Wiggins, J. (2002). Creative process as meaningful music thinking. In T. Sullivan & L. Willingham (Eds.), Creativity and music education (Vol. 1, pp. 78–88). Canadian Music Educators’ Association.
Dr. Jackie Wiggins, Professor of music education at Oakland University, Michigan writes a book chapter about the creative process as “meaningful music thinking”, and the role it has in primary school students’ music education. Musical thinking is defined as the act of listening to, performing and/or creating music. Dr Wiggins draws from 10 years of collected recordings during music classes to inform her research on the nature of the students musical thinking when learning a melody by ear, improvising and composing a melody on an instrument. She uses these case studies to highlight several patterns in behaviour that are common and analyses how these processes unfold for her students. She discovers that creative experiences are most meaningful when the student can claim some ownership from the creative process, and by setting overly constraining tasks for students the experience feels less like compositional practise, and more like a puzzle to be solved. By giving the student freedom, the music learning experience becomes personally valuable and meaningful to them.
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MacDonald, R., Byrne, C., & Carlton, L. (2006). Creativity and flow in musical composition: An empirical investigation. Psychology of Music, 34(3), 292–306. https://doi.org/10.1177/0305735606064838
Former artistic director and reader of psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University Raymond Macdonald, Senior lecturer in the department of Creative and Aesthetic Studies at University of Strathclyde Charles Byrne and PHD student at Glasgow Caledonian University’s Psychology Department Lana Carlton, investigate Csikszentmihalyi’s concept on flow and its relationship with the quality of music composition and creativity. Undergraduate students in Byrnes Applied Music class were asked to complete a small group composing task that would then lead to a survey where students would assess their own concentration during the task, and each of the group’s outcomes were assessed on creativity and quality by music educators. The aspects to Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of flow that are focused on in this study included removing the worry of failure, providing clear goals each step of the way and providing a balance between the perceived challenge and the control the individual has in the duration of the task. I personally found this to be something of a contradiction considering that sometimes the worry of failure is the very thing that allows us to perceive a challenge as a challenge. I also think that the complex nature of the individual makes it incredibly difficult to assign the correct level of challenge to each individual student as to keep them engaged. The result of the study suggests positive outcomes to incorporating methods from Csikszentmihalyi’s flow theory, but I’m not completely certain that flow state was achieved by the students. By providing students with exciting and achievable challenges, they are going to motivated to improve, and by providing instant feedback on their work they are given the opportunity to improve their work more efficiently. I question whether all the students were able to enter a state of flow. By leaving it up to the individual to assess, they can only compare their concentration level compared to what they know, and flow state as the ultimate form of focus and concentration may not be familiar to some of the students. They conclude by reporting that higher levels of flow lead to higher quality compositions and higher levels of creativity. Lowe, G. (2002). Creativity and motivation. In T. Sullivan & L. Willingham (Eds.), Creativity and music education (Vol. 1, pp. 89–99). Canadian Music Educators’ Association.
In this Chapter, Executive Director of the Western Australian Youth Orchestra Association, Geoffrey Lowe explores the topic of motivation for students in music classes and implies the importance of creativity in lower education. He argues that motivation is driven by an individual’s attitudes, beliefs and emotional and instinctive feelings that exist on a positive/negative continuum. A reference to Eccles, J separates motivation into four components of value, Attainment value; The importance of doing well on a given task, Interest value; Inherent enjoyment gained from doing the task, Utility value; how the task fits into future or related goals, and Cost; what an individual must give up undertaking the task. Competence and expectancies factor in as a student will become more motivated if they can imagine themselves improving or have memories in succeeding in their musical learning. Interviews uncover the students desire for creative exploration and suggests that implementing a form of creative freedom can improve attitudes towards music education. There is also the need to negotiate skills acquisition in allowing effective creative exploration to take place. Students should be guided through creative exploration, and not taught it. I've decided to write my thesis about Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's flow theory and how it applies to music composition in a more modern sense. I intend to make lifestyle changes throughout this journey to accomodate the greatest chance for creativity to flow from me as i work on music, as advised by different sources including methods of meditation, exercise, and of course Csikszentmihalyi's advice on the matter, to find what is the most effective for me on a personal level.
This journey of self realization is quite atypical of an honours thesis, my goal is to remain as objective as possible and highlight what works, what doesnt and why, taking into account the modern world we live in and the tools that composers have available to them today. The tools that i myself will make use of. What is creativity? is it the invention of something the world has never seen before, or the mixing of two or more things that already exist to make something new? As the world advances through time, it will become increasingly difficult to create new works, and perhaps one day, all new ideas will be exhausted. Will creativity die on that day? Perhaps creativity is the ability to advance ones skils at putting something together, the compitency of building a structure that is useful and respectable. What is flow? 1) Completely involved in what we are doing - focused concentrated. 2) a sense of ecstacy - of being outside everyday reality. 3) great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well we are doing. 4) knowing that the activity is doable - that our skills are adequate to the task. 5) a sense of serenity - no worries about oneself, and feeling of growing beyond the boundries of ego. 6) Timelessness - thoroughly focused on the present hours seem to pass by in minutes. 7) Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces flow becomes its own reward. (Csiksentmihalyi, 2004) Where do these ideas meet, and can it be achieved by a modern day composer? A. R. (2015, October 4). TED Talk – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Flow – 2004. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_u-Eh3h7Mo |
AuthorMy name is Daniel Ohm and this section will include my research into music theory, experimental ideas, Mixing techniques and lessons learned from creative forums and musical endeavors. Archives
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