Jamming in the intercultural space: Collaborative creative processes of an experimental music group in Singapore

Abstract

Latching onto UNESCO’s prompt on promoting intercultural dialogue through the arts and sharing good practices, this research narrative focuses on the collaborative creative processes of a Singapore experimental music group made up of five musicians (instrumentation: dizi, didgeridoo, guzheng, table, cello, vocals, drum kit, percussion) in preparation for an album recording. One of the key issues explored in their collaborative gathering and musical improvisations was making sense of the intercultural amongst the musicians’ personal and geographical contexts. The qualitative case study traced the music jam sessions of the music group in their working studio, gathering data through audio and video-recorded focus-group interviews with the musicians and field notes written by the researchers during the music sessions. The collaborative creative processes which emerged spoke to various avenues the musicians followed to actively sound out their intercultural selves and contexts, some of which included: jamming to thematic emotive keywords to evoke particular soundscapes; taking on melodic scales and/or rhythmic grooves of particular music genres as improvisatory starting points to identify what would work for the collective; manipulating and playing on timbral uniqueness of ethnic instruments through technological means; hinging on personal impactful stories that speak to intercultural issues as sources of collective improvisation.