Musical Creativities in Real World Practice

Musical Creativities in Practice explores the social and the cultural contexts in which creativity in music occurs. It begins by considering what constitutes creativity - taking a cross cultural view of music, while also investigating creative processes far beyond just the classical music genre - to include electronic media, popular music, improvised music. In addition it looks at creativity in both writing and performing.

A key part of the book focuses on the field of musical education, considering why creativity is important within the educational environment, and looking at how schools might sometimes stifle creativity in their music teaching, rather than encourage it. Throughout, the book makes extensive use of case studies and real-life examples taken from studies across the world, offering a powerful corrective to myths and outmoded conceptions which privilege the creative practice of individual artists. It argues the need for conceptual expansion of musical creativities in line with vital contemporary real world practices. It explores how different types of musical creativities are recognised and communicated in the real world practices of a diversity of professional musicians. It covers creative practice issues underlying composing, improvising, singer songwriting, originals bands, DJ cultures, live coding and interactive sound designing and the implications of creativity research for music education and for the assessment of creativities in industry and education.

This book will be valuable for those in fields of music psychology and music education, from advanced undergraduate level upwards.