Theorizing Musical Improvisation for Social Analysis

The connections between musical improvisation and society are a topic of frequent scholarly interest. These investigations take a range of analytical approaches, often adapted to the specifics of the improvised musicking being examined. This paper synthesizes existing concepts and theories to produce a framework for improvisation that is applicable to the social analysis of a wide range of improvisatory musical practices. The three foundational tenets of this framework are: (1) improvisation is one musical property among many that occurs to varying degrees and in different ways that fluctuate across space, time, and relevant actors; (2) the interactions between musical improvisation and the other properties of a given musical event are crucial for understanding its social implications; and (3) understanding these properties and their interactions requires examining the specific actions taken by improvisers in context. After outlining these tenets, the paper explores the role of various social, material, and individual factors in shaping improvisation and why examining these is crucial to social analysis. Finally, the paper demonstrates this model with a brief analysis of musical improvisation’s political impacts during the cacerolazos of the 2001–2002 Argentine Financial Crisis. The result of this paper is a theorization of improvisatory musicking especially suited to social analysis.