Student Self-Perceptions of Creativity, Mood, and Critical Awareness in Improvisation and Meditation Practice
Richard D. Edwards
Ohio Wesleyan University
NAfME Music Research and Teacher Education National Conference 2014 - Research Poster
Introduction, Background, & Purposes
Brain-imaging research with improvised performance has identified self-generated music to be an entirely different neural activity than performing written notation or memorized music (Limb & Braun, 2008; Berkowitz & Ansari, 2010; López-González & Limb, 2012). Compared to music performance that reproduces previously generated ideas, the act of improvisation yields neural activation patterns associated with increased creative tasks as well as decreased self-monitoring and concern for social conformity. Similar neural patterns have been identified in other brain imaging studies investigating altered states of consciousness, such as meditation (Dietrich, 2003).
The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive similarities between meditation and improvisation when these tasks are incorporated into the practice routine of pre-service music education majors. A secondary purpose was to explore the efficacy of meditative practice as an aid in the development of improvisation skills.
Subjects & Methods
Music education majors in the course, “Elementary Music Methods” (n=4) served as the participants for this study. Students developed fundamental improvisation skills on the soprano recorder in a variety of improvisation formats (e.g., pentatonic keys, 12-bar blues). Students also received an introduction to beginning meditation techniques based on the works of Jon Kabot Zinn (2006) and Shinzen Young (2005).
During a 5-week treatment period, students engaged in four practice sessions per week: two “Improvisation Only” (IO) practice sessions for a minimum of 10 minutes and two “Meditation + Improvisation” (MI) practice sessions for a minimum of 20 minutes. Following each meditative practice students immediately engaged in improvisation practice. After each practice session (IO or MI), students completed a survey to provide ratings of their perceived mood, creative effort, and self-critical awareness during the improvisation session.
Results & Conclusions
In a t-test comparison of IO and MI data from student self-evaluation surveys, ratings of personal mood before improvisation compared to after improvisation showed a significant improvement when using either Improvisation Only (IO) (p = 0.000000034) or Meditation + Improvisation (MI) (p = 0.00000012) practice routines. No significant difference was detected between student ratings of creativity during IO and MI tasks (p = 0.78), nor was any significant difference detected between student ratings of mood during IO and MI tasks (p = 0.18). The only significant difference between IO and MI ratings revealed that students were more likely to report a lower self-critical awareness following MI compared to IO (p = 0.044).
In most situations for the given study there was a lack of significant difference in student ratings between IO and MI tasks. Both IO and MI produced a highly significant effect on the overall improvement in students' self-perceived ratings of mood following improvisation regardless of whether improvisation was preceded by meditative practice or not. These similarities suggest that improvisation tasks may have similar or shared neural functions with acts of meditation, or, if these tasks are neurally distinct, meditative practice does not appear to interfere with improvisation.
One exception arose in the similarities between IO and MI practice routines: MI tasks appeared to affect student perceptions of self-critical awareness during improvisation tasks. When preceded by meditation, students were significantly less likely to be critical of their musical choices during an improvisation task compared to when they improvised without meditating immediately beforehand. This result appears to reinforce the findings of previous neuromusical studies by brain imaging researchers who identified decreased brain activation in neural areas associated with self-monitoring and social conformity during improvisation tasks (Limb & Braun, 2008). Given that anxiety and a critical self-concept associated with improvisation is an issue of concern for music educators and their students (Wehr-Flowers, 2006) the implications of a meditative benefit on improvisation practice is worthy of further investigation with a larger pool of study participants.
References
Berkowitz, A., Ansari, D. (2010). Expertise-related deactivation of the right temporoparietal junction during musical improvisation. NeuroImage 49:1, 712-719
Dietrich, A. (2003) Functional neuroanatomy of altered states of consciousness: the transient hypofrontality hypothesis. Conscious Cogn 12: 231–256.
Limb, C., Braun, A. (2008) Neural Substrates of Spontaneous Musical Performance: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation. PLos ONE 3(2): e1679. Doi:10.1317/journal.0001679
López-González, M., Limb, CJ. (2012). Musical Creativity and the Brain. Cerebrum. 2012 Jan-Feb; 2012: 2.
Wehr-Flowers, E. (2006). Differences between Male and Female Students' Confidence, Anxiety, and Attitude toward Learning Jazz Improvisation. Journal of Research in Music Education, 54(4) 337-349.
Young, S. (2005). The science of enlightenment. Sounds True, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/The-Science-of-Enlightenment-Audiobook/B002V0KRNC
Zinn, J. K. (2006). Mindfulness for beginners. Sounds True, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.audible.com/pd/Religion-Spirituality/Mindfulness-for-Beginners-Audiobook/B002V0KO0S/ref=a_search_c4_1_1_srTtl?qid=1397065109&sr=1-1