CONDITIONS FOR CREATIVITY

If we begin from the premise that each one of us possesses potential for expression in sound, perhaps we can echo the statement of Torrance that creativity is a ‘natural human process motivated by strong human needs’, and that in the process of enabling people to be creative, ever present ‘is the question of just how much and what we are teaching and how much of the progress we observe is due to facilitating conditions that free natural processes to operate’ (Torrance, 1972).

It is these facilitating conditions for creativity which I would hope to look at; conditions applicable to anyone, irrespective of handicap; then to examine some of the ways in which those with special needs may have been denied the choice to align themselves with any or all of these conditions, and subsequently to consider the enabling role of technology in the context of these factors. Underlying this, I believe any development of technology must serve well established educational criteria, and not the other way round.

As I have said, my emphasis is upon music composition in its broadest sense, from the smallest and most modest musical statements to more worked out compositions. Malcolm Ross (1980) has suggested some principles upon which one may base the conditions for creativity:

Initiating

This is the beginning of the creative impulse in music composition, and frequently seems to arise from tactile exploration and playing around with ideas. Although it might be pleasant to think that every member of the human race has a mind like Mozart, who seemed to have preformulated compositions in his head, so that composition to him was merely the transference of this to paper, it is unfortunately not the case. Most of us need some kind of physical engagement with a sound-making device to trigger off or galvanize ideas. This is an extension of play: play is essential in the act of creation, and Torrance points out that ‘creative children are often learning and thinking when they appear to be playing around, often in manipulative or exploratory activities. Musical imagination is not entirely what Vygotsky describes as ‘play without action’—action is part and parcel of this initial imaginative stage. Stravinsky has spoken eloquently of this need for action:

The very act of putting my work on paper…is for me inseparable from the pleasure of creation. So far as I am concerned, I cannot separate the spiritual effort from the psychological and physical effort.

(Stravinsky, 1974:67) In a recent piece of research on writing, called ‘Hand, eye, brain: some basics in the writing process’, Emig (1983) recounts a statement by Ernest Hemingway,

made after an automobile accident when he feared that he had lost the use of his right arm. ‘Hemingway commented simply that he thought he would probably have to give up writing. For how many others of us is the action of the hand, the literal act of writing, the motoric component, equally crucial?’

Emig goes on to suggest four reasons why the motoric component may be so crucial in the creative process, the primary being that: ‘the literal act of writing is activating, mobilizing. It physically thrusts the writer from a state of inaction into engagement with the process and with the task. We have actually, physically, begun to do something’.

The early stage of engagement with the medium of sound may take the form of doodling, which in itself may incorporate unintended events. Ross places a great deal of importance on this doodling activity:

the doodling initiates a form of relaxed, perceptual scanning that eventually detects the possibility of affective centring—it could be that some happy accident of movement catches the imagination, a cluster of notes, a rhythmical pulse, a phrase or movement of speed.

(Ross, 1980:112) Chance happening within the playful activity (at whatever age/developmental level), seems to be essential; playing around on the keyboard one may discover an unintended yet desired set of notes; a melody may acquire greater personal meaning merely through the slip of a finger.

Stravinsky again:

Invention presupposes imagination but should not be confused with it. For the act of invention implies the necessity of a lucky find and of achieving full realization of this find…creative imagination [is] the faculty that helps us pass from the level of conception to the level of realization. In the course of my labours I suddenly stumble upon something unexpected. This unexpected element strikes me. I make a note of it. At the proper time I put it to profitable use. This gift of chance is…bound up with the creative process.

(Stravinsky, 1974:69) This initiating or precipitation of musical creativity probably represents one of the greatest stumbling blocks for music educators and their pupils.

Acquainting

Not only is there a necessity to play around with ideas, but also to be conversant, sensitive, with the medium. Just as in calligraphy one needs to know how much ink to load the pen or brush with, or in pottery, how wet to make the clay, so in the medium of sound one needs to be conversant with such things as the effect of

combining two or more notes, or the effect of a particular note juxtaposed against various differing harmonies, or the way in which various instruments create their own timbres. This process of becoming conversant with the medium can only arise out of active involvement, which to a greater or lesser extent continues to involve physical activity. To experience the effects of various notes against others, or simply the emotional power of a note-cluster on a keyboard played alternatively with force, or pianissimo and sustained, a personal (and tactile) engagement with the medium of sound, seems very important.

Controlling

Such activities, however, may be a creative cul-de-sac without a degree of mastery of basic skills and techniques to manipulate the medium. One may know exactly how much ink a brush or pen will hold without blotting, but be unable to use that skill to draw a Chinese character. Similarly, simply knowing what is the best consistency for modelling in clay will not enable us to produce a pot.

Manipulating the medium of ink, clay or sound requires mastery of certain techniques, but the mastery of a technique presupposes limitations on one’s freedom. This does not mean, conversely, that the creative act is rule-directed, but that, paradoxically, it creates conditions for creativity:

In music, the prescription of sets of sound materials has always been an obvious feature of compositional processes. It seems essential for composers to limit available resources, to make music manageable, to get themselves started. Thus we have the tonal system, twelve note techniques, pentatonic scales, Indian ragas and even more limited sets of sound, as we find when Debussy makes a piano prelude out of the interval of a third, or when Bartók writes pieces in his Mikrokosmos based on fifth chords, or triplets in 9/8 time, or when jazz musicians improvise on the foundation of a well known standard tune or a limited chord sequence.

(Swanwick, 1982:22) Stravinsky spoke further, in his Poetics of Music, of his same need for selfimposed limitations as part of the creative enabling process: ‘the more art is controlled, limited, worked over, the more it is free…my freedom will be more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of vision and the more I surround myself with obstacles, (Stravinsky, 1974:85). An equally perceptive, but slightly comical, advertisement for music software based on algorithmic principles (Ludwig by Hybrid Arts) runs as follows: ‘the blank page…it’s a composer’s nightmare. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a novice with one or two synths, or a seasoned pro with a mountain of MIDI gear…sooner or later you’ll face the blank page’. Thus amongst our conditions for creativity, controlling or manipulating the medium (sound) carries with it the need for imposed limitations.

Structuring

The final process in any art-making activity is structuring; a gathering into a comprehensible whole. As Fischer states: ‘not only must art derive from an intense experience of reality, it must also be constructed, it must gain form through objectivity. The free play of art is the result of mastery’ (Fischer, 1963).

Witkin points out that:

A work of art is a significant pattern of events, a pattern of changes, variations and contrasts in light, sound, gesture or whatever. In and through the changes that constitute the work we sense a continuity, a relatedness…. The meaning or significance of the work is bound up with this relatedness as realized in the events that constitute the work. However, this relatedness is not the product of mechanically adding or combining constituent elements. Rather, each element is perceived as it is because of the relatedness of the whole.

(Witkin, 1974) Structuring an art work (whether it is a simple four-bar melody, or a young child’s early attempt at creative writing, or a large scale musical piece) requires the art maker to manipulate the various elements (or building blocks) until the relatedness is achieved. This in itself requires the action of obtaining an overview of the work. With a visual artwork the marker is able to take in, to comprehend, the complete object at one particular moment. In a piece of creative writing the author may need to rescan, revise the elements. Much anecdotal evidence of the use of word-processors in creative, imaginative writing highlights the usefulness of being able to move and play around with chunks of ideas, in the same way that the user of a computer graphics system can manipulate groups and objects. Because the form of music exists with reference to the parameter of time, it is less easy to achieve an overview of the structure. Stravinsky, I believe, used to paper his wall with ongoing compositions in order to be able to stand back and gain some objective understanding of the overall composition. Thus structuring requires not only the manipulation of the constituent elements, the chunks or building blocks, but also a Gestalt or intelligent overview of the complete work in time.

If these four elements—initiating, acquainting, controlling and structure— constitute a basis of art activity (and of course, they do not necessarily occur sequentially; recursion from one to another may happen since creativity is not a neat, linear sequence of events), then our aim as educators is to enable our pupils to have opportunities to engage with these elements (see figure 7.1).