Controlling Creative Processes in Music

More than 60 years have passed since Julius Bahle's fundamental study of the creative musical process in 1936. Although Bahle gave the green light to a systematic investigation of creative musical processes, a simple repetition of his approach would not be possible nowadays because the historical development of the artist's position has become a mixture of the former, separated roles: Today the interpreter also serves as a composer, or the listener as an interpreter. For these reasons the editors were convinced that a new approach to the topic of creative processes in music could not be restricted to the field of composition, but can be found in several artistic areas and therefore, creativity research must also include recent developments in other fields, such as performance research, computer music, and real-time improvisation. The idea of control and regulation in creative processes is a link between the disciplines.

More than 60 years have passed since Julius Bahle''s fundamental study of the creative musical process in 1936. Although Bahle gave the green light to a systematic investigation of creative musical processes, a simple repetition of his approach would not be possible nowadays because the historical development of the artist''s position has become a mixture of the former, separated roles: Today the interpreter also serves as a composer, or the listener as an interpreter. For these reasons the editors were convinced that a new approach to the topic of creative processes in music could not be restricted to the field of composition, but can be found in several artistic areas and therefore, creativity research must also include recent developments in other fields, such as performance research, computer music, and real-time improvisation. The idea of «control» and «regulation» in creative processes is a link between the disciplines.