Draft:Jeff Pressing

Jeff Pressing (musician/psychologist)

Jeff Pressing was an American polymath who was born in San Diego in 1946 who enrolled in degree course at CalTech aged 15. Later he spent a year in Germany on a Fulbright Fellowship. He obtained a PhD in Physical chemistry in 1972 aged 26. While deeply involved in his scientific studies he was also a dedicated musician, composer, and improviser. He changed direction in 1975 he moved to Australia where he took up an academic position in La Trobe University eventually becoming head of department. Primarily a keyboard player he also played bass, guitar, woodwind and strings. He also had mastery of world percussion particularly West African drums, where he spent time doing ethnomusicological research. He founded an African drumming group Adzohu..[1]

Pressing also explored electronic instruments and was an associate professor in the synthesis department at the Berklee College of Music. In 1992 he wrote the book Synthesizer Performance and Real-Time Techniques. He spent some time during the late 1980s and early 1990s collaborating with computer scientists Peter Lawrence and Xudong Cao on an ambitious auto-transcription project known as transcribe. Jeff married psychological ideas about pattern recognition, categorical perception, and symbolic representation to more mathematical concepts like complexity and error-functions.

In 1993 Jeff moved to the University of Melbourne to become a senior lecturer in psychology.

He wrote several very influential papers and book chapters[2][3][4] on improvisation, and developed a model of musical improvisation known widely as the Pressing Model.

Its features are:

  • that expert improvisers develop library of learned motor patterns managed with finite conscious cognitive resources to achieve fluency
  • improvisation involves a series of generative and evaluative processes (Beaty 2015)
  • an improviser bases improvisation on a ‘referent’ - a background musical structure like a chord, scale or musical idea, or an emotion or feeling.
  • improvisation is linked to domain specific knowledge of genre/style
  • involves a closed feedback loop using different types of memory - short-term - ongoing motor actions vs longer-term evaluation of actual vs intended execution of ideas
  • auditory/motor/reaction processing times allow novel ideas/reactions once or twice a second

In 1999 he wrote a major paper in on music and the brain in the Australian Journal of Psychology [5] and wrote broad scope general psychology papers on cognition and action[6].Pressing also authored several papers on rhythm in music including 'black Atlantic' i.e. African and African diaspora, rhythmic concepts and practice[7] and rhythm tapping[8][9].

He was described as a kind and patient person, humble, with a wry sense of humor who, despite a hectic professional schedule, was always calm and apparently carefree and a devotee of the Hawaian shirt. He died age 55 and was survived by his wife Jill, and their two children Adam and Rebecca.[1]

His papers on improvisation, and other writings, are seen as hugely influential and widely cited in several different areas of academic endeavour: writes on theories of improvisation and improvisation education[10][11][12][13][14][15][16] [17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28], writers on musical psychology and rhythm and timing[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and by neuroscience researchers using fMRI to study music processing and improvisation[37][38][39][40]

  1. ^ a b Williams, Ben (2003-03-01). "Encomium for Jeff Pressing". Music Perception. 20 (3): 315–321. doi:10.1525/mp.2003.20.3.315. ISSN 0730-7829.
  2. ^ Sloboda, John (2001-01-11). Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, Improvisation, and Composition. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198508465.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-850846-5.
  3. ^ Pressing, J. (1984). "Cognitive processes in improvisation.". In Crozier er al, R.W. (ed.). Cognitive Processes in the Perception of Art. Elsevier Applied Science.
  4. ^ Pressing, J.; et al. (1998). "Psychological constraints on improvisational expertise and communication". In Nettl, B. (ed.). In the Course of Performance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 47–68. ISBN 0-226-57410-5.
  5. ^ Stevens, Kate; Pressing, Jeff (1999-12-01). "Special issue: Music as a brain and behavioural system". Australian Journal of Psychology. 51 (3): iii–iv. doi:10.1080/00049539908255348. ISSN 0004-9530.
  6. ^ Pressing, Jeff (October 1999). "The referential dynamics of cognition and action". Psychological Review. 106 (4): 714–747. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.106.4.714. ISSN 1939-1471.
  7. ^ Pressing, Jeff (2002-03-01). "Black Atlantic Rhythm: Its Computational and Transcultural Foundations". Music Perception. 19 (3): 285–310. doi:10.1525/mp.2002.19.3.285. ISSN 0730-7829.
  8. ^ Pressing, Jeff; Ivry, Richard; Diedrichsen, J√∂rn (2003-03-24). "Cerebellar and Basal Ganglia Contributions to Interval Timing". In Meck, Warren (ed.). Functional and Neural Mechanisms of Interval Timing. Vol. 19. CRC Press. doi:10.1201/9780203009574.ch19. ISBN 978-0-8493-1109-3. Retrieved 2026-03-03.
  9. ^ Pressing, Jeff; Ivry, Richard; Diedrichsen, J√∂rn (2003-03-24). "Cerebellar and Basal Ganglia Contributions to Interval Timing". In Meck, Warren (ed.). Functional and Neural Mechanisms of Interval Timing. Vol. 19. CRC Press. doi:10.1201/9780203009574.ch19. ISBN 978-0-8493-1109-3. Retrieved 2026-03-03.
  10. ^ Loui, Psyche (July 2018). "Rapid and flexible creativity in musical improvisation: review and a model". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1423 (1): 138–145. Bibcode:2018NYASA1423..138L. doi:10.1111/nyas.13628. ISSN 0077-8923. PMID 29577331.
  11. ^ Solli, Mattias; Aksdal, Erling; Inderberg, John Pål (2021-12-01). "Learning Jazz Language by Aural Imitation: A Usage-Based Communicative Jazz Theory (Part 1)". Journal of Aesthetic Education. 55 (4): 82–122. doi:10.5406/jaesteduc.55.4.0082. ISSN 0021-8510.
  12. ^ Burnard, Pamela (2012-03-22). Musical Creativities in Practice. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583942.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-958394-2.
  13. ^ Sawyer, R. Keith; Henriksen, Danah (2023-12-31). "Music". Explaining Creativity (3 ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 383–406. doi:10.1093/oso/9780197747537.003.0018. ISBN 978-0-19-774753-7. Retrieved 2026-03-03.
  14. ^ Beegle, Amy C. (October 2010). "A Classroom-Based Study of Small-Group Planned Improvisation With Fifth-Grade Children". Journal of Research in Music Education. 58 (3): 219–239. doi:10.1177/0022429410379916. ISSN 0022-4294.
  15. ^ Wilson, Graeme B.; MacDonald, Raymond A. R. (September 2016). "Musical choices during group free improvisation: A qualitative psychological investigation". Psychology of Music. 44 (5): 1029–1043. doi:10.1177/0305735615606527. ISSN 0305-7356.
  16. ^ Johnson-Laird, P. N. (2002-03-01). "How Jazz Musicians Improvise". Music Perception. 19 (3): 415–442. doi:10.1525/mp.2002.19.3.415. ISSN 0730-7829.
  17. ^ Biasutti, Michele (2017-06-02). "Teaching Improvisation through Processes. Applications in Music Education and Implications for General Education". Frontiers in Psychology. 8 911. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00911. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 5454041. PMID 28626441.
  18. ^ Sawyer, R. Keith (October 1999). "Improvised Conversations: Music, Collaboration, and Development". Psychology of Music. 27 (2): 192–205. doi:10.1177/0305735699272009. ISSN 0305-7356.
  19. ^ Norgaard, Martin (2014-02-01). "How Jazz Musicians Improvise". Music Perception. 31 (3): 271–287. doi:10.1525/mp.2014.31.3.271. ISSN 0730-7829.
  20. ^ Sawyer, Keith (January 1992). "Improvisational creativity: An analysis of jazz performance". Creativity Research Journal. 5 (3): 253–263. doi:10.1080/10400419209534439. ISSN 1040-0419.
  21. ^ Biasutti, Michele (2015-05-11). "Pedagogical applications of cognitive research on musical improvisation". Frontiers in Psychology. 6: 614. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00614. ISSN 1664-1078. PMC 4426722. PMID 26029147.
  22. ^ Lewis, George E.; Piekut, Benjamin, eds. (2013-12-16). The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, Volume 1. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195370935.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-537093-5.
  23. ^ Slobodenyuk, N. (2013). "The Agency Approach to Phenomenal Experiences: The Case of the Creator- Witness Phenomenon in Musical Improvisation". American International Journal of Contemporary Research. 3 (10).
  24. ^ De Bruin, L. (2015). "Theory and practice in idea generation and creativity in jazz improvisation". Australian Journal of Music Education (2): 91–106.
  25. ^ Norgaard, Martin (July 2011). "Descriptions of Improvisational Thinking by Artist-Level Jazz Musicians". Journal of Research in Music Education. 59 (2): 109–127. doi:10.1177/0022429411405669. ISSN 0022-4294.
  26. ^ Dean, Roger T.; Bailes, Freya (2014-06-02). Lewis, George E.; Piekut, Benjamin (eds.). Cognitive Processes in Musical Improvisation. Vol. 1. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195370935.013.007.
  27. ^ Hargreaves, Wendy (November 2012). "Generating ideas in jazz improvisation: Where theory meets practice". International Journal of Music Education. 30 (4): 354–367. doi:10.1177/0255761412459164. ISSN 0255-7614.
  28. ^ Bancroft, T. (2026). The theoretically scaffolded embodied improviser:the emerging primacy of emotion, meaning & metaphor (PhD Thesis). Edinburgh Napier University.
  29. ^ Trevarthen, Colwyn (January 2011). "What is it like to be a person who knows nothing? Defining the active intersubjective mind of a newborn human being". Infant and Child Development. 20 (1): 119–135. doi:10.1002/icd.689. ISSN 1522-7227.
  30. ^ Geiser, Eveline; Ziegler, Esther; Jancke, Lutz; Meyer, Martin (January 2009). "Early electrophysiological correlates of meter and rhythm processing in music perception". Cortex. 45 (1): 93–102. doi:10.1016/j.cortex.2007.09.010. PMID 19100973.
  31. ^ Patel, Aniruddh D. (2006-09-01). "Musical Rhythm, Linguistic Rhythm, and Human Evolution". Music Perception. 24 (1): 99–104. doi:10.1525/mp.2006.24.1.99. ISSN 0730-7829.
  32. ^ Fitch, W. Tecumseh; Rosenfeld, Andrew J. (2007-09-01). "Perception and Production of Syncopated Rhythms". Music Perception. 25 (1): 43–58. doi:10.1525/mp.2007.25.1.43. ISSN 0730-7829.
  33. ^ Kartomi, Margaret (2014-07-03). "Concepts, Terminology and Methodology in Music Performativity Research". Musicology Australia. 36 (2): 189–208. doi:10.1080/08145857.2014.958268. ISSN 0814-5857.
  34. ^ Iyer, V. (1998). Microstructures of Feel, Macrostructures of Sound: Embodied Cognition in West African and African-American Musics (PhD Thesis). University of California, Berkley.
  35. ^ Camara, G.S; Danielsen, A.; et al. (2018). "Chapter 11: Groove". In Rehding, A. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of CRITICAL CONCEPTS IN MUSIC THEORY. Oxford University Press.
  36. ^ Rebuschat, P; Hawkins, J.A.; Rohrmeier, M; Cross, I (2018). Language and Music as Cognitive System. Oxford University Press.
  37. ^ McPherson, Malinda; Limb, Charles J. (November 2013). "Difficulties in the neuroscience of creativity: jazz improvisation and the scientific method". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1303 (1): 80–83. Bibcode:2013NYASA1303...80M. doi:10.1111/nyas.12174. ISSN 0077-8923. PMID 23869697.
  38. ^ Faber, Sarah E. M.; McIntosh, Anthony R. (February 2020). "Towards a standard model of musical improvisation". European Journal of Neuroscience. 51 (3): 840–849. doi:10.1111/ejn.14567. ISSN 0953-816X. PMID 31482586.
  39. ^ Beaty, Roger E. (April 2015). "The neuroscience of musical improvisation". Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews. 51: 108–117. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.01.004.
  40. ^ McPherson, Malinda; Limb, Charles J. (November 2013). "Difficulties in the neuroscience of creativity: jazz improvisation and the scientific method". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1303 (1): 80–83. Bibcode:2013NYASA1303...80M. doi:10.1111/nyas.12174. ISSN 0077-8923. PMID 23869697.

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