Reassessing the Role of Subjectivity in Improvised Musical Performance

Notions of subjectivity and individuality pervade the discourse around jazz non-idiomatic improvisation. While plays an important role musical improvisation, tendency to focus on player(s) – analysing their particular improvisatory approach(es) has muddied broader structure at issue: where event goes beyond players leads them unforeseen outcomes. In this paper I reassess in improvised music by interpreting it through a hermeneutic lens. connect improvisation with three ideas characteristic hermeneutics: prejudice/fore-understanding, conversation, in-between. each case will describe how these topics suggest means arriving more nuanced understanding performance.