Musical Creativities in 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.

Pamela's career has been woven from a combination of experiences as a professional musician, performer, educator, academic and researcher in Australia, USA and England from where she holds degrees in Music Performance, Music Education, and Education. Her primary interest is in understanding the creativities that inhere in music practice and in pushing the boundaries of contemporary thought on creative practices in music and arts education. She is internationally known for her work in the areas of children's creativity, community and professional music making, creative learning and teaching, individual, communal, collective, collaborative and intercultural creativities, and their pedagogic practices and assessment. She is currently co-convener of the British Educational Research Association, Creativity SIG; co-editor of the British Journal of Music Education, Associate Editor of Psychology of Music and Guest Editor of Special Issues on Creativity for the UNESCO Observatory E-Journal.