percentage of

patterns or melodies played once and only once throughout each condition.
We expected this measure to be quite low in Patterns conditions, where
subjects had only seven choices, and significantly higher in Improvisation
conditions, where subjects had complete freedom (and where 3,125 five-note
patterns were possible). Since the data are particularly striking, I report the
actual numerical values here: in Patterns/Metronome, subjects played on
average 17.7% unique sequences, in Patterns/Rhythmic Improvisation 17.3%,
in Melodic Improvisation/Metronome 86.8%, and in Melodic Improvisation/
Rhythmic Improvisation 84.3%. Across both types of Patterns conditions
(with and without metronome), total percent novelty was 10.3% and across
both Melodic Improvisation conditions, total percent novelty 79.2%. 8 This
means that, on average, nearly 80% of subjects' improvised melodies were
played once and only once throughout the entire experiment, demonstrating
a high degree of novelty.

Brain imaging results

Before presenting the brain imaging data, it is important to note that we did
not expect to discover the <<improvisation area(s)" of the brain per se. Rather,
we anticipated that improvisation would involve regions of the brain whose
functions have been elucidated in other studies. These previously attributed
functions of the regions subserving improvisation in our experimental context
provide insights into the cognitive processes underlying improvisation. In
turn, the fact that these brain areas are involved in musical improvisation can
shed new light on the possible function(s) of these areas.
As noted above, we were particularly interested in the conjunction analysis
of the two main experimental comparisons: Rhythmic Improvisation versus
Metronome and Melodic Improvisation versus Patterns (Figure 7.2). 9 This
analysis shows the regions commonly activated by rhythmic improvisation
and melodic improvisation. In terms of motor behavior, performing motor
sequences in time (rhythm) and in space (melody) are somewhat different
processes. Thus, brain regions commonly activated by rhythmic and melodic
improvisation are ostensibly involved in novel musical sequence generation
more generally. Our conjunction analysis revealed activity in three such
regions: dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC), anterior cingulate cortex (ACC),

8 When pooling data across the conditions, the percent novelty decreases because subjects
inevitably repeated themselves between tasks (i.e., some improvised melodies were played
in Melodic Improvisation/Metronome and Melodic Improvisation/Rhythmic
Improvisation conditions that were unique within a condition, but not unique when both
conditions were analyzed together).
9 For discussion of the results of other analyses, see Berkowitz and Ansari (2008).
 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF IMPROVISATION 1: BERKOWITZ AND AN SARI (2008) ]139

and inferior frontal gyrus/ventral premolar cortex (IFG/vPMC), all on the left
(Figure 7.3).10
The dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC) is involved in a wide variety of motor
tasks, indicating a role in the selection and performance of movements. 11 This
region is probably more active in improvisation when compared to playing
patterns and/or playing with a metronome because improvisation involves
both greater frequency of movement selection and greater complexity of
chosen movement sequences.
The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) has been shown to be involved in a
number of different cognitive tasks, thus leading researchers to postulate
general theories for its function such as monitoring conflict between stimuli or
responses, 12 unrehearsed movements, 13 decision-making, 14 voluntary
selection, 15 and willed action. 16 These theories are related: decision-making

Fig. 7.3 Brain imaging results of conjunction analysis of melodic and rhythmic impro-
visation. Left and right are reversed per radiologic convention. (a) Activity in the left
dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC) shown in axial section. (b) Activity in the anterior
cingulate cortex (ACC) shown in coronal section. (c) Activity in the left inferior frontal
gyrus/ventral premotor cortex (IFG/vPMC) shown in sagittal section.

10
The left cortical motor and premotor regions control the right half of the body. Since the
task was performed with the right hand, these left-lateralized results were expected.
11 For review, see P.A. Chouinard and T. Paus, "The Primary Motor and Premotor Areas of
the Human Cerebral Cortex," Neuroscientist 12 (2006): 143-152.
12 M.M. Botvinick et al., "Conflict Monitoring and Anterior Cingulate Cortex: An Update,"
Trends in Cognitive Science 8 (2004): 539-546.
13
E. Procyk et al., "Anterior Cingulate Activity During Routine and Non-routine Sequential
Behaviors in Macaques," Nature Neuroscience 3 (2000): 502-508.
14 M.E. Walton et al., "Interactions Between Decision Making and Performance Monitoring
Within Prefrontal Cortex," Nature Neuroscience 7 (2004): 1259-1265.
15 B.U. Forstmann et al., "Voluntary Selection of Task Sets Revealed by Functional Magnetic
Resonance Imaging," Journal of Cog11itive Neuroscience 18(2006): 388-398.
16 T. Paus, "Primate Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Where Motor Control, Drive and Cognition
Interface," Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2 (2001): 417-424.
140 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

involves making a voluntary, willed choice among conflicting alternative pos-

sibilities. In a 2005 brain imaging study of piano performance, the ACC was
not shown to be active when brain activity during performance of a previously
memorized keyboard piece by Bach was compared to brain activity during the
playing of scales on a keyboard during positron emission tomography (PET)
scanning. 17 Since the ACC does not appear to be involved in memorized musi-
cal performance any more than in playing scales in that experiment, this sug-
gests that this region plays a role in the improvisatory nature of our tasks.
Given the theories of ACC functioning listed above, the ACC may be involved
in the aspect of improvisation in which decisions are made by selecting among
competing alternative musical materials for execution in performance.
The left IFG/vPMC is part of a region known as Broca's area, named after the
French neurologist Paul Broca. Damage to this region often manifests most
prominently as a deficit in linguistic production (Broca's aphasia), though it
can also cause deficits in the processing of hierarchical structure in language
and difficulties with music processing. 18 Most generally, this region is thus
thought to be involved in the "analysis, recognition, and prediction of sequen-
tial auditory information." 19 The brain imaging study of memorized keyboard
performance compared to scale performance mentioned above does not show
activation of this region in the performance of memorized music, suggesting
that the activation in our task is due to a specific role in spontaneous genera-
tive musical production.
Recent work in brain imaging has shown involvement of the IFG/vPMC
region in both language perception and language production, and both
perception and production of actions elicit activity in this region. 20 This dual

17 L.M. Parsons et al., "The Brain Basis of Piano Performance," Neuropsychologia 43 (2005):
199-215.
18
A.D. Pate! et al., "Musical Syntactic Processing in Agrammatic Broca's Aphasia,"
Aphasiology 22 (2008): 776-789. Based on our experiment, we cannot say whether the left
IFG/vPMC in particular was active simply because the task was performed with the right
hand, or because of the higher-level cognitive functions of this region that are involved in
language. This could be explored by repeating our experiment with subjects performing
with the left hand. If the results with left-hand performance still demonstrated activity in
left IFG/vPMC, this could suggest higher-level cognitive function for this region in the
task. If the results with left-handed performance showed activity in right IFG/vPMC, this
could suggest a higher-level motor function of this region in the task.
19 S. Koelsch, "Significance of Broca's Area and Ventral Premotor Cortex for Music-
Syntactic Processing," Cortex 42 (2006): 519.
20
S.H. Johnson-Frey et al., "Actions or Hand-Object Interactions? Human Inferior Frontal
Cortex and Action Observation," Neuron 39 (2003): 1053-1058; M. Iacoboni, et al.,
"Grasping the Intentions of Others with One's Own Mirror Neuron System,"
 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF IMPROVISATION 1: BERKOWITZ AND AN SARI (2008) j141

role in perception and production of language and actions has stimulated

researchers to propose a "mirror system" in this region, that is, a system
involved in both one's own intentions and in the perception of the intentions
of others. 21 IFG/vPMC also plays a prominent role in music perception. 22
Interpreting these previous findings in conjunction with our results demon-
strating a role for this region in music production, one sees possible evidence
of a mirror system for music in this area: a system for both the perception and
production of music. In a theoretical article that preceded our experimental
results, cognitive neuroscientists Itvan Molnar-Szakacs and Katie Overy
postulated a mirror system for music, describing such a system as follows:
The mirror neuron system has been proposed as a mechanism allowing an individual
to understand the meaning and intention of a communicative signal by evoking a
representation of that signal in the perceiver's own brain ... The experience of music
thus involves the perception of purposeful, intentional and organized sequences of
motor acts as the cause of temporally synchronous auditory information. Thus,
according to the simulation mechanism implemented by the human mirror neuron
system, a similar or equivalent motor network is engaged by someone listening to
singing/drumming as the motor network engaged by the actual singer/drummer ...
This allows for eo-representation of the musical experience, emerging out of the
shared and temporally synchronous recruitment of similar neural mechanisms in the
sender and the perceiver of the musical message.23

Our finding that the IFG/vPMC participates in music generation, along with
previous findings demonstrating that this region is involved in music percep-
tion, provides evidence for this proposal of a mirror system for music in this
region. Given that the IFG/vPMC appears to serve roles in perception and
production of language, music, and action, if a mirror system exists in this
region, it appears to be involved most generally in the comprehension and
production of action sequences across domains. Molnar-Szakacs and Overy
reach a similar conclusion: "a mirror neuron system may provide a domain-
general neural mechanism for processing combinatorial rules common to

PLoS Biology 3 (2005): e79; A. Lahav, et al., "Action Representation of Sound: Audiomotor
Recognition Network While Listening to Newly Acquired Actions," Journal ofNeuroscimce
27 (2007), 308-314.
21 G. Rizzolatti et al., "The Mirror-Neuron System," Annual Review Neuroscience 27 (2004):
169-192; F. Binkofski, "The Role of Ventral Premotor Cortex in Action Execution and
Action Understanding," Joumal ofP!Jysiology Paris 99 (2006): 396-405.
22 S. Koelsch and W.A. Siebel, "Towards a Neural Basis of Music Perception," Trends in
Cognitive Science 9 (2006): 578-584; Koelsch, 2006.
23 I. Molnar-Szakacs and K. Overy, "Music and Mirror Neurons: From Motion to
'E'motion," Social Cognitive and Affectit'e Neuroscience 1 (2006): 235-236.
142 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

language, action and music, which in turn can communicate meaning and
human affect." 24
In sum, from a neurobiological perspective, our experiment reveals that
improvisation involves regions of the brain that sub serve the generation and
comprehension of sequences (IFG/vPMC), making a decision among compet-
ing possible sequences to perform (ACC), and the creation of a plan for the
motor execution of the decided-upon sequence (dPMC).
Just as previously existing musical elements are combined in improvisation to
yield novel musical performances, the combined functions of domain-general
brain areas can be recruited for the performance of musical improvisation.
Indeed, there is growing evidence to suggest that creativity broadly defined
likely emerges from domain-general cognitive processes. 25

The neural correlates of improvisation 11: Limb and

Braun (2008)
While our study erred on the side of reduction to isolate a particular feature of
improvisation, Charles Limb and Alien Braun used more realistic musical
tasks in their 2008 study. In one control condition, subjects played a previously
memorized jazz composition. Brain activity during this task was compared to
that during the main experimental condition: improvisation over the chord
structure of this composition. In both tasks, subjects were accompanied by a
virtual quartet, which they heard through headphones. 26
The brain activity in their study overlapped with that of ours: they too saw acti-
vation in the IFG, ACC, and dPMC in their improvisation tasks as compared to
control tasks. However, their tasks allowed their subject-performers to draw on
an actual composition for material, with all of its associations-harmonic,

24 Ibid., 239.
25 For discussion see: R. Keith Sawyer et al., Creativity and Development (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2003), 227-230; A. Dietrich, "The Cognitive Neuroscience ofCreativity,"
Psychonomic Bulletin a11d Review 11 (2004): 1011-26; R. Keith Sawyer, Explaining
Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006),
301; A. Fink et al., "The Creative Brain: Investigation of Brain Activity During Creative
Problem Solving by Means of EEG and fMRI," Human Brain Mapping30 (2009): 734-48;
A. Fink, B. Graif, and A. C. Neubauer, "Brain Correlates Underlying Creative Thinking:
EEG Alpha Activity in Professional vs. Novice Dancers," Neurolmage 46 (2009): 854-62;
A. Berkowitz and D. Ansari, "Expertise-related Deactivation of the Right Temporoparietal
Junction During Musical Improvisation," Neurolmage 49 (2010): 712-719.
26 Limb and Braun also examined a more restricted pair of control tasks similar to ours
(playing scales in quarter notes versus improvising with notes from that same scale).
 THE NEURAL CORRELATES OF IMPROVISATION 11: LIMB AND BRAUN (2008) j143

melodic, rhythmic, structural, emotional, etc.-in contrast to the much more

limited possibilities in our study. Thus, in addition to the active regions shared
by our study and theirs, Limb and Braun saw changes in activity in over forty
regions. When comparing improvisation and control conditions, active brain
areas in their experiment included the superior temporal lobe (likely involved
in processing and memory for auditory/musical materials), limbic regions
(probably involved in emotion and memory), and an interesting pattern of
prefrontal activity: activation of the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC) (associ-
ated with self-expression and higher-level goals and intentions) and deactiva-
tion in the lateral orbital prefrontal cortex (LOFC) and dorsolateral prefrontal
cortex (DLPFC) (suggestive of inhibition of regions involved in monitoring
and correction). With regard to these findings in the prefrontal cortex, the
authors hypothesize that:
Musical creativityvis-i\-vis improvisation may be a result of the combination of inten-
tional, internally generated self-expression (MPFC-mediated) with the suspension of
self-monitoring and related processes (LOFC- and DLPFC-mediated) that typically
regulate conscious control of goal-directed, predictable, or planned actions. 27

In conjunction, our studies complement one another. Our focus on a very

limited type of improvisation with a very small set of possibilities sacrificed
some degree of ecological validity, but, in so doing, allowed for relatively spe-
cific attribution of functional roles to the brain regions that were active. Their
study sought to examine improvisation in as close to its real-world form as
possible, providing a more panoramic view of the full panoply of neural activ-
ity involved in improvising. Since our study did not demonstrate activation
changes in many of the frontal, temporal, or limbic regions that were shown to
be active in the study of Limb and Braun, it is possible that these regions come
into play only when true musical intent is present, from moment to moment
and/or in the attempt to create a musical narrative over a longer time-span
using one's stock of musical materials, as was the case in their experiment. 28

27 Limb and Braun, 4-5.

28 It could also be that since the experimental and control tasks in our study were very
closely matched as far as musicality of the possible patterns/sequences, motor behavior,
and auditory processing, significant differences in brain activity in some of the regions
elicited in the study of Limb and Braun did not emerge between improvising with the
limited possibilities we provided (i.e., five notes) and the patterns. Precise attribution of
specific functions to the brain regions involved in their study cannot be made with full
certainty, however: given the large difference between the degree of freedom and com-
plexity ofbehavior in their experimental tasks versus the more automatic/memorized
control tasks, it cannot be ruled out that some of the differences in brain activity between
144 I THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF IMPROVISATION

Conclusion
Robert Levin describes the presentation of several pathways through a selection
of musical materials in his published cadenzas as follows, " ... the idea I've had
in this large number of alternatives mirrors, in terms of the textual presenta-
tion, what goes on in your head when you're improvising." 29 This statement
and similar descriptions of improvisation quoted throughout earlier chapters
seem to correlate well with our neurobiological explanation of improvisation
as involving the generation of possible material (IFG/vPMC), selection from
amongst the alternatives generated (ACC), and planning for the performance
of the decided-upon sequence (dPMC). This pattern of brain activity also mir-
rors the goal competence taught by the pedagogical strategies of the improvisa-
tion treatises described in Chapters 2 and 3, in which musical materials to be
learned are presented, and the learner is instructed (albeit largely implicitly)
on how to select and recombine these materials in improvised performance.
Descriptions of improvisers as both creators and witnesses appear to be
quite congruous with the pattern of prefrontal activation elucidated by Limb
and Braun: "internally generated self-expression" (increased activity in MPFC;
the "creator") and "suspension of self-monitoring and planned action"
(decreased activity in LOFC/DLPFC; creating the phenomenon of"witnessing"
rather than controlling).
Thus, the brain imaging results from these two studies correlate quite well
with artists' experiences of improvisation. Speaking to an analogous concur-
rence in research on music perception, Robert Prances states:
[S]o few artists will be surprised by the nature of this work: in most cases it does noth-
ing but establish, through experiments and calculations, facts they knew already, since
those facts were already components of the practice of their art. We have sought
rational explanations for these facts while guarding against the myths that tradition
has handed down to us ... 30

Though perhaps demonstrating facts that artists "already knew," three

disparate sources-brain imaging, artists' descriptions, and pedagogical
treatises-paint a convergent portrait of the improvising mind: one which
draws on some of the very same neural resources as the more mundane but
equally infinitely creative faculties of spontaneous speech and action. In the
following chapter, I pursue this connection between improvisation and
spontaneous speech further, comparing music and language cognition from
the perspective of production.

their tasks stem from differences in attention, working memory, and task complexity,
which may not be specific to improvising per se.
29 See Chapter 3 for discussion.
°
3 Frances, 5.
 Chapter 8

Music and language cognition

compared 11: Production

As soon as tl1e performer sits down before a large gathering and generally to improvise in
front of an audience, he can be compared with an orator who strives to develop a subject
as clearly and exhaustively as possible on the spur of tl1e moment. In point offact, so many
principles of orat01y correspond with those of musical improvisation that it is not inap-
propriate to venture the comparison.
Just as the orator must be completely accomplished as much with the tongue as with his
speech in order never to be at a loss for a word or tu m of expression, the pe!former's fingers
must likewise have the instrument completely in their power and be at the disposal ofevery
difficulty and meclwnicalskill.
Just as the orator must combine extensive reading of a general1wture and fundamental
knowledge in all branches of his field of scholarship, it is similarly the responsibility of the
keyboardist, in addition to studying basic principles of harmony and becoming acquainted
with many works ofvarying degrees ofvalue by the masters ofall periods, to lwve memorized
a large assortment of interesting ideas from that literature rmd also to have at l1is command
tl1e current musical novelties, the favorite themes from operatic melodies, and so on.
And just as the orator has to avoid dullness mtd boredom through elegance and grace,
clarity, refined images, and jlowety language, so also must tl1e performer seek to gain a
special appeal for his playi11g through beautiful and tasteful tums of expression through
presence of mind and consideration of his listeners' powers of comprehension through
elegance, and through appropriate embellishments.
Indeed, especially when great natural ability and much skill are involved, fantasy-like
improvisation consists in an almost subconscious and dream-like playing motion of the
fingers, which makes it only so nwd1 tlte better-just as the orator does not think through
each word and phrase in advance. Nevertheless the pe1jormer must always just have the
presence of mind (especially when he has to develop a gh'en theme) to adhere constantly
to his plan, and to surrender neither to rhapsodic incomprehensible tediousness nor to an
overabundantly broad spinning out.
-Car! Czerny ( 1836) l

As Czerny elegantly describes, the act of improvisation shares much with spon-
taneous speech. One must have the requisite "mechanical skills" (of the tongue,
mouth, and larynx for speech; of the hands for the keyboard) developed to the

Car! Czerny, A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation 011 the Pianoforte, Op. 200, Vienna,
1836, trans. and ed. Alice L. Mitchell (New York; Longman, 1983), 42.
146 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 11: PRODUCTION

point that they operate effortlessly. One also needs to master the underlying
syntax of music and language in order to communicate in a fashion that is
comprehensible as well as "beautiful and tasteful." Moreover, Czerny suggests
in the last paragraph that the creator-witness phenomenon described in
Chapter 6 is equally present in spontaneous speech, where the orator "does not
think through each word and phrase in advance ... [but[ must ... have the
presence of mind ... to adhere constantly to his plan ... " In this chapter, I
compare music and language cognition with respect to production, examining
improvisation and spontaneous speech from both theoretical and neurobio-
logical perspectives.

Speaking and improvising: Theoretical perspectives

In what has been called "the most articulated model oflanguage production in
adults," 2 Willem ).M. Levelt's 1989 book Speaking outlines the "processes
involved in the generation affluent speech." 3 Levelt's model consists of four
processes:
Conceptualization. In this process, one plans "the communicative intention by
selecting the information whose expression may realize the communica-
tive goals." 4 In other words, one plans the idea(s) behind the intended
message in a preverbal fashion.
Formulation. In this process, the conceptualized message is translated into
linguistic structure (i.e., grammatical and phonological encoding of the
intended message take place). This phrase is converted into a phonetic or
articulatory plan, which is a motor program to be executed by the larynx,
tongue, lips, etc. 5
Articulation. This is the process of actual motor execution of the message, that
is, overt speech. 6
Self-monitoring and self-repair. By using the speech comprehension system that
is also used to understand the speech of others, the speaker monitors what
he or she is saying and how he or she is saying it on all levels from word
choice to social context. If errors occur, the speaker must correct them.?

2 Jean Berko Gleason and Nan Bernstein Ratner, The Development of Language, 71h edn.
(Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009), 178.
3 Willem J.T. Levelt, Speaking (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), 8.
4 Ibid., 5.
5 Ibid., II-I2.
6 Ibid., 12-13.
7 Ibid., 13-14. These processes are elaborated upon throughout the book. See also Michael
W. Eysenck and Mark T. Keane, Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook, sth edn.
 SPEAKING AND IMPROVISING: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 1147

These processes have clear analogues in musical improvisation. For exam-

ple, imagine the case where the improviser wants to play a cadence at the end
of a phrase. "Cadence" is the conceptualized musical goal. This cadence must
then be formulated according to the key, style of the music, etc. (i.e., the sur-
face structure), and a motor plan for actually playing the decided-upon cadence
must be formulated and executed ("articulated"). As the execution of the
musical goal takes place, the performer must monitor the result through both
aural and kinesthetic feedback. The component processes of spontaneous
speech and musical improvisation thus appear similar. To what extent is the
relative accessibility to consciousness of these processes comparable between
the two domains?
Of what are we consciously aware when speaking? When we speak in our
native tongue, even if we have had grammar lessons, we most certainly do not
need to think in terms of parts of speech, syntactical rules, etc., while speaking.
Indeed, children communicate without any such explicit knowledge of gram-
mar. In our native language, our awareness rarely appears to go to the level of
words (except when the "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon occurs), nor are we
aware of the positions of the tongue, lips, larynx, and the rest of the speaking
apparatus as they deftly perform the complex choreography necessary to artic-
ulate phonemes (the differences between which may be on the level of millisec-
onds and millimeters). 8 What we are aware of is the intent we have in mind,
and to what degree we succeed in conveying this intended message. That is, to
use Levelt's terminology, conceptualization and self-monitoring are somewhat
accessible to consciousness, while the mechanics of grammatical encoding and
articulatory motor plans are not.
This intuitive description of what we are conscious of during spontaneous
speech appears to align well with Levin's accounts of what he is conscious of
while improvising, discussed in Chapter 6. There, Levin describes keeping the
overarching plan in mind, assessing his progress, and a sort of responding by
steering the "bobsled." His awareness of any sort of detailed planning or of the
micro-movements of his fingers appears to be quite limited (indeed, merely
"witnessed"), unless something is not going as planned. Due to his extensive
experience, he tends to "get reasonably lucky most of the time," as he describes

(East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2005), 403; }. Michael O'Malley and Anna Uhl Chamot,
Leaming Strategies in Second Language Acquisition (New York, Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 38-42.
8 Indeed, such differences may be as small as fifty milliseconds in timing and three millimeters
in position (Michael Paradis, "Neurolinguistic Aspects of Implicit and Explicit Memory:
Implications for Bilingualism and SLA," in Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages,
ed. Nick Ellis (London: Academic Press, 1994), 404).
148 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 11: PRODUCTION

in a quotation discussed in Chapter 6, as most of us do most of the time when

speaking our native tongue.
Yet the process of learning in improvisation is not always entirely like the
completely implicit learning of one's native tongue with no aid whatsoever.
Certainly, much of the knowledge base in improvisation is acquired through
implicit statistical learning of stylistic constraints and conventions from the
music to which one is exposed, as in the acquisition of one's native tongue (see
Chapters 2-5). However, if one learns from treatises or from teachers, ele-
ments (e.g., chords) and constructions (e.g., formulas) may be isolated and
explicitly presented with suggestions for how to practice them (e.g., in trans-
position, variation, and recombination). Active rehearsal and/or analysis of
model improvisations may also occur in this context. These processes seem
closer to what happens in instructed foreign language acquisition, where
words, phrases, and rules are taught explicitly, and models (e.g., dialogues,
speeches) may be memorized and reproduced verbatim as part of the learning
process.
While learning a foreign language in a classroom setting, at first one is
very aware of the effort necessary to go from the intended utterance, to a trans-
lation of component words of the phrase, to a syntactically valid message (e.g.,
conjugating verbs, assigning genders and cases, determining word order), and
finally, to the proper pronunciation of each phoneme. At this stage of foreign
language learning, it is not uncommon to have the experience of understand-
ing the rules (e.g., with respect to word order, verb conjugations, etc.), while
lacking the ability to apply them promptly and properly in real-time conversa-
tion. Gradually, these processes become automatized to varying degrees with
practice. Before this occurs however, speech may be slow, deliberate, and full
of errors, as the fluidity at the level of meaning-planning clashes with the non-
automatic, fledgling efforts to manage the many sub-processes necessary to
produce a grammatically correct utterance and to pronounce it correctly.
This is akin to the description of the early difficulties Levin experienced in
calibrating the balancing act between his mind and his fingers presented in
Chapter 6. As described there, Levin recalled that in early attempts at impro-
vising, efforts to exercise too much control over what he was doing inevitably
failed. Trying to think about the level of the structural referent in performance
was in conflict with the much more rapid and subconscious decision-making
that needed to occur at the note-to-note level in the heat of the moment.
Mirroring Levin's description, Michael Paradis describes the situation of the
speaker of a foreign language learned through instruction as follows:
Contrary to implicit linguistic competence, explicit grammatical knowledge is not
available automatically in the unconscious processes involved in the microgenesis of a
 SPEAKING AND IMPROVISING: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES 1149

sentence ... the production of utterances from conscious and deliberate application
of explicitly known grammatical rules could not be performed on-line at the normal
rate of speech while at the same time selecting the lexical items [i.e., words] and apply-
ing phonological rules [i.e., rules for the production and combination of sounds] . 9
The speaker may either use automatic processes or controlled processes, but not both
at the same time ... even if one were able to produce an utterance automatically while
at the same time accessing metalinguistic knowledge [e.g., explicit knowledge of rules],
that metalinguistic knowledge could not be integrated into the automatic microgen-
esis of the utterance. An attempt to do so would interfere with the automatic process,
and the process would break down ... Implicit competence cannot be placed under
the conscious control of explicit knowledge. 10

Similarly, to use Levin's words, the improviser who attempts to control automatic
processes may "flail," and the improviser who submits entirely to them may be led
astray and "get nonsense." The "letting go" to "accept a certain amount of disorder"
thus implies a delicate balancing act between being a "creator" and a "witness." 11
In data from linguistic production experiments, it appears that, analogously,
a balance must be struck between planning and maintaining continuity of the
flow of spontaneous speech. 12 One solution to such a balance in spoken lan-
guage is preformulation, "reducing processing costs by producing phrases used
before." 13 It is estimated that approximately 70 percent of spoken language
relies on recurrent word combinations. 14 Similarly in musical improvisation,
formulas or schemata are a large part of the currency of improvisational practice
and pedagogy, as has been a recurrent theme throughout the previous chapters.
As Pressing has described, prerehearsed formulas that can be produced auto-
matically allow for the allocation of attention to higher levels of improvisational
planning (discussed throughout Chapters 1-5).
From the theoretical perspectives of component processes and their relative
accessibility to consciousness, spontaneous speech and musical improvisation
thus appear to have much in common. To what extent do linguistic and musical
production share neurobiological substrates?

9 Ibid., 399.
10 Ibid., 404 (emphasis in original).
11 These quotations are drawn from the interviews with Levin quoted in Chapter 6.
12 For review, see Eysenck and Keane, 404.
13 Ibid., 403.
14 Ibid., 403.
150 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 11: PRODUCTION

Speaking and improvising: Neurobiological

perspectives
As described in Chapters 1 and 5, comparisons between music and language
have focused predominantly on perception of these two sound systems and on
the sound systems themselves, and far less on production. The literature on
perception is not without controversy: while some argue for distinct modules
for music and language in the brain, 15 others argue that these domains share
neural processing resources. 16 Paters shared syntactic integration resource
hypothesis (SSIRH) offers one potential compromise that explains much of
the data used to support both sides of the debate. In SS I RH, Pate! proposes
that representations of music and language may be housed in separate regions
of the brain, but that the brain areas that process these two types of representa-
tion likely overlap. 17 Could it be that the areas involved in musical and linguis-
tic production also overlap?
The brain imaging study that I conducted with Daniel Ansari, presented in
Chapter 7, examined the neural correlates of musical production, i.e., the gen-
eration of novel musical sequences. The principal finding of this study was that
whether improvisation is rhythmic or melodic, a core network including the
dorsal premotor cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and inferior frontal gyrus is
involved. How does this network compare to the network(s) involved in anal-
ogous processes in linguistic production?
Three recent brain-imaging studies explored spontaneous speech. Basho
et al. (2007) used category-driven word generation (subjects were prompted
with a category, e.g., "body parts,', and asked to spontaneously speak members
of the category); 18 Abrahams et al. (2003) asked subjects to list words begin-
ning with a given letter; 19 Brown et al. (2006) asked subjects to complete

15 For review and discussion, see: I. Peretz and M. Coltheart, "Modularity of Music
Processing," Nature Neuroscience 6 (2003 ): 688-691; I. Peretz, "The Nature of Music
From a Biological Perspective," Cognition100 (2006): 1-32; G. Schellenberg and I. Peretz,
"Music, Language and Cognition: Unresolved Issues," Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12
(2007): 45-46.
16 For review and discussion, see: Aniruddh D. Pate!, "Language, Music, Syntax and the
Brain," Nature Neuroscience 6 (2003): 674-681 and Music, Language, and Brain (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
17 lbid.
18 S. Basho et al., "Effects of Generation Mode in fMRI Adaptations of Semantic Fluency:
Paced Production and Overt Speech," Neuropsychologia 45 (2007): 1697-1706.
19 S. Abrahams, et al., "Functional Magnetic lmaging of Verbal Fluency and Confrontation
Naming Using Compressed Image Acquisition to Permit Overt Responses," Human Brain
Mappi11g20 (2003): 29-40.
 SPEAKING AND IMPROVISING: NEUROBIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES j151

sentences (e.g., "August was the best month for them to take the Spanish
course in Peru because_ _"). 20
All three of these studies revealed activity in the three regions found to be
involved in improvisation in our study (dorsal premotor cortex, anterior cin-
gulate cortex, and inferior frontal gyrus), among other regions. Additional
regions found to be involved in these studies may reflect language-specific
processes and/or the varying degrees of difference between experimental and
control conditions in these studies. For example, Brown et al. compare sen-
tence completion to rest, which yielded activity in over fifty brain regions.
Certainly, some of these regions are likely to be involved in spontaneous
generation of verbal utterances. However, since the study comparison is
between the linguistic production task and rest, it cannot be stated with
certainty that the active brain areas are involved specifically in spontaneous
speech as opposed to non-spontaneous speech (e.g., reading, repeating, recit-
ing a memorized text), or merely in important but non-specific functions (e.g.,
attention, working memory). Comparing their sentence generation task to a
reading or repetition task could have yielded more precise insights. 21 The con-
ditions in our study and others are more closely matched, thus isolating more
specific features of experimental versus control conditions. However, this
proximity of experimental and control conditions runs the risk of potentially
subtracting out other regions that may play a role in the cognitive processes
under examination (albeit, ostensibly a role that is not significantly different
between experimental and control conditions in these studies). 22
Taken together, these results suggest that musical and linguistic spontaneous
generation (i.e., improvisation and speech) appear to share at least partially
overlapping neural substrates. As described above, Pate[ has proposed SSIRH
to reconcile the points of view of modularity versus overlap in music and lan-
guage perception. Given that musical improvisation and spontaneous linguistic

20 S. Brown et al., "Music and Language Side by Side in the Brain: A PET Study of the
Generation of Melodies and Sentences," European journal of Neuroscience 23 (2006):
2791-2803.
21 In this same study, Brown et al.'s subjects performed an improvised melodic completion
task, similar in design to their sentence completion task. In this task, subjects heard the
beginning of a melody, and vocally improvised a conclusion. As with their sentence gen-
eration task, this melodic improvisation task is compared to rest. Thus, their results dem-
onstrate extensive brain activity (approximately forty regions), and features unique to the
improvisatory aspect of the task are difficult to isolate (i.e., as opposed to activation that
could result from simply singing a rehearsed fragment or imitating a stimulus, both of
which could have served as possible control conditions for comparison in order to isolate
the improvisatory nature of their experimental task).
22 For discussion of task design in fMRI experiments, see Chapter 7.
152 I MUSIC AND LANGUAGE COGNITION COMPARED 11: PRODUCTION

production appear to involve overlapping neural networks, this suggests a

possible sharing of syntactic production resources for language and music. 23
For several reasons, however, such speculation must remain somewhat
guarded without further evidence. First, the spatial resolution of fMRI does
not allow one to see whether smaller sub~ regions of these commonly activated
brain areas participate in exclusively linguistic functions, exclusively musical
functions, or both. Second, it is possible that the same regions could be per~
forming different processing operations on the two types of auditory informa-
tion. Third, direct statistical comparisons of musical and linguistic production
tasks within individual subjects in the same experiment have not been under-
taken.24 Finally, at what level should such music-language comparisons take-
place? Is generating a short melody comparable to generating a word? A list of
words? Completion of a sentence? Future work will need to assess comparisons
of varying levels of generative activity in both domains, for example, notes and
words, melodies and phrases, and a section of music compared to a paragraph
oflanguage. As in Chapter 5, where I posited a possible overlap of acquisition
processes in the development of productive competence in language and music,
hopefully the discussion of-and preliminary evidence for-shared neural
resources for production proposed here can serve as a framework for further
research in this area.

23Moreover, in the inferior frontal gyrus, an overlap of processing and production may
exist; see Chapter 7 for discussion.
24 When musical and linguistic production were examined side by side in the study of Brown

et al., a mixture of overlap and non overlap resulted, and the authors posited overlap of
acoustic input, generativity, and motor output, but distinct representations for the two
modalities. However, the lack of a direct comparison between music and language tasks
leaves open the possibility that differences in brain activity between their musical and
linguistic tasks were not statistically significant. Moreover, since both tasks were com-
pared to rest, the ability to attribute activity specifically to the generative aspect of their
tasks is severely compromised, as is the ability to attribute musical generativity to regions
found to be active during their tasks (i.e., as opposed to simply vocal (including non-
musical) production). See also footnote 21 of this chapter.
Additionally, both tasks were vocal, and so the tasks could show activity in common
regions for that reason. In our task, subjects improvised with the right hand, and parts of
the active network of brain regions was still similar in location to the activation seen in
vocal linguistic production tasks in other experiments (though see footnote 18 of Chapter
7). This provides firmer evidence for the neural overlap of musical and linguistic produc-
tion networks posited by Brown et al. in their discussion.
 Chapter 9

Cadenza

[T]l1e whole cadenza should be more like a fantasia which has been fashioned out of cm
abundance offeeling, rather than a methodically constructed composition ... Variety-
! would even like to say an apparent disorder (It seems to me that one can in a fitting
moment appear to be careless in an artful and considered manner) makes tl1e cadenza
engaging and appropriate.
-Daniel Gottlob Tiirk, 1789 1

. a fundamental principle [in crafting cadenzas in the style of a composer]: One cannot
attempt to write or improvise a cadenza without n precise command of the melodic,
harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary of tl1e composer.
-Robert Levin, 1989 2

These two quotations about cadenzas recall the dichotomies in the opening
discussion of the Prelude: TUrk describes the cadenza as disordered rather than
methodically constructed, but still artful and considered. Levin describes the
necessity of precise command and analysis, though in other contexts, he too
has described the experience of improvising as having some degree of disorder
(see Chapter 6). In this chapter, I will examine a case study: the improvisation
of cadenzas in the style ofWolfgang Amadeus Mozart. What do the pedagogi-
cal treatises of the middle-to-late eighteenth century say about cadenzas?
What insights can be gleaned from Mozart's own cadenzas? How does Robert
Levin conceive of his cadenzas in the Mozart style? Finally, how has Robert
Levin interfaced with these models, and how does this knowledge manifest in
his improvised cadenzas? 3

1 Daniel Gottlob Ti.irk, School of Clavier Playing, or, Instructions in Playing the Clavier for
Teachers and Students, Leipzig and Halle, 1789, trans. Raymond H. Haggh (Lincoln,
NB: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 301.
2 Robert Levin, "Instrumental Ornamentation, Improvisation and Cadenzas," in
Performance Practice: Music After 1600, ed. Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie
(London: Macmillan Press, 1989), 284.
3 While Robert Levin is not the only performer to write and improvise cadenzas, he is
likely the only one who has recorded, written about, and published cadenzas. His work
thus serves as a nexus for the examination of these varying types of interaction with the
cadenza, both artistic and scholarly.
154 I CADENZA

Through this case study, the threads developed in previous chapters (trea-
tises, models, learning, performance, and cognition) can be brought together to
explore this particular type of improvisation. Each thread provides insights into
the prerequisite knowledge necessary for improvising in this form and style, the
acquisition of that knowledge, and its manifestations in performance, provid~
ing answers to the three questions about musical knowledge posed on page xv
of the Prelude with respect to cadenza improvisation. As discussed in the chap~
ters on the treatises and in the accounts oflearning to improvise, models are key
elements in the transmission of style. In this chapter, I will explore the relation~
ship between models (Mozart's composed cadenzas for the first movement of
his Piano Concerto in E~, K. 271) and improvisations based on them (from
three recordings of improvised cadenzas to this same concerto movement by
Robert Levin). Like a cadenza, then, this chapter draws on the themes devel-
oped thus far to show the ways in which they relate in this specific context.

Cadenza pedagogy in the eighteenth century

According to the Grove Dictionary of Music, "the most comprehensive theory
of the cadenza in the eighteenth century is found in D.G. Turk's Clavierschule
(1789)." 4 Turk's chapter on cadenzas will thus serve as the focal point for the
examination of cadenza pedagogy in the late eighteenth century.

Definition of cadenza
TUrk defines the cadenza as "extempore embellishments which are found
before a full close (cadence) in the main voice and which conclude imed~
ately before the final tone with a tril1." 5 This definition is similar to the slightly
more elaborated definition from the Grove Dictionary of Music, approximately
200 years later:
A virtuoso passage inserted near the end of a concerto movement or aria, usually indi-
cated by the appearance of a fermata over an inconclusive chord such as the tonic 6-4.
Cadenzas may either be improvised by a performer or written out by the composer ..
. In a broad sense the term 'cadenza' can refer to simple ornaments on the penultimate
note of a cadence, or to any accumulation of elaborate embellishments inserted near
the end of a section or at fermata points. 6

4 Eva Badura-Skoda et al., "Cadenza," in Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http: //w¥,n.v. ox fa rd m usi co nl in e .co m/subscriberI art ide/grove/ m usic/4 3 02 3 (a ccesse d
August 30, 2008).
5 TUrk 1789 trans. Raymond H. Haggh, 297.
6 E. Badura-Skoda et al. (Grove Online).
 CADENZA PEDAGOGY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1155

TUrk's guidelines for cadenzas

Ti.irk lays out "the most important requirements of a good cadenza by means
of rules." These rules are largely aesthetic, and in all cases quite general:
l .... [T]he cadenza ... should particularly reinforce the impression the composition has
made in a most lively way and present the most important parts of the whole composi-
tion in the form of a brief summary or in an extremely concise arrangement .

2. The cadenza ... must consist not so much of intentionally added difficulties as of such
thoughts which are scrupulously suited to the main character of the composition .

3. Cadenzas should not be too long .. .

4.... [M]odulations into other keys ... either do not take place at all ... or they must
be used with much insight ... only in passing ... originally the harmony of the six-
four chord and in any case the triad that follows it were the basis of the cadenza, but
in our time these harmonic confines are probably too narrow. One can modulate;
only one should not remain in neighboring keys so long that the feeling for the main
key is extinguished.

5. Just as unity is required for a well-ordered whole, so also is variety necessary ...

6. No thought should be often repeated in the same key or in another.

7. Every dissonance which has been included ... must be properly resolved.

8. A cadenza does not have to be erudite, but novelty, wit, an abundance of ideas and
the like are so much more its indispensable requirements ...

9. The same tempo and meter should not be maintained throughout the cadenza; its
individual fragments ... must be ski\lfully joined to one another ...

10. A cadenza which perhaps has been learned by memory with great effort or has been
written out before should be performed as if it were merely invented on the spur of
the moment. 7

It is hard to imagine that the same novice who began at the beginning of
TUrk's volume by learning the names of the notes and proper scale fingerings
would have the requisite musical skills and background to improvise a cadenza
based on these general aesthetic considerations alone. Clearly aware of this,
Ti.irk provides five model examples, introduced as follows:
Ifl include a number of cadenzas of varying character at this point, it is merely to show
the arrangements of cadenzas in more detail through these examples. It follows from
the above rules that it is impossible to design patterns which can be used or imitated
in all cases. Agricola writes in Tosi's Anleitrmg zur Singkunst ... on p. 203: "\Vhoever

7 TUrk 1789, trans. Raymond H. Haggh, 298-301.

156 I CADENZA

has carefully thought over what has already been said will see that it is hardly possible
to prescribe good cadenzas that can be generally applied, as little as it is possible to
teach someone to memorize flashes of wit beforehand. For the former and the latter
are partly inspired and partly determined by circumstances and occasion. Through
diligent reading and observation of the flashes of wit of others, however, one can
awaken and sharpen one's own wit, just as others can keep it in order through the
directions of reason." 8

After presenting the models, Tiirk explains "space does not permit the inclu-
sion of a cadenza for each of the above ten rules. Several rules could not be
illustrated by a cadenza-for example the first and the second-without a
preceding composition .... " 9 Tiirk also provides a few "very excellent exam-
ples of poor cadenzas," following them with an explanation of how they violate
his aforementioned rules.
As Philip Whitmore summarizes," ... recommendations of didactic authors
describe not so much the type of cadenza that was actually heard, but rather
the ideal cadenza as they conceived it." 10 Merely presenting five models and a
detailed presentation of their aesthetic considerations provides only very lim-
ited material from which an amateur could learn to improvise cadenzas. For
example, from where would the student have learned the requisite harmonic
progressions, chords, and techniques of modulation to which TUrk refers in
rule four? Tiirk does not discuss these elements in this treatise, and, as men-
tioned above, the treatise appears to be geared toward amateurs with hardly
any background at all. Perhaps it was the case that the teachers using Turk's
manual would have provided additional examples and filled in the gaps in
harmonic training for their students. Indeed, TOrk devotes several paragraphs
to the qualities of a good teacher in the beginning of his treatise, 11 and one can
imagine that a novice using the treatise would have had his/her education
substantially supplemented by the teacher with whom he or she studied.
Additionally, more general aspects of style and figuration would have presum-
ably been internalized through exposure to repertoire (both learned and
heard), as well as through hearing the improvisations of others. The treatises,

8 Ibid., 302.
9 Ibid., 303. TUrk uses a similar strategy in his subsequent chapter on extempore embellish-
ment, elaboration, and variation, listing general aesthetic considerations followed by an
example of an embellished theme.
10
Phi lip Whitmore, Unpremeditated Art: The Cadenza in the Classical Keyboard Concerto
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 33.
11
Ti.irk 1789, trans. Raymond H. Haggh, 17-18.
 MODELS: MOZART'S CADENZAS 1157

however, appear to be largely silent on this aspect of training, providing

models rather than explanations. 12
Examining the way in which Robert Levin learned to improvise cadenzas in
the Mozart style using Mozart's cadenzas as models offers one window into the
relationship between models, learning, and improvised performance. For
Levin, Mozarfs own cadenzas served as models, as he describes here: "In order
to develop the ability to improvise a Mozart cadenza, we must study Mozart's
own examples to derive a working model of what that cadenza should be."13
Thus, I now turn to a study ofMozart's composed cadenzas.

Models: Mozart's cadenzas

Background
A musician wishing to learn to improvise a cadenza in the Mozart style finds
himself or herself in the fortunate situation of having no less than fifty-two
cadenzas written by the composer to use as models. In fact, as Levin notes, "No
composer left more written cadenzas than Mozart." 14 The purpose ofMozart's
having written these cadenzas has been debated. While some scholars believe
that Mozart wrote these cadenzas to provide models for students, 15 others
posit that Mozart wrote them for his own personal use. 16 Advocates of
the former position point to the fact that Mozart, an extraordinary improviser
by all accounts, would have had no need for such written-out cadenzas in
performance. Those in favor of the latter view cite evidence that these
cadenzas were not very widely circulated, as they ostensibly would have been
if Mozart intended for them to be used by others. Whatever their original
purpose(s), these cadenzas allow for insights into how Mozart conceived of the
cadenza.

12 For further discussion of models in the pedagogy ofimprovisation, see Chapter 3, "Models
and the acquisition of style."
13 Robert Levin, "Improvisation and Embellishment in the Mozart Piano Concertos,"
Musical Newsletter 5 (1975): 11.
14 Robert Levin 1989,280.
15 Frederick Neumann, Omamentation and Improvisation in Mozart (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986), 257-258; Robert Levin, personal communication.
16 Christoph Wolf£, "Zur Chronologie der Klavierkonzert-Kadenzen Mozarts," Mozart-
]ahrbuch (1978-79): 235-246 and "Cadenzas and Styles of Improvisation in Mozart's
Piano Concertos," in Perspectives on Mozart Performance, ed. R. Larry Todd and Peter
Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991 ), 228-238. This point of view is
defended by Whitmore on p. 128.
158 I CADENZA

Structure
Models extrapolated from the study of these cadenzas can be found in various
sources; 17 these essentially share the following sequence of sections, described
here by Robert Levin:
1. Introduction (optional): pasge~ work of a bar or more that provides a virtuoso
springboard for what follows , .

2. First section, often derived from the primary group. Care is taken to remove har-
monic stability from the quoted materiaL This is usually done by avoiding the root
position tonic triad, whose presence would immediately destroy the tension of the
initial6-4 with fermata , , . The first section leads to an arrival on V7 or on the tonic
6-4; this is often underscored by a fermata, and an optional bridge of passage-work
leads to the second section.

3. Second section, often derived from the secondary group. Again the stability of root
position tonic is usually avoided, and non modulating sequences are sometimes made
chromatic (or more chromatic) ... Like the first section, the second culminates in a
clear arrival, here on the tonic 6-4, elaborated by passage-work and a fermata.
Sometimes the dominant note appears alone (with octave doubling), but it is clear
that 11, not dominant, is meant.

4. Conclusion: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the cadenza. 18

In the same vein as this schematic description, musicologist Danuta Mirka

summarizes that:
... [The] cadence ofMozart's cadenzas forms an elaborated schema in the sense
proposed by Robert Gjerdingen: it displays an orderly structure of successive
elements, each of them defined as to its harmonic content, bass line, contour, and
direction of the melodic motion as well as rhythmic profile determined by the
uniform speedy ascent. 19

Noting, however, that the cadenzas transcend their structural elements, she
describes that they are:
... best understood not as a succession of sections but rather as a mobile construction
based on a handful of textural units-passagework, thematic reminiscence, cadence-
freely configured according to the performer's fancy with the tonal harmonic
constraints fixed by the orchestral six-four immediately receding the cadenza. 20

17
Eva and Paul Badura-Skoda, Interpreting Mozart on the Keyboard, trans. Leo Black (New
York: St. Martin's Press, 1962), 215-216; Robert Levin 1989, 283-284.
18
Robert Levin 1989,283-284.
19 Danuta Mirka, "The Cadence of Mozart's Cadenzas," Journal of Musicology 22
(2005): 303.
20 Ibid., 323.
 MODELS: MOZART'S CADENZAS I 159

Indeed, the cadenzas left by Mozart have been praised for their "compositional
richness" by music theorist William Drabkin, who notes that "they are far
more than a succession of ideas elegantly strung together; they give every indi-
cation of being thoughtfully, purposefully worked out." 21
Here I will examine cadenzas from the first movement of Mozart's Piano
Concerto in Eb Major, K. 271. I chose this particular movement of this con-
certo because there are two extant cadenzas written by Mozart, and because I
had access to three recordings of improvised cadenzas from this concerto by
Levin. Mozart's two cadenzas provide the opportunity for comparison, as do
the three of Levin. Analyzing Levin's improvisations in the context ofMozart's
cadenzas offers further insights into the relationship of Levin's cadenzas to
those of his teacher, namely Mozart by way of models.
To understand the make-up of these cadenzas, the materials from the first
movement of this concerto that appear in Mozart's and Levin's cadenzas must
be presented (Figures 9.1 to 9.7):

Fig. 9.1 Opening Fanfare, orchestra and solo piano (mm. 1-6).

Fig. 9.2a First theme continues, orchestra (mm. 7-11).

21 William Drabkin, "An Interpretation of Musical Dreams: Towards a Theoryofthe Mozart

Piano Concerto Cadenza," in Wo/fgang Amade Mozart: Essays on his Life and his Music,
ed. Stanley Sadie (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 177.
160 I CADENZA

Fig. 9.2b Piano version of the material of 9.2a in development section (mm. 148-156).

Fig. 9.3 Bass arpeggios accompanied by active passagework as transition to second

theme group in the orchestra (mm. 14-18). This material recurs in mm.182-188 in
the piano in the development section.

Fig. 9.4a Second theme group, first theme, orchestra (mm. 26-33).
 MODELS: MOZART'S CADENZAS 1161

r:~= J
!
. J J
J
J .
!
J
J J .! l .!

Fig. 9.4b Second theme group, first theme, solo piano (mm. 88-95).

Fig. 9.5a Second theme group, second theme, orchestra (mm. 34-41 ).

Fig. 9.Sb Second theme group, second theme, solo piano (mm. 96-1 03).

A
~-· .. ~
'•t t t ~

·~

'
~-i . •.
"
-
' -- ••• ~;of ~

Fig. 9.6 Piano transitional figure based on opening fanfare (mm. 69-75); Recurs in
development mm. 162-182.
162 I CADENZA

Fig. 9.7 Pre·cadenza closing figure, orchestra (mm. 288-292).

Mozart's cadenzas to the first movement of K. 271:

Nr. 16 (Figure 9.8) and Nr. 15 (Figure 9.9)
Mozart's cadenzas to the first movement of K. 271 are catalogued as KV
624/626', Nr. 3a; KV 6 Nr. 16 and KV 624/626', Nr. 3; KV 6 Nr. IS (Figures 9.8
and 9.9). For brevity, they will be referred to as Nr. 16 (the earlier cadenza) and
Nr. IS (the later cadenza). For all cadenza analyses, 1 will use the framework of
the four sections as delineated by Levin above. In the analyses, I refer to the
thematic material by its figure number from the list of material from the con-
certo movements presented above (i.e., "Figure 9.1 material," "Figure 9.2
material," etc.).

Cadenzas Nr. 16 and Nr. 15

1. Introduction (optional): passage-work of a bar or more
Both begin with a motive based on the material that immediately preceded
the cadence (Figure 9.7), 22 with slightly different harmonies and chord voic-
ings. This motive itself is based on the opening fanfare (Figure 9.1).
2. First section, often derived from the prim my group
Both of Mozart's cadenzas then place the bass arpeggio motive of Figure 9.3
in the left hand, accompanied by arpeggiated sixteenth note passagework in
the right hand (Nr. IS's bass is one octave lower). In m. 8, the two cadenzas
diverge.

Cadenza Nr. 16 continued

In m. 8 ofNr. 16, the hands trade figures for one more two-measure iteration
of the preceding motive with accompanimental figuration. This is followed by
two measures of scale passagework and two measures of sixteenth notes alter-
nating between the hands. This leads into a four-measure passage in which

22 As also noted by E. and P. Badura-Skoda, 216.

 MOZART'S CADENZAS TO THE FIRST MOVEMENT OF K. 271 1163

i.;
~

·_r:_ ·.: - ~·?

:- ~-

~.;
"-
.. j
·•
~: ;~- ~"-'§g=Efi:!_¥
•f ~ ~ r• [~{ e: :• a-

. .
I j
Fig. 9.8 Mozart's Cadenza to First Movement of Piano Concerto K. 271, KV
624/626', Nr. 3a; KV' Nr. 16.

sighing figures are passed from the right hand to the left, first in eighth notes
(mm. 14-15), then in a variation on this in sixteenth notes (mm. 16-17).
Chromatic passagework, first descending, then ascending, leads to Eh in the
highest register ofMozart's piano, before leaping to a tripled Bb several octaves
below (m. 20), ushering in the closing flourish.

(;SE -. El

r:TI :a~[
); -: ;I - t 'ff:

Fig. 9.9 Mozart's Cadenza to First Movement of Piano Concerto K. 271, KV

624/626'. Nr. 3; KV 6 Nr. 15.
164 I CADENZA

4. Conclusion: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the
cadenza
From this Bb, an ascending diatonic scale returns to the high Eb, then
descends through the notes of an F7 chord (V7 of V) with trills on each note.
This leads to the closing trill in the right hand over a dominant seventh chord
in the left hand.

Cadenza Nr. 15 continued

At their divergence in m. 8, Nr. 15 maintains the relationship of the hands and
continues through alternation of V and I with a diatonically descending bass
accompanying right hand arpeggios. A sudden arrest of motion on fiii, the
highest key ofMozart's instrument, occurs in m. 12. This is followed by
descending passagework in sixteenth notes, which leads to an ascending chro-
matic scale in a written-out rallentando: triplets to eighth notes to two fermatas
on the final notes of m. 16. This leads to the second section.
3. Seco11d section, often derived from the secondmy group
The arrival on EP in measure 17 begins a statement of the second theme of
the second theme group (Figure 9.5). After four measures, the upward
appoggiatura figure from this theme is developed in sequence with octave dis-
placement, then diminution and sequence with octave displacement. In mm.
26-29, Mozart alternates an augmented sixth chord with a minor tonic, finally
landing on tonic 6-4 in m. 29. From here a sequential figure descends to a
doubled Bb, from which the closing flourish comes forth.
4. Conclusion: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the
cadenza
As in Cadenza Nr. 16, an ascending diatonic scale passage to EP at the top of
Mozart's piano follows. In this case, however, it then proceeds directly to the
cadential trill after a brief pause.
As observed by Neumann, "the second [i.e., Nr. 15] is a considerably
improved reworking of the first. The second version for the first movement is
already a sample of the Mozartian cadenza at its matchless best ... " 23 The form
and contents of the second cadenza (Nr. 15) thus demonstrate a full-fledged
example of the type of cadenza from which the above model was abstracted by
Levin and others. Nr. 16 represents a shorter, less developed cadenza begin-
ning and ending in a similar fashion to Nr. 15, but lacking a section devoted to
the second theme group.

23 Neumann, 257.
 ROBERT LEVIN'S MOZART CADENZAS 1165

Robert Levin's Mozart cadenzas

In an article on improvisation in Mozart's piano concertos, Levin lays out the
necessary prerequisites for learning to improvise cadenzas in the Mozart style:
l. Clear picture of the thematic, structural, and harmonic shapes, large and small, in
the relevant movement;

2. An abstract knowledge ofMozart's harmonic vocabulary-knowing the specific

chords he does and does not use ...
3. The proposed length of the cadenza ... [T]his can be calculated by comparing the
surviving Mozart cadenzas with their appropriate movements.

In addition we must develop control over the ... alternation of fantasy and the
tonic six-four. This cannot be symmetrical or mechanical: if it is, no tension will
germinate. Study the Mozart cadenzas carefully; after making several written
attempts, try increasingly ambitious efforts at the keyboard with, and eventually
without, prepared sketches. 24

Levin's first prerequisite mirrors TUrk's first rule, and his third mirrors
TUrk's third. Levin also mentions the necessary harmonic vocabulary, alluded
to only obliquely by Turk when he discusses modulation and dissonance. For
Ti.irk's readers in the eighteenth century, such knowledge must have been
commonly understood; Levin must remind his readers that such stylistic
features need to be actively studied today. Levin advises his readers to first
learn to write, then to work from sketches, and finally, to make attempts at
improvising cadenzas without writing anything beforehand. This process
seems akin to one possible progression in instructed foreign language learning.
Instruction and analysis can provide the tools to craft utterances when the
demands of real-time processing are absent (writing). Attempting to speak
from a prepared outline can facilitate the transition to free communication.
Finally, fluidity and fluency are achieved through practice in real-world
communication situations.
Levin states, "In analyzing the relationship between a concerto and its sur-
viving cadenzas it is possible to discern how one has spawned the other."25
Here I will examine not only how the concerti spawned Levin's cadenzas, but
how Mozart's own cadenzas may have found their way into his knowledge
base. That is, how does the knowledge gleaned from the models manifest in the
moment of performance?

24 Robert Levin 1975, 12.

25 Robert Levin 1989,284.
166 I CADENZA

Notes on the transcriptions

What follow are my transcriptions and analyses of three of Levin's improvised
cadenzas to the first movement ofMozart's Concerto in Eb, K. 271. They are
labeled as follows: Levin 1 (Figure 9.10) is from his 1994 recording on the
Editions de l'Oiseau-Lyre label, 26 Levin 2 (Figure 9.11) is from a performance
at the Century of Bach and Mozart Conference held in honor of Christoph
Wolff at Harvard University in September 2005,27 and Levin 3 (Figure 9.12) is
from a performance in Levin's Mozart Concerto Course at Harvard College in
the fall semester of 2005. 28
As anyone who has heard Levin perform knows, his playing is highly flexible,
and thus his rhythms would be very difficult to notate precisely. I have opted to
notate these transcriptions as Mozart would have notated them to convey what
Levin appears to have played in as clear a fashion as possible. The fast passage-
work is often notated in uniform note values as they would be notated in
Mozart' s cadenzas, though the notated speed is not always in proportion to the
rest of the cadenza, and the passagework itself is played flexibly by Levin (i.e., it
is not always played at one consistent speed, as it is notated). Finally, I have not
attempted to notate dynamics. Since the analyses focus on the materials used in
relation to the concerto movement, I hope that these simplifications in tran-
scription will allow for clarity, and provide the reader with a sense of what Levin
improvised in these cadenzas if one does not have access to the recordings.

Levin 1 (Figure 9.1 0)

2. First section, often derived from the primary group
Foregoing optional opening passagework, Levin launches directly into the
transitional material of Figure 9.6. Beginning in m. 6, the right hand leaps
below the left for trills, as occurs in the development section of the concerto
movement (from m. 162). Levin then drops the arpeggio in m. 7, leaving only

26 Robert Levin, Christopher Hog\•mod, and Academy of Ancient Music, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9 in Eb Major, K. 271 and Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major,
K. 414, Editions de l'Oiseau-Lyre 443 328-2, 1994.
27 Robert Levin, Christopher Hogwood, and Orchestra of the Handel and Haydn Society,
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No.9 in Eb Major, K. 271, performed at The
Cwtury ofBach and Mozart Conference in honor of Christoph Wolff at Harvard University,
recording held by Loeb Music Library, Harvard University, CD30661, September 24,
2005.
28 Robert Levin and Harvard Students, performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mazart Piano
Concerto No.9 in Eb Major, K. 271 in "Lecture 7" Harvard University Course "Literature
and Arts B-52: Mozart's Piano Concertos," Sanders Theater, Harvard University,
Cambridge MA, October 31,2005.
it:':::tffE fEf!:J: f:€2~

Fig. 9.10 Levin 1, transcription of an improvised cadenza from the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto in Eb, K. 271 from a 1994 recording on
the Editions de I'Oiseau-lyre label.
168 I CADENZA

leaping between the trill figure and single sustained half-notes above, which
form a descending line from El> to Bb. Soon the trill too disappears (m. 11),
yielding single quarter-notes that jump between the bass and treble, creating a
descending line above and an ascending one below. The arrival by way ofV7 of
V to V in m. 13 marks a change in texture, with sequential figuration in the
right hand accompanied by a descending line in the left hand. After reaching
the highest note of the piano of Mozart's time (fiii; m. 16), Levin descends
through passagework to a series of trill figures that land on an arpeggiation of
the dominant seventh chord and a fermata (m. 20). This is followed directly by
the second section beginning in m. 21.
3. Second section, often derived from the secondary group
In this section, the second theme from the second theme group is explored
(Figure 9.5). Its upward appoggiatura motive is developed through octave
displacement and sequence in mm. 25-27 (as in mm. 21-23 of Mozart's
Cadenza Nr. 15) and then diminution to eighth notes in mm. 28-29. These
eighth notes descend to an arrival of the motive of Figure 9.3 in the left hand
and arpeggios in the right hand in m. 30 (as in both ofMozart's cadenzas from
m. 4). After stating this motive on V and V/V, Levin descends in the bass using
a dotted figure (similar to mm. 10-12 in Mozart's Cadenza Nr. 15) with V and
I alternating in arpeggios in the right hand. This gives way in m. 36 to a series
of descending scales interrupted by large upward leaps, followed by arpeggios
in the right hand with half-note octaves in the left hand. This passagework
closes on the tonic six-four chord in m. 44 byway of an augmented sixth chord
(a chord that is also prominent in mm. 26-28 ofMozart's Cadenza Nr. 15).
The closing passagework begins with a diatonic ascending scale that leads into
the closing sequence used at the end of Cadenza 15. The sequence descends to
B~ of I~, announcing the arrival of the concluding flourish.
4. Conclusio11: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the
cadenza
From~. a diatonic scale ascends to Eb at the top of Mozart's piano's range,
which is followed by the closing trill.

Levin 2 (Figure 9.11)

1. Introduction (optional): passage-work of a bar or more
Introductory diatonic passagework leads to the first section, which begins
inm.4.
2. First section, often derived from the primary group
This section begins with the material of Figure 9.2, with the left hand
entry quoting the motive of Figure 9.3 (as in the left hand in the first measure
1=21]
lb :1~
~·"TEWf
-~

lb!;'r'&
~§lr: 'Pr••m.~' l!_.fm 'j
'

i'~Hfr
•s.H'
(~.: . r
&"&[o/lii
[r' ..
::
.
[;f
.· J2 -<"rf -1

1t:zme~a
Fig. 9.11 Levin 2, transcription of an improvised cadenza from the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto in E~. K. 271 from a 2005 performance at
Sanders Theater of Harvard University as part of a conference on Bach and Mozart in honor of Christoph Wolff.
170 I CADENZA

of Figure 9.2b). With a leap to DHn m. 9, the tail-end descending figure of this
melody is developed, with continued upward leaping and increasing rhythmic
activity to the highest key ofMozart's piano (fiH) for a trill-like figure between
F and E in m. 13. This leads to a descent to m. 14's arpeggios in the right hand
and the motive of Figure 9.3 in the left hand (as in both ofMozart's cadenzas
at m. 4 and Levin 1 at m. 30). This passage passes through 1-V-i-bVI to a
sequential bass (up a second/down a third), followed by a diatonic ascent in
the bass.
Then, an abrupt halt on Cb in the bass (m. 22) sends the right hand
into an agitated augmented sixth arpeggio up to the highest range of the piano.
The left hand responds by resolving the augmented sixth chord to a Bb octave
(m. 24), after which Levin plays an ascending sequential diatonic scalar figure,
a dotted eighth-sixteenth leaping arpeggiation of the V7 chord, and then a
descent through a scalar sequential passage that leads directly into the second
section.
3. Second section, ojte11 derived from the secondary group
This section begins with the material of Figure 9.4 in m. 30. After playing this
four-bar theme, Levin begins a sort ofrecitative at the end of m. 33 that pro-
gressively gets more excited with arpeggio figures, until these arpeggios finally
take over entirely, bringing the cadenza to the descending sequential figure of
Mozart's Cadenza Nr.lS in m. 40. This sequence descends to land on BD ofi1,
leading to the conclusion.
4. Conclusion: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the
cadenza
Scalar passagework (first diatonic and then chromatic) culminates on a high
Eb, as does the passagework in Mozart's Cadenza Nr. 15. This is followed by the
closing trill.

Levin 3 (Figure 9.12)

1. Introduction (optional): passage-work of a bar or more
The opening is based on the orchestral material that precedes the cadenza
(Figure 9.7), not unlike the openings of Mozart's two cadenzas for this
movement. An acceleration of the harmonic rhythm leads to an arrival on the
dominant in m. 8 for the beginning of the first section.
2. First section, often derived from the primary group
Levin begins this section with the material of Figure 9.6 as in Levin 1 (Figure 9.10),
with the right hand similarly leaping below the left for the trills. The bass trills
give way to single notes, which leap back to continued statements of the figure.
This passage comes to a halt on an arpeggiated augmented sixth chord in m. 18
lc ,.:·"~r; 8£1
~:w;l= '

Fig. 9.12 Levin 3, transcription of an improvised cadenza from the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto in E~. K. 271 from a performance in a
2005 Harvard undergraduate course on Mozart's piano concertos.
172 I CADENZA

(as in m. 22 of Levin 2 (Figure 9.11) ), which rises to the top of the instrument
before falling to the lower register, arriving through a rallentando to a fermata
on the lowest B> ofMozart's keyboard (m. 22). This fermata is followed by a
bridge of scalar passagework, which, through a chromatic close, comes to rest
on a series of fermatas outlining a V7 chord. A trill-like figure in m. 26leads to
the second section, which begins in m. 27.
3. Second section, often derived from the seconda1y group
This section begins with the first theme of the second theme group in the
tonic (Figure 9.4). This lyrical theme soon becomes agitated through rhythmic
diminution, arriving at a sequential series of downward scalar passages.
These scales are followed by ascending passagework, which leads to the com-
mon closing figure from Mozart's Cadenza 15, shared by all three of Levin's
cadenzas.
4. Conclusion: a flourish or running scale that prepares the trill, which ends the
cadenza
As in the other cadenzas, this sequential figure lands on a BP, and then
ascends to Eb by way of scalar passagework (here diatonic), before arriving at
the closing trill.

'**
These cadenzas, not surprisingly, share the common structure that Levin
elucidates, quoted earlier in the present chapter. Each cadenza draws on a
common pool of material from the concerto movement and scalar or arpeggi-
ated passagework, some of which can be related to passagework in the move-
ment, while other passagework appears to be "free." 29 In each cadenza,
however, these materials are deployed with unique variations and in novel
combinations, as summarized in Fig. 9.13. This table shows a comparison

29
Scalar and arpeggiated passagework could be related to passagework in the concerto. (For
an analysis of such relationships in Mozart's cadenza to the first movement of the Piano
Concerto in G major K. 453, see Levin 1989, 281-282.) Alternatively, as Jeff Pressing has
noted with regard to the referent as compared to passagework (which he calls "behavior
on a fast time scale" here), "The referent is an underlying formal scheme or guiding image
specific to a given piece, used by the improviser to facilitate the generation and editing
of improvised behaviour on an intermediate time scale. The generation of behaviour
on a fast time scale is primarily determined by previous training and is not very piece-
specific" (Jeff Pressing, "Cognitive Processes in Improvisation," in Cognitive Processes in
the Perception ofArt, ed. W. Ray Crozier and Anthony J. Chap man (Amsterdam: Elsevier,
1984), 346).
 Passage- First theme group Second theme group Closing
work flourish

Mozart 1 3 4-12 13-16 17 25 26-29 29-31 32--end

Nr.15
(F;g. 9.9) Based on Fig. 9.3 Transitional Fig. 9.5 Aug. 61 Descend. Ascent
Fig 9.7 passage- Minor sequence from BD

~
work, V7 tonic
, to El>;
trill
Levin 1 1-12 13-20 21-29 ~3 34-35 36-39 40-43 44-46 46-47 48-end
(F;g. 9.10)
(None) Fig. 9.6 w/ Transitional
v·s Figure Arpegg. Descending Arpegg. Scalar Mozart's Ascent

Levin2 1 3
(F;g. 9.11) Diatonic
leaping/
elimination/
sequence

4-13
Fig. 9.2
~

\
F;~JI
passage-
work,/

14-\c21 22 23 2¥29
Aug.} "l'ransitional
30-33
Fig. 9.4
9.3

33-37
Recit.
passage-
work

37-40
Arpegg.
ascent sequence from Bl:>

40-42
toED;
trill

43-end
Mozart's Ascent
scale w/development 9.3 passage- sequence from BD
work,V7 to El:>;
trill

Levin3 1-7 8-17 18-21 22-26 27-32 32-35 36-38 39-40 41--end
(F;g. 9.12) Based on Fig. 9.6 with Aug. 6 Transitional Fig. 9.4 Descending Arpegg. Mozart's Ascent
Fig. 9.7 leaping/eliminatio't passage- passage- sequence from BP
sequence work, V7 work toED;
trill

Fig. 9.13 Table comparing Mozart's Cadenza Nr. 15 and three of Levin's improvised cadenzas to the same concerto movement (see text for discussion).
174 I CADENZA

ofMozart's Cadenza 15 and Levin's three cadenzas with respect to musical

materials. Gaps do not indicate gaps in the music, but are used to align similar
sections in the different cadenzas. Arrows demonstrate parallels between the
cadenzas.
A few notable examples of such parallels are as follows. In the openings of
Levin's Cadenzas I and 3, he begins with the material ofFigure 9.6 and progres-
sively eliminates half of it in both cadenzas, but the two cadenzas differ in which
half is eliminated: Levin keeps the bass trill and replaces the upper figure with
single notes in the former, but replaces the bass trill with single notes and keeps
the upper arpeggio motive in the latter. An augmented sixth arpeggio figure
bridges the first and second sections in Levin's Cadenzas 2 and 3. The openings
of the sections based on the second theme group in Levin's Cadenzas 2 and 3
begin with two equivalent measures, but the material is subsequently developed
in very different ways. All of Levin's cadenzas conclude with the descending fig-
ure down to Pb from Mozart's Nr. 15, followed by an ascending scale to FP, lead-
ing to the closing trill, but with variations in the nature of the scale passagework
from Pb to FP.

Conclusion
Levin's cadenza improvisations are quintessential examples of the principles of
the improvisation treatises in action. He draws from the concerto movement's
material, as well as his knowledge base of Mozartian passagework and of the
principles of transposition, variation, and development in this style to craft
unique constructions out of these elements in each performance. His ability to
instantaneously envision and execute these cadenzas reflects a richly intercon-
nected network of knowledge of both musical materials and the physical pos-
sibilities of his hands at any given moment in the improvisation. Levin (of
whom a colleague of his has said, "he has a memory like a steel trap") has
trained not only his memory, but his instant access to it, a hallmark of experM
tise (see Chapters 3 and 4 for discussion).
Based on the fMRI experiment that I conducted with Daniel Ansari as
described in Chapter 7, one can imagine that Levin has trained the network of
brain regions that we found to be active, which ostensibly work together to
generate, select, and execute novel musical-motor sequences of preMexisting
elements on the fly. Although we may be far from the day when we can ade-
quately understand the workings of the improvising mind while it is engaged
in a real-world situation with the complexityofLevin's cadenza improvisations,
the musical manifestations examined here suggest analogous processes to what
occurred in a much simpler context in our experiment.
 CONCLUSION I 175

Levin's explicit knowledge of the formal structure and implicit under-

standing of the style of Mozart's cadenzas provide signposts and constraints,
respectively. Still, the possibilities in any given moment remain infinite. Levin
states:
You've got the basic of architecturally how a cadenza works and its sectionalization
which can be abstracted from all of these cadenzas [Mozart's models] and then you
just have to accept the fact that there's going to be some disorder. 30

Both Levin and Tiirk use the word "disorder" when describing what happens
in a cadenza: for Tiirk, the aesthetics; for Levin, the feeling of spontaneously
navigating through the unknown in the heat of the moment. In cadenzas, this
feeling of disorder is indeed crucial in creating the aesthetic affect and effect.
Levin describes:
Well your blood pressure is through the roof ... it's quite fascinating to imagine what
it's like for someone in the audience to just watch you try like some kind of tonal
Houdini to get out of a box that's padlocked ... Your only obstacle is the limit to your
own imagination, and, of course, if in pulling ideas out of thin air you rely on the same
kinds of sequences or the same kinds of phrases and so on, the audience will become
sated and find the whole thing tedious. So there is, quite apart from whether it's going
to work at all, the question of whether the result of it is a true narrative ... 31

Improvised performance allows the audience members a chance to share in

the construction of the narrative before their very eyes and ears. For those who
have watched and heard Levin do this, our blood pressures also tend to rise,
wondering not only what will come next, but how he is managing to do what
he does, whether he will indeed arrive at the final trill, and how, and when!?
Indeed, recalling the vignette from the Prelude, even conductor Seiji Ozawa
was on the edge of his podium during one of Levin's improvised cadenzas.
The analyses of Levin's improvisations presented above demonstrate some of
the elements of Levin's cadenzas and how they are deployed, providing a
window into how the components and processes of his knowledge base find
manifestation in his spontaneously created art. Therein one finds order and
disorder, fulfillment of expectations and their violation, freedom and con-
straint, all within the highly characteristic style ofWolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
all drawing on the materials of the preceding concerto movement, and yet all
unique creations.

30 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10, 2007.

31 Ibid.
 Cod a

Constraints and freedom:

Improvisation in music,
language, and nature

It is not in our nature to be naively natural, without cultivated concepts and conventions.
Innate cognitive capacities and predispositions can provide only a portion of the con-
straints necessary for successful communication. The remaining constraints must be pro-
vided by wlture-by stylistic rules and strategies, and by the classes and convmtions, the
syntax and schemata through which rules and strategies are realized. Without cultural
constraints, memory is emaswlated by the momentmy; envisaging is enervated and choice
crippled by confinement to the immedinte. And to preclude all but immediate choice is to
dehumanize the human animal. Human nature without cultural nurture is mt impossi-
bility, a gmnd delusion.
-Leonard Meyerl

The diabolical imagery of the review that opened the introduction, TUrk's
discussion of disorder (Chapter 9), and the descriptions of the experience of
improvising in a wide variety of musical cultures (Chapters 6) convey a certain
mysticism surrounding improvised performance. Yet improvisation could not
occur without a system within which to function. The discussion of the use of
formulas, models, memory, a knowledge base, constraints, and recombination
of pre-existing elements throughout this dissertation may at first seem to stand
in contrast to Romantic notions of improvisation. But the term "formula" is
by no means meant to suggest that improvisation is formulaic in the pejorative
sense of the word. The mutual intelligibility of any musical style relies on the
richly interconnected network of schemas that define that style for both the
performer/composer and the listener. 2 Improvisation is constrained not only
by the musical style at hand, but by real-time performance, which requires
efficient cognitive processing and motor activity in the heat of the moment.

1
Leonard .Meyer, Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Philadelphia, PA: University
of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 349.
2 See Chapter l, "Defining Improvisation: Creativity within Constraints." For further dis-
cussion, see also Leonard Meyer, 1989; Lawrence Zbikowski, Conceptualizing Music:
Cognitive Structure, Theory, and Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002);
Robert Gjerdingen, Music in tl1e Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).
178 I CODA

Gjerdingen describes the remarkable speed with which eighteenth-century

composers wrote music:
Though the skill and invention of those composers remains impressive however
one might try to explain their abilities, there are obvious advantages that a stockpile of
"interchangeable parts" would give to the rapid, secure crafting of complex compositions. 3

This description could equally apply to the rapid invention that occurs in
improvisation.
Gjerdingen writes that the idea of"invention" in eighteenth·century cam·
position signified "the sanctioned exploitation of artful combinations," 4 and
writes of Haydn's "seemingly inexhaustible ability to arrange conventional
schemata in novel configurations." 5 This confluence of creativity and con-
straints (of both style and the moment) has been described in numerous
improvisation traditions. Consider the following quotations.
Albert Lord, describing the formulas of South Slavic epic poetry, states:
... [T]he formulas themselves are less important in understanding this oral technique
than the various underlying patterns of formulas and the ability to make phrases
according to those patterns ... [I]n speaking of"creating" phrases in performance,
we do not intend to convey the idea that the singer seeks originality or fineness of
expression. He seeks expression of the idea under stress of performance. 6

Discussing jazz forms with reference to Lord's study of epic poetry, Gregory
Smith describes:
These forms correspond, in a sense, to the themes on which an oral poet builds his
story, for like the poet's themes, they provide a flexible framework, fashioned from a
limited and recurring stock of harmonic "incidents," on which the performer spins
melodic details of his composition.7

In describing his position that Gregorian chant may have been in part impro-
vised, Leo Treitler raises the important point that:
Any account of the oral invention of plainchant, to be realistic, must look to the practical,
recognizing that in composition through performance, the primary, pervasive, and
controlling condition is the continuity of performance ... The singer does not make
sketches, he does not consult a catalogue of formulas and deliberate about which ones
he will string together, he does not have before him a skeleton outline of the melody

3 Gjerdingen 2007,51.
4 Ibid., 131.
5 Ibid., 129.
6 Lord, 44 (emphasis in original).
7 Gregory Eugene Smith, "Homer, Gregory, and Bill Evans? The Theory of Formulaic

Composition in the Context ofJazz Piano Improvisation" (PhD diss., Harvard University,
1983), 54.
 IMPROVISATION IN MUSIC, LANGUAGE, AND NATURE 1179

that he is to elaborate, and he does not go back and make revisions. He will have
planned before beginning and he will have paused at moments of articulation, quickly
thinking what should come next ... 8

In North Indian (Hindustani) music, Step hen Slawek has described:

Hindustani music-which, I would contend, is essentially improvised from start to
finish-is actually "fixed music" (one might say memorized) in the sense that the
performer has practiced and rehearsed those exact melodic or rhythmic phrases hun-
dreds, if not thousands, of times before. What makes the performance improvisat01y
is that there is freedom to construct the performance as it unfolds-the succession of
events is only loosely predetermined. 9

These quotations describing a broad range of musical traditions underscore

the reciprocal realities that improvisation cannot exist without constraints,
and that live performance will always require some degree of improvisation as
its events unfold. Improvisation needs to operate within a system even when
the resultant music transcends that system. Moreover, no performance situa~
tion-improvised or otherwise-exists in which all variables can be entirely
predetermined. As Laudan Nooshin describes regarding Iranian classical music:
... [I]mprovised performance ... transcends the simple memorization of alternative
versions of phrases and their subsequent selection and re-arrangement in perform-
ance. Embedded within the musical structures are compositional procedures which
appear to be abstracted by musicians and re-applied in the context of different musical
material ... [T]he performance tradition comprises an ever-changing kaleidoscope of
patterns in which no two musical expressions are the same. 10

Similarly, Lord suggests in his discussion of oral epic poetry, "The speaker of
this language, once he has mastered it, does not move any more mechanically
within it than we do within ordinary speech." 11
Language constrains word choice and grammar so that what one says or
writes is intelligible, yet these rules and elements still provide infinite variety
within the framework they supply. Similarly, musical formulas, along with rules
for their use, variation, and combination, represent powerful tools in both the
pedagogy and real-time performance of improvisation. These tools provide the

8 Leo Treitler, "Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant,"
The Musical Quarterly 60 (1974): 346-347.
9 Stephen Slawek, "Keeping it Going: Terms, Practices, and Processes of Improvisation in
Hindustani Music," in In the Course ofPe~rmanc: Studies in the World of Musical
Irnprovisation, ed. Bruno Nett! and Melinda Russell (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago
Press, 1998), 336-337.
10 Laudan Nooshin, "The Song of the Nightingale: Processes of Improvisation in Dastgah
Segah (Iranian Classical Music)," British Journal ofEthnomusicology 7 ( 1998): 110-111.
11 Lord, 36.
180 I CODA

basic elements and processes circumscribed by a style, but simultaneously allow

the freedom for limitless and unique musical expression through their use.
Not only are constraints a feature of all improvisation traditions, but, seem-
ingly paradoxically, these very constraints provide the freedom that is at the
heart of improvisation. The improvisers whom I interviewed for the present
study spoke about this relationship between formulas and constraints on the
one hand, and creativity on the other. For example, the following comes from
an interview with Malcolm Bilson:
AB: For ornamentation ... you've sat down and said, "Well ... you could do this or
you could do this ... " \Vhere are those coming from? ... Are those worked out? Or in
that moment it's a true invention ... ?

MB: Well, no. First of all these things are formulas ... I mean Mozart's music in a
sense is formulas, you know ... If you sort of open Mozart at random and look at any
individual measure, you see a sort of general kind of formulaic music ... It's how he
puts it together that's so extraordinary ... these formulas can be changed into other
formulas . 12

Bilson highlights not only that his improvised ornaments arise from selecting
among stylistically appropriate formulas in the given context, but that through
arranging and varying those formulas, invention and originality emerge in
both composition and improvisation.
The following discussion of originality and formulas comes from an inter-
view with Robert Levin. I approached the topic of novelty somewhat carefully,
so as to avoid the impression that I was speaking of formulas as "formulaic"
and constraints as "crutches." Many of the ellipses in my question below rep-
resent hesitation, as I gingerly broached the topic of how "novel" Levin's
improvisations truly were. Levin's reply extols the freedom paradoxically
afforded by such constraints:
AB: ... In a sense ... none of the ... it would be quite rare for the motive or musical
object in a musical improvisation ... in a live improvisation to be something .. , the
person has never played before in any session in any practice ...

RL: Right.

AB: ... Some ... are saying [that improvisers] are spontaneously stringing together
things they already know ... now I'm not belittling that ...

RL: Celebrating it! ... [T]he fact of the matter is that you are who you have been in the
process of being who you will be, and in nothing that you do will you suddenly-as an
artist or as a person-come out with something that you have never done before in
any respect. There will be quite possibly individual elements in a performance that are
wildly and pathbreakingly different from anything that you've done before, but what

12
Makolm Bilson, Interview by author, Ithaca, NY, August 12,2007.
 IMPROVISATION IN MUSIC, LANGUAGE, AND NATURE ]181

about the rest and what kind of persona and consistency of an artist would you have if
there was no way to connect these things ... ? The more you restrict yourself, the more
you liberate yourself. The whole point is that I never feel when I'm playing a Mozart
concerto,", .. This is so tough, I can't do this, and I can't do that, and I'm not allowed
to do that." When I'm playing those concertos I can do anything I want, because I've
taught myself to want to do what I'm "allowed" to do . 13

Describing improvisation as a series of moves within a constrained set of

stylistic formulas and their variants does not imply that improvisation is any-
thing less than the miraculous creative feat that most consider it to be. Similarly,
knowing that spoken language obeys rules and conforms to conventions does
not diminish the equally incredible ability of human beings to communicate
with rapidity, precision, and in myriad ways within a given linguistic system.
As the quotation from Levin exemplifies, constraints can liberate. Moreover,
in spite of-and perhaps in part due to-such constraints, the process of
improvising remains, as Levin has described, "living on the edge" and "a high
wire act." A style and its formulas-or a language and its constructions and
rules-constrain the choices available to the improviser or speaker, but the
possibilities available in each moment remain infinite. In music, as in lan-
guage, while constraints and conventions codify consistency of communica-
tion, so too do they facilitate flexibility and freedom, thus providing for the
possibility of poetry, and allowing for the achievement of art.

'**
Despite what we are encouraged to believe about the Uniformity ofNature, in fact the vast
majority of things thnt happen in the universe are in high or low degree unprecedented,
unpredictable, and never to be repeated. They are really partly fortllitous . .. What comes
to pass on one ocmsion has, with all its concomitants, origins, and details, never taken
place before and will never take place again. It may be and usually is completely
unremarkable; as unsurprising whe11 it happens as it had been unanticipated before it
happened. The world and what occurs in it are, with a few exceptions, neither like a chaos
nor yet like clockwork . .. It follows that the things that we say and do in trying to exploit,
avoid or remedy that small minority of the particular partly chance co11catenations that
happen to concern us cannot be completely pre-arranged. To a partly novel situation the
response is necessarily partly novel, else it is not a response.
~Gilbert Ryle 14

As described in previous chapters, improvisation appears to draw on domain-

general cognitive mechanisms and neural circuitry. As elegantly described by
philosopher Gilbert Ryle in the quotation above, everyday, ordinary actions
require some degree of improvisation in order to respond to new and changing

13 Robert Levin, Interview by author, Cambridge, .MA, September I 0, 2007.

14 Gilbert Ryle, "Improvisation," Mind 85, no. 337 (1976): 73.
182 I CODA

conditions, however minute these changes might be. 15 Whether it is spontaneous

conversation, taking an alternate driving route due to a detour, or adapting
our steps to the grade and characteristics of the terrain over which we walk,
spontaneous creativity within the constraints of our body, mind, environ-
ment, and their interaction is essential. The ability to improvise creative
solutions to novel scenarios is indeed a quintessential adaptive behavior if an
organism is to survive in an environment constantly in flux. This flexible
strategy is not only important at the behaviorallevel, but appears to function
all the way down to the cellular and molecular levels.
Recent work in neurobiology has sought to elucidate the connectome, the
complete connectional map of a neural circuit, or in other words, its wiring
diagram. This work has demonstrated the degree to which improvisation as a
means for adaptation occurs at the level of individual brain cells during neural
development. In a study of the development of the neural wiring of a particular
muscle in the mouse by Jeff Lichtman and his colleagues at Harvard, it was
found that the axonal branching pattern of each nerve cell supplying
the muscle was unique, even when comparing the left-sided muscle to the
right-sided muscle in the same animal. 16 That is, even when genetics and
environmental exposure are constant and when the raw structural materials
and functional goal are essentially predetermined, substantial variability
exists in how the individual elements can be combined to achieve the ultimate
outcome. As the authors of this study conclude:
[T]he variability is not a sign of lack of regulation, but rather indicates a different
developmental strategy. Instead of genetically specifying the optimal wiring diagram
for all individuals, this strategy allows a different instantiation to emerge in each case.
The value of this vertebrate innovation may be that it unfetters the structure of the
nervous system from strict genetic determinismY

Many structural variations can yield the same functional result, allowing for
nervous system development to improvise the best solution under a given set
of developmental and environmental circumstances.
Yet not only is improvisation evolutionarily adaptive, but evolution itself
can be considered improvisatory. The seemingly infinite diversity of organ-
isms results from novel combinations of genetic and molecular elements under

15 For discussion, see also R. Keith Sawyer, "The Improvisational Performance of Everyday
Life," journal of Mundane Behavior 2 (2001): 149-162.
16 Ju Lu, Juan Carlos Tapia, Olivia L. White, and JeffW. Lichtman, "The Interscutularis
Muscle Connectome," PLoS Biology 7(2009): e1000032. doi:lO.l371/journal.
pbio.1000032
17 Lu, Tapia, White, and Lichtman, 2009: 274.
 IMPROVISATION IN MUSIC, LANGUAGE, AND NATURE 1183

constraints of structure, function, and environment, some constant, some

constantly changing. Improvisation thus represents a fundamental force of
nature through which the finite becomes infinite and the elements of the
everyday can be constantly combined into new wholes greater than the sums
of their parts. Musical improvisation represents one particular instance of this
process, and its study promises to shed light on creativity, its neural correlates,
and how the two give rise to one another in the improvising mind.
 Bibliography

Primary sources
Treatises
Bach, C.P.E. Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. Berlin, 1753 (Part One)
and 1762 (Part Two). Translated and edited by William J. Mitchell. New York:
W.W. Norton, 1949.
Coni, Philip Antony. Originnl System of Preluding Comprehending instructions on that
branch ofpiano forte playing witlt upwards of two hundred progressive preludes in every
key a11d mode, and in different styles, so calculated that variety may be formed at pleasure.
London: Chappell, 1810. (In the collection of the Jean Gray Hargrove Music Library,
University of California, Berkeley.)
Czerny, Car!. A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation on the Pianoforte, Op. 200. Vienna,
1836. Translated and edited by Alice L. Mitchell. New York; Longman, 1983.
- - . The Art of Preluding, as Applied to the Piano Forte, Consisting of 120 Examples of
Modulations, Cadences, m1d Fa11tasies in Eve1y Style, Op. 300. Edited by John Bishop.
London: R. Cocks, ea. 1848. (In the collection of Nebraska Wesleyan University.)
--.Letters to a Young Lady on the Art of Playing the Pianoforte from the Earliest Rudiments
to the Highest Stage of Cultivation. Vienna, 1839. Translated by ].A. Hamilton.
New York: Firth, Pond and Co., 1851.
Gretry, Andre Ernest Modeste. Methode Simple pour Apprendre il Prtluder. Paris, 1801.
(In the collection of the Isham Library of Harvard University.)
Hewitt, ]ames. ll Introductione di Preludio, being an easy metlwd to (lcquire the art ofplaying
extempore upon t!Je pi(lno-forte, interspersed with (l variety of examples, showing how to
modulate from one key to another, and from which a knowledge of the science of music
may be acquired. New York,]. Hewitt's Musical Repository [ 1810?]. (In the collection
of the !sham Library of Harvard University.)
Kollmann, August Friedrich Christopher. An Introduction to the Art of Preluding and
Extemporizing in Six Lessons for the Harpsichord or Harp, Op 3. London: R. Wornum,
1792. (In the collection of the music division of the Library of Congress.)
TUrk, Daniel Gottlob. School of Clavier Playing, or, Instructions in Playing the Clavier for
Tead~rs and Students. Leipzig and Halle, 1789. Translation, introduction, and notes by
Raymond H. Haggh. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.
Vierling, J.G. Versud! einer Anleitung zum Priiludierett fiir Ungeiibtere m it Beyspielen.
Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hiirtel, 1794. (Published on microfiche in BRILL!IDC's collection
"Musicology.")

Interviews
Bilson, Malcom. Interview by author, Ithaca, NY, August 12,2007.
Levin, Robert. Interview by author, Cambridge, MA, September 10,2007.
186 I BIBLIOGRAPHY

Recordings
Levin, Robert, Christopher Hog\vood, and Academy of Ancient Music, Wolfgang Amadeus
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9 in Eb Major, K. 271 and Piano Concerto No. 12 in A Major,
K. 414, Editions de l'Oiseau-Lyre 443 328-2, 1994.
Levin, Robert, Christopher Hog\vood, Orchestra of the Handel and Haydn Society, Wolfgmtg
Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No. 9 i1t Eb Major, K. 271, performed at The CetJtury of
Bach and Mozart Conference in honor ofChristoph Wolf! at Harvard University.
Recording held by Loeb Music Library, Harvard University, CD30661, 2005.
Levin, Robert and Harvard Students, performance of Wo/fgang Amadeus Mozart Piano
Concerto No. 9 in Eb Major, K. 271 in "Lecture 7" HalYard University Course
"Literature and Arts B-52: Mozart's Piano Concertos." Sanders Theater, Harvard
University, Cambridge MA, October 31, 2005.

Lectures and Masterclasses

Bilson, Malcolm. Master class with the author as participant. Cornell University Summer
Fortepiano Workshop 2007, August 6, 2007.
Levin, Robert. Harvard University Course "Literature and Arts B-52: Mozart's Piano
Concertos." Sanders Theater, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, Fall Semester,
2005.

Secondary sources
Abrahams, S. et al. "Functional Magnetic Imaging of Verbal Fluency and Confrontation
Naming Using Compressed Image Acquisition to Permit Overt Responses." Human
Brain Mapping 20 (2003): 29-40.
Abumrad, Jad. "Memory and Forgetting." Radio Lab, New York Public Radio WNYC,
June 8, 2007, http:/lmediasearch.wnyc.org/m/audio/11610304/ memory_and_
forgetting_radio_lab.htm?q=memory+and+forgetting (accessed April25, 2008).
Allwood, ]ens. "On the Distinctions Between Semantics and Pragmatics." In Crossing the
Boundaries in Linguistics: Studies Presented to Mm1[red Bierwisch. Edited by W. Klein
and W. Levelt, 171-189. Dordrecht: Reidel, 2001.
Anderson, ].R. The Architecture of Cognition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983.
- - . The Adaptive Clwracter of Thought. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1990.
--.Rules of the Mind. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993.
--and C. Lebiere. The Atomic Components ofTlwught. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 1998.
Arnold, F.T. The Art of Accompaniment from a Thorough Bass as Practiced in the XVIIth and
XVIIIth Centuries. London: Oxford University Press, 1931.
Australia Adlib. "In Memorian Jeff Pressing." ABC Radio National, http://www.abc.net.au/
arts/adlib/stories/s858418.htm (accessed March 7, 2008).
Badura-Skoda, Eva and Paul Badura-Skoda. Interpreting Mozart 011 the Keyboard. Translated
by Leo Black. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1962.
- - e t al. "Cadenza." In Grove Music On line. Oxford Music 011line, http://WW'.v.oxfordmu-
siconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/43023 (accessed August 30, 2008).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 187

Basho, S. et al. "Effects of Generation Mode in fMRI Adaptations of Semantic Fluency:

Paced Production and Overt Speech." Neuropsychologia 45 (2007): 1697-1706.
Seeker, Alton P. and Judith 0. Becker. "A Grammar of the Musical Genre Srepegan."
Journal of Music Theory 23 (1979): 1-43.
Seeker, Judith 0. Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 2004.
Bengtsson, S.L. and F. Ullen. "Dissociation Between Melodic and Rhythmic Processing
During Piano Performance from Musical Scores." Neuroimage 30 (2006): 272-284.
Bengtsson, S.L. et al. "Dissociating Brain Regions Controlling the Temporal and Ordinal
Structure of Learned Movement Sequences." European Journal of Neuroscience 19
(2004): 2591-2602.
Berkowitz, Aaron L. and Daniel Ansari. "Generation of Novel Motor Sequences: The
Neural Correlates of Musical Improvisation." Neurolmage 41 (2008): 535-543.
Berkowitz, Aaron L. and Daniel An sari. "Expertise-related Deactivation of the Right
Temporoparietal Junction During Musical Improvisation." Neurolmage49 (2010): 712-719.
Berliner, Paul. Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1994.
Bernstein, Leonard. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (The Charles Eliot
Norton Lectures). Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1976.
Berry, Dianne and Zoltan Dienes. Implicit Learning: Theoretical and Empirical Issues. East
Sussex: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1993.
Binkofski, F. "The Role of Ventral Premotor Cortex in Action Execution and Action
Understanding." Journal of Physiology Paris (2006): 396-405.
Blacking, John. How Musical is Man. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1973.
Bohlman, Philip V. "Returning to the Ethnomusicological Past." In Shadows in the Field:
New Perspectives for Fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, 2nd edn. Edited by Gregory F. Barz
and Timothy J. Cooley, 246-270. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Botvinick, M.M., Cohen, J.D., Carter, C.S. "Conflict Monitoring and Anterior Cingulate
Cortex: An Update." Trends in Cognitive Science 8 (2004): 539-546.
Brinner, Benjamin. Knowing Music, Making Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995.
Brown, S. et al. "Music and Language Side by Side in the Brain: a PET Study of the Generation
of Melodies and Sentences." European Journal of Neuroscience 23 (2006): 2791-2803.
Burns, Edward M. "Intervals, Scales, and Tuning." In The Psyc110logy of Music, 2nd edn.
Edited by Diana Deutsch, 215-264. San Diego: Academic Press, 1999.
Carey, Susan. "The Origin and Evolution of Everyday Concepts." In Cognitive Models of
Science (Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. XV). Edited by R. Giere,
89-128. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1992.
Carey, Susan and Barbara W. Sarnecka. "The Development of Human Conceptual Rep-
resentations: A Case Study." In Processes of Change in Brain and Cognitive Development.
Edited by Yuko Munakata and Mark H. Johnson, 473-496. New York, Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Charlton, David and M. Elizabeth C. Bartlet. "Gretry, Andre-Ernest-Modeste." In Grove
Music Online. Oxford Music On line, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/
article/grove/music/43361 (accessed August 12, 2008).
188 I BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chomsky, Noam. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton, 1957.

--.Aspects of the TheoryofSylltax. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1965.
--.Rules and Representations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.
--.Knowledge of Language: Its Nature, Origin, and Use. New York: Praeger Publishers,
1986.
Chouinard, P.A. and T. Paus. "The Primary Motor and Premotor Areas of the Human
Cerebral Cortex." Neuroscientist 12 (2006): 143-152.
Christensen, Thomas. "The Regie de I' Octave in Thorough-Bass Theory and Practice."
Acta Musicologica 64 (1992): 91-117.
- - . "C.P.E. Bach's Versuch and its Context in Eighteenth-Centmy Thorough-Bass
Pedagogy." In C.P.E. Bach, Musik fiir Europa. Edited by Hans Giinter Ottenberg,
352-377. Frankfurt: Die Konzerthalle, 1998.
Clark, ]. Bunker. "The Piano Works of P. Antony Corri and Arthur Clifton, British-
American Composer." In Vistas of American Music: Essays and Compositions in Honoro
ofWilliam K Kearns. Edited by Susan L. Porter and John Graziano, 157-178. Warren,
MI: Harmonie Park Press, 1999.
Cornell Department of Music. "Malcolm Bilson." Come/1 Department of Music Fawlty,
http://www.arts.cornell.edu/music/faculty/Bilson.html (accessed August 10, 2008).
Cowdery, James R. "A Fresh Look at the Concept of Tune Family." Ethnomusicology 28
(1984), 495-504.
--.The Melodic Tradition of Ireland. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1990.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper
and Row, 1990.
--and Grant Jewel! Rich. "Musical Improvisation: A Systems Approach." In Creativity in
Performance. Edited by Keith Sawyer, 43-66. Greenwich, CT: Ablex Publishing, 1997.
DeKeyser, Robert M. "Automaticity and Automatization." In Cognition attd Second
Language Instruction. Edited by Peter Robinson, 125-151. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001.
Dienes, Zoltan and JosefPerner. "A Theory of the Implicit Nature of Implicit Learning."
In Implicit Learning and Consciousness: An Empirical, Philosophical, and Computational
Conse1tsus in tlw _i\:Jaking? Edited by R.i\1. French, and A. Cleeremans, 68-92. East
Sussex: Psychology Press, 2002.
Dietrich, Arne. "The Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity." Psycho nomic Bulletin and Review
11 (2004), 1011-1026.
Dowling, W.]. "Development of Musical Schemata in Children's Spontaneous Singing."
In Cognitive Processes in the Perception of Art. Edited by W.R. Crozier and A.J. Chap man,
145-166. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1984.
Drabkin, William. "An Interpretation of Musical Dreams: Towards a Theory of the Mozart
Piano Concerto Cadenza." In Wolfgang Amade Mozart: Essays on his Life and his Music.
Edited by Stanley Sadie, 161-177. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996.
Dyer, Richard. "The Daredevil Made Levin Do It." Boston Globe, April23, 2001, Arts Section.
Dlirre, Ronald. "Vierling, Johann Gottfried." In Grove Music On/ine. Oxford Music On line,
http:/ /w\'vw .oxfordm usico nli ne .com/subscriberI article/ grove/ mu si cl 29 334 ( accessed
August 12, 2008).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 189

Eckert, Stefan. "Ars Combinatoria, Dialogue Structure, and Musical Practice in Joseph
Riepel's Anfangsgriinde zur musicalischen Setzktmst." PhD diss., State University of
New York at Stony Brook, 2000.
Ell is, Nick. "Implicit and Explicit Language Learning- An Overview." In Implicit and
Explicit Learning of Languages. Edited by Nick Ellis, 1-32. London: Academic Press,
1994.
- - (ed.) Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages. London: Academic Press, 1994.
--."Memory for Language." In Cognition and Second Language Instruction. Edited by
Peter Robinson, 33-68. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 200l.
--."Constructions, Chunking, and Connectionism: The Emergence of Second Language
Structure." In The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Edited by Catherine J.
Doughty and Michael H. Long, 63-103. Maiden: Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Ellis, Rod. "A Theory oflnstructed Second Language Acquisition." In Implicit and
Explicit Learning of Languages. Edited by Nick Ellis, 79-114. London: Academic Press,
1994.
Ericsson, K.A. and W. Kintsch. "Long-term Working Memory." Psychological Review 102
(1995):211-245.
Eysenk, Michael W. and Mark T. Keane. Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook, sth
edn. East Sussex: Psychology Press, 2005.
Feld, Steven. "Linguistic Models in Ethnomusicology." Ethnomusicology 18 (1974): 179-217.
--and Aaron A. Fox. "Music and Language." Annual Review of Anthropology 23 ( 1994):
25-53.
Fellerer, Karl Gustav. Der Partimento-Spieler: Ubungen im Genera/bass-Spiel und in
Gebtmdener Improvisation. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Hartel, 1940.
Ferand, Ernst. Die Improvisation in der Musik. Zurich: Rhein-Verlag, 1938.
Ferand, Ernst. Improvisation in Nine Centuries ofWestem Music: An Anthology. Koln: Arno
Volk Verlag, 1961.
Fink, A., B. Graif, and A.C. Neubauer. "Brain Correlates Underlying Creative Thinking: EEG
Alpha Activity in Professional vs. Novice Dancers." Neuroimage 46 (2009): 854-862.
- - e t al. "The Creative Brain: Investigation of Brain Activity During Creative Problem
Solving by Means of EEG and fMRI." Human Brain Mapping 30 (2009): 734-748.
Forstmann, B.U., Brass, M., and Koch, I., and van Cramon, D.Y. "Voluntary Selection of
Task Sets Revealed by Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging." Joumal of Cognitive
Neuroscience 18 (2006): 388-398.
Prances, Robert. The Perception of Music. Translated by W. Jay Dowling. Hillsdale:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1988.
Gass, Susan M. and Larry Selinker. Second Language Acquisition, An Introductoty Course.
yd edn. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Gillespie, Luke 0. "Literacy, Orality, and the Parry-Lord "Formula": Improvisation and the
Afro-American Jazz Tradition." Intemational Review of tl1e Aesthetics and Sociology of
Music 22 (1991): 147-164.
Gjerdingen, Robert. A Classic Tu m of Phrase: Music and the Psychology of Convention.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
--.Music in the Galant Style. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
190 I BIBLIOGRAPHY

--."About Partimenti: Historical Overview." Monuments ofPartimenti, http://facultyv,reb.

at.northwestern.edu/music/gjerdingen/partimenti/aboutParti/histOverview.htm
(accessed, February 15, 2008).
Gleason, Jean Berko and Nan Bernstein Ratner. The Development of Language, 7th edn.
Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc., 2009.
Goertzen, Valerie. "By Way of Introduction: Preluding by 18th- and Early 19th-Century
Pianists." The]ournal of Musicology 14 (1996): 299-337.
Groesbeck, Rolf. "Cultural Constructions of Improvisation in Tayampaka, a Genre of
Temple Instrumental Music in Kerala India." Ethnomusicology, 43 (199): 1-30.
Hannon, E. E. "Metrical Categories in Infancy and Adulthood." Psychological Science 16
(2005): 48-55.
--and S.E. Trehub. "Tuning in to Musical Rhythms: Infants Learn More Readily than
Adults." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 102 (2005): 12639-12643.
Hedges, Stephen A. "Dice Music in the Eighteenth Century." Music and Letters 59 ( 1978):
180-187.
Howard, John Tasker. "The Hewitt Family in American Music." The Musical Quarterly 17
(1931): 25-39.
Hughes, D.W. "Grammars of Non-Western Musics: A Selective Survey." In Representing
Musical Structure. Edited by P. Howell, R. West, and I Cross, 327-362. San Diego:
Academic Press, 1991.
Iacoboni, M. et al. "Grasping the Intentions of Others with One's Own Mirror Neuron
System." PLoS Biology 3 (2005): e79.
Iyer, Vijay. "Embodied Mind, Situated Cognition, and Expressive Micro- Timing in
African-American Music." Music Perception 19 (2002): 387-414.
Jacobi, Erwin R. "Augustus Frederic Christopher Kollmann als Theoretiker." Archiv fiir
Musikwissenschaft 13 (1956), 263-70.
- - . "Tiirk, Daniel Gottlob." In GroveMusicOnline. Oxford Music Online, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/28607 (accessed August 12, 2008).
Jeffery, Peter. Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of
Gregorian Chant. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
Johnson- Frey, S.H. et al. "Actions or Hand-Object Interactions? Human Inferior Frontal
Cortex and Action Observation." Neuron 39 (2003): 1053-1058.
Johnson- Laird, P.N. "Jazz Improvisation: A Theory at the Computation Level." In
Representing Musical Stmcture. Edited by Peter Howell, Robert West, and Ian Cross,
291-326. London: Academic Press, 1991.
--."How Jazz Musicians Improvise." Music Perception 19 (2002): 415-442.
]ones, Peter Ward et al. "Coni." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/article/grove/music/06565pg4 ( accessed August 12,
2008).
Kassebaum, Gayathri. "Improvisation in Alapana Performance: A Comparative View of
Raga Shankarabharana." Yearbook for Traditional Music, 19 (1987): 45-64.
Kassler, Michael. "Kollmann." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/ 15291 pg1 ( accessed August 12,
2008).
 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 191

Kearsley, Greg. "Modes of Learning (D. Rumelhart and D. Norman}." TIP: Theories,
http://tip.psychology.org/norman.html (accessed August 21, 2008).
Keiler, Allan. "Bernstein's "The Unanswered Question" and the Problem of Musical
Competence." The Musical Quarterly 64 (1978): 195~2.
Kenny, Barry ]. and Martin Gel! rich. "Improvisation." In The Science and Psychology of
Music Performance: Creative Strategies for Teaching and Learning. Edited by Richard
Parncutt and Gary McPherson, 117-134. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Killick, Andrew. "Road Test for a New Model: Korean Musical Narrative and Theater in
Comparative Context." Ethnomusicology 47 (2003): 180-204.
Kingsbury, Henry. Music, Talent, and Performance: A Conservatory Cultural System.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2001.
Kirkpatrick, Ralph. "C.P .E. Bach's 'Versuch' Reconsidered." Early Music4 (1976): 384-392.
Klotz, Sebastian. Kombinatorik tmd die Verbindungskiinste der Zeichen in der Musick
zwisdwt 1630 und 1780. Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 2006.
Koelsch, S. "Significance of Broca's Area and Ventral Premotor Cortex for Music-Syntactic
Processing." Cortex42 (2006): 518-520.
--and W.A. Siebel. "Towards a Neural Basis of Music Perception." Trends in Cognitive
Science 9 (2006): 578-584.
Lahav, A. et al. "Action Representation of Sound: Audiomotor Recognition Network While
Listening to Newly Acquired Actions." Journal of Neuroscience 27(2007): 308-314.
Lerdahl, Fred and Ray Jackendoff. A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. Cambridge: MIT
Press, 1983.
Lehrer, Jonah. Proust was a Neuroscientist. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
Levelt, Willem ].M. Speaking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989.
Levin, Robert. "Improvisation and Embellishment in the Mozart Piano Concertos."
Musical Newsletter 5 (1975): 3-14.
--."Instrumental Ornamentation, Improvisation and Cadenzas." In Performance
Practice: Music After 1600. Edited by Howard Mayer Brown and Stanley Sadie,
267-291. London: Macmillan Press, 1989.
--.Cadenzas to Mozart's Violin Concertos. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1992.
- - . "Mozart's Non-Metrical Keyboard Preludes." In The Keyboard itt Baroque Europe.
Edited by Christopher Ho~'IOd, 198-216. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2003.
--."Curriculum Vitae." Harvard Music Departmettt Website, http://W\vw.music.fas.harvard.
edu/faculty!levin.html (accessed August 10, 2008).
Levitin, D.]. "Absolute Memory for Musical Pitch: Evidence From the Production of
Learned Melodies." Perception and Psychophysics, 56 (1994): 414---423.
--and P.R. Cook, "Absolute Memory for Musical Tempo: Additional Evidence That
Auditory Memory is Absolute." Perception and Psyc1Jophysics, 58 ( 1996): 927-935.
--and V. Menon, "Musical Structure is Processed in 'Language' Areas of the Brain: A
Possible Role for Brodmann Area 47 in Temporal Coherence." Neurolmage, 20 (2003):
2142-2152.
Limb, Charles]. and Alien R. Braun. "Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical
Performance: An fMRI Study ofJazz Improvisation." PLoS ONE 3 (2008): el679.
doi: 10.13 7l!journal.pone.OOO 1679
192 I BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lindeman Stephan D. and George Earth. "Czerny, Cart." In Grove Music Online. Oxford
Music Onli11e, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/ article/grove/
music/07030 (accessed August 12, 2008).
Lipiczky, Thorn. "Tihai Formulas and the Fusion of'Composition' and 'Improvisation' in
North Indian Music." The Musical Quarterly 71 (1985): 157-171.
Lord, Albert B. The Singer of Tales. 2nd edn. Edited by Stephen Mitchell and Gregory Nagy.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Lu, }., et al. "The Interscutularis Muscle Connectome." PLoS Biology 7 (2009): e1000032.
doi: 10.13 71/journal.pbio.1000032
McMullen, Erin and Jenny Saffran. "Music and Language: A Developmental Comparison."
Music Perception 21 (2004): 289-311.
Meyer, Leonard. Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology. Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
Mitchell, Alice Levine. "A Systematic Introduction to the Pedagogy of Car! Czerny." In
Music and Civilization: Essays in Honor of Paul Henry Lang. Edited by Edmond
Strainchamps and Maria Rika Maniates, 262-269. New York: Norton and Co., 1984.
--."Translator's Foreword." In A Systematic Introduction to Improvisation 011 tl1e
Pianoforte, Op. 200, Vienna, 1836. Translated and edited by Alice L. Mitchell, ix-xiv.
New York; Longman, 1983.
Mitchell, Rosamond and Florence Myles. Second Language Learning Theories. London:
Arnold, 1998.
Mirka, Danuta. "The Cadence ofMozart's Cadenzas." Joumal of Musicology 22 (2005): 292-325.
Molnar-Szakacs, I. and K. Overy. "Music and Mirror Neurons: From Motion to 'E'motion."
Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 1 (2006): 235-241.
Monson, Ingrid. Saying Something: jazz Imprm'isation and Interaction. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1996.
Murphy, Gregory. Tlze Big Book of Concepts. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2002.
Nardone, Patricia L. "The Experience of Improvisation in Music: A Phenomenological
Psychological Analysis." PhD diss., Saybrook Institute, 1997.
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques. Fondements d'une Semiologie de la Musique. Paris: Seuill, 1975.
Nooshin, Laudan. "The Song of the Nightingale: Processes of Improvisation in Dastgah
Segah (Iranian Classical Music)." British Journal of Ethnomusicology, 7 (1998): 69-116.
Nett!, Bruno. "Thoughts on Improvisation: A Comparative Approach." Tl1e Musical
Quarterly60 (1974): 1-19.
- - . "Introduction: An Art Neglected in Scholarship." In In the Course of Performance:
Studies in the World of Musical Imprm'isation. Edited by Bruno Nett! and Melinda
Russell, 1-26. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
- - e t al. "Improvisation." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://wwvv.
oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/13738 ( accessed April4,
2008).
Neumann, Frederick. Ornamentation and ImprovisatioJJ in Mozart. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1986.
O'Malley, ]. Michael and Ann a Uhl Chamot. Leaming Strategies in Second Language
Acquisition. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1990.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 193

Ong, Waiter. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizingofthe Word. New York: Routledge,
2002.
Owens, Thomas. "Charlie Parker: Techniques of Improvisation." PhD diss., University of
California, Los Angeles, 1974.
Paradis, Michael. "Neurolinguistic Aspects of Implicit and Explicit Memory: Implications
for Bilingualism and SLA." In Implicit and Explicit Learning of Languages. Edited by
Nick Ell is, 393-419. London: Academic Press, 1994.
Parsons, L.M. et al. "The Brain Basis of Piano Performance." Neuropsychologia 43 (2005):
199-215.
Pate!, Aniruddh D. "Language, Music, Syntax and the Brain." Nature Neuroscience 6
(2003): 674-681.
--.Music, Language, and the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
--,et al. "Musical Syntactic Processing in Agrammatic Broca's Aphasia." Aphasiology 22
(2008): 776-789.
Paulke, Karl. "Johann Gottfried Vier ling, 1750-1813." Arcltiv fiir Musikwissenschaft 4
(1922): 439-55.
Paus, T. "Primate Anterior Cingulate Cortex: V\'here Motor Control, Drive and Cognition
Interface." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2 (2001): 417-424.
Peretz, I. "The Nature of Music from a Biological Perspective." Cognitiou lOO (2006): 1-32.
--and M. Coltheart. "Modularity of Music Processing." Nature Neuroscience 6 (2003):
688-691.
Perlman, Marc. Unplayed Melodies: Javanese Gamela11 and the Genesis of Music Theory.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.
Pinker, Step hen. The Language Instinct: How the Mi11d Creates Language. New York: Harper
Collins, 2000.
Potter, Caroline. "Boulanger, Nadia." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online,
http:/I WW\V. oxfordm usico nli ne .corn/subscriberI article/ grove/ m usic/0 3705 (accessed
August 25, 2008).
Powers, Harold. "Language Models and Musical Analysis." Ethnonwsicology 24 ( 1980):
l-60.
Pressing, Jeff. "Cognitive Processes in Improvisation." In Cognitive Processes in the
Perception of Art. Edited by W. Ray Crozier and Anthony ]. Chapman, 345-366.
Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1984.
--."Improvisation: Methods and Models." In Generative Processes in Music: The
Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition. Edited by John Sloboda,
129-178. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
--."Psychological Constraints on Improvisational Expertise and Communication." In
In the Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation. Edited
by Bruno Nett! and Melinda Russell, 47-68. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1998.
Procyk, E., et al. "Anterior Cingulate Activity During Routine and Non-Routine Sequential
Behaviors in Macaques." Nature Neuroscience 3 (2000): 502-508.
Racy, Ali Jihad. "Improvisation, Ecstasy, and Performance Dynamics in Arabic Music." In
In the Course of Pe1jormance: Studies in the World of Musical Improvisation. Edited by
Bruno Nettl and Melinda Russell, 95-112. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
194 I BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ratner, Leonard G. "Ars Combinatoria: Chance and Choice in Eighteenth-Century Music."

In Studies in Eighteenth-Century Music: A Tribute to Karl Geiringer onl1is Seventieth
Birthday. Edited by H.C. Rob bins Landon and Roger E. Chapman, 343-363. New
York: Da Capo Press, 1979.
Reber, Arthur. Implicit Learning and Tacit Knowledge: An Essay on the Cognitive
Unconscious. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Richmond, Jonathan. "BSO, Levin Brew Brilliance." The Tech On line 121, no. 21 (April 27,
2001 ), http://www- tech.mit.edu/V 12 l/N21/BSO _-_I on_Richm.21a.html ( accessed
April12, 2008).
Ringer, Alexander L. "One World Or None? Untimely Reflections on a Timely
Musicological Question." In Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music: Essays
on the History of Ethnomusicology. Edited by Bruno Nett! and Philip Bohlman, 187-200.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Rink, John. "Schenker and Improvisation." journal of Music 71wory. 37 (1993): 1-54.
Rizzolatti, G. et al. "The Mirror-Neuron System." Annual Review of Neuroscience 27 (2004):
169-192.
Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1972.
Rubin, David. Memory in Oral Traditions: The Cognitive Psychology of Epic, Ballads, and
Counting-out Rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
Ruckert, George and Richard Widdess. "Hindustani Raga." In The Garland Encyclopedia of
World Music, Volume 5: South Asia: The Indian Subcontinent. Edited by Alison Arnold,
64-88. London. Routledge, 1999.
Rumelhart D.E. and D.A. Norman. "Accretion, Tuning and Restructuring: Three Modes
of Learning." In Semantic Factors in Cognition. Edited by ].W. Cotton and R. Klatzky,
37-53. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1978.
--and D.A. Norman. "Analogical Processes in Learning." In Cognitive Skills and Their
Acquisition. Edited by ].R. Anderson, 335-360. Hillsdale: Erlbaum, 1981.
Ryle, Gilbert. "Improvisation." Mind 85, no. 337 (1976): 69-83.
Sacks, Oliver. Musicophilia: Tales of Music and t!Je Brain. New York: Knopf, 2007.
Sadie, Stanley. "Levin, Robert." In Grove Music On/ine. Oxford Music Online, http://www.
oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/43636 ( accessed August 10,
2008).
Saffran, J.R. et al. "Statistical Learning by 8~month-ld Infants." Science 274 (1996):
1926-1928.
- - e t al. "Incidental Language Learning: Listening (and Learning) out of the Corner of
Your Ear." Psychological Science 8 ( 1997): 101-105.
- - e t al. "Statistical Learning of Tone Sequences by Human Infants and Adults."
Cognition 70 (1999): 27-52.
--."Constraints on Statistical Language Learning." ]oumal of Memory and Language 47
(2002): 172-196.
--."Musical Learning and Language Development." Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences 999 (2003): 397-401.
--."Statistical Language Learning: Mechanisms and Constraints." Current Directions in
Psychological Science 12 (2003): 110-114.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY I 195

--and E.D. Thiessen, "Domain-general Learning Capacities." In Handbook of Language

Development. Edited by E. Hoff & M. Shatz, 68-86. Cambridge: Blackwell, 2007.
- - e t al. "Dog is a Dog is a Dog: Infant Rule Learning is Not Specific to Language."
Cognition 105 (2007): 669-680.
Sav"l'er, R. Keith. Creating Conversations: Improvisation in Everyday Discourse. Cresskill:
Hampton, 2001.
--."The Improvisational Performance of Everyday Life." Journal of Mundane Behavior 2
(2001): 149-162.
--,Vera John-Steiner, Seana Moran, Robert ]. Sternberg, David Henry Feldman,
Howard Gardner, Jeanne Nakamura, and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Creativity and
Development. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
--.Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2006.
Schachter, Daniel. Searching for Mem01y: The Brain, The Mind, and the Past. New York:
BasicBooks, 1996.
Schellenberg, G. and I. Peretz. "Music, Language and Cognition: Unresolved Issues."
Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12 (2007): 45-46.
Schenker, Heinrich, Ernst Oster, and Oswald Jonas. Free Composition: Volume Ill of New
Musical Theories and Fantasies. Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 2001.
Schmidt, Richard. "Attention." In Cog11ition and Second Language Instruction. Edited by
Peter Robinson, 3-32. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Shelemay, K. K. "Toward an Ethnomusicology of the Early Music Movement: Thoughts on
Bridging Disciplines and Musical Worlds." Etlmomusico/ogy, Vol. 45 (2001): 1-29.
Slawek, Stephen. "Keeping it Going: Terms, Practices, and Processes of Improvisation in
Hindustani Music." In In tl1e Course of Performance: Studies in the World of Musical
Improvisation. Edited by Bruno Nett! and Melinda Russell, 335-368. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Sloboda, John. "Music as a Language." In Music and Child Development: Proceedings of the
1987 Biology of Music Making Conference. Edited by F. Wilson and F. Roehman, 28-43.
St Louis: MMB Music Inc., 1989.
--."Musical Expertise." In Toward a General Theory of Expertise. Edited by K.A. Ericsson
and]. Smith, 153-171. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
--."Musical Ability." In The Origins and Development of High Ability. Edited by G. Back
and K. Ackrill, 106-113. Chichester: Wiley and Sons, 1993.
Smith, Gregory Eugene. "Homer, Gregory, and Bill Evans? The Theory of Formulaic
Composition in the Context of]azz Piano Improvisation." PhD diss., Harvard
University, 1983.
Sudnow, David. Ways of the Hand. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978.
Tomasello, Michael. "Language is Not an Instinct." Cognitive Development lO ( 1995): 131-156.
- - . Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 2003.
Treays, Jane. The Man with the 7 Second Memory. Television Documentary. United
Kingdom: Granada Television, 2005.
196 I BIBLIOGRAPHY

Trehub, S.E. et al. "Infants' and Adults' Perception of Scale Structure." Journal of
Experimental Psychology 5 ( 1999): 965-975.
--."The Developmental Origins of Human Musicality." Nature Neuroscience 6 (2003):
669-673.
Treitler, Leo. "Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant." The
Musical Quarterly60 (1974): 333-372.
W -3 Corpora Project. "Corpus Linguistics." University of Essex, http://www.essex.ac.uk/
linguistics/clmt/w3c/corpus_linglcontent/ introduction.html (accessed September 9,
2008).
Wagner, John W. "Hewitt, James." In Grove Music On line. Oxford Music Online, http://
W\V'>V. oxfo rdm usi co nline. corn/subscriberI arti de/ grove/ music/ 12 961 ( accessed August

12, 2008).
Walton, M.E., ].T. Devlin, and M.F. Rushworth, M.F. "Interactions Between Decision
Making and Performance Monitoring within Prefrontal Cortex." Nature Nwroscience
7 (2004): 1259-1265.
Wangermee, Robert. "L'Improvisation Pianistique au Debut du XIXe Siede." In
Miscellanea Musicologica Floris van der Mueren, 227-253. Ghent: Drukkerij L. van
Melle, 1950.
Wearing, Deborah. Forever Today: A Memoir of Love and Amnesia. London: Doubleday,
2005.
Whitmore, Philip. U11premeditated Art: Tl1e Cadenza in the Classical Keyboard Concerto.
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991.
Williams, Peter and David Led better. "Thorough bass." In Grove Music On/ine. Oxford
Music Onlitu, http:/ /W\w;.oxfordmusiconline.com/ subscriber/article/ grove/
music/27896 (accessed August 12, 2008).
Willis, Andrew. "Free Variation of Repeated Passages in Mozart's Keyboard Music." DMA
diss., Cornell University, 1994.
Winter, Robert. "Bilson, Malcolm." In Grove Mttsic Online. Oxford Music Online,
http:/ /mvw. oxfordm usiconline. cam/subscriberI arti de/ grove/ m usic/4 3694 ( accessed
August 10, 2008).
Wolff, Christoph. "Zur Chronologie der Klavierkonzert-Kadenzen Mozarts." Mozart-]ahrbuch
(1978-79): 235-246.
- - . "Cadenzas and Styles oflmprovisation in Mozart's Piano Concertos." In Perspectives
on Mozart Pe1formance. Edited by R. Larry Todd and Peter Williams, 228-238.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
- - . ]ohann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician. New York: W.W. Norton, 2000.
- - e t al. "Bach." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.
com/subscriber/article/grove/music/40023pgl2 (accessed August 12, 2008).
Zbikowski, Lawrence. Conceptualizing M11sic: Cognitive Stmcture, Theory, and Analysis.
New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
 Index
Abrahams, S. 150-1
adaptive control of thought (ACT)
model of learning 43, 91
Agricola, Johann Friedrich 156
a/apana 86
amnesia, neuropsychology of 128-30
analogy 79,115,117,118
acquisition of language 114
learners' perspectives 92
Anderson, John 43,91
Ansari, Daniel 131
see also Berkowitz and Ansari
(2008) study
anterior cingulate cortex
(ACC) 138-9, 144, 150
language production 151
anterograde amnesia,
neuropsychology of 128-9
Arnold, F.T. 37
Arom, Simha 53
ars combinatoria 64-7
statistical learning of transitional
probabilities 71
style 74
articulation process, speech 146
musical analogues 147
assimilation
learners' perspectives 82-8
rehearsal 92
automatization/automaticity 118
language production 148
learners' perspectives 92, 94
neuropsychology 129-30
pedagogical strategy 42-6, 78, 79
performers' perspectives 124, 125
Bach, Car] Philipp Emanuel 21
Versuch iiber die wahre Art das Clavier
zuspielen 19-20,21,77
and inversional theory 27
and learners' perspectives 82-3
and models 74
and variation 46
on octave, rule of the 33
on prerequisites for learning to
improvise 24, 26
Wiitfelspiel 65
Bach, Johann Sebastian 21,99
Badura-Skoda, Eva 154
Basho, S. 150-1
Seeker, Judith 0. 127
Beethoven, Ludwig van
cadenzas xiii, xiv, xv
Czerny and l, 24
Fourth Piano Concerto xiii
Opus 15 in C major xiv
Berkowitz and Ansari (2008)
study 131-6, 143, 150
behavioral results 136-7
brain imaging results 138-42
design of study 132-6
Berliner, Paul 11
and models 76
on creator-witness phenomenon 126
on recombination 68
on rehearsal 93
on transitional probabilities 71
on transposition 42
Bernstein, Leonard 83, 101, 104
Bilson, Malcolm xvi-xvii
on creativity and constraints 180
on learner's perspective 81-2
incubation, internalization, and
assimilation 85, 86, 88
performance 94
rehearsal 88-9, 92, 93
on recombination 63
on variation 48-50
performer's perspective 124, 126
Bishop, Waiter, Jr. 76
Blacking, John 98
"bootstrapping" in acquisition of knowledge
base 110, Ill
Boston Symphony Orchestra vii
Boulanger, Nadia xvi, 83
and learner's perspective 83, 85,
91, 93, 118
Brailoiu, Constantin 53
brain activity see neurobiology
Braun, Alien R. see Limb and Braun
(2008) study
Brendel, Alfred xiii
Brinner, Benjamin
on competence 17
on performance 94
on variation 50-1, 54
Broca, Paul 140
Broca's aphasia 140
Broca's area 140
Brown, S. 150-1, 152
198 I INDEX

cadences Cook, Perry 98

acquisition of knowledge base 110-11 Copland, Aaron 83
models 75 corpus linguistics 69-70
transposition 41 lexicon 104
treatises 30,31-3,34, 37,78 Corri, Domenico 23
variation 54 Corri, Philip Antony 23
cadenzas L 'anima di musica 23
Beethoven xiii, xiv, xv Original System of Preluding 23
definition 154-7 cadences 31,33-4
models 74, 157-64 inversional theory 27
Mozart see under Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus models 74
pedagogy 154-7 octave, rule of the 33
performer's perspective 123, 124 prerequisites for learning to improvise 26
Carey, Susan 53-4, 89 recombination 56-8, 59,
categorical perception 102-3 60,61, 66,68-9,72
cezanne, Paul 79 transposition 41
Chamot, Anna Uhl 55 Cowdery, James 53,68
Chomsky, Noam xv creator/witness phenomenon 121-5, 149
defining grammatical competence 97 cross-culturally 125-8
defining pragmatic competence 97 neurobiology 144
on nativist approach to language neuropsychology 128-30
acquisition 111-12, 113, 117 speech 146
Christensen, Thomas 27, 30 Csikszentmihalyi, Mih<ily
on octave, rule of the 33, 46 on "flow" 127
clavichord improvisation treatises 19 on formulas in pedagogy of
Clifton, Arthur see Corri, Philip Antony improvisataion 28
coalescence on models 75
conceptual change 90 on stylistic constraints on spontaneous
learner's perspective 91 creativity 2
cognitive economy, concepts for 52-5, 79 Czerny, Car! 24
cognitive-functional usage-based approach Art of Preluding, The 24
improvisation 115-18 cadences 34
language acquisition 113-15 models 75
cognitive psychology 79 octave, rule of the 34
concepts 52-5 defining improvisation 1
combinatoriality see ars combinatoria pedagogy 15-17, 18, 20, 24, 35, 73, 79
communicative competence 101, 115 models 74, 75
competence performer's perspective 121, 125
communicative 101, 115 Systematische Anleitung zum Fantasieren
grammatical 97 dem Pianoforte 23, 24, 40, 79
linguistic 97-100 forms 30-1
perceptual 97-100, 101 models 74-5
acquisition 108, 109, 111, 118 music and language production
pragmatic 97 compared 145-6
productive 97-100, 101 prerequisites for learning to
acquisition 108-9, Ill, 117,118 improvise 25, 26
composition, adaptive control of thought recombination 66-7
model 43,44 transposition 41
concepts for cognitive economy 52-5, 79 variation 48
conceptual change processes 89-90
conceptualization process, speech 146, 147 declarative memory/knowledge 8-10
musical analogues 147 learners' perspectives 93
conjunction analysis 135, 138-9 neuropsychology 128
connectomes 182 rehearsal 43
constraints on improvisation 1-2, 177-83 defining improvisation 1-7
performance/performer 3-7 DeKeyser, Robert M. 45
stylistic 2-3 dice games 65-6, 67
constructivism, language Dienes, Zoltan 9
acquisition 112-15,116-17 differentiation 90,91
 INDEX 1199

discrete infinity 3 transposition 41, 42,44-5

distributional analysis, 116, 118 variation 46, 50, 51, 53,54-5
transitional probabilities 70 and language acquisition, comparison
dorsal premotor cortex between 104, 117
(dPMC) 138-9, 142, 144, 150 lexicon 104
language production 151 music and language production
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex compared 149
(DLPFC) 143, 144 relationship with creativity 180-1
Drabkin, William 159 formulation process, speech 146
Dyer, Richard xiii musical analogues 147
Foucault, Michel 67
Eckert, Stefan 64, 66, 67 Franci~s, Robert 136, 144
ecological validity of scientific Frederick the Great 21
studies 131, 143 freedom in improvisation 179, 180-1
Ellis, Nick C. 7, 118 continuum 11
and empiricist approaches to language frozen constructions, language
acquisition 113 acquisition 113
Ellis, Rod 32, 94 functional magnetic resonance imaging
embellishment, learners' perspectives 87,88 (fMRI)
empiricist approaches Berkowitz and Ansari study 132, 133-42
improvisation 116 language production 151, 152
language acquisition 112-15 Levitin and Menon study 132-3
Ericsson, K.A. 92
Evans, Bill 50 galant music
evolution, improvisatory nature of 182 Mozart 116
exemplar approach to conceptual schemata 28-9
knowledge 52, 53 transitional probabilities 71-2
experimental interpretability 131 gamelan music
explicit learning/memory/knowledge 7-8 performance 94
cadences 32 variation 50-1, 54
foreign language learning 32 Gass, Susan M. 8
learners' perspectives 93 on automaticity 42
neuropsychology 128 on foreign language learning 32
octave, rule of the 33 Gellrich, Martin 40, 55
Eysenck, Michael 9 Gjerdingen, Robert
and concepts 52-3 describing composition, speed of 178
and long-term working memory 92 on Boulanger 83
on constructivism 116
fantasies 74, 75 on invention 178
Faun\ Gabriel 83 on musical schemata 28-9, 53
Fiala, Juan Carlos 182 onpartimenti 30-1,78
finite state grammar 71 on schemata 158
foreign language learning on style 73-4
cognitive-functional usage-based on transitional probabilities and statistical
approach 116, 117 learning 71-2
empiricist approaches to language Gleason, Jean Berko 97, 101
acquisition 114-15 on production of language 108
explicit and implicit knowledge 32 on syntax 107
instruction and analysis 165 Goertzen, Valerie 19
knowledge base 45 grammatical competence 97
language production 148-9 Gregorian chant 27, 178-9
models 77 Gn~try, Andre Ernest Modeste
performance 94 Hewitt and 23
recombination 72, 73 Method Simple pour Apprendre il
rehearsal 44 Pn?luder 22, 23
formulas 177 inversional theory 27
in improvisation pedagogy 27-38,40, 78 models 74
learners' perspectives 84, 85, 92 octave, rule of the 34
recombination 68 prerequisites for learning to improvise 26
200 I INDEX

G roesbeck, Rol f 86 Jackendoff, Ray I08

Grove Dictionary of Music Jacobi, Erwin R. 22
cadenzas 154 Javanese gamelan music
improvisation 1-2 variation 50-I, 54
jazz
harmony 26-7, 29-30, 31-2, 35-8 creativity and constraints 178
harpsichord improvisation treatises 19 formulas 27-8
Haydn, Franz joseph harmony 35-6, 37
and creativity 178 internali zation 79
Sonata in B Minor 48-50 lea rners' perspectives 86, 87, 88, 93
Wiirfelspiel 65 lexicon 104
Hedges, Stephen A. 65 models 76
Hewitt, James 22 neurobiology of improvisation 132
I/ Im roductione di Preludio 22-3 performers' perspectives 123, 125-6
inversional theory 27 recombination 68, 72
models 74 transposition 42
movimenti 37 variation 50, 51
prerequisites for learning to improvise 26 Jeffery, Peter 28
Hindustani music see North Indian Classical Johnson-Laird, P.N.
(Hindustani) music definition of creativity 2-3
Hummel, Johann Nepomuk IS describing performance/performer
constraints on spontaneous
implicit learning/memory/knowledge 7-8, 78 creativity 6
cadences 32 on declarative and procedural knowledge 9
foreign language learning 32 on jazz 37
learners' perspectives 93
neuropsychology 128 Karnatak music see South Indian Classical
octave, rule of the 33 (Karnatak) music
statistical learning 70-3 Kassebaum, Gayathri 86
transitions 41 Keane, Mark T. 9
treatises 26, 37 on concepts 52- 3
incubation, learners' perspectives 82-8 on long-term working memory 92
Indian classical music: rehearsals 93 Kenny, Barry J. 40, 55
see nlso North Indian Classical (Hindustani) Kerala, India: tnynmpnka 86
music; South Indian Classical keyboard improvisat ion treatises see treatises
(Karnatak) music on improvisation
induction, learners' perspectives 92-3 Kintsch, \V. 92
inference 79 Kirnberger, Johan n P. 21
learners' perspectives 92 \ Viirfelspiel 6S
inferior fro ntal gyrus/ventral premotor cortex knowledge base
(IFG/vPMC) 139, 140-2, 144, ISO, 152 acquisition 108-18
language production 15 1 expert's vs novice's 39
intentions, declarative and procedural formulas for improvisation 27, 29-30, 38
knowledge 9 learners' perspecti\•es
internalization 79 incubation, internalization, and
learners' perspectives 82-8 assimilation 84, 87, 88
neuropsychology 129-30 performance 94
performers' perspectives 125 rehearsal 88-93
interpress interval variabilit)' (Berkowitz and teaching, learning through 94, 95
Ansari study) 137 linguistic
interval perception 102, 103 acquisition 108-18
inversionaltheory 27 and musical, comparison between 100- 8
Iranian Classical music 76, 86, 179 perceptual and productive
Irish music 68 competence 97
item-based construction, language pedagogical strategies 39, 40, 41, 76, 78
acquisition 114, 115 recombination 46, 68, 69, 73
lyer, Vijay 9-10 transposition 45
 INDEX I 201

variation 46, 50, 52, 54-5 on cadenzas 153

performance/per former constraints on Mozart's 157, 158, 159 , 164, 165-75
spontaneous creativity 4, 5-6, 7 on declarative and procedural knowledge 9
t reatises 18 on originality and fo rmulas 180- 1
Koelsch, S. 140 on performer's perspective 12 1-5, 126, 12 7,
Kollmann, August Fried rich C hristopher 21 128, 130
An lntrod!lction to the Art of Preluding and o n recombination 61- 3
Extemporizing 2 1 on treatises 19- 20
cadences 31, 32, 33 o n variation 48
inversional theory 27 pedagogy 17
prerequisites for learning to improvise 26 performance 94, 116
reco mbination 59 rehearsal 90, 91, 92, 93
transposition 4 1 teaching, learning through 94- 5
variation 4 6, 47 Levitin, Daniel) . 98, 132- 3
lexicon 10 1,1 03-5, 107
language ix-x, xv Licht man, )eff W. 182
comparisons with music 10-12 Limb and Braun {2008)
acquisition 11 - 12,97- 118 study 132, 142- 3, 144
production 10- 11, 145-52 limbic regions 142, 143
recombinatio n 69-70 linguist ic competen ce 97- 100
transit ional probabilities and stat istical linguistic performance 97- 100
learning 69-7 1 Lipiczky, Thom 42, 93
variation 55 Liszt, Franz I, 24
constraints 3, 179, 18 1 London Philharmo nic Society 23
foreign see foreign language learning long-term working memory 92
infinite possibilities 3 Lo rd, Albert B.
transcription of implicit knowledge 78 on creativity and constraints 178, 179
lateral orbital prefrontal cortex o n formu las 27, 178
(LOFC) 143, 14 4 on learners' perspectives 87
learners' perspectives 81- 2 on recombination 68
incubation, internalizat ion, and on stages of learning 82, 86
assimilation 82-8 on variat io n SO
performance, improvising in 93- 4 Lu, )u 182
rehearsal 88-93 Lull, Raman 64
teach ing, learning through 94- 5
learnin g 7 McMullen, Eric 12
adaptive control of thought m odel 43, 9 1 on acqu isition of knowledge base 109-10
foreign language see foreign language learning on perceptual competence I 00
implicit a nd explicit 7-8 m eaning, m usical I OS
Ledbetter, David 25 m edial prefrontal cortex {MPFC) 143, 144
Lehrer, )onah 79 melodic improvisatio n 151
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 64 Berkowitz an d Ansari study 133-5, 136, 137
Lerdahl, Fred 108 brain imaging results 138
"letting go" 149 q uantification 13 7-8
perform ers' perspectives 125, 127 memory 7
Levelt, Willem ).M . 146, 147 auto m atization 42-3
Levin, Robert xiii- xv, xvi- xvii declarative and procedural 8- 10, 43
and lea rner's perspective 8 1-2 impl ici t a nd explicit 8
and models 74 learners' perspectives 84, 85
and neurobio logy 143 Levin 174
and referents 5 long-term work ing 92
conscious and subconscious 6-7 object and process 40
language and music compared 146-7, 149 performers' perspectives 127- 8
acqu is ition 118 neuropsychology 128-30
productio n 146-7, 149 pitch 98
incu bation, internalization, and tempo 98
assimilation 82-5, 86, 87, 88 Menon, Vinod 132-3
202 I INDEX

Meyer, Leonard design of study 132-6

on constraints 177 connectomes 182
on definition of musical style 3 Limb and Braun study 142-3
on dice games 67 music and language production
on style 73 compared 149-52
middle class, treatises 18 neuropsychology, creator/witness
Mirka, Danuta 158-9 phenomenon 128-30
mirror system, inferior frontal gyrus 141-2 Nooshin, Laudan 76, 86, 179
Misra, Ishwar La! 127 Norman, D.A. 45
Mitchell, Alice Levine 24 North Indian Classical (Hindustani) music
Mitchell, Rosamund 11,104,117 creativity and constraints 179
models creator/witness phenomenon 127
cadenzas 156, 157-64 models 76
and language acquisition, comparison recombination 68
between 117 transposition 42
learners' perspectives 85, 86, 87,88
pedagogical strategy 39, 73-7, 78 O'Malley, J. Michael 55
treatises 18 object memory 40
Molnar-Szakacs, Itvan 141, 142 octave, rule of the
Monson, Ingrid 11 (regie de !'octave) 30, 33-4, 37, 78
morphemes 103, 104 variation 46, 47
morphology 100, 101, 103 organ improvisation treatises 19
motor memory 9-10 ornaments
movement xiii constraints 180
movimenti, treatises 30, 34-5, 36, 37, 78 learner's perspective 89
variation 46-8 performer's perspective 124
Mozart, Leopold 77 overgeneralizations of rules 110
Versu.ch einer griindlichen Violinschu/e 19 Overy, Katie 141, 142
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus Ozawa, Seiji xii, 175
cadenzas xiv-xv, 122, 153-4, 174-5
background 157-8 Paradis, Michael
to first movement ofK. 271 162-4 on foreign language learning 148-9
learners' perspectives 85, 87, 88 on rehearsal 44-5
Levin 165-74, 175 Parry, Milman 27, 28
recombination 61 partimenti 30-5, 74, 77
referents 5, 6-7 passagework, composition 44
structure 158-62 Pate], Aniruddh 102, 103, 118
early development as a composer 116 on shared syntactic integration resource
on improvisation 121 hypothesis 150, 151-2
Wiirfelspiel 65 on syntax l 06, 107, 108
Murphy, Gregory 52, 53 patterns
muscle memory 9-10 Berkowitz and Ansari study 133-4, 136,
Musica enchiriadis 18 137-8
Myles, Florence 11, 104, 117 finding 116,117
language acquisition 114
Nardone, Patricia 125-6 pedagogy
nativist approaches to language strategies 39-41,77-80
acquisition 111-12, 118 models and the acquisition of
Nattiez, Jean-Jacques 10 style 73-7
Nett!, Bruno xi recombination 56-73
building blocks 6 transposition 41-6
models 4-5 variation 46-55
Neumann, Frederick 164 treatises see treatises on improvisation
neurobiology 131-2, 143-4 see also learners' perspectives; learning
Berkowitz and Ansari study 150 perceptual competence 97-100, 101
behavioral results 137-8 acquisition 108, 109, 111, 118
brain imaging results 138-42 "perfect pitch" memory 98

performance
learning through 82, 93-4
linguistic 97-100
performance/performer constraints on
spontaneous creativity 3-7
performers' perspectives 121-5
cross-culturally 125-8
neuropsychology 128-30
Perner, Josef 9
Persian Classical music 76, 86, 179
phonemes 102, 103
phonology 100, 101, 102-3
acquisition 109
pianoforte improvisation treatises 19
pitch 102
memory 98
pivot schemas, language
acquisition 114, 115
Porter, James 53
positron emission tomography (PET) 140
pragmatic competence 97
pragmatics 101, 106
acquisition 109-11
preformulation in speech 149
preludes, models 74, 75
prerequisites for learning to improvise 24-7
Pressing, Jeff
and continuum of improvisatory
framework 11
on automatization 130, 149
on formulas 29, 40
on knowledge base 39
on linguistic knowledge base 107
on motor learning I 0
on pedagogical strategies 39, 40
models 76
recombination 72
rehearsal 42-3
transposition 41
variation 46
on performance/performer constraints on
spontaneous creativity 3-6
on performers' perspectives 125
on referents 172
on rehearsal 42-3, 89, 90, 92
procedural knowledge/memory 8-10
learners' perspectives 93
neuropsychology !28
performers' perspectives 123
proced uralization 118
differentiation and coalescence 91
learners' perspectives 91, 92
pedagogical strategy 43-4, 79
performers' perspectives 124, 125
process memory 40
production rules, adaptive control of
thought model 43
INDEX I 203
productive competence 97-100, 101
acquisition 108-9, Ill, 117,118
prosody (language) 101, 102
prototype approach to conceptual
knowledge 52-3
Proust, Marcel 79
Quantz, Johann Joachim 77
Versuch einer Anweisung die F!Ote
traversiere zu spielen 19
Racy, Ali Jihad 127
radif 76
ragas
models 76
rehearsal 93
transposition 42
Rameau, Jean Philippe 27
Ratner, Leonard 65, 66
Ratner, Nan Bernstein 97, 101
on production of language 108
on syntax 107
Reber, Arthur 7
receptive musical ability 98-9
recombination (pedagogical
strategy) 39-40,45-6,55-64,78
combinatoriality in eighteenth-century
musical thought 64-7
cross-culturally 67-9
transitional problems and statistical
learning 69-73
referents
formulas for improvisation 29
learners' perspectives 85
performance/performer constraints on
spontaneous creativity 4-5, 6-7
performers' perspectives 123
Pressing on 172
rtgle de !'octave see octave, rule of the
rehearsal
automatization 42-3
learners' perspectives 82, 88-93
neuropsychology 130
recombination 73
transposition 41, 42-3,44-5
treatises 18, 78
variation 54-5
repertoire, learners' perspectives 85, 86-7
retrograde amnesia,
neuropsychology of 128-9
rhythmic improvisation (Berkowitz and
Ansari study) 134-5, 137
brain imaging results 138
quantification 137
Rich, Grant Jewell 28, 75
Richmond, Jonathan vii, ix
Riepel, Joseph 64-5
204 I INDEX

Rink, John 29, 72 South Slavic epic singing/poetry

Royal Academy of Music 23 creativity and constraints 178, 179
Rubin, David 51 formulas 27
Ruckert, George 76 learners' perspectives 87
rule of the octave see octave, rule of the stages of learning 82,86
Rumelhart, D.E. 45 variation 50
Ryle, Gilbert xiii, 181 speech see language
statistical learning 116, 117, 118
Sacks, Oliver 129 acquisition of language 114, 115
Saffran, Jenny 12 learners' perspectives 87, 92
on acquisition of knowledge base 109-10 recombination 69-73, 78
on perceptual competence 100 Stravinsky, Igor 79
on transitional probabilities and statistical style 177-8, 180, 181
learning 69-71 acquisition of 73-7
Sarnecka, Barbara \V. 53-4 learners' perspectives 85, 92
schemata 28-9, 78, 177 stylistic constraints on spontaneous
acquisition 108, 114, 116 creativity 2-3
lexicon 104-5, 107 superior temporal lobe 143
music and language production syntax 100, 101, 106, 107-8
compared 149 acquisition 109-11
recombination 55,71-2 empiricist approaches to language
semantics 105-6 acquisition 114
syntax 107 language production 146
transposition 45
variation 50, 53 talas 42, 93
Schenker, Heinrich 29, 72 taste, developing 88-9, 93
scientific interpretability of experiments 131 tayampaka 86
segmentation teaching, learning through 94-5
of musical stream Ill tempo memory 98
of speech stream 110,117 Thompson, Virgil 83
self-monitoring process, speech 146, 147 thorough-bass 25-6, 27, 30, 37-8
musical analogues 147 "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon 147
self-repair process, speech 146 Tomasello, Michael 112,
musical analogues 147 113-14, 115, 116-17
Selinker, Larry 8 "toolbox", learner's perspective 89, 93
on automaticity 42 transitional probabilities,
on foreign language learning 32 recombination 69-73
semantics 101, 105-6 transposition (pedagogical strategy) 39-40, 41
acquisition 109-11 automatization and
Shankar, Ravi 127 proceduralization 42-6
shared sound category learning mechanism cross-culturally 42
hypothesis 103, 118 treatises on improvisation 15-24,
shared syntactic integration resource 35-8, 40-1, 77-80
hypothesis (SSIRH) 150, 151-2 cadences 31-3
Slawek, Step hen cadenzas 155-7, 165
on creativity and constraints 179 formulas 27-31
on creator/witness phenomenon 127 and language textbooks, comparisons
on recombination 68, 69 between 117
Sloboda, Tohn 98-9 learners' perspectives 81, 92, 93
Smith, Gregory Eugene 35-6 models and the acquisition of style 73-7
on creativity and constraints 178 movimenti 34-5
on internalization 79 octave, rule of the 33-4
on recombination 72 prerequisites for learning to improvise 24-7
on variation 50 recombination 56-73
solfeggi 74, 77 transposition 41-6
South Indian Classical (Karnatak) music 86 variation 46-55
 INDEX I 205

Treitler, Leo 178-9 Versuch einer Anleitung Ztl/11 Priiludieren

Tiirk, Daniel Gottlob 21 fiir Ungeiibtere m it
Klavierschule, oder Anweisung zum Beyspielen 20, 21
Klavierspielen fur Lehrer und inversional theory 27
Lerne11de 21-2 movimenti 36, 46-8
cadenzas 153, 154-7, 165, 175 octave, rule of the 34
models 74 prerequisites for learning to
improvise 24-5, 26
unique sequences, percentage of (Berkowitz recombination 59-60, 62
and An sari study) 13 7, 138 variation 46-8
universal grammar 111-2 vocabulary see lexicon
usage-based approach
improvisation 115-18 Wearing, Clive 128-9, 130
language acquisition 113-15 White, Olivia L. 182
Whitmore, Philip 156
variation (pedagogical Widdess, Richard 76
strategy) 39-40, 45-50 Williams, Peter 25
concepts for cognitive economy 52-5 witness phenomenon see creator/witness
cross-culturally 50-2 phenomenon
recombination 68, 72 Wolff, Christoph 21
variety of note combinations (Berkowitz and working memory, long-term 92
Ansari study) 137-8 Wiirfelspiel (dice games) 65-6, 67
ventral premotor cortex see inferior frontal
gyrus/ventral premotor cortex Zbikowski, Lawrence 65-6
Vierling, Johann Gottfried 21
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CRO 4\'Y