Learning from musicians better than me. The practice of copying from recordings in jazz students’ instrumental practise

Abstract

The article gives an account of the practice of copying from recordings, as a part of jazz students’ instrumental practise. The article is based on a PhD thesis, which was designed as a qualitative interview study with 13 Norwegian and Swedish jazz students, within an activity theoretical framework. Results show that copying as learning practice is considered to have different outcomes, where acquiring a specific musical content or musical ’language’, as well as developing a generic procedural improvisation competency were perceived outcomes. The character of the learning objects were connected to different copying modes, differentiated in three main categories: detail-oriented copying, concept-oriented copying, and improvising along with recordings. The three modes, though different in character, all involved improvising. This was interpreted as a means to personalizing the acquired knowledge in order to operationalize it in their improvisatory performing practice. Keywords: instrumental practise, jazz, improvisation, copying, recordings, activity theory, learning outcome, learning object, copying