Aplicabilidade do modelo de Kenny e Gellrich para explicar processos cognitivos envolvidos na improvisação idiomática na música brasileira

Abstract

Problem/Research Question

Idiomatic musical improvisation is a task of spontaneous creativity guided by conventions and implicit rules (Berkowitz, 2010). Several authors have investigated cognitive processes that occur during this activity. In the context of American jazz, Kenny and Gellrich (2002) proposed a cognitive model that explains how musical material is generated in improvisation through basic knowledge (scale/chord relationship), references (12-bar blues structure), and feedback mechanisms (self-monitoring). In this model, musical material is generated in three ways: repertoire selection (pre-learned phrases), hierarchization (material related to the harmony of the music), and motivic elaboration (repetition and development of musical material). The model also deals with more specific cognitive processes, such as anticipation mechanisms and retrieval in the short, medium, and long term. In this research, it is questioned to what extent this model, developed in the context of North American jazz, can explain the cognitive processes of improvisation in Brazilian musical styles.

Objectives

The aim of this work is to verify the applicability of a model developed in the context of American jazz to cognitive processes related to improvisation in Brazilian musical styles.

Method

Through bibliographic research carried out with the help of the databases Scielo, Scopus, Web of Science, and the CAPES Journal Portal, four texts were selected, read, indexed, and categorized. This analysis generated a series of equivalences between the content of these texts and the cognitive model of Kenny and Gellrich (2002), which will be presented next. 

Results and/or Main Contributions

When analyzing the so-called Brazilian jazz, Piedade (2005) identified common references between improvisations in North American jazz and some Brazilian musical styles, such as the use of certain musical scales for the characterization of both styles.

When investigating musical interactions in an improvisation by Trio Corrente, Xxxxx (Xxxx) presented transcriptions in which it was possible to identify processes described in the Kenny and Gellrich (2002) model, including retrievals of contents from short and medium-term memory for the development of musical materials, with the use of auditory feedback produced throughout the performance.

Bonaldo (2022) investigated how expert improvisers thought during an improvisation task in a Brazilian samba. His results suggest that the improvisers participating in the study used the processes described in the cognitive model of Kenny & Gellrich (2002), such as anticipation and different stages of generation of hierarchical and motivic musical material.

When studying mental representations of pianists in improvised solo arrangements of Brazilian instrumental music, Xxxxxx (Xxxx) found that the extensive regional rhythmic vocabulary of these pianists was a variable present in Brazilian music not contemplated in the model of Kenny and Gellrich (2002).

Conclusions and/or Implications

We concluded that it was possible to identify aspects of the cognitive model of Kenny and Gellrich (2002) that make it possible to use the model to explain psychological processes that occur in improvisation in Brazilian musical styles. However, the complexity of regional rhythmic aspects suggests the existence of an improvisational expertise typical of Brazilian music that does not fit the model in question.