'خلاقیت همکاری' در یک گروه جاز به عنوان یک عمل موسیقی و اجتماعی

This article seeks to explore ‘collaborative creativity’ within the musical and social practices of a local jazz ensemble in Ireland. Within this study, concepts of creativity are firmly rooted within socio-cultural contexts where practices are ‘situated’ and ‘collective’. Through investigating aspects of ‘collaborative creativity’ practices such as privileging improvisation, maintaining challenge, and building knowledge through leadership and collaboration, the research explores the connections between creativity and collaboration within a genre-specific ensemble. This qualitative case study gathered data from observations, video recordings, interviews and participant logs over a nine-month period. Thus, the varied research methods allowed for both group and individual perspectives to inform the data analysis. The findings illuminate the distinct creativity practices of the jazz ensemble within shared learning processes. Key features of how creativity was led, encouraged, facilitated and negotiated within the jazz ensemble are presented. The case study provides theoretical perspectives rooted in everyday group music making experiences about an important socio-cultural perspective of creativity, both as a musical and social practice.

In seeking to explore ‘collaborative creativity’ in practice, this case study research examines a local jazz ensemble in Limerick city, Ireland. This serves as a context to understand how ‘collaborative creativity’ was characterised, negotiated, fostered and promoted through leadership and membership within one particular adult musical group. Taking a socio-cultural theoretical lens, the research presents insights into ‘collaborative creativity’ through the musical and social practices of the jazz ensemble in context, and captures members’ perspectives on the creative aspects of these practices. Through this investigation, the findings intend to challenge assumptions within creativity discourse and particularly add to the knowledge base on ‘collaborative creativity’ within creativity, music and education research. Through providing valid and reliable data about the significant place of creativity in group music making, it is hoped to inform educationalists, policy makers, and academics of the social, ‘lived’, shared learning and meaning making that manifests itself through group creativity practices. Opportunities to foster environments, institutions and communities to further develop collaborative, creative music making experiences are thus highlighted.

This case study within a socio-cultural theory of learning provided a ‘situated’, ‘real world’ example of how musical groups can build, acquire, share, and situate creativity through collaborative processes. In response to a call to “further our understanding of collaborations as important sites for creativity” (Littleton et al., 2008, p. 175), the findings presented interesting perspectives on how collaborative creativity might be promoted within educational contexts, specifically within music teaching and learning. The shared distinctive creativity practices found within the ensemble could be summarised as: privileging improvisation in performance, maintaining challenges in playing and building knowledge through leadership and collaboration. These practices were both formal and informal in approach, and involved a balance between musical and social processes. The jazz domain or music-making of the ensemble carried genre-specific conventions, norms, values and traditions. The tutor stood as the ‘expert’ in the domain of jazz and so facilitated induction into this ‘jazz world’ through discourse within musical and social processes. This enculturation and immersive approach to teaching and learning significantly aided the collaborative creativity practices of this group. The role of leadership to consistently challenge the group and provide opportunities to engage in creative practices was especially important to the jazz ensemble. Fundamental to this leadership however was an approach that was collaborative; where practices were negotiated and sustained through the group. The importance of promoting participatory group learning opportunities as an ever-evolving collaborative creative process was continually highlighted throughout the data findings. The performance practices of the ensemble provided significant insights into collaborative creativity. The ensemble relied on what Seddon and Biasutti (2009) describe as ‘musical communication’ where members learned and negotiated the ‘rules’ implicitly and explicitly through participatory performance. This was seen very clearly where the improvisatory sections of the performances encapsulated a certain ‘etiquette’ whereby while the improvisations were ‘spontaneous’, they also abided by ‘rules’ such as keeping to the tempo and playing for a certain number of bars. The members recounted feelings of ‘flow’, ‘togetherness’ and belonging’ that participatory performance gave to them. This all occurred through musical communication between the members within rehearsals and performances, where responses were ‘in the moment’ but built up through a shared history of playing together in collaborative ways. The members therefore were learning through creative collaboration in their “social world” (Lave & Wenger, 1991) and “art world” (Becker, 2008), reflecting the musical and social practices of this community. This research was based in a community setting with adults, within one musical genre. However, the implications of the research reach beyond this in seeking to understand and problematise how learning environments, institutions and communities might potentially facilitate collaborative creative endeavours. Firstly, the provision for multiple and varied ‘spaces’ for collaborative creativity opportunities would broaden inclusion opportunities. The ensemble studied placed a high value on socio-musical relationships and interactions. Time is particularly required for such relationships to be built up. Furthermore, challenge and learning as an endeavour of knowledge building, sharing, and negotiation emerged as important to the members for sustained participation but also creative playing. Therefore a balance between social and musical interactions where challenge and learning are valued as core components of participation should play a significant role in fostering collaborative creativity. Collaborative creativity emerged as an important and defining feature of this jazz ensembles’ modus operandi. Their creative practices were dependent on strong leadership but also collaborative effort where built-knowledge and a history of experiences led to increased improvisation and experimentation in rehearsal and performance. Therefore, the ensembles’ emphases on collaborative creativity and shared learning, through their musical and social practices, were mutually reinforcing. This research then offers insights and possibilities, rooted in one ensemble's practices, for opening up the many ways of collaborative creativity in group music-making.