Improvisation: Deliberate or Spontaneous?
[T]here may be no single human endeavor
that is more deserving of neuroscientific
inquiry than our capacity to create.
—McPherson & Limb (2013)
Barbara Gail Montero
The City University of New York
bmontero@gc.cuny.edu
University of Louisville 2015
In my forthcoming book:
Thought in Action: Expertise and the Conscious Mind
I reject “just-do-it” and defend “cognition-in-action”
The three components of Cognition-in-Action
Descriptive:
Optimal expert action frequently is thoughtful, effortful, and
attentive
Rejection of the “principle of interference” :
Thinking (attending, etc.) do not tend to interfere with expert
performance
Prescriptive:
Experts should generally think, monitor their movements, etc.
I used to think that improvisation may be a
counterexample to “cognition-in-action” 
Descriptive:
Improvisation is spontaneous
The “principle of interference” :
Thinking (attending, etc.) hinders with expert
improvisation
Prescriptive:
Experts improvisers should “just do it.”
Why think that improvisation is contrary to Cognitionin-action?
Charlie Parker: “You’ve got to learn your instrument.
Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when
you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all
that and just wail” (widely attributed to Parker).
Trey Anastasio, the guitarist from the band Phish:
“There’s a lot of preparation and discipline that goes
into it just so that, when you’re in
the moment, you’re not supposed to
be thinking at all" (Simonini, 2011).
Mozart writes to his sister that in
improvising a cadenza, he
“just plays the first thing that comes
to mind” (Spaethling 2000).
Are we good judges of what goes on in our own minds?
Methodological Principle. First person reports of what
goes on in one’s own mind should be accepted as
(defeasible) evidence for the truth of the report unless
we have good reason to question them.
Acceptance Principle. “A person is entitled to accept as
true something that is presented as true and that is
intelligible to him, unless there are stronger reasons
not to do so" (Burge 1993: 467).
Since I take seriously the claims of experts
who say that they think in action, I need to
take seriously the claims of those who say that
they don’t.
What did I do about this apparent wrench in
my theory?
TRIED NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT TOO MUCH!
Thank you Professor Dove for prompting me to
change this.
What I now believe
Improv isn’t as spontaneous as it might seem to
an observer; bodily awareness, decision making,
conscious control etc. do play a role in at least
some kinds of improv. 
But how they do and the extent to which they do
likely depends on the context and the individual.
Of course: I’m still a bit unsure about it all 
The Score:
I. Bird’s eye view of neuroimaging studies of musical improv
II. Possible analogies and disanalogies to dance improv
III. Reasons for why complete spontaneity might be
contraindicated in improv
IV. Respond to Hubert Dreyfus, John McDowell and Twyla
Tharp
V. Relation between monitoring movement and conscious
control
I. Musical Improvisation under the scanner
Limb and Braun’s (2008) jazz improvisation study.
Deactivation of the lateral prefrontal regions (LOFC and
DLPFC), indicating spontaneity: reduced inhibition,
cognitive control, planning and monitoring.
Increase activity in the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC);
daydreaming, spontaneous thought.
Liu et al. (2012) had similar results with rap artists.
This research suggests that executive control systems are
suppressed during improvisation:
The idea that spontaneous composition relies to some
degree on intuition, “the ability to arrive at a solution
without reasoning’’ [36], may be consistent with
[what]...we observed. That is, creative intuition may
operate when an attenuated DLPFC no longer regulates
the contents of consciousness, allowing unfiltered,
unconscious, or random thoughts and sensations to
emerge. Therefore, rather than operating in accordance
with conscious strategies and expectations, musical
improvisation may be associated with behaviors that
conform to rules implemented by the MPFC outside of
conscious awareness [27]. Indeed, in other domains it
has been shown that focused attention and conscious
self-monitoring can inhibit spontaneity and impair
performance [37,38]. (Limb and Braun p. 4).
Note: both Liu et al. (2012) and Limb and Braun
(2008) also report activation of the ACC, SMA,
PMD and IRG—areas associated with cognitive
and motor control.
Vague aside on the mind-body problem:
“Scientists cannot effectively study creativity
without the intuitions [phenomenological
insights] and discoveries of the creative agents
themselves” (McPherson and Limb); the firstperson account and the nuerological account are
mutually supportive.
The suggestion that improvisation is and ought to be spontaneous
is contrary to Pablo Casals’ advice:
“Don’t let the music lead you; you need to direct it” (as passed
down to Inbal Segev via Bernard Greenhouse).
What this means, according to Segev, is that you “don’t play as if
the music will talk by itself; don’t just go on automatic pilot; you
have to be alert and thinking” (personal communication).
But Casals’ wasn’t talking about improvisation.
Does performing a set piece employ executive processes, while
improvisation is spontaneous?
Ecological Validity:
McPherson and Limb (2013) question the fMRI studies:
If a creator is placed in an abnormal, constraining environment during
the course of a scientific study, the creative process itself is threatened,
calling into question the validity of any observations made thereafter.
Yet this would seem to make one need to exert more conscious control.
However, the possible social element is absent.
Rock and blues bass player Alex Craven explained:
I always have a pulse on the audience and am constantly reading the
other members of the trio, ready to give them what they need and take
from them what’s offered.
Neurology of Trading Fours
In contrast to the earlier studies, Donnay et
al.’s (2014): found that the improvisers
displayed not reduced, but heightened activity
in executive control areas of the brain relative
to playing a scale.
Constrained improv
Berkowitz and Ansari (2008) looked at (among other
things) fixed melody with improvised rhythm,
improvised melody with fixed rhythm, fixed rhythm
and melody.
No connection between improv and decrease in DLPC
and increase in MPFC.
Rhythm and melodic improv both showed (among
other things) activity in the anterior cingulate cortex
(ACC), which is associated with inhibition of
inappropriate responses.
II. Possible analogies and disanalogies to dance
improvisation
What is dance improv?
Put aside:
Improvisation as part of all set choreography
Improvisation in the dance of life. (Erving
Goffman 1959 and Judith Butler 1990.)
A) Improv without an audience
For fun
To work out choreographic ideas
Therapy
B) Improv for an audience
constrained
unconstrained
One difference: Music improv is more audience
focused than dance improv.
Music and contact improviser Richard Kim sees the lack of
audience as relevant:
In music improvisation…I am concerned with both the local
as well as the global. Rather than simply reacting in
the moment, I'm paying attention to things such as deep
structure/form and motivic development. I am
remembering the entire piece (or trying to) and creating
the next moment with that aural history as context. This is
because … I am concerned with creating an experience for
an external viewer/listener that is accessible and
interesting/stimulating. I think of my approach as
"compositional"—thinking of what is being created as a
composition, even if improvised in the moment.
Viva cognition-in-action!
Richard Kim improvising on the viola.
In contrast is Kim’s description of contact:
In contact improvisation, I am concerned almost entirely
with the moment…I am not thinking ahead, making
conscious choices, or retaining or shaping a sense of largescale form….The audience, if any, is simply my partner, and
we are creating a mutually enjoyable experience together.
It's analogous in many ways to a conversation.
Alan Andre: “You need to think about time more.”
As Richard and Allan see it in dance improv, conscious control
and monitoring may not be entirely absent, but they are
attenuated compared to music improv.
Structured dance improv might be similar to
constrained musical improv
In or out of performance contexts: getting down to the
floor ten times with increasing difficulty
Or initiating movement from one body part.
Compared to dancing a memorized piece*, maybe this
involves increased planning (DLPFC)?
*This may not be the same as performing set
choreography.
Is dancing with others is like trading fours?
Or is it just reflexive—in the sense of a learned
reflex?
Sometimes that’s the point.
Other times a reflexive action turns into
something you do. (Mwanza’s example.)
III. Against spontaneity
We saw that the fMRI studies are mixed. Also,
there is the question of ecological validity and,
of course, some uncertainty about the brain.
So plenty of room for a philosopher to ask:
What are some reasons why an improviser
might want to avoid spontaneity?
Deliberate control adds interest not only for the
audience
The same style is unobjectionable, however, one wants
to avoid the feeling of creating “the same old stuff.”
(That’s fine for playing in the scanner, but not for
playing on stage, and maybe not even oneself.)
Engaging the conscious mind might help one to do so.
As the contact-improv dancer Romain Bigé
explained, for him an important guiding idea is
“make the second choice” (personal
communication). In other words, don’t do
what comes naturally, habitually and
automatically.
This is more interesting for the improviser,
partner and, if there is one, audience.
Improvisational Theater
A further factor in theater improv is that
automatic responses tend towards
stereotypes more than well-thought-out ones.
Contact improv endeavors to reject gender
stereotypes. (ACC supports gender
neutrality?)
`
Some speculative remarks on seeing the mind in
action
Can we see thought in action?
What makes electronic music so flat?
Is entirely reflexive action similarly dull?
IV. Responding to Hubert Dreyfus, John
McDowell and Twyla Tharp
All three, as different as they are, suggest some
type of “nonminded” spontaneity in action.
Tharp:
Her choreography arises out of improvisation
It was so unconscious that she had to rely on her
dancers to remember it.
Dreyfus
“[Expert action is] direct and unreflective...[that is to
say,] nonconceptual and nonminded” (Dreyfys 2007a:
p. 355).
On this view, expert action, at its best, is entirely bereft
of mental processing: not just conscious mental
processing, but any mental processing whatsoever;
actions are drawn out of experts by external forces, at
times without the experts even being able to recall
what occurred.
For example, “after much experience, the chess master
is directly drawn by the forces on the board to make a
masterful move” (2013: p. 35).
Merleau-Ponty
“The soccer field…is pervaded by lines of force…[and
that] the player becomes one with [the field]…[and] at
this moment consciousness is nothing but the dialectic
of milieu and action” ( Merleau-Ponty 1945: p. 168-9).
Dreyfus understands Merleau-Ponty as saying that the
mind dissolves into a relation with the environment:
“for an expert to remain in flow and so perform at his
best, he must let himself be merged into the field of
forces and all monitoring must stop” (2013: p. 31).
John McDowell
McDowell thinks that all action exemplifies
rationality. Yet he still holds that the reasons
guiding expert action are not on the forefront
of an expert’s mind: The idea that an expert
“deliberates about what to do and acts in the
light of the result should be rejected”
(McDowell, 2013, p. 47).
Lighting chess experiment
What explicit thoughts can one have in contact?
Bigé (forthcoming):
The paradox of improvisation is that, although
the improvisers are doing their best to be “in the
present moments only", they seem to be
anticipating each other's moves. In CI, this
tension is clearly resolved by the fact that …[the]
volitions [of the improviser] have blury or plastic
contours …:if I want to lift someone, the result of
the volition might be that I end up lifted, and this
remains an acceptable outcome of that.
Kent de Spain’s (2003) experience sampling study of
dance improvisation reveals thought.
So does his justification of his method:
He chose seven experienced improvisers, each with a
minimum of 10 years experience and a background
improvisational performance in professional settings in
order “to identify improvisers who would have the
experience to minimize the impact of the reporting
process on their dancing” (p. 38, 2003).
Assumption: Once experienced, thinking does not
hinder doing.
Even Tharp, who employs improvisation to arrive
at ideas for her dances, meticulously sifts through
her video-taped improv sessions:
“[i]f I find thirty seconds of movement out of
three hours, I’m happy” (2003: 192).
Moreover, in the battle over “some transcendent,
inexplicable Dionysian act of inspiration…[versus]
hard work,” she says ,“I come down on the side of
hard work” (2003: 6).
V. Conclusion: pondering the relation between
monitoring movement and conscious control
First person reports: some improvisers attest to are
intentions and choices.
Neuroscientific support: Donnay et al. (2014) and
Berkowitz and Ansari (2008 ) suggests improv is not as
spontaneous as it might seem.
Arguments: this might be aesthetically advantageous.
Question: What about the bare act of being consciously
aware of your own movements? (Aware of movements
versus thought)
Many dancers—improvisatory or otherwise—allude to
the importance of monitoring or attending to movement.
“Improvisation,” as de Spain (2008) puts it, “is an
attentional practice.”
Why is attention to movement important?
*Pleasurable
*Perhaps there is some truth to the adage: Where
attention goes, energy flows.(Could this be tested? Yeu
and Cole’s (1992) grip-strength study. What about fight
or flight?)
Steve Paxton:
Why is full consciousness so important to me?” Because
consciousness can be felt to change according to what it
experiences. If a gap of consciousness occurs at a critical
moment, we lose an opportunity to learn from the moment.
A blackout lasting fractions of a second during a roll is not
acceptable as full consciousness of the roll, and the gap will
remain embedded in the movement as part of the overall
feeling of the movement. If consciousness stays open during
these critical moments, it will have a experience of them, and
will enlarge its concept to match the new experience. This
expanded picture becomes the new ground for moving (p.
177).
*Learn from the moment for the present and the future.
*But perhaps also: full consciousness of
movement (generally) introduces an element of
control.
Conscious control: deliberately moving the body,
or deliberating engaging the mind: “When we
knowingly give rise to any new motion of our
body or new perception of our mind” (Hume,
1888: p. 708).
Focus on your breathing. Does it change?
It is possible to consciously attend to one’s (passive) movements
without consciously controlling them:
Anterior cord syndrome causes (among other things) a complete
loss of motor function below the injury while preserving (among
other things) proprioception.
Does this contradict James’ contention that “volition is nothing but
attention” (1890/2007 p.424)?
Or is the volition merely ineffective? Or is volition merely action +
attention?
In any case, as Kimble and Perlmuter (1970)
observe, “the act of paying attention to…
performances or describing the steps as they
occur tends to destroy the automaticity of such
behavior” (p. 375).
And, as I have argued here and in my book,
automaticity is not always a good thing.
Habit is a great deadener.
—Vladimir in act 2 of Waiting
for Godot.
THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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