Audiences love improvised, off-the-cuff entertainment, and new research suggests it’s because spontaneity seems to offer a glimpse of the performer’s authentic self.
ChatGPT and other AI chatbots seem remarkably good at conversations. But you can’t believe anything they say. Sometimes, though, reality isn’t the point.
Machines have been getting better at mimicking improvisation. But can this distinctly human process serve as a bulwark against the mechanization of life and art?
Meditations on improvisation in a year of both COVID-19 and what some called ‘the other pandemic’ of racism push us to go deeper to find ways to sustain healthy public common life.
Improvisation asks us to trust that surprise will teach us something. As we enter a new year and a post-pandemic landscape, musical improvisation offers inspiration.
Necessity and desperation are portrayed as the prime motivators of innovative behaviour, but in reality, stability and holistic incentives go a long way to freeing up creative energy.
Women are disturbingly under-represented in Australian jazz, with relatively few female composers and instrumentalists. What’s holding them back? And what can be done about it?
Many middle-class parents buy classical CDs because it is supposed to make their kids clever. But a jazz-loving academic has started using her favourite genre in early childhood learning.
South African jazz is experiencing a new wave like seldom before. One of its strongest proponents, jazz veteran Carlo Mombelli, has just released a new album.
What is the music of trees? German artist Bartholomäus Traubeck spun slices of logs on turntables that translate their textures and annual rings into music. Traubeck calls the result Years, and I played…