Intercultural Learning and Jazz Practice

This thesis attempts to contribute to the understanding of intercultural differences and the limitations faced in overcoming them by providing critical insights on the process of intercultural learning in the context of jazz performance practice. This is achieved through the ethnographic observation of digitally mediated interaction between tertiary-level jazz students in Singapore and Rotterdam. In asking “how is intercultural learning related to cultural dispositions?”, this thesis explores how jazz students navigate the uncertainty of interacting with unfamiliar people within a peer-to-peer learning environment in which intercultural learning occurs over time with the sharing of musical content and mutual criticism thereover. Through a multi-layered analysis of interaction in such a setting, this thesis traces the process of intercultural learning in jazz by couching jazz improvisation and social interaction as a function of cultural familiarity and socialisation.