Becoming Creative: Insights from Musicians in a Diverse World

by Juniper Hill

Overview

How are our ability and motivation to be creative shaped by the world around us? Why does creativity seem to flourish in some environments, while others seem to stifle it? Many societies value creativity as an abstract concept and many, perhaps even most, individuals feel an internal drive to be creative; however, tremendous social pressures restrict individuals' development of creative skill sets, engagement in creative activities, and willingness to take creative risks.

Becoming Creative explores how social and cultural factors enable or inhibit creativity in music. Author Juniper Hill integrates perspectives from ethnomusicology, education, sociology, psychology, and performance studies, while prioritizing the voices of practicing musicians and music educators. Insights are drawn from ethnographic research and in-depth interviews with classical, jazz, and traditional musicians in South Africa, Finland, and the US. By comparing and analysing these musicians' personal experiences, Becoming Creative deepens our understanding of the development and practice of musical creativity, the external factors that influence it, and strategies for enhancing it. Hill reveals the common components of how musical creativity is experienced across these cultures and explains why creativity might not always be socially desirable. She identifies ideal creativity-enabling criteria — specific skills sets, psychological traits and states, and access to opportunities and authority — and illustrates how these enablers of creativity are fostered or thwarted by a variety of beliefs, attitudes, learning methods, social relationships, institutions, and social inequalities. In addition to theoretical contributions, many sections have direct applications for practice, especially the examination of formal and informal strategies for overcoming inhibitors of creativity. Becoming Creative is for scholars, artists, educators, and anyone wishing to better understand and support creative development in today's world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199365180
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	10/31/2018
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	9.10(w) x 6.10(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Juniper Hill has conducted extensive fieldwork on creativity, improvisation, pedagogy, and intercultural dynamics in South Africa, Finland, the US, and Ecuador. She has been awarded a Marie Curie fellowship, a Humboldt fellowship, and two Fulbright fellowships, and has held positions at the University of California, University of Cambridge, and University College Cork. She is currently Professor and Chair of Ethnomusicology at the University of Würzburg.

Table of 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

Editorial Reviews

"For those who work in the field of creation, it's likely to find in Hill's work a clear articulation of complex phenomena personally encountered. Ultimately, giving voice to that shared experience delivers balm to creation's spiritual wounds and encouragement to continue." — Katherine Oktober Matthews, Riding the Dragon

"Readers will find inspiration in the interviews and thick descriptions, and they may be encouraged to take musical risks that will take them over the top in search of their own creative impulses." — Patricia Shehan Campbell, Donald E. Peterson Professor of Music, University of Washington

"This monumental study of musical creativity in 3 contrasting cultures is set to become a landmark in the field. I know of no other study which so rigorously extracts important lessons from such a large and diverse set of interviews with practicing musicians. By uncovering and explaining the multiple blocks to creativity, and examining successful strategies for overcoming them, this book will hopefully serve not only the scholar but the musical community at large." — John Sloboda, Research Professor, Guildhall School of Music & Drama

From the Publisher