Digging a river downstream: Producing emergence in music
Studies in Symbolic Interaction
ISBN: 978-0-85724-361-4, eISBN: 978-0-85724-362-1
Publication date: 30 September 2010
Abstract
This chapter investigates how musicians at jazz jam sessions engage in what I term “aggressive emergence.” In so doing, they introduce novelty, unpredictability and creativity in their spontaneous interactions with other musicians. In order to discuss this emergence, a notion of signs in musical communications as indexes, in the Peircean sense, is developed. To produce emergence in the ongoing development of a jam session performance, musicians must produce signs that index new directions that jazz playing can take, such as different rhythmic or harmonic accompaniments, or changes to the volume at which individuals play their instruments.
Citation
Dempsey, N. (2010), "Digging a river downstream: Producing emergence in music", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 35), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 123-145. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0163-2396(2010)0000035011
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2010, Emerald Group Publishing Limited