Musical creativity in the mirror of Glaveanu’s five principles of cultural psychology

Abstract

Musical creativity can be found in several domains of music-making (composing, improvisation, performing) as well music perception and analysis. Musical creativity cannot be approached without being aware of the wide range of pluralistic analysis methods, their implementation in creative processes and their inherent creative nature. This commentary enlarges Glaveanu’s (2010) five principles of creativity of cultural psychology; alongside a short theoretical overview of artistic and scientific creativity in the domain of music I have hierarchized Glaveanu’s five principles. Contextual understanding emerges as the meta-principle, while the ecological nature of creativity opens the question of research methodology having an impact both on creativity giving birth to an artwork through composing, improvising, and performing, and the way in which we understand artworks through listening, historically and analytically. Tension design as an analytical tool has the potential to fit the condition of the ecological principle of Glaveanu as well as revealing highly qualitative-individual features of perceiving music. It is a key aspect in understanding creative processes both in the composition and analysis of music. In music as well as in other arts, Glaveanu’s five principles appear intertwined in several domains on several levels and can be successfully recognized and understood.

Keywords

analysis artistic composition ecological nature of creativity general improvisation music theory performance scientific creativity

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