Becoming Creative: Insights from Musicians in a Diverse World

Contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Figures
• Chapter One:
• Interpreting Creative Experience Across Diverse Musical Communities
• 1.1. Introduction
• 1.2. What does it mean to be creative?
• An experiential model of musical creativity
• Generativity
• Agency
• Interaction
• Nonconformity
• Recycling
• Flow
• Value as a problematic component of creativity
• 1.3. Creativity as socially undesirable behavior: some theoretical insights
• Social pressures to conform
• Internalizing motivations not to be creative
• 1.4. Common enablers and inhibitors of creativity: an overview of chapters
• 1.5. Learning from the experiences of musicians: methodology
• 1.6. Contrasting musical communities: the case studies
• The allure of Helsinki, Cape Town, and Los Angeles as research sites
• Urban distinctions
• Cross-cultural comparisons of classical, jazz, and folk music communities
• Chapter Two:
• Developing Creativity Enabling Skills
• 2.1. Introduction to creativity enabling skills
• 2.2. Technique
• The myth of technical mastery as prerequisite for creativity
• Overemphasis on technique
• Correct technique as conformativity or toolbox
• 2.3. Aural skills
• Building aural skills through oral transmission
• Lack of aural skills as inhibiting
• Concerns about oral transmission and imitation
• 2.4. Vocabulary and memory facility
• Building vocabulary for idiomatic creative activities
• Human memory as facilitator of creativity
• Oral versus written culture
• Reviving oral culture and unfixing notation
• A critique of pattern manipulation as (un)creative
• 2.5. Syntax and the ability to apply music theory
• 2.6. Decision-making skills
• Lack of decision-making skills as inhibiting
• Approaches for fostering decision-making skills
• 2.7. Self-assessment skills
• 2.8. Summary of developing creativity enabling skills
• Chapter Three:
• Developing Psychological Enablers and Inhibitors of Creativity
• 3.1. Introduction to psychological enablers and inhibitors of creativity
• 3.2. Beliefs about talent and potential
• Western attitudes toward talent and their impacts
• South African attitudes toward musical and creative potential and their impacts
• 3.3. Role models
• Identification with role models and sense of potential
• Role models as conveyors of norms and permission
• 3.4. Assessment and feedback
• Positive feedback
• Constructive critical assessment
• Destructive feedback
• Anticipating feedback
• Self-judgment
• 3.5. Values and attitudes
• Mistakes and Perfectionism
• Originality versus recycling
• 3.6. Summary of psychological enablers and inhibitors
• Chapter Four:
• Accessing the Opportunity, Permission, and Authority to be Creative
• 4.1. Opportunities and barriers in creative development: social inequalities
• Prejudice and internalized perceptions of limited potential
• Economic inequalities in music learning
• 4.2. Opportunities and barriers in creative work: economic pressures
• Private gigs, corporate sponsorship, and neoliberal policies in Cape Town
• Working for the music, television, and film industries in Los Angeles
• State support for the arts in Helsinki
• Policies, markets, motivation, and education
• 4.3. Authority, permissions, and prohibitions: who's allowed to create what music?
• Codifying rules for newcomers and restricting outsiders
• Stylstic boundaries and the politics of race, class, and cultural imperialism
• Internalizing musical attitudes and practices as moral values
• 4.4. Summary of societal enablers and inhibitors of creativity
• Chapter Five:
• Overcoming Inhibitors of Creativity
• 5.1. Mechanisms for overcoming inhibitors of creativity
• The safe transgression of comfort zones
• 5.2. Formal methods for enhancing creative agency: courses and programs
• Safety and emotional support
• Facilitating composition and improvisation within an idiom
• Free improvisation, experimentalism, and the breaking of convention
• Multiple modes of expression: singing, multi-instrumentalism, dance, and theatre
• Exposure, facilitator expectations, and validation
• 5.3. Informal strategies for overcoming creative hurdles: individual journeys
• Tuomas
• Jackie
• Kyle
• Anja
• Juniper
• 5.5. Conclusions on increasing creative agency
• Musicians Interviewed
• References