Embodiment of Musical Creativity

The Cognitive and Performative Causality of Musical Composition

Zvonimir Nagy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315468990
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

Embodiment of Musical Creativity offers an innovative look at the interdisciplinary nature of creativity in musical composition. Using examples from empirical and theoretical research in creativity studies, music theory and cognition, psychology and philosophy, performance and education studies, and the author's own creative practice, the book examines how the reciprocity of cognition and performativity contributes to our understanding of musical creativity in composition. From the composer's perspective the book investigates the psychological attributes of creative cognition whose associations become the foundation for an understanding of embodied creativity in musical composition. The book defines the embodiment of musical creativity as a cognitive and performative causality: a relationship between the cause and effect of our experience when composing music. Considering the theoretical, practical, contextual, and pedagogical implications of embodied creative experience, the book redefines aspects of musical composition to reflect the changing ways that musical creativity is understood and evaluated. Embodiment of Musical Creativity provides a comparative study of musical composition, in turn articulating a new perspective on musical creativity.

Part I
Towards the embodiment of musical creativity

1
Multimodality of creative experience in music

In The Body of Sound, Holger Schulze (2012) argues that thinking of sound and the senses implies a dynamic reciprocity between the “sensory of specific, individual or bodily auditory experiences,” and the “actual experiences of intermodal and transmodal sensory perception” (Schulze 2012, 204–205). This connection between the body as the represented intentionality of sonic manifestations suggests a comparative approach to the perception and cognition of music (Carterette and Kendall 1999) that, as a result of these interactive processes, becomes multimodal in the sense of the intentionality that bodily mechanisms impose on the creative acts of making music. From the perspective of a composer, and understood as a central part of the human experience, I conceive of musical creativity as a multidisciplinary investigation into the structure of composing music: a creative endeavor defined by an interplay of psychological mechanisms. It is on this ground that I explore the creative ways and associations through which composers engage with musical sound. By starting with a discussion on how various concepts of creativity might be understood and related to each other, I thus propose a multimodal approach to the study of musical creativity by offering a theoretical framework within which the ideas of this study have been developed. This approach will enable us to view musical creativity “not as a single unitary process but as a product of many types of mental [and physical] processes, each of which helps us to set the stage for creative insight and discovery” (Finke, Ward, and Smith 1996, 2).

At the outset of my discussion, in Part I of this book I explore the research and findings that studies in creativity, cognition, and perception have produced, together with their implications on the understanding of the psychological aspects and factors of musical creativity. Identifying cognition as “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses,” ¹ first, in this chapter I will place my discussion in the context of contemporary theories of creativity as I explore ideas from creative cognition as a means of understanding the multimodal identity of musical creativity. Here I will define creative experience as an interplay of both mental and physical processes that contribute to the formation of modalities of creative experience. I will then provide a comparative categorization of perspectives on creativity while emphasizing creativity-related cognitive modalities. These concepts reflect the pragmatic nature of my study, which can be further explained by the interdependence of the theoretical and practical aspects of my approach. Hence, as I offer a survey of different but, as it will be seen, mutually inclusive perspectives on creativity, I will also provide an overview of the pertinent literature and academic disciplines that are currently at play in music psychology and creativity studies. However, rather than providing a comparative synopsis of many perspectives on creativity, I will focus on those perspectives that, in my opinion, contribute to the formation of psychological modalities of creative experience in musical composition. I will thereby suggest that there might be an alternative explanation of creative experience based on a fusion of cognitive and perceptual psychological processes, whose association gives rise to the formation of multimodality of creative experience. Employing the theories of embodied cognition as my main conceptual tools, I will then go on to place the results of my investigation in light of appropriate analytical concepts as I develop an integrative model of creativity that relates creative modalities to the idea of embodiment of musical creativity.

* * *

My work on this book had to draw heavily on the personal experiences of my work as a composer. In this sense, the present text on compositional creativity suggests an interdisciplinary methodology developed through the fields of music psychology and creativity studies, providing a structure within which theoretical and empirical psychological research has utilized a variety of findings and procedures, each emphasizing a slightly different facet of compositional creativity. Many of these discoveries borrow heavily from those developed in music theory, performance studies, the philosophy of the mind, and music education, suggesting a methodology that can be defined as a type of action research (Rusinek 2012, 188). In fact, contemporary music scholarship continues to demonstrate that to investigate musical creativity requires multidisciplinary inquiry, using both empirical and theoretical approaches to the study of creative musical awareness, resulting in an interdependent take on cognitive and behaviorist theories of creativity, as a possible way to understand the reciprocity of individualist and sociocultural perspectives on creativity (Sawyer 2014). Thus, my study on compositional creativity can best be described as “a sociological methodology that allows the people being studied to become part of the knowledge creation process. … Rather than conducting research for the sake of pure academic inquiry, the underlying tenets of action research reveal cooperative intention on the part of the researchers and practitioners [and composers], both in terms of the work conducted, and the results concluded” (McCaleb 2014, 13). In this way, focusing on the multimodal nature of creative experience, my main inquiry is to explore what it takes for composers to engage in the creative act of musical composition. I believe that the answers to questions such as this can be addressed with the methods and conceptual framework of embodied music cognition.

Perhaps the most immediate rationale for this approach may be found in my interdisciplinary background and experience: I am an active composer and scholar with a penchant and interest for the philosophy and psychology of creativity, and I have had formal training in music theory and cognition together with many years of teaching college courses in music theory and composition. On this ground, a methodological approach such as the one I have adopted throughout this book resembles what is known today as reflective research practice (Schön 1983) that enabled me to develop the ability to also critically evaluate my own compositional creativity while also investigating the creative work of other composers. In this respect, my perspective as a reflective practitioner (composer and researcher) is phenomenological in motive; this method relies upon both my personal background as a composer and the context of my research through which I have sought to provide a definitional and descriptive account of the creative act of musical composition. In summary, my methodology to construct a framework for musical creativity in composition is based on a combination of theoretical, practical, and contextual elements. By conducting research on the psychology of musical creativity and the way composers create musical works, my approach combines making original observations, understanding their importance, construing their applied theoretical significance in light of appropriate conceptual and contextual relevance, and in the end, providing a description of the pragmatic implications of my observations in practice.

I believe that the main objective of the investigation of musical creativity needs to be the experiential study of the interrelated dichotomies that underlie the multimodal nature of creative experience with musical sound. After all, “sound is a very special modality. We cannot handle it. We cannot push it away. … Sound is the least controllable of all sense modalities” (Jaynes 1976, quoted in Meintjes 2012, 272). As a case study, I thus consider the most direct source for my inquiry to be the creative process itself whereby the created sounds become “the extension of our bodies, the extension of our senses,” and inevitably, the extension of “language as a tool to extend our thought” (Clark 2008, ix–x). It is from this perspective that in this chapter I develop a conceptual framework to investigate the interdependence between the various psychological attributes of creativity, whose associations become the foundation for an understanding of embodied creativity. I believe that the knowledge and manifestation of this relationship may provide insight into the role of embodiment of musical creativity, offering a new perspective on the nature of creative experience, and in turn bringing us a step closer to an understanding of musical creativity in composition.

From creative awareness to creative activeness

In light of the background briefly outlined at the beginning of this chapter, I find it necessary to reevaluate the different perspectives of musical creativity when engaging in the study of musical composition. Looking at the wide range of today’s perspectives on creativity, to redefine what constitutes creativity in music remains an attractive but also very stimulating challenge. As I begin to illustrate the types of activities, creativities, and experiences of composing music, I find it important to signal the fact that the act of musical composition today is less known to be an isolated, solitary activity than it is a multifaceted and dynamic process that involves a myriad of approaches to creativity. For example, Hennessey and Amabile (2010) proposed that creativity arises through “a system of a variety of interrelated forces operating at multiple levels,” a process often calling for a multidisciplinary investigation (569). Yet what then is musical creativity if not a fusion of a great many models and perspectives? Considering both individualist and sociocultural approaches to creativity, Sawyer (2011) defines creativity as “a new mental combination that is expressed in the world … [and] a generation of a product that is judged to be novel and also to be appropriate, useful, or valuable by a suitably knowledgeable social group” (7–8). This dialogue between individual and sociocultural perspectives can best be observed in the work on creativity by Pamela Burnard. Burnard suggests thinking of musical creativity as a highly interactive phenomenon, reflecting a variety of creative experiences, or what she terms multiple creativities (Burnard 2012a). Placing her study in the wide context of music making, Burnard’s exploration of the social dimensions of creativities offers an active, as opposed to a passive, approach to the study of creativity. Ranging from conceptualizing and gathering ideas for a new musical work, through the work’s contextualization that is seen in its manifestation and realization (for example, codification, performance, recording, and promotion), and ultimately to the social and cultural acknowledgement and acceptance of the composer, the vast array of creative incentives on the part of composers clearly reflects the multimodal nature of creative experience. As such, the concept of creativity may be placed in the context of specific musical creativities, one of them constituting the act of musical composition. On this ground, Burnard’s (2012a) concept of multiple musical creativities represents an effort to move “beyond the individualistic view of musical creativity, of broadening the concept and, in doing so, comes to an understanding of the plurality of creative practices and distinctive features that constitute the multiple manifestations of music creativities” (4).

A study on musical creativities like the one just mentioned significantly influenced my creative practice as a composer. As I began observing my creative work, and as I noticed certain behavioral patterns emerging in my compositional process, the thought came to me that perhaps I should explore those essential qualities of my compositional activity and, in turn, envision my own “paths to greater creativity” (Sawyer 2013). On this account, here I propose the concept of creative space that emphasizes the exchange of divergent approaches to creativity in music. Suggesting a metaphor of inner creative space explored in Chapter 3, and musical space, a subject of further discussion in Chapters 5 and 6, it is almost as if there is an experiential trajectory that exists within one’s creative experience that one has to traverse, or for the lack of a better word, move across, in order to discover the very essence of creative experience. Therefore, in the context of music psychology and creative cognition, as well as my own creative practice, I put forward a series of theoretical constructs that account for the formation of multimodal configurations of creative experience in music. In order to do so, I outline a few relevant research findings that these interdisciplinary studies have produced, along with their implications on the multimodality of creative experience in the act of musical composition. But first, let me offer a working definition of compositional creativity.

To start, I define the process of composition as a creative endeavor involving various psychological processes (Collins 2012). Those may refer to the cognitive and perceptual ones characterized by musical representations, that is inner hearing or imagery; and physiological and physical ones characterized by musical manifestations, that is completed composition or performance. In this way, musical creativity embodies both personal, internal activities as well as intrapersonal, social activities, related to the creative environment where the act of composition takes place. Here my attitude towards the act of composition resonates with Jonathan Harvey’s (1999b) position on the creative experience when he recalled that, “What matters is not whether music can convey anything of its composer’s experiences, but whether those experiences influenced the compositional process”(42). It is from this perspective of what we can refer to as situated creativity, a type of creative process that simultaneously exists both within the body and in relation to the environment (Hodges 2009), that I explore perspectives on compositional creativity. It is on this account that I develop a theoretical foundation for creative processes and their associations through which composers engage with creativity. Would it then be appropriate to consider musical creativity as a state of the mind as much as a substantiation of the body? David Chalmers (2010b) suggests that there is an implicit bond between awareness and experience in which “awareness is a purely functional notion, but is nevertheless intimately linked to conscious experience. In familiar cases, whenever we find consciousness, we find awareness” (21).

In their study of creative cognition, Finke, Ward, and Smith (1996) identified the conditions under which creativity may occur. Explaining their model of creative cognition, the authors argue that “processes used in the generation of cognitive structures and those used to explore the creative implications of those structures” (2) are essential in the understanding of the cognitive mechanisms responsible for creative thinking, and ultimately for discovery and innovation. They explain: “Among the generative processes we consider to be important are memory retrieval, association, mental synthesis, mental transformation, analogical transfer, and categorical reduction. The exploratory processes we regard as most relevant are attribute finding, conceptual interpretation, function inference, contextual shifting, hypothesis testing, and searching for limitations” (2). Termed the Geneplore model of creative cognition, Finke, Ward, and Smith defined this model in terms of the model’s interdependence of so-called generative or cognitive, and explanatory or performative processing components. The former components, that we can also call mental representations, conceptually form “preinventive structures, having various properties that promote creative discovery” (Finke, Ward, and Smith 1996, 17). Meanwhile, the latter components, or auditory manifestations, functionally realize “the preinventive structures in meaningful ways” (17). When placed in the context of compositional creativity, however, the creative cognition model implies a particular type of exchange between a conceptualization and a contextualization of creative processes, embodying a sense of connection between the generative act of mentally envisioning musical sound, for instance, and the explanatory act of physically producing the sound. To begin to redress this balance, I propose that this model of creative cognition, when applied to the act of musical composition, suggests a certain unification of rule-driven and instinct-driven compositional processes.

Again, this fusion of conceptual and contextual compositional practices may play an important role in the formation of a situated creative space between the composer’s intention and realization of a new musical work. It seems to me that this attitude towards composing might have found its application in the creative work of Béla Bartók, who offered the following account.

I never created new theories in advance, I hated such ideas … [my] plans were concerned with the spirit of the new work and with technical problems … all more or less instinctively felt, but I was never concerned with general theories to be applied to the works I was going to write … even now I would prefer to try new ways and means instead of deducing theories.

(Stevens 1993, 225–226; quoted in Kozbelt 2012, 46)

As I signaled earlier in this chapter, the present study draws equally on this relationship between the creative intention to embrace both cognitive (or mental) and perceptual (or sensory) mechanisms of creative experience in music. Then again, I gather there must exist underlying processes that sustain the creative experience, somewhat similar to the creative cognition model cited above, and yet being neither one of them and both at the same time. In this section I focus on what can be seen as an essential prerequisite for creativity to occur: the formation of multi-modal creative experience when composing music.

Recent studies in neuroscience of creativity have shown that a sudden conscious awareness of creative insight (Bowers, Farvolden, and Mermigis 1995) can be seen as a representation of this cognitive-emotional interplay. As a two-part process, this immediate creative awareness is preceded by unconscious action (creative contemplation) and accompanied by a heightened neural activity just before the insight (creative act). Similarly, Kounios et al. (2008) further emphasized the unconscious resting state before reaching the point of creative insight (incubation effect and mind wandering) as proneness to creative acts. Recalling once again the findings from creative cognition, our attitude towards the creativity of musical composition thus revolves around both the psychology of the generative mechanisms and the physiology of the explan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of music examples
• Series editor’s preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• PART I Towards the embodiment of musical creativity
• PART II The embodied creativity of musical composition
• PART III Conceptualization and contextualization of musical creativity
• Bibliography
• Index