Relationships among Vocal Jazz Improvisation Achievement, Jazz Theory Knowledge, Imitative Ability, Musical Experience, Creativity, and Gender

The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships among various aspects of vocal jazz improvisation achievement and several predictor variables. Subjects included 101 college students enrolled in vocal jazz courses. The aspects of vocal jazz improvisation achievement that were measured included 18 tonal, rhythmic, and expressive items. Subjects performed two vocal jazz improvisation tasks, a blues, and a ii-V7-I progression. The independent variables included jazz theory knowledge, imitative ability, jazz experience, instrumental lessons, voice lessons, gender, and general creativity. The major findings of this study were as follows: (a) the best order of predictors of the blues task was jazz theory knowledge, jazz experience, and imitative ability; (b) the best order of predictors of the ii-V7-I task was imitative ability, jazz theory knowledge, and jazz experience; (c) the best order of predictors of the composite improvisation tasks were jazz theory knowledge, imitative ability, and jazz experience; and (d) instrumental lessons, voice lessons, gender, and general creativity were not found to be significant predictors of vocal jazz improvisation achievement.