Principles

The experimental model explored finding moments of flow state, while learning to communicate non-verbally and gain awareness of others, the surrounding and the self, through the search for shared empathy as a member of a musical group.

The positive gain for participating musicians is especially prevalent among composer participants, as this newly gained knowledge and social-creative skill clearly benefits the idiomacy of their composed musical material, thus cultivating a stream-lining of the rehearsal and performance processes in their work. This study was integrated in an educational setting at tertiary level at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna (MUK) and has been recently completed. It was designed as a tool to enable a variety of musicians from divergent backgrouns, both stylistically and culturally, to benefit from each others’ different approaches to musical creativity and training with the three main learning objectives (Figure 4). 

An important tool in artistic research methodology, namely musical laboratories, was implemented as a central execution method. In these, musicians are given a broad variety of exercises to explore the properties of sound, instrumental playing techniques, communication techniques amongst each other and test themselves and others to probe for new forms of creative expression and interaction. 

The principles of these experiments rest on imparting practical skills and sharing knowledge by way of exercises, workshops, performances, rehearsals, self-assessment and reflection techniques, outside of habitual boundaries of chamber music or ensemble rehearsal settings. They are partly based on the concept of peer-to-peer learning and focused on a strong sense of participant agency. In a collaborative setting participants gain communication skills, various modi of critical (self) reflection, and an appreciation of their own and others’ individual abilities. These principles can be identified as key for integrating the participant's (and in this case the learner's or student's) agency into the process and streamlining self-improvement and educational activities, as well as rehearsal and communication techniques within the arts. 

The Experiment

Empathy in collaborative Improvisation. An Experiment in with musicians in an educational setting (Beers, J., 2022) aims to elucidate effective artistic and pedagogical methods to help music students (young professionals) to achieve moments of shared empathy, and possibly moments of flow-state, in a collaborative process, while perceived artistically meaningful, both collectively and individually. 

The ‘Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell’ was set up to compile a group of music students willing to enter the experiment with openness towards new sounds, techniques, musical interactions, and a highly professional level on their instrument. They were auditioned in the first lesson to ensure their willingness and basic capability for experimenting with free improvisation and interaction. Implementing a performance-oriented approach, this paper discusses qualitative and artistic experience-based data gained from the case study, which took place in the summer semester 2022 at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. A total of 13 students from Bachelor (BA) and Master (MA), as well as pedagogical (IGP) and postgraduate certificate (CoP) study programmes in several departments from the faculty of music, were observed, trained and interacted with, while their artistic and learning experiences were analyzed. The small number of participants (N=13) presents itself as insufficient for a rigorous substantiation of the hypothesis but provides a good ensemble size for successful musical interactions in artistic terms. Currently, I am running a new phase of this study that addresses this issue, developed into the comparison between the ensemble group (N=16 this time) and a control group (N=15). 

Under the seven parameters shown in Figure 3, a series of training activities over several months was developed in order to hone the divergent factors that were elucidated as necessary for improving artistic excellence through shared empathy during the period of the study. The seven parameters for researching pedagogical innovations in group improvisation classes were identified as: collaboration, empathy and flow (also being goals as well as methods), awareness, (self) identity, spontaneity, common goal. Some of the most important factors relating to these parameters were elucidated by means of group discussion, introspection, interviews, observation and analysis of the video documentation, as shown in Figure 3.

Experiment Environment

The challenges of social and musical communication between instrumental and vocal performers and composers from a variety of cultural and social backgrounds, divergent musical styles and stages in their development, arise from differences in their approach and inception. Furthermore, collaborative interaction while maintaining individual aesthetic expression was explored. Momentary sub-groups communicating on nuanced levels (amongst two performers while simultaneously interacting with the large ensemble) was tested in a fluid experimental educational setting. As the registration for participation in this educational activity was freely available to all students from both faculties of the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, the members of the ensemble formed a spontaneous group of students from a variety of study programmes and cultural backgrounds with varying levels of knowledge and interest in contemporary classical music, experimental improvisation, Jazz and other styles. This presented both a challenge and a solution for teaching utterly free improvisation by implementing empathy and flow as key factors for identifying artistic excellence in the group experience and production.

Figure 5: Slideshow of randomly chosen, anonymised, questionnaire answers by musician participants (June 2022) – please click arrow (bottom right)

Discussion on the practical implications, objectives and lessons learned

While the aims of this artistic research study were the systematic methods for achieving artistic excellence by means of empathic symbiosis in collaborative improvisation and finding ways of systematically allowing flow to arise, the goals of the experimental educational model were for students to (i) gain valuable insight into the ‘other’s’ discipline, (ii) create meaningful social and artistic interactions through musical interchange during a time period of pandemic- and digital media induced loneliness in young people, and (iii) learn new skills and adaptability relating to other musical styles and building musical structure meaningfully. The long-term goal in terms of didactical result is the artistic and media adaptability in young musicians, allowing them to create meaningly artistic connections in any setting and any combination of instruments, styles and personal characteristics. This lifts students with such innovative skill-sets beyond the traditional model of chamber music or soloist activity, which is now, in the current social climate, less sustainable. 

Exercises and processes elaborated above are repeatable for other teachers and professional musicians and can be developed further to suit different participants and frameworks. 

In conclusion, data shows that the overall experience of this experimental course model indicates that a rise in empathy took place between the participants emotionally and intellectually in regard to their divergent stylistic, instrumental and technical backgrounds. Furthermore, the heightened empathy gave participants the freedom to develop their creativity to a higher level, while adding musical vocabulary to their canon of stylistic musical knowledge. The knowledge gained about other musicians and their musical backgrounds helped participants broaden their viewpoints and improve their abilities. According to scientific rigor, the small number of participants and the softened systematic strictness of this study is not sufficient to end explorations at this point. However, the further development of these research questions and hypothesis is already on the way and will be extended substantially in a formal fundamental study in a collaborative, interdisciplinary research team, led by the author of this paper.

Processes and Tools

Data was gathered by a combination of tools. These included audio-, video- and photo documentation of lessons, workshops and concerts, as well as various observation and analysis techniques. A post-hoc questionnaire to help structure and analyze interview data collected in real-time during the duration of the study by way of interview and discussion processes and a teaching diary. Moreover, non-verbal, artistic reflection techniques offered an extended perspective on data analysis choices. This array of systematic as well as soft processes was chosen to focus on artistic judgment as central to the qualification process. 

Artistic productions were qualified by the course leader primarily in accordance with their relevance towards the action task in question. In order to determine the level of success of a jam session or a ‘set’ or task played, the course leader would initiate second person interview techniques, both as a method for research and for pedagogical processes, designed to help students remember or systematically re-live their improvisation experiences. Probing students to focus on introspection and qualification using the factors relevant in the task and identify these factors as artistic ‘problems’ rather than external structures, helped create a strongly connected correlation between artistic success and ‘shared empathy’, in some cases flow state, additionally. Most students found they had reached flow as a group and or as individuals on several or numerous occasions during the study. However, a small minority (N=1) identified having successfully reached ‘shared empathy’ and artistic excellence without ever achieving flow state. Interestingly, this participant focuses almost exclusively on analytical approaches to music interpretation and composition in their daily routine and approach to their discipline. Other students agreed upon the correlation between ‘shared empathy’, artistic success and excellence, and flow. A third of the students identified their flow experiences in this setting to be a premiere experience and perceived this mental state to be highly desirable and pleasing. 

Interviews and group discussions during practical artistic tasks in every lesson were documented with audio recordings and short teaching diary entries, explored these factors extensively and thus, integrally shaped the artistic factors focused on and choices made by the young musicians over time. 

Data Availability Statement

The processes during this study were documented by visual and verbal means (photos, Videos, Audios, observation notes, conversations, interviews, group discussions, questionnaire), selected examples of which can be viewed here:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vJkqrg7XVGYZEdJAp23pHlAq1sI0Gglf?usp=sharing

Ethics Statement

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study of human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements, but permissions for the publication of results, documentation materials and anonymised questionnaires were sought from and granted by participants and the host institution. 

Author Contributions

Jean Beers designed the study, ran the experiments and analyzed the data, as well as writing the manuscript and doing all of the documentation (notes, interviews, photos, videos), which is all licenced to Jean Beers (with exception of the E i E portrait photo stated otherwise (photographer: Daniel Kastner).

Funding 

This study was not externally funded. The research of JB is part of her professorship for Artistic Research at the host institution and allows access to all relevant facilities necessary for this study.  

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interests.

Declaration to the Managing Editor of RC (JAR): I herewith declare that no parts of the submission have been published already and this research documentation is original and different from any other of my publications. 

Videos 8, 9 (above) show close contact interactions, using the concept of unbroken eye contact (left) and unbroken emotional contact (right) as the basis for finding a mode of enhanced empathy in their artistic interaction.

Figure 6: Analysis of questionnaire (June 2022) by Jean Beers – PDF

Collaboration and Improvisation

The collaborative as opposed to soloistic aspect, originated several centuries ago in chamber music, choir and orchestra practices of European music. While improvisation was widely practiced in the Baroque and Viennese Classical eras in Europe, it had been marginalized in ‘classical’ music, but regained importance in Jazz during the late 19th and 20th century (Dolan et al., 2018). Recently, improvisation has been rejuvenated, returned to ‘classical’ concerts and the music education sector. Therefore, studying the effects of collaborative improvisation on the level of shared empathy between musicians while allowing for stylistic freedom, rather than adhering to rules of Jazz or Baroque harmony, for instance, is something researched little until now. To a much smaller degree than in group improvisation, collaborative music making on other terms, such as ensembles and orchestras playing classically notated repertoire music, will need a common goal that requires a minimum level of empathic connectivity under the guidance of a leader, be it a conductor or a score.   

Format

‘Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell’ was created to give a safe space for free experimentation with the students’ own instruments and beyond, into the realms of experimental sound art.

The participants worked within a communicative group setting. An open mind for new modi of collaborative music making beyond traditional chamber music was a predisposition. There was an audition testing communication skills, free improvisation sets designed to test creative freedom and musical intuition. It is worth emphasizing at this point that the skill level of these musicians and their ability to engage with each other while following these initial exercises transpired to be so high that every applicant passed the audition successfully. This is by no means a given and will surely differ in each run of this experiment. ‘KEP’ courses are compulsory for BA and MA students at MUK but there is a broad variety to choose from ranging from orchestra, choir, opera, to conventional chamber music. The specialization in contemporary music as part of a practice-led course is something students are choosing more frequently in recent years, in an attempt to broaden their stylistic scope and range of skills. 

The format in this instance was pedagogical and consisted of weekly 60 minute laboratory meetings, structured as rehearsal with team-building and awareness exercises, alternating with reflective group discussions. Herein, different communication techniques in musical improvisation took the focus. Five concert engagements, two open air and three traditional concert venues were organized to put the group’s ability of collaborating empathically during a heightened stress situation. Two workshops by visiting improvisation artists complimented the course.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my fellow musicians and both present and former students, the Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell, for their participation, interest and artistry. I am also very grateful to the photographer, Daniel Kastner, for providing an ensemble portrait photograph that helped create a sense of togetherness. Additionally, I would like to thank the cultural curators, Tina Zickler, Maria Jura, Vladimir Bulzan and the Zentrum für Wissenschaft und Forschung at the host institution (MUK) for their help in organizing public performances for the ensemble. Finally, thanks is due to the host institution, the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, for providing the facilities and educational framework for this experiment, with special thanks to the director of studies, Peter Königseder, for supporting thesse educational innovations that give rise to a platform for free artistic research. Furthermore, sincere thanks are due to the director and vice director of the university, Dr. Mailath-Pokorny and Dr. Brucher, for their support and interest in this project.

Results and Assessment

Supporting information

   Slideshow of post-concert empathy...

Thank you to all of you wonderful artists!

Objectives

Deepening skills in ensemble playing, musical communication and adaptability to divergent situations. Furthermore, students acquire a greater discernment of stylistic differences in the 20th/21st century and range of playing techniques. Specific exercises and the collaborative format of this course allow for the sharpening of auditory skills. An awareness of the own artistic personality and skills outside of or in addition to the solo repertoire is honed. Students learn a creative and exciting presentation of their artistic interactions, that is both enriching for their own playing, and helps improve their presentations to the public. Lastly, by means of widening the students’ intellectual scope for musical material and styles, as well as exposing them to moments of shared empathy by working collaboratively, the desired result is a greater self-confidence. 

Acknowledgment of any conceptual, methodological, environmental, or material constraints

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the university’s rules for room occupancy were partly restricted during the early weeks of the course. The number of persons allowed in the room was set at 11, including the teacher at the start of the summer semester. The solution to this constraint was to divide the ensemble into two groups and work with them simultaneously in two rooms. The 9 students in the bigger room utilized the time for joint sound experimentation. 4 students in the adjoining room, a close-knit ensemble, quickly found a shared aesthetic language and performed an independant concert. The results were satisfying and musically very successful. In later months, the restrictions were lifted and the ensemble was able to rehearse as a whole in one large room. 

Another challenge related to the pandemic were students occasionally missing several scheduled lessons due to illness.  This meant the ensemble was never perfectly aligned to develop as a set group with structured chains of command, but was rather fluid in its execution. The various challenges also required extreme flexibility from the group leader as well as all the participants, in order to always have a malleable solution for any constraint. After initial anxiety amongst some participants regarding this ambient necessity, they quickly adapted to this concept of fluid thinking and absorbed this skill happily. 

As the course was published to be freely accessible to music students from all departments, including classical, Jazz, old music and contemporary music, the concept required a certain amount of fluidity. Only the first lesson showed which instruments would form this ensemble. The stylistic challenge was also interesting and took a while to catch flight, as the participants were divergent in their stylistic backgrounds, ranging from students performing music of the Romantic era, to others specializing in contemporary repertoire, and a Jazz musician whose routine includes improvisation but not in the free manner in which it was practiced by this divergent but synergised ensemble. 

In conclusion, it is important to point out that this experimental artistic model explored in an educational setting investigates the concept of improvisation from several angles, even from the point of view of the educational course structure and ability to present results publicly in concerts. Therefore, links could be made between the creative and fluid handling of course structure and the proneness for moments of shared empathy and even (shared) flow state to occur. 

Data gathered

The concept of flow fascinated the ensemble so much that they found themselves specifically searching for this desirable state with improvisation productions (pieces or sets) that aimed at inducing moments of flow state. For instance, their piece ‘Sad Song’, which was based on a simple and melancholic Ukrainian folk song, served as the core for developing successful and long lasting musical moments of empathy as a group. An ensemble member from Ukraine, who had fled the war directly into the university and the class, was chosen by the group as the leader of ‘Sad Song’. She sang the folk tune and used physical presence, eye contact and gestures as impulses for initiating empathic moments with individuals from the ensemble. They in turn reacted to her with musical fragments that mirrored or related to both the tune and her impulses, playing their instruments. After each impulse, highlighting a musical pax de deux with an individual, she moved on to another person and left behind the previous musician to develop the material into a supporting layer at a respectful distance in dynamic and complexity. Surprisingly, this musical leadership was at no point perceived as unwanted, oppressive, negative by the group, who specifically noted that this structure and musical simplicity, at the same time as allowing moments of shared individuality, felt highly rewarding to them, both artistically and emotionally. Surely, it may also be taken into account that the emotional turmoil of the musicians in a time of a publicly documented war so close to home may have played a role in their proneness to respond so positively to ‘Sad Song’. 

A particularly amusing piece was ‘Animal Farm’, an improvisation model that was created by the group based on an experimental auditive exploration of imagining, imitating and then recreating animal voices as musical material and collaborative communication techniques during performance. This piece was tested in lessons and several performances both as an ensemble performance and an interactive communication tool with the audience. 

My analysis of the audio documentation of lessons helped to specify and interpret the notes from the teaching diary and introspection documentations. These tools focused on discerning artistic decision processes and aided systematic re-lived experience. The video- and photo documentation was used mainly to document and analyze non-verbal cues and identify gestural signifiers used by students, either prompted or self-sufficiently developed, in the two workshops with guest teachers and in the five concert appearances. 

The visual documentation clearly shows a correlation between visual cues and auditory responses that can be qualified as artistically successful or excellent. For instance, moments of empathy occur frequently and easily between two or more musicians in ‘Sad Song’, ‘Animal Farm’ and other improvised pieces when deliberate (and intense) eye contact is exchanged between them while they play auditory cues directly at each other. Musicians have identified in introspection that they are not always aware of this correlation, even if the visual stimulus is being carried out deliberately by them.  

Often when the group played longer passages together in what can be identified and being in a musically flowing manner with a natural sense of structure and emotional message apparent, many members of the ensemble closed their eyes for seconds and even minutes at a time. Retrospective introspection discussion revealed that this corresponded with musicians perceiving to have experienced flow state. As intended, during the course, most participants seem to experience a rise in empathy towards one another and a greater ability to adapt empathically and experience flow as a group.

A post-hoc questionnaire, with 10 questions, was employed to complete this phase of the research. The questionnaire, developed by the course leader, was voluntary for students and therefore merely a soft tool for collecting initial responses more systematically than during the lesson-by-lesson introspection interviews. 

The participants’s backgrounds and English language capabilities were so diversified that highly specific and clear results could not be rigorously reaped from the questionnaire. The pedagogical innovation, however, has proved to be successful in helping students to gain an array of new skill-sets, as can be deduced from some of the questionnaire answers. The final two questions attempted to discern whether participants perceived a change in their approach to notated music and structuring of musical thought in improvisation or interpretation of notated music. Most comments supported this positively, such as “intention and structure of a musical work/composition is clearer”, “understanding how graphic notation works (building blocks, structure) through realtime organization of sound”, “knowledge of style and real-life examples of sounds”, “learning about own and other instruments sound and technical possibilities”. Moreover, a sense of an improved ability for composition and analyses can be identified amongst participants. This confirms the underlying hypothesis and learning objectives, that assumed an increased (shared) empathy in musical collaboration during musical improvisation is able to raise awareness for musical structure as well as understanding of stylistic, sonoric and technical parameters, differing from one’s own approach and background and, in the end, improve the artistic outcome. The replies also unanimously showed that general levels of curiosity towards other styles, other persons and new sounds had increased, and that the relationship between improvised and notated (composed) music was perceived to be closer than expected.

Finally, the analysis of all data showed that participants unanimously felt that the experience had taught them a heightened ability to respect and react to others, while also feeling appreciated more inclusively within the group activity than in traditional ensemble practice. Besides this, they perceived an increased ability to structure musical building blocks, motifs, textures and sounds in real-time.

Video 6 (below): rehearsal with "performer's score", an expierence-based score as the visual impetus to playing. Here, with additional explanatory visual impeti by one of the musicians.

Empathy and Flow 

The concept of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 2000) is relevant to discern whether higher levels of empathy are capable of heightening flow proneness in musicians within a group, with the overall aim of improving artistic excellence through empathic symbiosis and flow. Also, the aspect of cognitive freedom necessary for artistically successful ‘free improvisation’, may be seen relating to any cognitive freedom achieved within flow state due to the perceived feeling of ease in the mastery of physical and intellectual challenges (Rakei et al., 2022). This fundamental research contributes to the overall study of innovating educational models in music, as well as to the relationship between empathy and flow state in musicians. While empathy is defined as a mental state strongly linked with particular states of bodies in  in the field of developmental psychology (Thompson, 1997; de Waal, 2007) and embodied music cognition (Leman 2008), qualifying a empathy purely based on artistic standards would interpret this reciprocal resonance in musical terms. This means, that both actual sonic resonances reverberating around the rehearsal room and causing individual musicians in the group to recognise each other’s sonic utterances in relation to their own, and other physical, cognitive and emotional reciprocations by way of eye contact, gestural symbolism or Leitmotific auditive signifiers, for instance, that enable musicians to connect on a non-verbal level without direct bodily contact. 

Other definitions of empathy interested me in forming my artistic definition. Clinical empathy as a form of detached cognition is implemented as an attunement with the patient’s emotions in order to show appreciation towards the patient (Halpern, 2003), experiential and affective empathy involves a form of resonance and bilateral-intersubjective interaction (Tudor, 2011) that requires prosocial behavior in its acting subjects. In a humanitarian definition of empathy, the empathy-altruism hypothesis holds true, which can be likened to ‘compassion’ and ‘sympathy’ and has been proven by a number of studies (Batson et al., 1988), which proved little related to the artistic application of empathy.

Video 6 (right): rehearsal with "performer's score", a graphic score created by a performer as a documentation of her listening experience of the previous improvisation set.

Figure 3: Parameters in musical interactions during group improvisation

Figure 4: Three main learning objectives

Video 11: Rehearsal with performer's score (frontal), no eye contact needed, musicians focus their full attention on the graphic score instructions created from a previous improvisation set as an experience-based score.

References 

Tan, J. 2021. Unpacking the Neural Correlates of Flow. Doctoral thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London [Thesis].

Rakei A, Tan J, Bhattacharya J. Flow in contemporary musicians: Individual differences in flow proneness, anxiety, and emotional intelligence. PLoS One. 2022 Mar 25;17(3):e0265936. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0265936. PMID: 35333890; PMCID: PMC8956189.

Stevens Jr, C. E., and Zabelina, D. L. (2019). Creativity comes in waves: an eeg-focused exploration of the creative brain. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. 27, 154–162. doi: 10.1016/j.cobeha.2019.02.003.

Dolan D, Jensen HJ, Mediano PAM, Molina-Solana M, Rajpal H, Rosas F and Sloboda JA (2018) The Improvisational State of Mind: A Multidisciplinary Study of an Improvisatory Approach to Classical Music Repertoire Performance. Front. Psychol. 9:1341. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01341.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Beyond boredom and anxiety. Jossey-Bass. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-12701-000 

Rakei A, Tan J, Bhattacharya J., ibid. 

Halpern, J. What is clinical empathy?. J GEN INTERN MED 18, 670–674 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.21017.

Tudor, K. (2011). Understanding empathy. Transactional Analysis Journal, 41(1), 39–57. https://doi.org/10.1177/036215371104100107.

Batson, C. D., Dyck, J. L., Brandt, J. R., Batson, J. G., Powell, A. L., McMaster, M. R., & Griffitt, C. (1988). Five studies testing two new egoistic alternatives to the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(1), 52–77. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.55.1.52.

Beers, J. Creating Ambiguity in Music, Monograph, wvb, Berlin: 2018, SBN-10 3-96138-094-5.

Beers, Reulecke, Experiment Empathie in kollaborativer Improvisation, 2019; https://muk.ac.at/zwf/forschungsprojekte/kuenstlerische-forschungsprojekte/experiment-empathie.html. 

Beers, J, Empathy in collaborative Improvisation. An Experiment in Education, Study 1, 2021.

Questionnaire jointly devised by Jean Beers and Daniel Gottfried, organist, improviser, composer, artistic researcher, co-teaching the course in 2021. Case study devised and led by Jean Beers.

Beers, J, Empathy in collaborative Improvisation. An Experiment in Education, Study 2, 2022.

Beers, J, Reulecke, I, 2019, ibid. 

Beers, J, ibid., 2022.

Vertiefende Theorie: Improvisationsforschung (Musik), theory course ‘Deepening theory: improvisation research (music), hybrid academic class with brief student statements and group discussions.

Künstlerische Ensemble Praxis: Praktikum Zeitgenössische Musik, ensemble course ‘Artistic ensemble practice: Practicum contemporary music’, practice-led ensemble playing.

KEP = Künstlerische Ensemble Praxis (artistic ensemble practice).

Praktikum Zeitgenössische Musik (Practicum contemporary music).

Charity concert for Ukrainian students, https://youtu.be/GsLGkI_oaFQ. 

Research presentation at the university, https://youtu.be/WQMZsWtdmfE. 

Questionnaire by Beers, J., given 21.6.2022, Evaluation of answers 03.07.2022.

ibid., Questions 1.-4.

ibid., Questions 5.-8.

ibid., Questions 9.-10.

Figures

Figure 1: Systematic hypothesis for this study (Beers, J, 2022), p. 5.

Figure 2: Pedagogical framework for achieving shared empathy: Example of goal – action – task types. Systematic plan for teaching tasks (Beers, J, 2022), p. 6.

Figure 3: Parameters in musical interactions during group improvisation and factors that can hone the student’s skills, p. 9.

Figure 4: Three main learning objectives, p. 11.

Figure 5: Slideshow of randomly chosen, anonymised, questionnaire answers by musician participants (June 2022).

Figure 6: Analysis of questionnaire (June 2022) by Jean Beers.

Image (right): Several sets of a variety of methods and styles explored by E i E, concert presenation of research as part of the "International Scholars’ Study Sessions: Wiener Perspektiven ― Kunst, urbaner Raum und soziale Un-/Gleichheit im Rahmen der Reihe Groove The City" ― Urban Music Studies and Digital Humanities Konzept und Organisation: Susana Zapke

Please go to time codes listed to the right of the video.

Image 8: Ensemble photo created by Daniel Kastner @dosfeygele showing the founding members of Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell in spring 2022. The ensemble was founded as part of an artistic laboratory focussing on contemporary music and improvisation within an educational setting at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna (MUK), founded and lead by Jean Beers (middle). Pictured here are diverse musicians with instruments ranging from strings, piano, accordion to percussion and voice, as well as composers, students from Bachelor and Master study courses at MUK, 2022.

Video 10: Team building exercise outdoors – Sound Walk Vienna, Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell,

May 2022

Objective: One person (eyes open) leads the group (eyes closed); all in silence when possible to observe the surrounding sounds in terms of texture, melody, timbre. This is only a brief excerpt of the walk. The walk as a whole was not documented visually in order to allow for a sense of privacy and community to arise amongst the group. Following this walk, the aural experiences were discussed and collaboratively analised. Afterwards, a collaborative improvisation was played using some of the elements perceived from the city sounds. 

Video 7: Rehearsal for performance, outdoors "Labyrinth Garten" by Tina Zickler, Accordion Dance Pas de deux (rehearsal 21.6.22). Collaborative performance by Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell musicians (lead by Jean Beers) and contemporary dance ensemble of MUK (lead by Christina Medina), 22nd June 2022. 

 Video 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXfofTSLoyk&t=4107s

1) Go to time code for 8:26-25:52 “Two explorations of the sense of self within our cultural identity/identities” (whole ensemble)

2) Got to time code 42:39 for “Jazz elements Trio”

3) Got to time code 54:04 for  “Electronic composition by Yueqi Zhang” with improvisation by E I E (including Yueqi Zhang – accordion)

4) Got to time code 1:04:16 for “Empathy & communication” (whole ensemble)

Video 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXBcgpYahcY  

1) Go to time code 2:20:16 - 2:44:44 for tutti "experience-based score", to match with image 1a, 1b), January 2023

2) Got to time code 31:28-36:09 for duo (piano, viola) “Deep connection, non-verbally transmitting a secret”

Images 5, 6, 7 (photos) and Videos 2, 3, 4 (below): Impressions from the "Labyrinth Garten" concert outdoors in Seestadt Aspern near Vienna, 22 June 2022, as part of the "Wir Sind Wien" Festival. The garden project was created and curated by Tina Zickler, the Ensemble Improvisation Experimentell musicians (lead by Jean Beers) interacted with the contemporary dance group (lead by Christina Medina, MUK) on site with audience invited to explore the space and happenings freely.

Image 4 (photo): Charity concert for Ukraine with E i E and guest artist Corinna Eickmeier (cello), April 2022.

Image 3 (drawing): Stage set-up for indoor concert (May 2022) allowing space for movement as part of the performative improvisational approaches that several musicians chose to explore.