Social interaction in jazz: implications for music therapy

Abstract

This article explores the literature on how jazz musicians relate to one another while playing music and develops the implications of these findings for clinical music therapy practice. The premise of the article is that jazz and music therapy share a number of foundational principles that warrants the transfer of ideas between the two domains, although the present article focuses on how ideas generated from the former area of study can be applied to the latter. Parallels are noted between the challenges faced by jazz musicians—including soloists, accompanists, and bandleaders—and those faced by therapists and clients in the music therapy setting. Patterns of interaction, functions of particular instruments, and structures of the music in jazz are explored, and their implications for music therapy practice are highlighted.

Keywords:

• social interaction
• jazz
• music therapy
• improvisation

Notes

¹See Aigen (2008) for a detailed examination of the religious aspects of participation in popular music.

²The concept of participatory discrepancies was explored in detail in Aigen (2002/2005).

³The sociologist Tia DeNora (2000) is someone whose general writings on music include music therapy.