Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T02:45:48.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

10 - Musical Creativity

from Part II - Creativity in the Traditional Arts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2017

By
Aaron Kozbelt
Edited by
James C. Kaufman ,
Vlad P. Glăveanu  and
John Baer
James C. Kaufman
Affiliation:
University of Connecticut
Vlad P. Glăveanu
Affiliation:
Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
John Baer
Affiliation:
Rider University, New Jersey
Get access

Summary

Abstract

Music is a paradigmatic domain of creative activity, culturally ubiquitous and manifested in a multitude of ways. Here I explore music as a domain of human creativity – both as a specific “content” domain informing productive aspects of musical creativity, and as a domain of mind, whose evolutionary backstory constrains the reception of music. In discussing the phylogenetic emergence of human musicality, I highlight possible tensions in the creative dynamic between novelty and canalized aesthetic preferences. A richer discussion of the creative process in music follows, illustrated by anecdotal and interview accounts as well as laboratory and archival studies, which collectively have shed substantial light on contemporary theories of creativity. I close by discussing the role of socio-cultural factors in musical creativity and some possible future directions for research.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity across Domains , pp. 161 - 180
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2017

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context. Boulder, CO: Westview.Google Scholar
Aranosian, C. M. (1981). Musical creativity: The stream of consciousness in composition, improvisation and education. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 1, 67–88.Google Scholar
Baer, J. (2010). Is creativity domain specific? In Kaufman, J. C. & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 321–341). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baer, J., & Kaufman, J. C. (2005). Bridging generality and specificity: The Amusement Park Theoretical (APT) model of creativity. Roeper Review, 27, 158–163.Google Scholar
Bamberger, J. (1977) In search of a tune. In Perkins, D. and Leondar, B. (Eds.), The arts and cognition (pp. 284–389). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Barrington, D. (1770). Account of a very remarkable young musician. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 60, 4–64.Google Scholar
Bennett, S. (1976). The process of musical creation: interviews with eight composers. Journal of Research in Music Education, 24, 3–13.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. (1979/1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Originally published in 1979 by Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, as La Distinction: Critique sociale du jugement.Google Scholar
Brattico, E., & Pearce, M. (2013). The neuroaesthetics of music. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity and the Arts, 7, 48–61.Google Scholar
Brattico, E., & Tervaniemi, M. (2010). Creativity in musicians: Evidence from cognitive neuroscience. In Bader, R., Neuhaus, C., & Morgenstern, U. (Eds.), Concepts, experiments and fieldwork: Studies in systematic musicology and ethnomusicology (pp. 233–244). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Brown, D. (1991) Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
Burnard, P., & Younker, B.A. (2002). Mapping pathways: Fostering creativity in composition. Music Education Research, 4, 245–261.Google Scholar
Burnard, P. (2012). Musical creativities in practice. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Campbell, D.T. (1960). Blind generation and selective retention in creative thought as in other thought processes. Psychological Review, 67, 380–400.Google Scholar
Charness, N., Clifton, J., & MacDonald, L. (1988). Case study of a mono-musical savant. In Obler, L. K. & Fein, D. A. (Eds.), The exceptional brain: Neuropsychology of talent and special abilities (pp. 277–293). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Clarke, E. (2012). Creativity in performance. In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & MacDonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and reception (pp. 17–30). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, D. (2005). A synthesis process model of creative thinking in music composition. Psychology of Music, 33, 193–216.Google Scholar
Collins, D. (2007). Real-time tracking of the creative music composition process. Digital Creativity Journal, 18, 239–256.Google Scholar
Collins, D. (Ed.). (2012). The act of musical composition: Studies in the creative process. Farnham, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Cook, N. (2012). Beyond creativity? In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & MacDonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and perception (pp. 452–459). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cooper, B. (1990). Beethoven and the creative process. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). Society, culture, and person: A systems view of creativity. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), The nature of creativity: Contemporary psychological perspectives (pp. 325–228). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Davidson, L., & Welsh, P. (1988). From collections to structure: The developmental path of tonal thinking. In Sloboda, J. A. (Ed.), Generative processes in music: The psychology of performance, improvisation and composition (pp. 260–285). Oxford: Oxford Science Publications.Google Scholar
Dennis, W. (1966). Creative productivity between the ages of 20 and 80 years. Journal of Gerontology, 9, 175–178.Google Scholar
Dissanayake, E. (2007). What art is and what art does: An overview of contemporary evolutionary hypotheses. In Martindale, C., Locher, P., & Petrov, V. M. (Eds.), Evolutionary and neurocognitive approaches to aesthetics, creativity, and the arts (pp. 1–14). Amityville, NY: Baywood.Google Scholar
Donin, N. (2012). Empirical and historical musicologies of compositional processes: Towards a cross-fertilisation. In Collins, D. (Ed.), The act of musical composition: Studies in the creative process (pp. 1–26). Farnham, UK: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A. (1999). Creative expertise as superior reproducible performance: Innovative and flexible aspects of expert performance. Psychological Inquiry, 10, 329–333.Google Scholar
Ericssson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100, 363–406.Google Scholar
Ericsson, K. A., & Simon, H. A. (1984). Protocol analysis: Verbal reports as data. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Feist, G. J. (2004). The evolved fluid specificity of human creative talent. In Sternberg, R. J., Grigorenko, E. L., & Singer, J. L. (Eds.), Creativity: From potential to realization (pp. 57–82). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.Google Scholar
Feist, G. J. (2007). An evolutionary model of artistic and musical creativity. In Martindale, C., Locher, P., & Petrov, V. M. (Eds.), Evolutionary and neurocognitive approaches to aesthetics, creativity, and the arts (pp. 15–30). Amityville, NY, Baywood.Google Scholar
Fisher, R. B. (1995). Musical prodigies: Masters at an early age. New York: Association Press.Google Scholar
Folkestad, G. (2012). Digital tools and discourse in music: The ecology of composition. In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & MacDonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and reception (pp. 193–205). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Franklin, M. B. (2001). The artist speaks: Sigmund Koch on aesthetics and creative work. American Psychologist, 56, 445–452.Google Scholar
Freeman, W. (2000). A neurobiological role of music in social bonding. In Wallin, N. L., Merkur, S., & Brown, S. (Eds.), The origins of music (pp. 411–424). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gabora, L. (2000). Toward a theory of creative inklings. In Ascott, R. (Ed.), Art, technology, and consciousness (pp. 159–164). Bristol, UK: Intellect Press.Google Scholar
Galenson, D. W. (2006). Old masters and young geniuses: The two life cycles of artistic creativity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gardner, H. (1983). Frames of mind. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gjerdingen, R. O. (1988). A classic turn of phrase: Music and the psychology of convention. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Gould, S. J., & Vrba, E. S. (1982). Exaptation: A missing term in the science of form. Paleobiology, 8, 4–15.Google Scholar
Guilford, J. P. (1950). Creativity. American Psychologist, 5, 444–454.Google Scholar
Hargreaves, D. J., Hargreaves, J. J., & North, A. C. (2012). Imagination and creativity in music listening. In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & MacDonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and perception (pp. 156–172). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hass, R. W., & Weisberg, R. W. (2009). Career development in two seminal American songwriters: A test of the equal odds rule. Creativity Research Journal, 21, 183–190.Google Scholar
Hass, R. W., & Weisberg, R. W. (2015). Revisiting the 10-year rule for composers from the Great American Songbook: On the validity of two measures of creative production. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 9, 471–479.Google Scholar
Hayes, J. R. (1989). Cognitive processes in creativity. In Glover, J. A., Roning, R. R., & Reynolds, C. R. (Eds.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 202–219). New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Higham, T., Basell, L., Jacobi, R., Wood, R., Ramsey, C. B., & Conard, N. J. (2012). Τesting models for the beginnings of the Aurignacian and the advent of figurative art and music: The radiocarbon chronology of Geißenklösterle. Journal of Human Evolution, 62, 664–676.Google Scholar
Humdrum (2015, November 9). Retrieved on November 9, 2015, from http://www.humdrum.org/Google Scholar
Huron, D. (2006). Sweet anticipation: Music and the psychology of expectation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Justus, T., & Hutsler, J. J. (2005). Fundamental issues in the evolutionary psychology of music: Assessing innateness and domain specificity. Music Perception, 23, 1–27.Google Scholar
Katz, S. L., & Gardner, H. (2012). Musical materials or metaphorical models? A psychological investigation of what inspires composers. In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & Macdonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and perception (pp. 107–123). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kenneson, C. (2003). Musical prodigies: Perilous journeys, remarkable lives. Portland, OR: Amadeus Press.Google Scholar
Konečni, V. J. (2012). Composers’ creative processes: The role of life-events, emotion and reason. In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & Macdonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and perception (pp. 141–155). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Konrad, U. (1992). Mozart’s sketches. Early Music, 20, 119–130.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2005). Factors affecting aesthetic success and improvement in creativity: A case study of the musical genres of Mozart. Psychology of Music, 33, 235–255.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2007). A quantitative analysis of Beethoven as self-critic: Implications for psychological theories of musical creativity. Psychology of Music, 35, 147–172.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2008a). Longitudinal hit ratios of classical composers: Reconciling “Darwinian” and expertise acquisition perspectives on lifespan creativity. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 2, 221–235.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2008b). One-hit wonders in classical music: Evidence and (partial) explanations for an early career peak. Creativity Research Journal, 20, 179–195.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2011). Age and aesthetic significance in classical music: A multi-level reanalysis of Halsey’s (1976) ratings. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 29, 129–148.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2012). Process, self-evaluation, and lifespan creativity trajectories in eminent composers. In Collins, D. (Ed.), The act of musical composition: Studies in the creative process (pp. 27–51). Farnham, UK: Ashgate Press.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A. (2014). Musical creativity across the lifespan. In Simonton, D. K. (Ed.), Handbook of genius (pp. 451–472). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A., Beghetto, R., & Runco, M. A. (2010). Theories of creativity. In Kaufman, J. C & Sternberg, R. J. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of creativity (pp. 20–47). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kozbelt, A., & Meredith, D. (2010). A note on trans-historical melodic originality trends in classical music. International Journal of Creativity and Problem Solving, 20, 109–125.Google Scholar
Lehmann, A. C., & Gruber, H. (2006). Music. In Ericsson, K. A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P. J., & Hoffman, R. R. (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance (pp. 457–470). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Levitin, D. J. (2009). The world in six songs: How the musical brain created human nature. London: Plume.Google Scholar
Levitin, D. J., & Bellugi, U. (1998). Musical abilities in individuals with Williams syndrome. Music Perception, 15, 357–389.Google Scholar
MacDonald, R. A. R., Byrne, C., & Carlton, L. (2006). Creativity and flow in music composition: An empirical investigation. Psychology of Music, 34, 292–307.Google Scholar
Martindale, C. (1990). The clockwork muse: The predictability of artistic change. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Martindale, C. (2009). The evolution and end of art as Hegelian tragedy. Empirical Studies of the Arts, 27, 133–140.Google Scholar
McAdams, S. (2004). Problem-solving strategies in music composition: A case study. Music Perception, 21, 391–429.Google Scholar
Mednick, S. A. (1962). The associative basis of the creative process. Psychological Review, 69, 220–232.Google Scholar
Meredith, D., & Kozbelt, A. (2014). Ascending/descending melodic interval asymmetry in Arnold Schoenberg’s vocal music: Implications for trans-historical creativity. In Kozbelt, A. (Ed.), Proceedings of the Twenty-Third Biennial Congress of the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics [CD-ROM] (pp. 505–509). New York, NY: IAEA.Google Scholar
Miller, G. F. (2000a). Evolution of human music through sexual selection. In Wallin, N. L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.), The origins of music (pp. 329–360). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Miller, G. F. (2000b). The mating mind. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Miller, G. F. (2001). Aesthetic fitness: How sexual selection shaped artistic virtuosity as a fitness indicator and aesthetic preferences as mate choice criteria. Bulletin of Psychology and the Arts, 2, 20–25.Google Scholar
Millington, B. (1992). The Wagner compendium. New York: Schirmer Books.Google Scholar
Murray, C. (2003). Human accomplishment: The pursuit of excellence in the arts and sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Music Industry. (2015, November 9). Retrieved on November 9, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Total_revenue_by_year.Google Scholar
Paisley, W. J. (1964). Identifying the unknown communicator in painting, literature, and music: The significance of minor encoding habits. Journal of Communication, 14, 219–237.Google Scholar
Pater, W. (1893/2010). Studies in the history of the Renaissance (4th edn.). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Peretz, I. (2008). Musical disorders: From behavior to genes. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 329–333.Google Scholar
Perkins, D. N. (1981). The mind’s best work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Plucker, J. A. (1999). Is the proof in the pudding? Reanalyses of Torrance’s (1958 to present) longitudinal data. Creativity Research Journal, 12, 103–114.Google Scholar
Reitman, W. R. (1965). Cognition and thought. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rodriguez Zivic, P. H., Shifres, F., & Cecchi, G. A. (2013). Perceptual basis of evolving Western musical styles. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 110, 10034–10038.Google Scholar
Runco, M. A. (2007). Creativity. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of music and the brain. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Sawyer, R. K. (2006). Explaining creativity: The science of human innovation. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Schmidt, S. (2016). Musical extrapolations: Creative processes involved while music is being listened to and composed. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.Google Scholar
Schubert, E. (2012). Spreading activation and dissociation: A cognitive mechanism for creative processing in music. In Hargreaves, D. J., Miell, D. E., & MacDonald, R. A. R. (Eds.), Musical imaginations: Multidisciplinary perspectives on creativity, performance, and reception (pp. 124–140). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1977). Creative productivity, age, and stress: A biographical time-series analysis of 10 classical composers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 791–804.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1980). Thematic fame, melodic originality, and musical zeitgeist: A biographical and transhistorical content analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 38, 972–983.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1991). Emergence and realization of genius: The lives and works of 120 classical composers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 61, 829–840.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1994). Computer content analysis of melodic structure: Classical composers and their compositions. Psychology of Music, 22, 31–43.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1997). Creative productivity: A predictive and explanatory model of career landmarks and trajectories. Psychological Review, 104, 66–89.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (1999). Origins of genius: Darwinian perspectives on creativity. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2000). Creative development as acquired expertise: Theoretical issues and an empirical test. Developmental Review, 20, 283–318.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2007). Cinema composers: Career trajectories for creative productivity in film music. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 1, 160–169.Google Scholar
Simonton, D. K. (2011). Creativity and discovery as blind variation: Campbell’s (1960) BVSR model after the half-century mark. Review of General Psychology, 15, 158–174.Google Scholar
Sloboda, J. A. (1985). The musical mind. New York: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar
Sloboda, J. A., O’Neill, S. A., & Ivaldi, A. (2001). Functions of music in everyday life: An exploratory study using the experience sampling method. Musicae Scientiae, 5, 9–32.Google Scholar
Solomon, M. (1980). On Beethoven’s creative process: A two-part invention. Music and Letters, 61, 272–283.Google Scholar
Sternberg, R. J. (2009). Domain-generality versus domain-specificity of creativity. In Meusburger, P., Funke, J., & Wunder, E. (Eds.), Milieus of creativity: An interdisciplinary approach to spatiality of creativity (pp. 25–38). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer.Google Scholar
Thomson, W. (1991). Schoenberg’s error. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Tooby, J. & Cosmides, L. (1992). The psychological foundations of culture. In Barkow, J., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (Eds.), The adapted mind: Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture (pp. 19–136). New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Trehub, S. E. (2000). Human processing predispositions and musical universals. In Wallin, N. L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.), The origins of music (pp. 427–448). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Trehub, S. E. (2003). The developmental origins of musicality. Nature Neuroscience, 6, 669–673.Google Scholar
Vallas, L. (1973). Claude Debussy: His life and works, trans. O’Brien, Marie and O’Brien, Grace. New York: Dover.Google Scholar
Vartanian, O. (2009). Variable attention facilitates creative problem solving. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 3, 57–59.Google Scholar
Vos, P. G., & Troost, J. M. (1989). Ascending and descending melodic intervals: Statistical findings and their perceptual relevance. Music Perception, 6, 383–396.Google Scholar
Waddington, C. H. (1942). Canalization of development and the inheritance of acquired characters. Nature, 150, 563–565.Google Scholar
Wallin, N. L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). (2000). The origins of music. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Webster, P. R. (1987). Conceptual bases for creative thinking in music. In Peery, J. C., Peery, I. C., & Draper, T. W. (Eds.), Music and child development (pp. 158–174). New York: Springer-Verlag.Google Scholar
Weisberg, R. W. (1999). Creativity and knowledge: A challenge to theories. In Sternberg, R. J. (Ed.), Handbook of creativity (pp. 226–250). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weisberg, R. W. (2006). Creativity: Understanding innovation in problem solving, science, invention, and the arts. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: The unity of knowledge. New York: Vintage.Google Scholar
Younker, B. A., & Smith, W.H. (1996). Comparing and modelling musical thought processes of expert and novice composers. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, 128, 25–35.Google Scholar
Zabelina, D., & Robinson, M. D. (2010). Creativity as flexible cognitive control. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, 4, 136–143.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×