| dc.description.abstract | Abstract Despite its name, free improvisation is a musical practice saturated with spoken and unspoken rules. This is especially true for vocalists, but such rules have not yet been formalized, nor are such tendencies much documented in academic writings. This thesis aims to identify criteria and values that inform the development of vocal sounds in free improvisation and some of the strategies that performers use to cultivate the sounds they work with. Through in-depth interviews with Tone Åse, Agnes Hvizdalek, Andreas Backer, and Live Sollid Schulerud, the thesis documents experiences, opinions, and methods related to the vocal practice of four free improvisation vocalists working in Norway. The thesis draws on theory from embodied music cognition and the psychology of voice and improvisation to unpack the data collected from the performers. Thus, it tries to understand how the mechanisms of voice perception work in free improvisation and how free improvisation works in voice perception. With its eclectic tendencies and kinship to other genres, free improvisation is a distinct musical tradition that – at its core – explores the boundaries of musicality and instrumentality. Within free improvisation, the voice has a prerogative equal to all other musical instruments because of experimental techniques and the juxtaposition of the ambiguous with the concrete in the sounding expression. | eng |