Understanding Music Improvisations: A Comparison of Methods of Meaning-Making

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the value of different methods of making meaning in music therapy improvisations. Six research participants met with the researcher and created solo and duo improvisations. Each improvisation was subjected to four methods of meaning-making: participant journals, researcher journals, dialogues, and musical analysis using the Improvisation Assessment Profiles (IAPs) (Bruscia, 1987). The researcher used two methods of data analysis: qualitative text analysis and musical analysis. Text analysis was used to discern patterns in the results from the verbal methods of data collection. In so doing, the following patterns emerged from this analysis: participants found it easier to play and make meaning of referential improvisations; the researcher accessed more components of the improvisations to make meaning of them; dialogues often led to new, shared meanings; and the researcher became more open to the participants’ meanings through these dialogues. The results from the musical analysis using the IAPs revealed that in general, the participants tended to use certain musical elements with greater skill than others; that the participants tended to change their music frequently; and that the researcher seemed to play a dominant or stabilizing role in the duo improvisations. The results also revealed that musical analysis is more useful for understanding several improvisations by the same individual, rather than finding general trends between improvisations of different people. The study concludes with several practical and theoretical implications. Of particular importance is the finding that therapists who use only limited types of improvisations with clients may be limiting their understanding of their clients, and the therapeutic potential of the medium itself. The researcher also discusses the self-reflective nature of qualitative studies such as this, and the corresponding impact of the researcher on the study.