Developing Research Questions for Heuristic Inquiry

During the initial phase of immersion, I began by listening extensively to Wayne Krantz and Michael Brecker, in addition to other improvisers, aiming to listen with awareness of the generative mechanism and assimilation theories explored in chapter one. I was listening specifically for patterns, favoured techniques, approaches, ensemble interaction, intensity, form, and above all whether I could intuitively identify and group particular passages or phrases as belonging to a specific strategy or strategy subset. Instances where lick assembly and associative chain mechanisms were in use were noted too. When looking at Brecker, I was eventually able to recognise his use of harmonic superimpositions. These were compiled into a catalogue of occurrences, which were then transcribed and analysed to mark any

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particular harmonic movements Brecker was making during his superimpositions and to build a taxonomy of his use of harmonic superimposition.

While looking at Wayne Krantz it became apparent that there was a mixture of interesting strategies being employed. These strategies were used consistently across Krantz’s recorded output, with a clear

development in place and continual refinement and focus on rhythmic led approaches and strategies. At this initial point, I was also transcribing and learning the Wayne Krantz improvisations verbatim, attempting to emulate his approach generally without a specific methodology, by means of practicing to metronome, backing tracks, in an ensemble, and live performance settings.

While listening, I was also continually developing my literature base, focusing around generative mechanisms, cognition in improvisation, assimilation, and pedagogical approaches to improvisation, in order to create a frame of reference for listening and practice. My entire improvisatory approach was refocused to be aware of generative mechanisms and employing more abstract directives whiles

improvising, eschewing the practice methodologies that I had been used to. These included the deliberate practice of scales, chord tone target exercises, isolated technique practice, practice of licks, and isolated vocabulary practice. Through this initial immersive process, I was able to identify some key themes and questions that would form the basis and direction of the inquiry.

Moustakas outlines the definitive characteristics of heuristic questions as aiming to reveal the essence or meaning of a phenomenon of human experience; to discover the qualitative aspects rather than the quantitative dimensions; involving a deeply personal and immersive position; and without prediction or deterministic of causal relationships. The research question should be clear and provide in simple concrete terms, a direction for investigation to illuminate the experience of the researcher, through “careful descriptions, illustrations, metaphors, poetry, dialogue and other creative renderings rather than by measurements, ratings or scores” (Moustakas, 1990:42)

In formulating questions it is suggested that the researcher follow these steps (Moustakas):

 List all aspects of interest or topics that represent curiosities or possible areas for exploration. This should be personally led.

150  Create subthemes of related topics.

 Set aside subthemes with assumptions that imply causal relationships.

 Draw out a basic theme or question taking into account feasibility, personal interest, and practicality of investigation.

 Formulate the question in a way that specifies clearly and precisely what you want to know.

The overall goal of heuristic methodology is to use open ended methodologies to help reveal phenomena more completely than it does in ordinary experience.

My initial list of topics and inquiry directives included some of the following:  What strategies does a particular player prefer?

 How do you discern strategies retrospectively through transcription and dissemination of existing recorded improvisations?

 To what extent do strategy led mechanisms form a part of a particular improviser’s approach?  Can I develop my awareness of strategy in my own improvisations?

 Are some strategies easier to assimilate?

 Can I develop my overall use of strategy mechanisms?  Can I extract strategies and reapply them?

 What approaches do I use already when improvising?

 Is Berkowitz’s methodology suitable for development of a post-bop improvisatory style?  How does being consciously aware of strategy affect my soloing

form/ability/authenticity/successfulness?

 Can I make the processes of strategy led improvisation explicit?

 Is it possible to implement a practice regime to include strategic development?

 Does the inclusion of a more strategic based improvisational style benefit my command of pre- established and non-established vocabulary? If so to what extent?

 Is it possible to absorb a player’s a stylistic traits through development of strategy led generative mechanisms?

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 Can the results of this development of practice be gauged?  How can the successfulness be justified and documented?  Does it even need to be ‘successful’?

 At what point does proficiency occur? Do a certain amount of criteria need to be met in order to validate proficiency? What are these criteria? How do they relate?

 Does a strategic based methodology require a certain kind of pre-existent skill set, vocabulary or other pre-requisites?

 Is the process of developing strategy led improvisatory practice exhaustible by any means?  How does it affect the use of other generative mechanisms in improvising?

 Does experience and specialism restrict/influence your ability to utilise any strategic concepts?

A few trends emerge from these themes. Firstly, it was clear that an investigation into strategy led generative mechanisms is part of the core of the inquiry and of particular interest. More specifically, it appeared that there was a need to know not only how these mechanisms were being used, but also how they can be developed explicitly with the aim of a rigorous methodology, such as that presented in Berkowitz’s Improvising Mind (2010). The themes also draw attention to the problem of validating the results of such an inquiry, raising issues of what the data produced should consist of, what timespan the inquiry should be conducted, in addition to numerous external factors from the researcher’s previous practice and how that affects the output. A further theme can be identified that seeks to draw out templates from pre-existing material from other improvisers in order to be developed heuristically. This aspect can be seen as an explicit adaptation of the implicit processes that underlie the core of many traditional jazz heritages, involving the learning and dissemination of material aurally and its development into a more personal style. It is the processes that underlie the developments that are of interest, and how we can make them explicit, to develop a less implicitly led and perhaps more guided approach to

developing an improvisatory approach and style.

In practical terms, these themes suggested the requirement of a deliberate and conscious manipulation of strategy based mechanisms in the researcher’s own practice. This would involve aspects of mining strategies from existing transcriptions, practicing these aspects in a thoroughly rigorous, and procedural

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way to draw out the underlying schema for reapplication as an abstract strategic deployment. Some form of validation process would be required to assess the ongoing development, with a number of reflective methodologies employed to generate explicit descriptions of the improvisational processes as they are being used and retrospectively.

In drawing together these themes, a singular question was arrived upon in order to direct the inquiry:

Can the development and deployment of strategy led mechanisms in improvisation be made explicit, in order to consciously direct improvisatory style and approach?