This research examines how insights drawn from the field of Embodied Music Cognition can be repurposed to instigate creative development within the practice of an improvising drummer. Following a process- driven practice-led research model, I correlate academic research to aspects of pedagogical and professional practice, generating original theoretical insight and embodied knowledge in two primary areas: first, I arrive at an understanding of sticking cells as embodied knowledge encoded with specific rhythmic forms; second, I develop an original taxonomy for classifying types of individual and combined movement cycles as applied to the drumset. I combine these two as variable parameters within an original generative process entitled somatic parameter layering; which I use to furnish musical outputs that are found within a series of original recorded works, embedded throughout this dissertation. Through analysis of these works, I identify five strategic implementations of somatic parameter layering: Hide/Reveal, Modulation Obfuscation, Unison/Interlace, Fragmentation, and Expansion/Contraction. I then repurpose the parameters of sticking cells and movement cycles into an analytical model for investigating drumset activity, which is tested on an excerpt drawn from a live performance by American jazz drummer Bill Stewart, revealing his manipulation of movement as a parameter for both idea generation and development. The creative works of this research are situated within a historically emergent community of Australian improvising musicians, whom I refer to as Antripodean improvisers. I present an outline of the key artists working in the idiom and provide analysis of representative works to build a profile of the improvisational logic underpinning their shared practice. I explain how the professional requirements of interacting with these musicians have provided a primary motivation for undertaking the research project
