music theory essay

Putting the Theory Back in 'Music Theory'

Jeremy Day-O'Connell

Music Department, Skidmore College

E-mail: [email protected]

Received June 2019

Peer Reviewed by: Gretchen Foley, Jennifer Shafer

Accepted for publication September 2019

Published September 2, 2020

https://doi.org/10.18061/es.v7i0.7368

What is music theory? This foundational question is scarcely even broached in textbooks and classrooms, and that fact has allowed naive views to persist among students and teachers alike. This state of affairs has also perpetuated an unfortunate disconnectedness in institutional and disciplinary conceptions of music theory, including through the devaluing of music theory "fundamentals." In this essay, I argue for a purposeful centering of theory as an intellectual enterprise; I describe a subtle reformulation of elementary music theory that celebrates its epistemological essence and methodological complexities; and I identify meta-theoretical issues that can be seamlessly introduced early in the music theory curriculum without compromising the delivery of content itself. I begin by describing a classroom discussion prompt that motivates a working definition of "theory" in general, which in turn can be leveraged throughout the music theory curriculum. I then describe several interactive lessons that highlight the theoretical underpinnings of certain venerable topics in tonal music. The study of music theory, even from the very first rudiments, is thus transformed from a stern rite of passage mired in dry technicalities, into an expansive intellectual endeavor—reminding students that they themselves are theorists, both in class and in life.

Keywords: music theory, pedagogy, epistemology, intervals, harmony, rhythm and meter

Introduction: theories of theory

What is theory.

What is music theory, and why is it important? In my experience, these core philosophical questions are seldom addressed by teachers of music theory, who, after all, must attend to a daunting body of content and skills. Admittedly, the latter question—the "why" of music theory—might occasionally inspire meaningful, albeit limited and too often private, pedagogical reflection. But oddly, the more foundational first question—the "what" of music theory, and consequently the "how"—is scarcely even broached in music theory textbooks and classrooms.

This disinclination to consider the foundations of music theory has allowed naive views to persist among students and teachers alike. For many students (and even teachers), "theory" connotes only the most uninspiring and technical necessities of musical study, such as notation, scales, chords, and other fundamentals. On the other hand, for many professional music theorists, "theory" comprises only the most advanced, rigorous, and sophisticated topics, such as Schenkerian, neo-Riemannian, or pitch-class theories. They are both wrong.

I offer this essay as a corrective to such widespread and small-minded conceptions. I will describe a subtle pedagogical reformulation of elementary "music theory" that celebrates its true theoretical essence and methodological complexities. I will resituate music theory as a bona fide epistemological enterprise akin to other sorts of theory, thereby buttressing curricular efforts aimed at the integration of knowledge across the disciplines. Importantly, this approach easily supplements the content of a traditional "theory" curriculum without compromising the teaching of that content itself: indeed, I will describe opportunities to engage with numerous venerable topics in tonal music while centering the theoretical underpinnings of each. Such an enterprise not only fosters a more realistic, reflective, and accurate understanding of music theory as a discipline but also enriches students' appreciation of music theory and its resonance with other fields. The study of music theory—even from the very first rudiments—is thus transformed from a stern rite of passage mired in rules and technicalities, into an expansive intellectual endeavor, adding yet another educational component to music theory's manifold musical benefits (which I will also briefly enumerate at the end of this essay).

An illustrative tale: the case of the hidden theory

To motivate this recontextualization of theory, I begin by offering my students the following tale—part allegory, part shaggy-dog story.

Sally Sophomore returns to campus after a weekend away and finds that the laptop she left in her dorm room won't boot up. She is puzzled, as the computer worked just fine before she left campus. After a moment's thought, she develops a theory: perhaps her roommate had carelessly run down the battery. But upon further investigation, Sally finds that the computer is plugged in and appears to be fully charged. A moment later another theory occurs to her: maybe a virus is to blame. But her attempts to boot in "safe mode" are similarly unsuccessful, so she rules out that idea as well. Finally, Sally becomes aware of a large sticky spill across the keyboard and the unmistakable smell of Cherry Garcia ice cream. Just as she begins to make sense of this, her roommate rushes in with a package under her arms:

"Sally, I'm so sorry! I can explain: we had a party while you were gone, and things got a little out of hand. Before we knew it, a pint of ice cream had melted all over your laptop and wrecked it. I should have kept a better eye on things. I'm really sorry." Presenting the package, she adds, "But don't worry: I just bought you a new computer—the next higher model, actually—and I had all of your files transferred. It's all OK now. I hope you can forgive me."

Sally is relieved, and touched—her roommate didn't have to go to all that trouble and expense to rectify such an innocent mistake. "It's just like her," Sally muses, affectionately: "She's a middle child!" And the two happily embrace, before settling down to work on their music theory homework.

The moral: theory versus hypothesis

Where is "theory" in this tale? Did you spot it? I like to lead students in an in-class discussion, exploring the difference between the casual, popular use of the word "theory" and the strict, more formal use of that word. Students will easily identify two examples of the former: Sally's "theories" that the computer had a dead battery or was stricken by a virus. Such ideas are more properly called "hypotheses"—guesses about a particular state of affairs. A proper theory, on the other hand, may be defined as a conceptual framework that helps make sense of some broad set of phenomena. A hypothesis will prove to be either true or false; a theory, on the other hand, is a way of seeing, for which truth and falsehood are largely beside the point.

Students can be pressed to discern the proper "theory" in the tale above, but it is one that had nothing to do with solving the mystery: the concept of "middle child." This "birth order" theory of personality emerged in the early twentieth century and was popularized more recently by Kevin Leman, whose The Birth Order Book (2009) contains a telling subtitle: "Why you are the way you are." Sally might have said of her roommate, "It's just like her: she's a Libra." That too is a theory of personality, even if its theoretical primitives are very different: instead of "eldest child," "middle child," and "youngest child," astrological theory postulates personality categories based on the month of one's birth.

From here, students can be encouraged to brainstorm and/or research other theories. And in each case, the theory can be shown to have certain basic elements: at the very least, a scope of study and a set of theoretical concepts and categories. Economic theory, for instance, studies the behavior of agents in a market economy, and to that end it invokes such concepts as supply, demand, choice, utility, etc. Likewise for countless other theories, such as various psychological theories, political theory, feminist theory, game theory, aesthetic theory, and of course a multitude of scientific theories—including, notably, obsolete scientific theories like Aristotelian physics or medieval alchemy, each of which were simply the best means of conceptualizing physical phenomena until they were replaced by ones with more explanatory power. Non-majors, double-majors, students in liberal-arts institutions, and broad-minded musicians of all stripes, will happily furnish examples of theories from other disciplines and fields of inquiry. (And some students may be inspired to delve deeper into meta-theory, via such seminal works as Popper 1935/2002 , Kuhn 1962/2012 , or Thagard 1992 .) Music students who breezily speak of "theory class" or "theory homework" rarely consider that music theory, too, is such an example.

A well constructed theory is a powerful thing; where there is understanding, a theory is surely at play. As Leonard Meyer wrote, "Like air, theories may be unsubstantial; but, as with air, we can't live and act without them" ( Meyer, 1998 , p. 18 n. 45). In the case of music theory, it might seem that intervals, scales, chords, meter, form, and other basic elements are uncontroversial, even self-evident, "facts" to be memorized. But students should learn that even the most seemingly obvious music-theoretical constructs are laden with abstraction and artifice. True theory (unlike the hypotheses of a clever fictional detective) needn't be surprising or esoteric. And by the same token, students should recognize that some portions of their "theory" studies fall strictly outside the realm of true theory: for instance, reading clefs and deciphering transposing instruments, however valuable and challenging they may be, are matters of mere notation, not theory.

What follows are some specific ways of leveraging these initial explorations, to help students put the theory back in "theory."

Theorizing in the theory classroom

I will now focus on four meta-theoretical issues that can be seamlessly introduced early in the music theory curriculum: explanatory power, listening as theorizing, theory-building , and symbolic representation . I will discuss these with an emphasis on their relevance to familiar elementary musical topics, each one furnished with musical illustrations. The issues have been chosen both for their general epistemological applicability and for their practicality as touchstones throughout a student's musical studies.

Explanatory power: measuring intervals

Since theory is, as I wrote earlier, "a way of seeing, for which truth and falsehood are largely beside the point," a theory should be judged according to its explanatory power —its efficacy in coherently describing its subject and facilitating fresh insight. The classic tradeoff between theoretical simplicity and explanatory power is well illustrated by a heavily theorized (it would seem, even excessively theorized) elementary musical concept: interval. The concept of interval also offers a perfect opportunity for a "devil's advocate" approach that helps our students dig deeper as they begin to imagine themselves as theorists.

The theory of interval in tonal music postulates categories of distance (second, third, fourth, etc.) that are modified by categories of quality (major, minor, perfect, augmented, diminished). As soon as I introduce this system, I (disingenuously) encourage my students to bristle against such an apparent theoretical contortion and to long for the abundantly straightforward, one-dimensional metric of semitone distance. I lead them to confront the question, Why is semitone distance alone insufficient to fully describe musical space? To answer that question, I invoke the curious reality of musical context, in the form of two simple melodies (Figure 1): the opening of Chopin's Nocturne in E♭, op. 9 no. 2 (Figure 1a), and a subsidiary theme from Haydn's Symphony no. 104 Finale (Figure 1b). I isolate the interval B♭–G (having established a suitable E♭-major context, per the first excerpt) and then its enharmonic equivalent A♯–G (having established an alternate B-minor context, per the second excerpt), easily illustrating at the piano the very different sounds of these two intervals. Students discover that the tempting but theoretically naive conceptualization of semitone distance—9 semitones in either case—elides what is most musically essential about the two situations. By contrast, our theoretically sophisticated concept of interval precisely captures the crucial distinction between a major sixth and a diminished seventh—the one harmonious and unexceptional, the other dissonant and striking.

I then invite the students to sing the two intervals in question, in each case vocally tracing a stepwise path from note to note (Figure 2). Given sufficient tonal context, students will naturally sing B♭–C–D–E♭–F–G in the first case (six notes, hence a "sixth," Figure 2a) and A♯–B–C♯–D–E–F♯–G in the other case (seven notes, hence a "seventh," Figure 2b). The difference between the two intervals, which can otherwise strike some students as senselessly pedantic or doctrinaire, becomes "real," even embodied. A similar aural trick involving ambiguous tritones is perhaps even more compelling—see Figure 3. In contrast to the dispassionate yardstick of semitone distance, the theoretical contrivance of "interval" proves to be robust and human, a triumph of "sense-making." Explanatory power must always prevail.

Figure 1. Two excerpts illustrating the enharmonically equivalent interval (B♭–G versus A♯–G).

(a) Chopin, Nocturne in E♭, op. 9 no. 2

The opening measure (with anacrusis) of Chopin, Nocture in E-flat, op.9, no.2

(b) Haydn, Symphony no. 104, Finale , m. 84

Measure 84 of Haydn, Symphony no. 104, Finale.

Figure 2. A directed "sung analysis" of the intervals in Figure 1.

(a) Major 6th, after Figure 1a.

A directed 'sung analysis' of the intervals in Figure 1. First a Major 6th.

(b) Diminished 7th, after Figure 1b.

A directed 'sung analysis' of the intervals in Figure 1. Now a diminished 7th.

Figure 3. An analogous "sung analysis" of a chameleonic tritone (F–B versus F–C♭).

(a) Augmented 4th.

A directed 'sung analysis' of the intervals in Figure 1. Augmented 4th.

(b) Diminished 5th.

A directed 'sung analysis' of the intervals in Figure 1. Diminished 5th.

Listening as theorizing: hearing rhythm and meter

In the prior illustration, and ideally throughout the music theory curriculum, theory is tested against the listener's real-time experience of music. Such aural verification underscores the crucial truth that successful theorizing mirrors human cognition itself. And indeed, some theorizing even happens automatically: to operate in a culture is to subscribe to existing theories, most of which are acquired without effort or even awareness. It could be said that music theory's raison d'être is to make plain the implicit conceptualizations that any competent listener brings to the act of listening. The enharmonic interval demonstration makes that point vividly (and for many students, astonishingly): not only is the difference between a major sixth and a diminished seventh real, but it's a difference that the ears knew even before the mind was taught. "Your ears are smarter than you thought they were," I tell my students at such moments. Rhythm and meter provide further exquisite demonstrations of the psychological inescapability of such structured (i.e., theory-driven) hearing— listening as theorizing .

Even the simplest musical stimulus—a lone hand-clap—inevitably acquires meaning through the structures assumed by a listener. The difference between Figures 4a and 4b arises not from the stimulus itself (the "music") but from the existence of conceptual categories—an implicit theory of meter. In this case, the listener infers "beat" versus "off-beat" through a real-time application of those categories—which is to say, through implicit musical analysis. As Goethe insisted, "With every intent glance at the world, we theorize." ( Goethe 1810 , Vorwort; thus quoted, prominently, in Schenker [1935] 2001 , p. 3)

Students must also confront the limits of such theorizing, as when they come to terms with musical situations that are rhythmically challenging, under-determined, and/or unfamiliar. I like to ask students to tap their toes to the opening of Leila Pinheiro's " Chega de Saudate "; it is a task that many students find difficult or impossible, but repeated and directed listening can help them to orient their rhythmic understanding to the stylistically idiosyncratic metrical framework. Even more challenging and ear-opening is the rhapsodic 7/8 of Karolina Goceva's " Mojot svet " (Macedonia's 2007 Eurovision song entry): students who have a hard time finding the down-beat will marvel at an informal live performance during which an audience of (possibly inebriated) amateurs spontaneously entrain to the non-isochronous meter through participatory clapping.

Figure 4. The same rhythmic stimulus (a hand-clap) in two contexts.

Steady quarter note beats in first measure and clap on down beat.

Such seemingly rudimentary concepts as beat, off-beat, and down-beat, often dispensed with unceremoniously in the first weeks of a theory curriculum, should instead be honored as the cognitive miracles that they are—profoundly meaningful and profoundly constructed.

Theory-building: confronting anomalies in harmonic analysis

As a tool for understanding, theory must be responsive to the full range of specimens under its purview. For that reason, successful theories are not ordained but rather developed: theory-building is a dialectic process of testing and refining a theoretical system in light of a fulsome set of data. The earlier enharmonic demonstration hinted at this process (as did the beat-finding exercises, in a different sort of way); here I will more explicitly invite my students to partake in theory-building, in the course of a pedagogical turn from chordal identification to full-fledged harmonic analysis.

Tonal harmonic theory postulates a very limited set of harmonic entities—a handful of triads and seventh chords—that are easily learned. (Compare the systematic completeness of pc-set theory; the difference between these two theories reflects the differing demands of the respective repertories.) In an early exercise in chord identification, I present my students with a homophonic choral texture from Mozart's Requiem , the Hostias , which provides abundant examples of various chord roots, qualities, and inversions. My instructions are simple: "On every beat, indicate the chord using 'fakebook' notation. When the chord fails to conform to our inventory of chord-types, simply place an X."

There are indeed plenty of pesky X's, which would seem to besmirch what are some of the most sonically appealing moments in the passage. I used to avoid such inconvenient distractions by micro-managing my choice of repertoire—or else by summarily dismissing them ("Never mind … we'll get to that later"). But in the context of a "theory-aware" pedagogy, I have come to embrace these moments as important teaching tools. I find it stimulating (and fun) to feign exasperation: "Our theory of chords isn't all that good, is it? It has nothing useful to say about many simultaneities in this apparently straightforward piece of music!" A closer look—and listen—will suggest satisfying ways of accounting for those anomalous simultaneities, of course, and thus will emerge the concept of the non-harmonic tone. As my students and I work our way toward a richer understanding of harmony and counterpoint—figure and ground, structure and elaboration, tension and resolution—theory-building comes to the fore.

Symbolic representation: data compression and theoretical priorities in chord shorthand

Finally, it behooves us to consider another common metatheoretical issue: the use of symbolic representation and notation . Theory necessarily simplifies our world, and that simplification often goes hand in hand with exigencies of notation. Chord shorthand is a case in point, and a telling one.

Students find it provocative to learn that an 18th-century keyboardist or fretboardist would have faced a decoding challenge analogous to that faced by a modern-day reader of a jazz or pop "fakebook." The specifics of those two notational traditions, however, reveal how particular theoretical priorities and affordances shape symbolic systems. Students can compare the "native" chordal shorthand schemes for an early-18th-century solo sonata and a mid-20th-century popular ballad, discovering the conceptual traces embodied in each (Figure 5). Baroque figured bass emphasizes intervals and voice-leading within a particular key signature (Figure 5a), whereas modern fakebook notation, agnostic with respect to key, emphasizes instead chord structures in isolation (Figure 5b). These systems consequently elicit very different cognitive work from the performer. (Indeed, the most adept musician of three hundred years ago would have scarcely had a concept of chord root, the 'bread and butter' of even the most casual dorm-room guitarist today.)

An anachronistic swapping of those notational systems helps to recover otherwise hidden elements of the harmonic picture: a hypothetical fakebook to the sonata, for instance (Figure 6a), immediately reveals chord roots and qualities undisclosed by the figured bass, while a figured bass to the ballad (Figure 6b) immediately foregrounds the salient out-of-key chord in m. 4, inconspicuous in the fakebook notation.

Figure 5. Two notational traditions of chordal shorthand.

(a) Figured bass for Handel Sonata op. 1 no. 7, iii, mm. 1-5.

Figured bass for Handel Sonata op. 1 no. 7, iii, mm. 1-5. More description above.

(b) Fakebook chords for "What a Wonderful World" (Thiele/Weiss), mm. 1-4.

Fakebook chords for 'What a Wonderful World': F Am B♭ Am Gm F A7 Dm

Figure 6. Hypothetical anachronistic chordal shorthand for Figures 5a and 5b.

(a) Fakebook chords for Handel Sonata op. 1 no. 7, iii, mm. 1-5.

Fakebook chords for Handel Sonata op. 1 no. 7, iii, mm. 1-5: Am Am/C G♯°/B Am Em/G Dm/F E E7/D Am/C B𝆩7/D Am/E E7 Am

(b) Figured bass for "What a Wonderful World" (Thiele/Weiss), mm. 1-4.

Figured bass for 'What a Wonderful World.' More description above.

Those two symbolic systems correspond to "prescriptive" realms of harmonic theory. By contrast, Roman numerals generally represent tonal harmonic structures with a more "descriptive" purpose in mind. Here too, much is at stake as we develop our notational details and decisions. The explanatory power of the nomenclature "V/V," for instance, points to very different structural aspects of that chord than does the more tempting and straightforward "II ♯ ". Similarly, nomenclature looms large with respect to that familiar pedagogical bugbear, the cadential six-four chord: whatever may be a teacher's stance on the question (of the chord's function as tonic versus dominant), s/he would be remiss not to draw attention to the ways that one's theoretical commitments shape (and are shaped by) choices of analytical notation (" I 4 6 – V " versus " V [ 4–3 6–5 ] "). And in reflecting on their own intuitions about the cadential six-four, students will see that this descriptive nomenclature (no less than prescriptive nomenclature) ultimately represents a compromise in an attempt to capture the fullness of musical meaning.

Conclusion: learning goals in the theory classroom

I began this essay with the question, "What is theory, and why is it important?" Having explored some approaches to the first half of that question, I will conclude with a brief discussion of the second half, affirming the many and varied educational benefits of music theory. The study of music theory, needless to say, helps students to better understand the mechanics of music and the construction of musical works. It enables students to cogently talk about and write about music while exposing them to a large body of repertoire. By fostering intimacy with the details of musical construction, it leads to a deeper appreciation of the artistry of composers and performers—an insight into great minds. Music theory also offers many frankly practical benefits to musicians, in the form of musicianship: it facilitates the learning and memorization of new pieces; it is indispensable to the conductor or, indeed, to any ensemble musician; it informs composition and can be applied to the art of improvisation; and it shapes a performer's interpretation of a piece. More generally, music theory stands to foster a broader disposition of attentiveness: in a world marked by passivity and saturated by distraction, music's great gift is that it invites us to engage with pure sound, and theory's great gift is that it helps us to engage.

Note, however, that this prodigious list of educational payoffs relates to the categories of analysis and musicianship . In the course of those essential and deeply rewarding educational experiences, I find it valuable to also remind students of the intellectual marvel that theory is unto itself, and to remind students that they themselves are theorists, both in class and in life. Reclaiming the theory in what we do as teachers and students will only add a unique layer of richness to students' musical formation.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Sarah Day-O'Connell, Gretchen Foley, and Jennifer Shafer for their careful reading and helpful suggestions.

Bibliography

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von. 1810. Zur Farbenlehre. Tübingen: Cotta. https://doi.org/10.5479/sil.414424.39088007009129
Kuhn, Thomas S. 2012. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions . 4th ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (First edition published 1962.)
Leman, K. 2009. The Birth Order Book: Why You Are the Way You Are . 2nd ed., rev. Grand Rapids: Revell.
Meyer, L. B. 1998. "A Universe of Universals," Journal of Musicology , 16(1): 3-25. https://doi.org/10.1525/jm.1998.16.1.03a00010
Popper, Karl. 2002. The Logic of Scientific Discovery . New York: Routledge. (First German edition published 1935.)
Schenker, H. [1935] 2001. Free Composition (Der freie Satz) , trans. and ed. Ernst Oster. Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon.
Thagard, Paul. 1992. Conceptual Revolutions . Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691186672

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Open Music Theory - Version 2

(2 reviews)

Mark Gotham

Kyle Gullings

Chelsey Hamm

Publisher: Oklahoma State University

Language: English

Formats Available

Conditions of use.

Learn more about reviews.

Reviewed by Judith Ofcarcik, Assistant Professor, James Madison University on 11/20/23

This book can be used for a traditional theory curriculum but also covers pop music, jazz, and orchestration. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

This book can be used for a traditional theory curriculum but also covers pop music, jazz, and orchestration.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The book has been prepared by a team of teacher-scholars who are all experts in the subject.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The text incorporates current trends in music theory pedagogy, including the incorporation of examples by underrepresented composers, but not in a faddish way.

Clarity rating: 5

The text of the book is very clear and the examples are well-marked.

Consistency rating: 5

Even though it was written by multiple authors, the chapters are consistent and work well together.

Modularity rating: 5

We use this book in a modular way, and it works very well.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Organization is clear, and the table of contents makes for quick navigation to relevant chapters.

Interface rating: 5

Both I and my students find this book very easy to read.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

All of the writing is grammatical.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

The book is not culturally insensitive, and it also includes helpful hints for German and French speakers who might be reading it using an automatic translation tool.

This book is extremely comprehensive--it could easily support an entire undergraduate music theory curriculum. Not only does it have a huge amount of content (both text and examples), it also contains worksheets that can be used in and out of class. It is the only online-only music theory textbook that can compete with traditional print texts. We have used it at my institution for several years and it has been a fantastic textbook for instructors, undergrads, and grad students looking to review specific topics.

Reviewed by William O'Hara, Assistant Professor, Gettysburg College on 11/5/22

OMT2 offers thorough coverage of current topics in music theory, and can easily serve as a textbook for fundamentals courses, standard undergraduate theory sequences, and introductions to post-tonal theory. Not all of its chapters are complete (some are short, or lack sample homework assignments), but the authors promise continued revision and expansion, and the book is probably the most extensive OER currently available in music theory. It offers very little material for sight-singing/ear training, but instructors can easily supplement with other free resources (such as freemusicdictations.net) or paid ear training books.

The book seems to be high quality and without errors.

OMT2 combines a variety of current approaches to the field: a traditional (yet relevant and modern) course in diatonic and chromatic harmony, up-to-date research on counterpoint and form, and a digestible introductions to post-tonal and twelve-tone theory. It also includes units on popular music and jazz. The book takes diversity and inclusion seriously, incorporating both canonical names and historically marginalized composers throughout its chapters, workbook, and anthology.

The book is clear and accessible, and flows in a logical and conversational style. It is also full of musical examples, many of which can be clicked on and listened to for immediate clarification and reinforcement. As in any music theory textbook, there is a great deal of technical terminology, but mouse-over links on many terms produce pop-up windows with glossary entries, making the jargon easy to understand.

Where relevant, the book uses terminology clearly and consistently throughout, although its sections are written by multiple authors, and address topics that are separate enough that vocabulary does not always overlap.

The book is broken into short, digestible chapters, which instructors could easily assign and re-order as necessary.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

OMT2 includes all the resources necessary to teach a fundamentals course in music theory, as well as common undergraduate courses in tonal theory (including basic diatonic harmony, modulation, and chromatic techniques), and post-tonal theory. The content is organized in broad topics (diatonic harmony, chromatic harmony, form, popular music, jazz), and many instructors will find themselves mixing and matching sections from these different units as they assemble their syllabus: a little bit of harmony, some basic formal archetypes, some popular music, back to diatonic harmony, and so forth.

Interface rating: 4

OMT2 comes in numerous forms, both online and PDF/EPUB formats. I highly recommend the html, web-based forms, which use an expandable table of contents and section directories. The book's interactive resources, musical examples, YouTube videos, and other pieces of media are best experienced online. Its pdf/print versions are somewhat lacking in layout and visual style, and they unfortunately omit the media resources that students will find the most useful and engaging.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

OMT2 is well-written and well-edited, though contains the occasional typo.

OMT2 makes a strong effort to prominently include musical examples by women and composers of color, and features them prominently in its structure rather than including them as afterthoughts. The book also includes chapters on popular music and jazz, making its content and coverage a bit more accessible and relevant to students. There is still more that could be incorporated (topics in world music analysis are absent, for instance), but the book clearly strives for accessibility and inclusion, and will help students and instructors to engage with current discussions in the field of music theory.

The original Open Music Theory (https://github.com/openmusictheory) appeared in 2014. A collaborative effort by music theorists Bryn Hughes, Brian Moseley, and Kris Shaffer, the book brought the idea of open educational resources to prominence within the discipline of music theory. Open Music Theory Version 2, which features significant contributions by more than half a dozen scholars, builds on the original text with a mountain of new content, moving beyond the “prose-y lecture notes” of the original to offer a resource that is nearly ready to serve as the core of an undergraduate music theory curriculum. Among the most notable additions are extensive annotated musical examples (which were sparse in the original), even more interactive demonstrations and practice modules, an accompanying workbook, and a growing set of annotated links that function as a distributed score anthology.

At its best moments, OMT2 is a fully fledged textbook, easily able to take its place alongside (or, as is often the goal of OERs, to more affordably replace) any of the field’s canonical undergraduate books. It includes content that is appropriate for introductory “Fundamentals” classes, for the three- or four-semester-long sequence of tonal theory classes offered by most institutions, and for the post-tonal theory courses that often end such sequences, or serve as advanced electives. The book also offers some resources that would be useful in advanced counterpoint or analysis courses, though it does not offer enough content to serve as a sole textbook for those topics. Beyond traditional theory and the Classical repertoire, the book offers an excellent chapters on pop-rock harmony (which turn the original OMT’s already-useful unit into a thorough and well-developed resource) and a new chapter on jazz theory. In recent years, such units have appeared (in some form) more and more often in undergraduate courses, and OMT2 might provide the resources necessary to convince interested instructors to take the leap and incorporate them into their own teaching. The book also emphasizes diversity and inclusion, offering strong representation of historically marginalized composers, both in its main body chapters and particularly in its supplemental materials.

The “Fundamentals” section is highly detailed and well-illustrated, offering an accessible introduction to staff notation, rhythm and meter, scales and chords, and other basic topics. It also includes a series of YouTube videos by the chapter author (Chelsey Hamm), helping it to stand as a self-study resource for students who may be preparing for a music theory entrance exam. OMT2 also offers chapters on diatonic harmony (including harmonic function and prolongation, embellishing tones, up through tonicization and modulation) and chromatic techniques that run the gamut from basic chromatic chords (Neapolitans, augmented sixths) through altered dominants, Neo-Riemannian progressions, and fully diminished sevenths). The counterpoint chapter includes not only traditional species instruction and some resources (though not a complete manual) for imitation and fugue, but also more current approaches based on galant schema theory—most notably a concise and very useful guide to common schemas, categorized by their function (opening gambits, sequences, and so forth).

The “Form” chapter might be the best exemplar of OMT2’s ecumenical and modern approach to its reference material. The chapter covers basic concepts such as motive and subphrase, up through periods and sentences, and on to full-movement forms like sonata and rondo. Sensibly, the authors draw from both of the discipline’s most popular recent treatises on form, William Caplin’s Classical Form (1998) and James Hepokoski & Warren Darcy’s Elements of Sonata Theory (2006). OMT2 draws on the strengths of each book, building a theory of phrases up through Caplin’s writings, and then offering a clear and useful digest of Sonata Theory when the time comes to study complete movements. Gathering these resources together without trying to hew to a single approach or reinvent the wheel leads to a chapter which closely resembles how many professional theorists think and talk about form amongst themselves, and offers undergraduates a window onto the current state of the field rather than attempting to distill the parts of the sonata into some simpler form, or attempting to construct a single formal system that can accommodate all levels of phrase and form.

Open Music Theory 2 comes in multiple formats, including EPUB (for e-readers such as the Kindle), a digital-first PDF, and a PDF intended for printing. Perhaps its best and most useful format, however, is simply the HTML format on the text’s website. Online, OMT2 benefits from hyperlinks between chapters and mouse-over glossary entries that quickly introduce or clarify technical terms. Introductory chapters abound with examples in interactive notation (powered by MuseScore), which students can click on and listen to. Later chapters embed PDF scores for perusal, and most of the book’s sections end with links to the book’s own harmony anthology, its workbook, and resources from around the internet. Compared to this, the PDF format leaves out much of OMT2’s dynamic appeal. The PDF versions exclude media examples and interactive modules, replacing them with nondescript boxes that instruct readers to look online. While some instructors who use OERs have them printed and bound for students, I would caution against this approach with OMT2. In its PDF form, the book is nearly 1100 pages, and is laid out much more like a printed website (with large, double-spaced text and mile-wide margins) than a typeset book. While its prose passages wind up the perfect size when printed two pages per sheet, side by side, many of the illustrations end up unreadably small. So while it might be useful for a student or an instructor to have an archival pdf to which they can refer when internet access is unavailable, Open Music Theory Version 2 is best experienced on its website, in HTML format. This format honors the authors’ intentions toward accessibility too; the foreword notes that the text is meant to be legible to screenreaders, and the online version is undoubtedly the best way to take advantage of that commitment.

Another interesting aspect of OMT2 is the book’s “Harmony Anthology,” a resource based on contributing author Mark Gotham’s Open Score Lieder Corpus. As its name suggests, the collection is based on a broad body of art songs, mostly from the nineteenth century. The collection is extensive and diverse, presenting music by Johannes Brahms, Cecile Chaminade, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Fanny Hensel, Johanna Kinkel, Franz Schubert, Clara and Robert Schumann, and others. It makes use of links to the Internet Score Library Project (IMSLP) to provide complete scores for the included works, and often points to multiple examples of a given concept within the same work. Unfortunately, the Harmony Anthology is somewhat limited: like some other aspects of the book, it is incomplete, and it tends towards the kinds of advanced topics that might be encountered in a third-semester theory class (including augmented sixth chords, augmented triads, mode mixture, and Neapolitan chords). Unlike some anthologies of musical examples, however, the noted phenomenon is clearly identified by measure number, making it ideal for instructors who want to collect potential examples quickly. If and when it is eventually made more comprehensive, OMT2’s harmony anthology will be a truly exceptional resource. A parallel anthology of rhythmic and metric examples is similarly promising, though even less complete, serving only as a collection of interesting and suggestive examples for analysis.

OMT2 is explicitly a work in progress, and its team of authors promise continued updates (though not, notably, during the school year when the book might be in active classroom use). While many sections are complete, others are less developed; towards the second half of some units, assignments are marked “coming soon,” and there is a varied collection of chapters marked “in development” at the end of the book. These promise greater coverage of sight-singing; new topics that are often addressed in undergraduate theory but not always present in textbooks (like hypermeter); and more advanced topics that might be suitable for form & analysis or a proseminar setting (such as “metrical dissonance”). It already offers strong coverage of commonly taught music theoretical topics, and an extensive resource of example that serves as a useful supplement to other resources already available in print and online. As its authors continue to develop and revise it, OMT2 will continue to become ever more useful, and even more attractive, for both instructors and students.

Introduction
Acknowledgments
Statement on Spotify Usage
Instructor Resources
Für Deutschsprachige
I. Fundamentals
II. Counterpoint and Galant tSchemas
IV. Diatonic Harmony, Tonicization, and Modulation
V. Chromaticism
VII. Popular Music
VIII. 20th-and 21st-Century Techniques
IX. Twelve-Tone Music
X. Orchestration
Chapter in Development

Ancillary Material

About the book.

Open Music Theory Version 2 (OMT2) is an open educational resource intended to serve as the primary text and workbook for undergraduate music theory curricula. As an open and natively-online resource, OMT2 is substantially different from other commercially-published music theory textbooks, though it still provides the same content that teachers expect from a music theory text.

OMT2 has been designed inclusively. For us, this means broadening our topics beyond the standard harmony and atonal theory topics to include fundamentals, musical form, jazz, pop, and orchestration. And within those traditional sections of harmony and atonal theory, the authors have deliberately chosen composers who represent diverse genders and races. The book is accessible. And perhaps most importantly, the book is completely free and always will be.

The text of the book is augmented with several different media: video lessons, audio, interactive notated scores with playback, and small quizzes are embedded directly into each chapter for easy access.

OMT2 introduces a full workbook to accompany the text. Almost every chapter offers at least one worksheet on that topic. Some chapters, especially in the Fundamentals section, also collect additional assignments that can be found on other websites.

Version 2 of this textbook is collaboratively authored and edited by Mark Gotham, Kyle Gullings, Chelsey Hamm, Bryn Hughes, Brian Jarvis, Megan Lavengood, and John Peterson.

About the Contributors

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Modal Harmony and Ethnic Fusion: Exploring the integration of modal harmonies from different cultural traditions in contemporary ethnic fusion music.

Chromatic Harmony in Avant-garde and Experimental Music: Analyzing the use of extreme chromaticism, non-functional harmonies, and unconventional tonal structures in avant-garde and experimental compositions.

Modal Harmonies in Gregorian Chant: Examining the modal harmonies and tonal language of Gregorian chant, highlighting the unique modal characteristics of different chant modes.

Chromaticism in the Late Romantic Opera: Investigating the heightened chromaticism and rich harmonies found in late Romantic opera compositions, such as those by Wagner or Strauss.

Modal Harmony in Sacred Music: Analyzing the use of modal harmonies and tonalities in sacred music compositions, including modal psalmody and hymnody.

Chromatic Voice Leading in Contemporary Pop Music: Examining the use of chromatic voice leading techniques, chord modulations, and chromatic harmonies in contemporary pop music.

Modal Harmonies in Medieval Troubadour Songs: Investigating the modal harmonies and tonalities found in medieval troubadour songs and their impact on lyrical expression.

Chromatic Harmony in the Music of the Impressionist Era: Analyzing the use of chromatic harmonies, coloristic effects, and harmonic ambiguity in compositions of the Impressionist era.

Modal and Chromatic Harmony in Electronic Music: Exploring the use of modal and chromatic harmonies in electronic music production and composition, including modal sequencing and chromatic chord progressions.

Chromatic Harmony and Symbolism in Symbolist Music: Examining the use of chromatic harmonies and tonal symbolism in music of the Symbolist movement, exploring the connection between harmony and poetic imagery.

Modal and Chromatic Harmony

This category explores alternative harmonic systems beyond the traditional major and minor keys. It covers modal harmony, such as Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as chromaticism and extended chord structures.

Modal and Chromatic Harmony Essay Topics

The Evolution of Modal Harmony in Western Music: Tracing the historical development and transformations of modal harmony from ancient Greek music to contemporary compositions.
Chromaticism as a Catalyst for Musical Innovation: Examining how the introduction of chromatic harmonies revolutionized Western music and led to new compositional techniques and expressive possibilities.
Modal Interchange: Exploring the concept of modal interchange and its application in creating rich harmonic textures and tonal ambiguity in various musical genres.
Chromaticism in the Romantic Era: Analyzing the prominent use of chromatic harmonies in the Romantic period and its impact on emotional expression and tonal exploration.
Modal Harmonies in Folk Music Traditions: Investigating the modal harmonies and tonal characteristics in folk music from different cultures and regions around the world.
Chromatic Voice Leading in Jazz Harmony: Exploring advanced chromatic voice leading techniques and substitutions used in jazz harmony and improvisation.
Modal Harmony in Contemporary World Music Fusion: Analyzing the integration of modal harmonies from different cultural traditions in contemporary world music fusion, highlighting the blending of tonalities.
Chromaticism and Expression in the Music of Debussy: Examining the use of chromatic harmonies and tonal ambiguity in the compositions of Claude Debussy and their contribution to the Impressionist movement.
Modal Chord Progressions in Rock Music: Investigating the use of modal chord progressions in rock music, exploring their role in creating unique tonal colors and moods.
Chromatic Harmony in the Music of the Second Viennese School: Analyzing the highly chromatic and dissonant harmonies in the compositions of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern.
Modal Harmony in Sacred Choral Music: Examining the modal harmonies and tonalities in sacred choral compositions, such as Gregorian chant and Renaissance motets.
Chromaticism and the Blues: Analyzing the use of chromatic harmonies and "blue notes" in the blues genre, exploring their expressive qualities and influence on subsequent musical styles.
Modal Harmony in Film Music: Investigating the use of modal harmonies and tonalities in film scores to evoke specific moods, settings, and cultural contexts.
Chromatic Voice Leading in Baroque Counterpoint: Exploring the intricate chromatic voice leading techniques employed in Baroque contrapuntal compositions, including fugues and canons.
Modal Jazz: Analyzing the modal harmonies and improvisational approaches in modal jazz compositions, with a focus on modal jazz pioneers like Miles Davis and John Coltrane.
Chromaticism in Post-Romanticism: Examining the heightened chromaticism and harmonic complexity in post-Romantic compositions, such as those by Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss.
Modal Harmonies in Traditional Indian Classical Music: Investigating the modal harmonies and raga systems in traditional Indian classical music and their role in improvisation and composition.
Chromatic Harmony in Contemporary Pop Music: Analyzing the use of chromatic harmonies, chord progressions, and modulation techniques in contemporary pop music, exploring their impact on catchy melodies and emotional impact.
Modal Implications in Minimalist Music: Exploring the modal implications and tonal centers in minimalist compositions, focusing on the repetitive structures and tonal ambiguity.
Chromaticism and Symbolism in 20th-Century Music: Examining the use of chromatic harmonies and tonal symbolism in 20th-century compositions, exploring the connection between harmony and emotional or philosophical concepts.
Modal Harmony in Jazz Fusion: Analyzing the fusion of modal harmonies with jazz improvisation and other musical genres in jazz fusion compositions.
Chromatic Voice Leading in Contemporary Classical Music: Investigating the use of complex chromatic voice leading techniques in contemporary classical compositions, highlighting their role in harmonic exploration.
Modal Harmonies in Indigenous Music Traditions: Exploring the modal harmonies and tonal systems in indigenous music traditions, emphasizing their cultural significance and musical expression.
Chromaticism in Experimental Music: Analyzing the use of extreme chromaticism, microtonal intervals, and unconventional harmonic structures in experimental music compositions.
Modal and Chromatic Elements in Cross-Cultural Musical Exchange: Investigating how modal and chromatic harmonies are integrated in cross-cultural musical exchanges, examining the fusion of different tonal systems and harmonic languages.

Contemporary Music Techniques

This category focuses on modern and avant-garde approaches to composition. It covers techniques such as serialism, aleatory (chance) music, electronic music, and spectralism, providing insight into innovative musical practices.

Contemporary Music Techniques Essay Topics

Extended Techniques in Contemporary Instrumental Music: Exploring the use of unconventional playing techniques and sounds on traditional instruments in contemporary compositions.
Sampling and Collage Techniques in Electronic Music: Analyzing the manipulation and recontextualization of sampled sounds and musical fragments in contemporary electronic music production.
Microtonality in Contemporary Music: Investigating the use of microtonal intervals and alternative tuning systems in contemporary compositions, and their impact on harmonic and melodic expression.
Live Electronics and Interactive Performance: Examining the integration of electronic instruments, real-time processing, and interactive technologies in contemporary live performances.
Algorithmic Composition: Analyzing the use of algorithms and computer programming in the creation of musical structures, melodies, and harmonies in contemporary compositions.
Minimalism and Repetitive Structures: Exploring the minimalist movement and its emphasis on repetitive musical structures, gradual transformations, and rhythmic patterns in contemporary music.
Noise and Sound Art: Investigating the exploration of noise, unconventional sounds, and the blurring of boundaries between music and sound art in contemporary compositions.
Graphic Notation and Indeterminacy: Analyzing the use of graphic notation and indeterminate elements in contemporary compositions, allowing performers to interpret and shape the music within certain parameters.
Electroacoustic Music: Examining the combination of electronic sounds and acoustical instruments, as well as the manipulation of recorded sounds, in contemporary electroacoustic compositions.
Spectralism: Investigating the spectralist movement and its focus on the analysis and manipulation of sound spectra in contemporary compositions.
Vocal Techniques in Contemporary Choral Music: Analyzing extended vocal techniques, vocal improvisation, and experimental approaches to choral music in contemporary compositions.
Live Coding and Algorithmic Improvisation: Exploring the practice of live coding, where performers code and manipulate algorithms in real-time to generate and shape musical material during live improvisations.
Indeterminacy and Chance Operations: Examining the incorporation of chance procedures and indeterminate elements in composition, allowing for aleatoric and unpredictable outcomes in contemporary music.
New Notation Systems: Analyzing innovative notation systems and graphical representations used in contemporary compositions, expanding traditional musical notation to capture new musical ideas.
Hybrid Genres and Fusion: Investigating the blending of musical styles, genres, and cultural influences in contemporary compositions, such as jazz fusion, world music fusion, or classical crossover.
Spatialization and Surround Sound: Exploring the use of multi-channel audio systems and spatialization techniques to create immersive sonic experiences in contemporary music performances and installations.
Post-Minimalism and Eclecticism: Analyzing the post-minimalist movement and its incorporation of diverse musical elements, styles, and techniques in contemporary compositions.
Timbral Exploration and Extended Instrumental Techniques: Investigating the exploration of timbre, sound textures, and unconventional instrumental techniques in contemporary compositions.
Live Performance and Interactive Multimedia: Examining the integration of live performance with interactive multimedia elements, such as video projections, motion tracking, or sensor-based technologies.
Hybrid Instrumentation and Ensemble Configurations: Analyzing the use of hybrid instrumental setups and unconventional ensemble configurations in contemporary compositions, expanding the sonic possibilities and instrumental interactions.
Soundscapes and Environmental Music: Investigating the composition of soundscapes and environmental music, using field recordings and ambient sounds to create sonic narratives and immersive experiences.
Improvisation and Structured Improvisation: Examining the role of improvisation and structured improvisational frameworks in contemporary music, allowing performers to actively shape the music in real-time.
Interdisciplinary Collaborations: Exploring collaborations between composers, musicians, visual artists, dancers, and other disciplines in creating integrated multimedia performances and installations.
Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality in Music: Analyzing the use of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies to enhance musical experiences, creating interactive and immersive virtual environments.
Conceptual and Process-Based Composition: Investigating conceptual approaches to composition, where the emphasis is placed on the underlying ideas, processes, and conceptual frameworks driving the musical creation.

Analysis of Music History and Styles

This category examines music theory within the context of different historical periods and musical styles. It explores the theoretical principles and characteristics of various genres, such as Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th-century music.

Analysis of Music History and Styles Essay Topics

The Evolution of Western Classical Music: A comprehensive analysis of the major stylistic periods and developments in Western classical music, from medieval to contemporary.
Comparative Analysis of Baroque and Classical Music Styles: Contrasting the characteristics, forms, and aesthetics of the Baroque and Classical periods in music history.
Nationalism in Music: Analyzing the influence of national identity and cultural heritage on the development of musical styles and compositions in different countries and regions.
The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Music: Exploring the socio-cultural changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and their influence on musical styles, instruments, and performance practices.
Analysis of the Romantic Period: Examining the characteristics, themes, and innovations of the Romantic era in music, focusing on composers such as Beethoven, Chopin, and Wagner.
The Development of Jazz Styles: Tracing the evolution of jazz music from its roots in African-American communities to the various subgenres and styles that emerged throughout the 20th century.
Modernism and Avant-Garde in Music: Analyzing the experimental and boundary-pushing tendencies of modernist and avant-garde composers, exploring their innovative approaches to harmony, form, and notation.
Analysis of Impressionist Music: Investigating the unique qualities, techniques, and impressionistic aesthetics in the compositions of Debussy, Ravel, and other impressionist composers.
The Influence of Folk Music on Classical Compositions: Examining how folk music traditions and melodies have influenced classical composers and shaped their compositional styles.
Analysis of the Expressionist Movement in Music: Exploring the emotional intensity, dissonance, and unconventional harmonies in the compositions of expressionist composers, such as Schoenberg and Berg.
The Influence of African and African-American Music on Popular Music Styles: Analyzing the impact of African and African-American musical traditions on the development of popular music genres, including blues, rock, and hip-hop.
Analysis of Minimalist Music: Examining the repetitive structures, gradual transformations, and minimalist aesthetics in the compositions of minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass.
The Development of Opera Styles: Tracing the evolution of opera styles from Baroque opera seria to the innovations of the Romantic and modern periods, analyzing key composers and their contributions.
The Influence of World Music on Contemporary Compositions: Investigating the incorporation of world music elements and styles in contemporary compositions, highlighting the cross-cultural influences and musical fusion.
Analysis of Film Music Styles: Examining the evolution of film music styles and techniques, from the early silent film era to the diverse soundtracks of contemporary cinema.
The Impact of Technology on Music Production and Styles: Analyzing the influence of technological advancements, such as recording techniques, synthesizers, and digital production tools, on the creation and evolution of musical styles.
Analysis of Pop Music Styles: Exploring the characteristics, trends, and innovations in popular music genres and subgenres, including pop, rock, R&B, and electronic dance music (EDM).
The Development of Ballet Music: Tracing the history and stylistic evolution of ballet music, from the Baroque court ballets to the collaborative works of composers and choreographers in the 20th century.
Analysis of Nationalistic Movements in Music: Examining the emergence of nationalistic music movements and the exploration of national identity in compositions from different countries, such as Russian, Czech, or Finnish music.
The Influence of Latin American Music on Global Styles: Analyzing the impact of Latin American musical genres, rhythms, and instruments on global music styles, including salsa, bossa nova, and tango.
Analysis of Contemporary Art Music: Examining the diverse approaches, techniques, and philosophies in contemporary art music compositions, including aleatoric music, spectralism, and post-minimalism.
The Development of Sacred Music: Tracing the evolution of sacred music styles and genres, from Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony to contemporary sacred compositions.
Analysis of Electronic Music Styles: Exploring the characteristics and subgenres of electronic music, including techno, house, ambient, and experimental electronic compositions.
The Influence of Eastern Musical Traditions on Western Music: Investigating the impact of Eastern musical traditions, such as Indian classical music or Japanese traditional music, on Western compositions and styles.
Analysis of Protest Songs and Political Music: Examining the role of music as a vehicle for social and political commentary, analyzing protest songs and politically charged compositions throughout history.

Music theory serves as a vital foundation for musicians, composers, and enthusiasts alike, offering a rich tapestry of knowledge and understanding. By delving into the fundamentals of music theory, exploring the intricacies of harmony, melody, counterpoint, form, orchestration, analysis, counterpoint and fugue, modal and chromatic harmony, contemporary techniques, and the vast expanse of music history and styles, we gain deeper insights into the language of music. Through these 25 essay topics, we have uncovered a myriad of possibilities for further exploration and research. Whether you are a student, a musician, or simply an appreciator of music, may this article inspire you to dive deeper into the fascinating realm of music theory and its profound impact on the creation and interpretation of music throughout history and across genres.

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Journal of Music Theory

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Academic Editor: Richard Cohn

Founded by David Kraehenbuehl at Yale University in 1957, the Journal of Music Theory is the oldest music-theory journal published in the United States and has been a cornerstone in music theory’s emergence as a research field in North America since the 1960s. The journal is edited by a consortium of music-theory faculty at Yale, where it is housed in the Department of Music. The Journal of Music Theory fosters conceptual and technical innovations in abstract, systematic musical thought and cultivates the historical study of musical concepts and compositional techniques. The journal publishes research with important and broad applications in the analysis of music and the history of music theory as well as theoretical or metatheoretical work that engages and stimulates ongoing discourse in the field. While remaining true to its original structuralist outlook, the journal also addresses the influences of philosophy, mathematics, computer science, cognitive sciences, and anthropology on music theory.

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Music and Dance (65:1)

Journal of Music Theory 56:2 (56:2)

Journal of Music Theory 56:1 (56:1)

Journal of Music Theory 55:2 (55:2)

Journal of Music Theory 55:1 (55:1)

Journal of Music Theory 54:2 (54:2)

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Journal of Music Theory 52:2 (52:2)

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Journal of Music Theory 50:2 (50:2)

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An Analysis of Music Theory Synthesis Essay

The theory of Music analysis starts in two major dimensions- the “five levels” and across the “three main domains”. According to Hanninen (7), sonic, contextual and structural are the three domains in musical theory.

A domain, as used in music theory and analysis, is an area of musical discourse, experience or activity about a certain piece of music. It also refers to a number of musical ideas or phenomena being studied. Thus, there are three domains in this category- the contextual domain, the sonic and the structural domains.

To begin with, the Sonic domain is denoted as “S” and includes all the psychoacoustic facets of a given music piece. In this case, each note is conceived as a bundle of attributes of “S”. In this way, it allows the analyst to track down the activities of a multiple “S” dimension independent of each other and in a concurrent manner.

The organization of “S” in individual musical segments progress towards larger units and is indicated by differences as well as disjunctions. For instance, where there is a large difference in attribute values such as pitch and timbre, greater disjunctions and stronger boundaries are likely to be created between units of a musical piece.

According to Hanninen (31), organization of “S”, structural organization and associative organization make the three basic facets of musical organization in musical theory.

Secondly, the domain contextual, denoted as “C”, is used to recognize the workings of such features of music as association, repetition and categorization of a piece of music. Contextual domain, as the name suggests, describes the importance of a context of music in the formation of an object as well as its identity.

For instance, it provides an indication of the segments (objects) of music that are permeable and immersed through interaction with contexts. In domain “C”, the theory shifts its focus from isolation of segments to a new concept in which segments are grouped into associations. In addition, it focuses on the identification of a number of contexts that encroach into the objects of music in order to shape the sound in a given manner.

In “C” domain, repetition is considered as a non-static aspect and an active force in the process of forming the object. Thus, Hanninen (23) argues that association of units is the rationale behind segmentation. This mechanism focuses mainly on association between groups of notes, although it invokes some attributes of the “S” domain of individual notes.

Thirdly, the theory emphasises on the structural domain, denoted as “T”, which provides an indication of active reference to the theory of musical syntax (structure). The musical analyst has a role of choosing or developing the “H”.

It recommends the guides as well as segments in addition to conferring how musical events are interpreted. Hanninen (52) has shown that the theory has two major components- theoretical entities (HE) and frameworks (HF). They are drawn from other musical theories such as the “12-tone” theory and Schenkerian theory.

In conclusion, the three domains of musical theory (“S”, “C” and “T”) are important in the analysis of musical pieces. For instance, the “S” and “C” domains are active, although domain “C” is virtually active.

Thus, they show a complementation of strategies in human cognition. On the other hand, the “T” domain is different from the first two domains in that it can be activated or deactivated according to the analyst’s interest and the piece of music being analyzed.

Works Cited

Hanninen, Dora . A Theory of Music Analysis . Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2004. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2019, July 4). An Analysis of Music Theory. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-analysis-of-music-theory/

"An Analysis of Music Theory." IvyPanda , 4 July 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/an-analysis-of-music-theory/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'An Analysis of Music Theory'. 4 July.

IvyPanda . 2019. "An Analysis of Music Theory." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-analysis-of-music-theory/.

1. IvyPanda . "An Analysis of Music Theory." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-analysis-of-music-theory/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "An Analysis of Music Theory." July 4, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/an-analysis-of-music-theory/.

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The Eastman theory faculty pursues a broad range of research interests, including Schenkerian theory, studies in the theory and analysis of 20th-century music, history of music theory, musical perception and cognition, computing and music, and jazz and other popular music. An annual lecture series serves to expand research horizons still further. Guest lecturers have included David Huron, Philip Ewell, Joseph Straus, Mark Spicer, Ellie Hisama, Robert Hatten, Jocelyn Neal, Daniel Harrison, Yayoi Uno Everett, Michael Klein, Danny Jenkins, and John Roeder. Student-organized theory symposia provide opportunities for students to present papers and share research in progress. Graduate students present their work at regional and national conferences, as active contributors to the discipline. They also edit and publish, with the assistance of an editorial board of prominent music theorists, a juried music theory journal entitled Intégral .

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Theories of Creativity in Music: Students' Theory Appraisal and Argumentation

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The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because the dataset includes qualitative case descriptions, with information that could reveal the identity of the participants. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to [email protected] .

Most research on people's conceptions regarding creativity has concerned informal beliefs instead of more complex belief systems represented in scholarly theories of creativity. The relevance of general theories of creativity to the creative domain of music may also be unclear because of the mixed responses these theories have received from music researchers. The aim of the present study was to gain a better comparative understanding of theories of creativity as accounts of musical creativity by allowing students to assess them from a musical perspective. In the study, higher-education music students rated 10 well-known theories of creativity as accounts of four musical target activities—composition, improvisation, performance, and ideation—and argued for the “best theoretical perspectives” in written essays. The results showed that students' theory appraisals were significantly affected by the target activities, but also by the participants' prior musical experiences. Students' argumentative strategies also differed between theories, especially regarding justifications by personal experiences and values. Moreover, theories were most typically problematized when discussing improvisation. The students most often chose to defend the Four-Stage Model, Divergent Thinking, and Systems Theory, while theories emphasizing strategic choices or Darwinian selection mechanisms were rarely found appealing. Overall, students tended toward moderate theory eclecticism, and their theory appraisals were seen to be pragmatic and example-based, instead of aiming for such virtues as broad scope or consistency. The theories were often used as definitions for identifying some phenomena of interest rather than for making stronger explanatory claims about such phenomena. Students' theory appraisals point to some challenges for creativity research, especially regarding the problems of accounting for improvisation, and concerning the significance of theories that find no support in these musically well-informed adults' reasoning.

Introduction

Theories and informal conceptions regarding creativity.

General theories of creativity are based on the assumption that there is something we can call human creativity—that we can see creativity as one phenomenon, despite its apparent plurality. Definitions of creativity most typically share such characteristics as uniqueness (or novelty) and usefulness (see Plucker et al., 2004 ). While often sharing such basic assumptions, most contemporary theories of creativity are rather self-consciously demarcated to addressing only particular aspects of the multifarious phenomenon. This is easy to see in any of the introductory volumes and reviews available on the topic. Runco ( 2007 ), for instance, includes separate chapters on cognitive, developmental, biological, clinical, social, educational, historical, cultural, personality-based, and enhancement-oriented theories of creativity. In the present article, I will be referring to Kozbelt et al.'s ( 2010 ) review that similarly presents 10 (slightly different) classes of theories (see Appendix 1 ). Hence, while early theories of creativity might have appeared as unduly focused on cognitive aspects such as Divergent Thinking (Guilford, 1968 ) or “dissociation” (Koestler, 1964 ), the contemporary theoretical landscape is broader, addressing questions regarding creative lives, creative collaborations, creative products, the social and societal contexts of creative work, the neurological underpinnings of creativity, and more. It thus also seems clear that different creativity theories may address somewhat different sets of core questions (for a review, see Kaufman and Glăveanu, 2019 ). Some theories such as Csikszentmihalyi's ( 1997 ) Systems Theory take into account the reception of an idea or a product by a field of experts in a sociocultural context. However, many general theories of creativity tend to take a substantialist approach to creativity in the sense that the phenomenon (even in its societal aspects) is treated extrahistorically, as a human attribute, rather than as intertwined in historically contingent discourses and values (see Nelson, 2015 , 2018 ).

Apart from developing scholarly theories of creativity, researchers have also paid attention to practitioners' conceptions and understandings of the phenomenon. This is understandable: any attempts to measure something as multifaceted as creativity could probably benefit from heeding the views of those with experience in the domain in question, in order to judge which aspects are relevant to consider. Artists, in particular, are typically taken as reliable informants about the nature and progress of their own creativity (e.g., Lindauer et al., 1997 ; Botella et al., 2013 ; Daniel, 2020 ), and artists' conceptions of creativity may indeed be richer than is the case for some other professions (Spiel and von Korff, 1998 ). By contrast, studies of teachers' conceptions of creativity have often emphasized the “informal,” “implicit,” or “everyday” character of their thinking, pointing out informants' misconceptions about the topic. In a review of empirical studies in this area, Mullet et al. ( 2016 ) find a difference between descriptors that K-12 teachers typically associate with creative individuals (imaginative, artistic, intellectual, etc.) and researchers' criteria for creativity (fluency, flexibility, etc.), concluding that, overall, “teachers' conceptions of creativity were limited, vague, or confused” (Mullet et al., 2016 , p. 27). Whereas some researchers suggest that internal inconsistencies among teachers' beliefs might hinder their efforts to promote students' creativity (Kampylis et al., 2009 ), Mullet and colleagues go further, suggesting that the discrepancies between teachers' views and research “reflect teachers' difficulties in recognizing an authentically creative student or experience in the classroom” (Mullet et al., 2016 , p. 24). In another review on K-12 teachers' conceptualizations of creativity, Andiliou and Murphy ( 2010 ) likewise pay attention to misconceptions, stating that the degree to which teachers' understandings of creativity align with researchers' views “becomes and essential issue with practical significance for teachers who wish to identify, develop, and evaluate creative outcomes” (Andiliou and Murphy, 2010 , p. 203). These authors thus implicitly subscribe to what we might call theory optimism about creativity. This is the view that empirically supported theories of creativity give the best possible approximation about the central matters of fact regarding creativity and that creative phenomena can best be recognized and indeed furthered on the basis of this knowledge.

Influenced by Sternberg ( 1985 ), much of the research along these lines has been carried out using the term “implicit theory.” In one of his experiments, Sternberg let laypersons rate how characteristic various behaviors would be for an ideally intelligent, creative, or wise individual. The top 40 behaviors in each case were then used in one of three sorting tasks in another experiment, where students sorted behaviors into piles reflecting which of them were “likely to be found together” in a person. For intelligence, creativity, and wisdom, the respective sorting tasks thus led to multidimensional scaling solutions concerning the dimensions of each of these constructs (ibid.). Such a scaling, of course, depicts the respondents' implicit theories on a group level, and it does not exclude the possibility that various participants' individual implicit theories might be mutually incompatible in some way. For the present purposes, it is interesting that the sorting task itself required the participants, in essence, to arrange the items in a structure that suggests a wider system of beliefs. Such a structural aspect warrants the use of the term “theory” in the sense that scientific theories, too, are structured entities (see Winther, 2015 ) and typically more complex than single beliefs. Guilford ( 1968 , p. 22), for instance, saw theories as “semantic systems.”

In the research concerning implicit conceptions about creativity, psychometric methods may have biased the results toward reporting particular beliefs instead of such larger structures of thought. For instance, many putative misconceptions about creativity—such as the belief that creativity is synonymous with the arts (e.g., Patston et al., 2018 )—might be reported by rating a single questionnaire item. Similarly, methods using free association tend to yield lists of characteristics of creativity that may be condensed in categories signified by simple labels such as “beautiful,” “curious,” and “original” (Lothwesen, 2020 ). In more comprehensive factor-analytical (e.g., Cropley et al., 2019 ) or correspondence-analytical settings (e.g., Lothwesen, 2020 ), such beliefs do reveal a larger structure, but this is achieved by the researchers and describes the participants' thinking on a group level. Hence, these studies do not directly address participants' individual commitments to theories (in the sense of belief systems). In their analysis of studies concerning teachers' beliefs about creativity, Andiliou and Murphy ( 2010 ) rightly noted that uses of the term “implicit theory” (in Runco et al., 1993 ; Chan and Chan, 1999 ; Runco and Johnson, 2002 ) had been “narrowed and limited to represent beliefs [rather] than a belief system” (Andiliou and Murphy, 2010 , p. 206).

In an attempt to transcend a psychometric approach that focuses on the quantification of isolated beliefs, Pavlović and Maksić ( 2019 ) studied university teachers' implicit theories of creativity using a qualitative questionnaire. They found five types of implicit theories and made more detailed observations of the contexts of applying the theories, arguing that the informants held individualistic attitudes regarding the general definition of creativity but moved to activity theories when they focused on manifestations of creativity in students. Likewise, several English interview studies with music teachers have suggested that teachers' views regarding creativity can be substantially shaped by their own teaching experiences (Crow, 2008 ; Odena and Welch, 2009 , 2012 ; Kokotsaki, 2011 , 2012 ). Such studies suggest that practitioners' views concerning creativity may be crucially influenced by the broader contexts in which they are embedded. In turning to examine conceptions of creativity in the domain of music, we should thus be reminded of the vast cultural differences that may exist in the practices and beliefs surrounding music. As Hill ( 2012 ) observes in an ethnomusicological setting, varying cultural beliefs about where music comes from may also fundamentally shape perceptions of what musical creativity is and who has the ability to be creative. Again, this underlines the importance of treating conceptions regarding creativity as parts of larger belief systems.

Theories of Creativity in Music Research

As one of the remarkably creative domains of human activity, music might seem to provide an interesting test case for general theories of creativity. Yet most research on musical creativity takes place in disciplines that are quite separated from general theories of creativity. This is well exemplified by the field of ethnomusicology—an area in which creative activities such as musical improvisation are recurrently studied. For example, none of the 36 chapters in Bruno Nettl's two important anthologies on musical improvisation (Nettl and Russell, 1998 ; Solis and Nettl, 2009 ) explicitly builds on any general theories of creativity, although some individual authors discuss such related areas as expertise research (see Pressing, 1998 ) and the psychology of “flow” (see Campbell, 2009 ; Turino, 2009 ), or briefly mention findings in the research on the development of creativity (Campbell, 2009 ). Rather than framing the phenomenon of musical improvisation by theories of creativity, the authors rely on the rich theoretical tradition of ethnomusicology itself, or find theoretical support from fields such as sociology, anthropology, linguistics, literary studies, semiotics, musicology, music theory, music education, or philosophy. Similar observations could be made in the recently expanding field of so-called critical improvisation studies that covers but is not limited to addressing musical improvisation. Among the 56 main chapters of The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies (Lewis and Piekut, 2016 ), Dean and Bailes ( 2016 ) briefly compare Pressing's ( 1988 ) theory of improvisation to the Geneplore model of creativity (Finke et al., 1992 ) while Young and Blackwell ( 2016 ) mention Boden's ( 1990 ) notion of transformational creativity. Otherwise, only a handful of authors refer to Csikszentmihalyi's “flow,” give references to creativity studies in footnotes, or mention scholars such as Amabile or Simonton, but without referring to their main theoretical contributions in the study of creativity (as reflected in, say, Kozbelt et al., 2010 ). Such examples might raise some concern: are general theories of creativity perhaps unknown to improvisation scholars or deemed inappropriate or irrelevant by them?

The disregard for general theories of creativity by researchers of particular forms of musical creativity may seem surprising, but it often has good disciplinary reasons. Culturally oriented scholars, for instance, may see some general theories of creativity as too cognitive in their focus or as inappropriately relying on modernist ideologies of individual “innovation.” Thus, drawing on creativity research in fields such as ethnomusicology or media studies might tend to be delimited to theories with a social bent—such as Csikszentmihalyi's ( 1997 ) Systems Theory (McIntyre, 2006 , 2008 ; see, e.g., Borgo, 2007 ) or Sawyer's ( 2003 ) work on group creativity (e.g., Borgo, 2007 ; Schuiling, 2019 ). Another related aspect is that many culturally oriented music scholars may feel that they are “fighting the good fight against universalizing theories and culture-blind scholarship” (Slominski, 2020 , p. 227). An epistemological commitment like this can be hard to square with the apparent generality of creativity theories. Moreover, such disciplinary self-understandings can also be intertwined with writing styles. For instance, some researchers in musicology like to begin their studies in medias res , avoiding generalizing theoretical frameworks—something that is amply demonstrated by many of the introductory sections to articles in the abovementioned volumes by Nettl.

But similar sentiments are common in other disciplinary fields, as well, such as in the psychology of music and related empirical disciplines. This is no place for a comprehensive review of the field in which researchers such as Sawyer ( 2003 ), Johnson-Laird ( 2002 ), and many others have made important contributions to creativity research. What I want to point out is the uneasiness which other prominent researchers have expressed regarding general theories of creativity. In their introduction to the first modern anthology on musical creativity in this area, Deliège and Richelle urged us to “get rid of creativity , and look at creative acts ” (Deliège and Richelle, 2006 , p. 2; emphasis in the original). In another relevant anthology, editors Hargreaves et al. ( 2012 ) similarly argue against general theories of creativity, writing: “Since creativity actually exists in so many different forms, activities, and contexts, giving rise to an infinitely variable range of products, any attempt to formulate a unitary description or explanation is doomed to failure” (Hargreaves et al., 2012 , p. 4). Interestingly, Hargreaves and colleagues also suggest that “a focus on imagination—on internal mental processes—is more useful than one on creativity because it encompasses a much broader range of concepts and behavior” (Hargreaves et al., 2012 , p. 3). In this view, then, creativity as a topic seems too limiting (apparently leaving out forms of imagination such as listening that do not involve some kind of product) but at the same time too general to be addressed in unitary theories.

Various strands of scholarly particularism may nevertheless differ between one another in terms of what to do with the concept of creativity. As seen above, some scholars are suspicious of the whole concept, which easily leads to theory skepticism regarding any general theories of creativity—often expressed without detailed scrutiny of such theories. As an extreme position, Frith, in discussing power relations in particular domains of record production, extends this skepticism to the domain-specific notion of “musical creativity.” According to his view, this notion “is more of a hindrance than a help in understanding music-making practice,” and thus “we should cease to use the term altogether” (Frith, 2012 , p. 71). Other particularists have taken more positive views, trying to save the notion of creativity by insisting on its inherent plurality. Burnard's ( 2012a ) bottom-up sociological accounts of various “musical creativities” provide a case in point. Such views also open the door to questions regarding how some theories of creativity might have something meaningful to say about music. Indeed, asking such questions on a level closer to the phenomena of interest reflects a non-universalizing tendency among general creativity researchers, as well. In the preface to his introduction to theories of creativity, Runco ( 2007 , p. x) suggests that “the creative process is multifaceted” and complex to the extent that an “eclectic approach is necessary.” According to such theory eclecticism , the suitability and usefulness of particular theories would always have to be contextually determined. Hence, even if creativity is conceptualized as a unitary phenomenon or as a “distinct and independent capacity” (Runco, 2007 ), this complex totality would still need various theoretical tools to be properly accounted for. Finally, still another position—we might call it theory revisionism —arises out of the concern that mainstream approaches to theorizing about creativity have simply been too individualistic, too mentalistic, or too product-oriented and that the whole field could be reoriented on this level. Most notably, perhaps, there has been growing interest in distributed, ecological, or 4E approaches to creative cognition in music (Linson and Clarke, 2017 ; van der Schyff et al., 2018 ; Schiavio et al., 2020 ). In the work of Clarke and his associates, for example, the distributed nature of musical creativity has been demonstrated through detailed case studies of micro-social interaction and embodied instrumental engagement (Clarke et al., 2013 , 2017 ).

In some areas of music research, a certain theoretical eclecticism regarding general theories of creativity appears to emerge from the larger research field, although rarely as an explicit position of individual researchers. A systematic review of this topic would require a separate undertaking, but some instructive examples can be provided, say, in Collins ( 2012 ) anthology on creative processes in musical composition. Of the 11 chapters in the volume, seven explicitly reference one or more general theories of creativity. Some authors address composition as an individual creative process: Katz ( 2012 ), for instance, takes her lead from such theories as Galenson's typological scheme of “experimental innovators” and “conceptual innovators” (or “seekers” and “finders”; see Galenson, 2001 , 2006 , 2009 ), and Wallas's ( 1926 ) Four-Stage Model of creativity—suggesting that creative processes involve successive stages of preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification [Wallas ( 1926 , p. 97 ff.) also paid attention to an “intimation” stage when illumination was imminent]. Wiggins ( 2012 ), in turn, theorizes composition relying on Boden's ( 1990 ; 2010 ) ideas of creativity as the exploration or transformation of conceptual spaces. Brown and Dillon ( 2012 ) discuss modes of meaningful engagement with musical composition, drawing on de Bono's ( 1992 ) thoughts of creativity as finding alternative perceptions or conceptualizations and on Dennett's ( 2001 ) pseudo-Darwinian emphasis of exploitation of accidents. Bailes and Bishop ( 2012 ) address various forms of compositional imagery, seeing them to align with Ainsworth-Land's ( 1982 ) general stage development model of creativity. Among the more socially informed views, Burnard's ( 2012b ) presentation of real-world composition practices is guided by Amabile's ( 1996 ) views regarding the social dimensions of creativity, and Bennett's ( 2012 ) analysis of collaborative songwriting is influenced by the Systems Theory of creativity. Other authors rely more on theoretical approaches indigenous to the field of music and/or develop their own theoretical models for musical composition.

Even this small collection of examples suggests that the field of creativity research can easily be sampled for support to a wide range of perspectives into a more or less circumscribed form of musical creativity (here, composition)—without much concern for how other, competing theoretical schemes might have handled the task. In Collins' volume, one finds very little explicit argumentation regarding theory choice: many of the authors write as if they would have already made up their minds about which theoretical framework to stand upon. The clearest exception in the anthology appears in Kozbelt's ( 2012 ) account of composers' lifespan creativity trajectories. Kozbelt first pits the expertise acquisition view of creativity (Ericsson, 1999 ) against the Blind Variation and Selective Retention view that emphasizes serendipity in the creative process (Campbell, 1960 ; Simonton, 1997 , 1999 , 2010 , 2015 ), noting that these two theories “make radically different assumptions about the fundamental nature of creativity and quite divergent predictions about how creativity unfolds throughout creators' lives” (Kozbelt, 2012 , p. 28). Subsequently, Kozbelt argues that results concerning composers' career landmarks are hard to reconcile with the two abovementioned theories but are better accounted for by using Galenson's typological approach. Pending a systematic review of other similar literature in the field, I venture the suggestion that such comparative argumentation about the relative empirical adequacy of creativity theories is rare within music research. Finally, a complementary question that is typically left open in contexts such as the abovementioned anthology is how the chosen theories would fare in the case of other kinds of creative musical activities. The theoretical eclecticism regarding theories of creativity that arises from the combined efforts of music researchers thus tends to leave both theory choice and the scope of the theories inexplicit.

Rationale for the Present Study

The importance of studying creativity is often taken for granted by researchers (see Forgeard and Kaufman, 2015 ), but in the case of music this may be less of a problem than in some other fields. Few might question the idea that music is a creative field of human activity. As the above review suggests, however, the relevance of theories of creativity for music is less clear. While the position of theory optimism would imply that general, empirically grounded theories of creativity might be used to correct musical practitioners' views and even enhance their creative potential, theory skepticism would claim the primacy of the actual practices, treating any attempts at theoretical systematization with suspicion. In my view, both of these positions are problematic as applied to music. Theory optimism appears complacent: instead of assuming that music specialists' conceptions can offer valuable insights into creativity (see e.g., Koutsoupidou, 2008 ), it assumes that researchers should start correcting creative practitioners in their views. Moreover, theory optimism might even seem to suggest that creative practices are best furthered by convergent , theoretically systematic thinking about creativity—rubbing against the notion of creativity as divergent thinking. Theory skepticism, in turn, would seem to jump to conclusions: against the fact that at least some musical creators and researchers have found use for general theories of creativity, it simply dismisses such examples without empirical scrutiny.

While it may be granted that much informal thinking on creativity can be reflected in simple questionnaire items, the present research was based on the assumption that people might equally well be able to relate to more complex, scholarly theories regarding the topic. Given that the gist of many theories of creativity is expressible in rather non-technical terms (see Appendix 1 ) and that many of them have been inspired by creative individuals' own reports, we could indeed expect such theories to be understandable to at least educated practitioners in a field such as music. This is also suggested by how creativity theorists often become sought-after speakers outside of the academia. In such contexts, scholars may tend to promulgate their own theoretical views rather than seeking to subject them to comparative scrutiny. At least to my knowledge, there have not been systematic efforts to ask ordinary people or practitioners in a field about their reactions to broader selections of creativity theories. Therefore, we might not even know whether some such theories would tend to be rejected outright by the relevant practitioners themselves. The current study was thus based on curiosity: assuming that musical practitioners' activities are supposed to be covered by general theories of creativity, what would such practitioners themselves say about these accounts? Of course, we cannot expect theories in behavioral sciences to be automatically felled by lack of acceptance by those whose actions are accounted for. Still, some more knowledge about creative people's appraisal of theories concerning their domain would certainly help us untangle some of the knots in the mixed reception that these theories have generated.

In designing the study, I thus tentatively adopted the position of theory eclecticism—not as a given result, but as methodological guidance. The aim was to study the appraisal of theories of creativity among higher-education music students, by building on the assumption that theories might vary in their suitability in accounting for different musical activities. In allowing the participants to engage with theories of creativity, I also wanted to embrace the positive suggestion inherent in theory optimism—that practitioners could be offered information about creativity research. Finally, in asking the participants to evaluate the suitability of such theories for music, I opened the door to such views as theory skepticism, theory eclecticism, and even theory revisionism as possible result scenarios.

In an empirical study of people's theory appraisals, it seemed wise to adopt the Kuhnian assumption regarding indeterminacy of theory choice. Kuhn ( 1977 ) acknowledged that choice between theories in science depends on such traditionally recognized criteria as accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity, and fruitfulness. However, he also claimed that theory choice is indeterminate both because the criteria themselves may be imprecise and because individuals may weigh such values differently to resolve possible conflicts between them. If theory choice in science thus involves “idiosyncratic factors dependent on individual biography and personality” (Kuhn, 1977 , p. 329), this could be expected to be even truer for students' appraisals of theories, not least in a “softer” field such as creativity studies.

In the present study, I chose to work with higher-education students majoring in musicology and music education. Students of musicology are rarely engaged as participants in studies of creativity, but here they were chosen in order to cover a wider range of active musical interests and creative attitudes, also potentially differing from those of pre-service music teachers. While such individual differences might affect the appraisal of theories, it also seemed relevant to ask whether the theories might indeed be differently evaluated in different musical contexts. Based on the review above, I assumed that some theories might encounter problems at least when applied to musical improvisation. Hence, the first research question was about the judged scope of the theories and about systematic biases in theory appraisal:

RQ1: Is the appraisal of theories of creativity in a musical context affected by (a) differences between musical target activities and/or (b) the characteristics of the individuals making the judgments?

While this question will first be addressed on the basis of quantitative ratings, such results can hardly suffice to demonstrate the complex ways in which individuals might come to favor certain theories over others. A low rating, say, does not contain information about the reasons for giving a low rating: for one of the participants, the reason might be a sense of lacking conceptual clarity; for another, it might be unsuitability to account for subjectively meaningful experiences, and so on. In order to understand the students' thinking on this level, we may study their argumentation. I thus chose to let music students write essays in which they would argue for their choice of creativity theories in a musical setting. In broad terms, arguments can be thought to be composed of claims and justifications for those claims. For instance, in Toulmin's ( 1958 ) scheme, claims are justified by “data” (i.e., facts) and “warrants” that register the legitimacy of appealing to the kinds of data in question, as well as “backing” for the warrants. The structures of student-generated arguments, too, are typically understood to consist of a claim-like component and one or more justification components, the types of which differ between analytical frameworks (see Sampson and Clark, 2008 ). In the present case, claims concern the suitability of a given theory to musical creativity in general or to a particular kind of musical activity. Justifications, in turn, might conceivably differ between individuals. For instance, some students might refer to their personal experiences as support while others could rely on more abstract reasoning. In the present context, I will forgo trying to explain such individual preferences in argumentative style. Assuming a range of justificatory strategies, the second research question addressed instead the possibility that these strategies might be context dependent:

RQ2: In applying theories of creativity to music, are students' argumentative strategies dependent on the theories in question and/or on the musical target activities?

Studying music students' theory appraisal should help toward a better understanding of the relationships between theories of creativity and musical practitioners' views. My working assumption was that musically active adults are not only able to channel many of their implicit conceptions through the conscious application of scholarly theories but that they could also offer potentially valuable criticism regarding such theories. Being embraced by higher-education music students might not, of course, be necessary for a good theory of musical creativity, but a potential lack of such acceptance should at least raise interesting questions about the nature of the theories. The third research question thus addressed the fate of the theories in students' hands:

RQ3: Which theories of creativity do the students find particularly suitable for musical activities, and which ones do they find problematic in this respect?

Notice that a relative theory skepticism or a theory eclecticism on the part of the students could be potential answers to this question. However, eclectic choice of theories, in particular, would also raise new questions about the supposed nature of theories and how they are to be used and chosen. Thus, the final research question was an overarching one:

RQ4: What are students' dominant conceptions of theories and theory choice?

Research Strategy

The overall research strategy was based on the idea that different aspects of students' theory appraisal could be captured by different methodological approaches. First, the influence of target activities and individual characteristics on theory appraisal (RQ1) was addressed in a quantitative approach, working with theory ratings. Second, the dependence of argumentative strategies on theories and target activities (RQ2) was approached in a mixed-method approach in the sense that qualitative and quantitative aspects of the analysis were integrated before drawing conclusions (see Bazeley, 2018 ). Third, students' views regarding the suitability of the particular theories (RQ3) were addressed in a multimethod approach in which both quantitative and qualitative results provided complementary results that could be integrated while drawing conclusions (Bazeley, 2018 ). Finally, the question about students' dominant conceptions regarding theory choice (RQ4) could only be addressed by way of a philosophically oriented interpretation of the whole set of empirical results. Thus, the final research question will be postponed to the discussion.

Participants

The participants were 47 Finnish university students of music, with a mean age of 27.4 years (sd = 6.8). They were majoring in either musicology (18 females, 16 males) or music education (8 females, 5 males). They took part in the study while taking an advanced course in musical creativity, either in 2013 (22 participants) or in 2015 (25 participants). Thirty-five of the students were at least in their fourth year of university studies, and 18 of them had a previous conservatory degree. The participants reported an average of 15.3 years of active musical experience (playing or singing; sd = 7.6), and they reported to play 3.2 different musical instruments, on average (sd = 2.0). On a scale between 0 (“not at all experience”) and 5 (“very much experience”), their reported average experience in composing (M = 3.2, sd = 1.3), improvisation (M = 3.0, sd = 1.3), working with music technology (M = 3.0, sd = 1.2), and teaching music (M = 2.6, sd = 1.7) were all above the midpoint of the scale. They did not have much experience in instrument making (M = 0.5, sd = 0.6). In assessing their own experience of making music in various genres on similar scales between 0 and 5, they reported most extensive experience in the areas of popular music (M = 3.7, sd = 1.2) and Western classical music (M = 3.2, sd = 1.7), while most had less experience from jazz (M = 1.9, sd = 1.2) and folk music (M = 1.8, sd = 1.4).

In order to avoid personal biases in the choice of theories, I selected the chapter “Theories of Creativity” (Kozbelt et al., 2010 ) from the first edition of the Cambridge Handbook of Creativity as the basis of the study. The chapter offers a balanced review of general (non-domain-specific) theories of creativity, emphasizing theoretical pluralism. The first main section of the chapter discusses classifying and comparing theories, categories of creative magnitude (e.g., “Big C/little c” creativity), the so-called four Ps of creativity (process, product, person, and place), and related schemes. The second main section includes 10 subsections, introducing the reader to as many categories of more specific theories presented in the research literature.

From each of these 10 subsections, I selected one theory that appeared to be most thoroughly described. As an exception, two theories were selected in the section “Stage and componential process theories” (reflecting both of these two aspects), and the theory of Divergent Thinking got to represent two of the subsections in which it figured centrally. For each of the chosen 10 theories, I extracted what I interpreted as core descriptive sentences regarding the basic content of the theory, removed references to literature, and substituted theorists' names with general descriptions (e.g., “some theorists”). If required, sentences from different parts of the original text were patched together, adding some words where needed. In each case, the goal was to achieve a brief, coherent description, keeping as close as possible to the handbook text. The descriptions are shown in Appendix 1 , complete with quotation marks to indicate the original passages. Square brackets indicate words or phrases added to the original wordings for clarity, or places where references or other words have been removed from the citations. For presentation in the study, the quotation marks and square brackets were removed, arriving at 10 concise theoretical summaries. These ranged from 2 through 6 sentences, depending on how much material was available in the handbook text.

In two separate years, two groups of music students took part in a course on musical creativity. In the beginning of the course, they were given the assignment to read the original handbook chapter by Kozbelt et al. ( 2010 ), after which they took part in one of two 1-h sessions in which the chapter's contents were discussed. In facilitating the group discussions, I strived to refrain from all value judgments regarding the theories and avoided providing explanations beyond what was said in the handbook chapter. Instead, I attempted to ensure that all 10 theories were discussed, encouraging the participants to apply the theoretical ideas to their own musical experiences. The students were oblivious to the later assignment in which the theoretical summaries would be used.

During the following 3 months, the students took part in 10 classes focusing on various aspects of musical creativity on the basis of readings from different areas of music research. The obligatory readings covered topics in music history, including the myth of genius (Higgins, 2004 ), originality and plagiarism (Buelow, 1990 ; Winemiller, 1997 ), and theories of musical influence (Straus, 1990 ; Yudkin, 1992 ); readings in improvisation from ethnomusicological (Nettl, 1974 ; Nettl and Riddle, 1998 ), pedagogical (Tafuri, 2006 ; Huovinen et al., 2011 ), and cultural perspectives (Lewis, 1996 ; Prévost, 2004 ); issues of musical creativity and mental health (Nettle, 2001 ); social aspects of musical creativity (Frith, 2012 ; Littleton and Mercer, 2012 ); empirical research on creativity in musical performance (Williamon et al., 2006 ; Clarke, 2012 ); and philosophical aspects of the creative experience (Huovinen, 2011 ). Chapters from the textbook on creativity research by Runco ( 2007 ) were recommended for optional readings throughout the course, but general theories of creativity were not in focus during the class discussions during this period. The course also introduced the notion of conceptual ideation through a practical exercise in which the students created and wrote up “ideas for making music in a new way.” Students' written ideas—ranging from plans for new instruments through compositional algorithms to ideas for social organizations of musical life—were shared with and evaluated by other participants in the group.

Twelve weeks after their group discussion on Kozbelt et al. ( 2010 ), the students participated in one of two 105-min class sessions in which they received a questionnaire incorporating the 10 theoretical summaries edited from the handbook chapter. The students were instructed to carry out three tasks. First, they were asked to read the theoretical summaries and to evaluate the theories on 6-point Likert scales for suitability in accounting for (a) musical improvisation, (b) musical composition, (c) performance of composed music, and (d) creating ideas for making music (henceforth: “ideation”). It was explained that they should assess to what extent each of these areas of creativity would be describable, researchable, and/or understandable through the given theories. The four target activities were not further defined; instead, it was hoped that the students' varying musical backgrounds and experiences would be reflected in a wide range of understandings concerning such activities.

Second, the students were asked to choose 1–4 “best theoretical perspectives” that “best correspond to your own thoughts about what is central for musical creativity.” Their task was to write an essay justifying their choice of theories, paying attention to whether various forms of musical creativity might require different theoretical perspectives. The students were also encouraged to reflect on possibilities for research in connection with the theories, to discuss problems in applying the theories to music, and to suggest refinements to the theories for the purpose of using them in musical contexts. No instructions were given concerning the lengths of the essays.

In order to assess the possible effects of personality on theory choice, the Five-Factor Model of personality (Digman, 1990 ), also known as the “Big Five” (Goldberg, 1993 ) was assumed as a starting point. The students filled out background questionnaires as well as the “Short Five” personality test (Konstabel et al., 2012 ), measuring the 30 facets of the Five-Factor Model with 60 comprehensive single items (positive and negative statements intended to match expert descriptions of the constructs). The Finnish-language version of the test used here has been shown by Konstabel et al. ( 2012 ) to have good to excellent congruence with the structure of the standard NEO Personality Inventory-Revised (see Costa and McCrae, 2014 ).

All students received course credit for the assignment. It was explained that apart from the course assignment, they could freely choose to allow their responses to be used anonymously in the author's research, and that in so doing, they could withdraw from the study at any time. Six students did not agree to participate, and their responses were removed from the data reported here. The remaining 47 participants gave their informed consent in written form. The background information reported above as well as the results concern these 47 participants. Institutional guidelines for ethical practice were followed throughout the study.

Quantitative analyses of the ratings were carried out in the R environment for statistical computing (R Core Team, 2019 ), using the package “psych” for principal component analysis of theory ratings (Revelle, 2019 ). Linear mixed-effect models for the ensuing principal components were built using the “lme4” package (Bates et al., 2015 ), and estimated marginal means were produced using the “emmeans” package (Lenth et al., 2019 ). Other quantitative methods involved in the analysis of ratings were Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney U -tests, as well as the Pearson correlation coefficient.

The participants wrote their essays in Finnish, apart from two bilingual participants who chose to write in English. The hand-written essays were first typed into digital format. Their length ranged between 1,752 and 8,892 characters (spaces excluded), with a mean of 3,672 characters (SD = 1,571) per essay.

A content analysis of the essays was carried out by coding them in the program NVivo (QSR International Pty Ltd, 2018 ). This involved three separate content codings, initially marking passages for (1) each of the 10 theories of creativity and (2) each of the four target activities mentioned in the task instructions (improvisation, composition, performance, ideation). In both of these cases, coded passages could range from parts of sentences up to longer paragraphs (and in rare cases, even the entire essay, when the same construct had been given a longer, continuous discussion), and several overlapping codes could be used. Finally, the text was coded for (3) argumentative content, based on the idea that arguments consist of claims and justifications (e.g., Sampson and Clark, 2008 ). Claims, in this case, were assertions concerning the suitability of a given theory to account for musical creativity (or some form thereof). Quantitative aspects of the essay responses were analyzed in R using χ 2 tests for the equality of proportions and hierarchical cluster analysis (using the complete linkage method).

Results I: Ratings

Theory ratings and theoretical dimensions.

The highest mean rating was obtained by Amabile's ( 1996 ) Componential Theory (M = 3.9, sd = 1.1), closely followed by Divergent Thinking (M = 3.6, sd = 1.3) and Systems Theory (M = 3.5, sd = 1.3). However, for eight of the theories, Kruskal–Wallis tests with p -values adjusted for multiple comparisons showed significant ( p < 0.01/10) differences in ratings between the four target activities. These differences are shown in Figure 1 , using compact letter displays to indicate pairwise comparisons between activities (Dunn's tests). Generally, differences between target activities were smallest for theoretical summaries making no claims about the creative process (Developmental View, Systems Theory, Componential Theory), whereas some other theories were deemed relatively unsuitable either for musical improvisation or performance (or both). In particular, the Four-Stage Model and the Investment Theory (Sternberg and Lubart, 1991 ; Sternberg, 2012 ) seemed least acceptable as accounts of musical improvisation.

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Mean ratings of the 10 theories for the four musical target activities, with standard deviation error bars and compact letter display of pairwise comparisons. Within each theory, activities with the same letter did not differ significantly ( p < 0.05) from one another in their ratings.

Each theory was rated by the participants four times, relating it to each of the four musical target activities; thus, for each theory there were 188 ratings. It would be unlikely that all such sets of ratings would be completely independent of one another. Instead, we could expect to find a smaller number of basic theoretical dimensions along which several theories receive similar ratings in a number of musical contexts. In order to condense the rating data to such dimensions, a principal component analysis (with varimax rotation) was carried out, extracting four components (with eigenvalues larger than 1). The resulting analysis is seen in Table 1 , showing loadings above 0.4.

Principal component analysis of participants' ratings for the 10 theories (with varimax rotation).

I have tentatively named the four emerging theoretical dimensions according to salient common ideas shared by the theories with high loadings on these dimensions. The first component could be interpreted as focusing on an Orderly Process : the two theories with highest loadings on this component (Problem-Solving and Four-Stage Model) emphasize an orderly thought process through which an idea or solution is reached. The inclusion of Seekers/Finders in this component may reflect the fact that both types of creators were accounted for by their characteristic working processes. In other words, it is the emphasis on process rather than either of the types of creators that groups this theory with the two others. The second component, Strategic Divergence , appears to center on making a strategic contribution by investing in a new idea (Investment Theory) or a new problem (Problem Finding) that diverges from commonplace solutions in its originality (Divergent Thinking). Notice that all of these three theories require the creative achievement to be assessed in its historical dimension (as “H-creativity”; Boden, 1990 ) or in terms of some other comparison to standard achievements. The third component also involves Divergent Thinking, but this component could be called Darwinian Divergence , as it is dominated by ideas of Blind Variation/Selective Retention and development through environmental influences (Developmental View). Finally, the fourth component highlights creativity as a Socio-Cognitive System : it includes theories that describe creativity as involving a field of gatekeepers (Systems Theory) or as an interaction between dispositional, cognitive, and social aspects (Componential Theory).

Target Activities and Individual Characteristics

Equipped with a more condensed account of the theoretical dimensions, we may reformulate the first research question and ask: does the appreciation of the four theoretical dimensions depend on types of musical activities considered and/or on the evaluator's own individual characteristics or musical background? To address this question, the principal component scores were normalized between 0 and 1, yielding four synthetic variables, one for each theoretical dimension.

None of these variables appeared to be significantly affected by participants' gender or the participants' major subject of study (Mann–Whitney U : all p s > 0.1). To study the possible effects of other background variables, I constructed linear mixed-effect models for each of the principal component scores, taking participant as random effect. In each model, musical activity was included as a fixed effect. To choose other fixed effects, Pearson correlation was first used to screen the participants' background variables for associations with the theoretical dimensions (for the linear modeling, these variables were interpreted as interval variables). Apart from participants' age, year of study, years of musical activity, and the five facets of the Short Five personality test (N, E, O, A, C), the variables considered included self-evaluations (on a 6-point scale) regarding experience in composition using traditional notation, composition with other means, improvisation, music technology, and music teaching, as well as playing music in the areas of classical music, popular music, jazz, and folk music. The preliminary correlation analysis revealed only very few potentially relevant background variables, most notably composition experience (using traditional notation) and jazz experience.

Using a likelihood-ratio approach, mixed models were then constructed as shown in Table 2 . (Given some missing data, there were initially 175 observations for each model. On the basis of Q–Q plots, one extreme observation was further discarded in the model for Darwinian Divergence, and two in the one for Socio-Cognitive System.) The results show that the type of musical activity had a highly significant effect on each theoretical dimension. Moreover, the background variable of composition experience improved the models for both Strategic and Darwinian Divergence. Finally, jazz experience improved the model for the Socio-Cognitive System dimension. No other fixed effects or interactions could be used to improve the models.

Construction of mixed models for the four dimensions of creativity theories.

Significance levels:

Predicted values from the four models are plotted in Figure 2 . Beginning with the effects of musical activity, we may note that the first two theoretical dimensions appeared especially suitable for musical activities that tend to take place outside of performance situations. Thus, emphasis on Orderly Process was especially favored in connection with composition and ideation, whereas it was found less suitable for performance and, especially, for improvisation ( Figure 2A ). Similarly, emphasis on Strategic Divergence mostly emerged for ideation and composition, whereas such a perspective was not as favored for performance or improvisation ( Figure 2B ). The two last theoretical dimensions show a different picture: in both cases, one of the musical activities stood out as being the least suitable target to be accounted for in the terms in question. On the one hand, Darwinian Divergence appeared least suitable for musical performance ( Figure 2C ). On the other, the approaches appearing under the Socio-Cognitive System dimension were found least suitable for ideation ( Figure 2D ).

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Appreciation of the four theoretical dimensions: predicted values from linear mixed models (with 95% CIs). (A) Orderly Process. (B) Strategic Divergence. (C) Darwinian Divergence. (D) Socio-Cognitive System.

As was made clear above, among the background variables only self-reported composition experience and jazz experience were found to improve the models for the theoretical dimensions. As seen in Figure 2B , composition experience decreased the appeal of Strategic Divergence. Thus, even if the strategically rational notions of investment and problem finding might be seen as compatible with (modernist notions of) musical composition, our compositionally active participants seemed opposed to such ideas. Moreover, the lack of interaction with musical activity indicates that their relative resistance to Strategic Divergence not only concerned the activity of musical composition as such, but it appeared across the board for all musical activities. By contrast, composition experience also seemed to make the participants more willing to approach all musical activities as Darwinian Divergence (see Figure 2C ). Such results suggest that compositional experience may have familiarized students with free, “blind” generation of musical ideas and materials, unhampered by strategic aims. Similarly, Figure 2D suggests that receptivity to ideas of creativity as a Socio-Cognitive System was furthered by participants' jazz experience.

Results II: Argumentation

Applying theories to activities.

According to the task instructions, the participants were to defend the “best theoretical perspectives” in their essays. As shown in the left column of Table 3 , almost half of the 47 participants chose to defend the Four-Stage Model, but Divergent Thinking and Systems Theory were not left far behind. Overall, the numbers of participants choosing to defend a particular theory differed significantly between the 10 theories [χ 2 (9) = 55.24, p < 0.001]. The three theories that above received the lowest mean ratings were also here least often chosen to be defended. Hence, the two theories that formed the core of the theoretical dimension of Strategic Contribution (i.e., Investment Theory and Problem Finding) were both only chosen to be discussed in four essays. Likewise, even though Blind Variation/Selective Retention was above seen as the central theory for the dimension of Darwinian Divergence, here the theory was only defended by two participants. Notice, then, that while Divergent Thinking in the rating task tended to be enhanced by the striking notions of investment, problem finding, or blind generation, none of the latter ideas were found very appealing for music as such.

Numbers of participants defending the theories in their essays and applying them to the four musical activities ( N = 47).

The essays were first coded for passages concerning the 10 theories as well as for the four target activities. Using the matrix coding function of NVivo, I thereafter analyzed the overlaps between these two sets of codes (manually correcting the numbers of participants if a single participant showed multiple overlaps between the same codes). The four last columns in Table 3 show the numbers of participants mentioning any of the 10 theories in conjunction with the four kinds of musical activities. Three of these distributions did not significantly differ from the “chosen to be defended” column, but in the case of composition, there was a significant difference [χ 2 (9) = 20.85, p < 0.05/4], largely due to the relative success of the Four-Stage Model as an account of compositional work, over and above the other theories.

Argumentation for Theories

The third coding of the essays concerned argumentative content and was carried out in a bottom-up fashion, based on the idea that claims concerning the suitability of theories could be justified in various ways—by appealing to rational reasoning, authority, one's own experience, etc. After an initial coding round, the emerging classes of statements (including longer coherent passages) were reread, attempting to clarify the distinctions between argumentative categories. For instance, the boundary between generalized illustrations and (a preliminary category of) examples was sharpened by restricting the latter to particular examples that focused on individual persons (e.g., Miles Davis) or other historically particular circumstances (e.g., the performance tradition of Russian violinists). Generalized illustrations of the theories, in turn, were lacking in such anchoring to particular individuals or circumstances (e.g., “Perhaps this sort of creative process can be found behind many musical instruments: someone has found a mechanism or approach almost by chance and started to develop it” [participant P12 on Problem Finding]). During this honing process, some preliminary categories were combined: for instance, statements that had first been taken separately as individually chosen premises for theorizing (e.g., “the theory should address factors related to the temporal duration of the process such as motivation and environment” [P14]) were combined into the category theoretical reasoning that also included more developed conceptual arguments (see an example in Appendix 2 ).

The final coding scheme included four categories of claims and nine categories of justifications (see Appendix 2 ). Apart from the central positive claims , suggesting the suitability of a theory to music or some musical activity, claims also included corresponding negative claims , and theory descriptions that simply explained the theories or highlighted some of their aspects, as well as free generalizations that did not have a clear justificatory function. Justifications, in turn, comprised generalized illustrations , appeals to personal experience, particular examples, values , and authority , as well as the use of theoretical reasoning . In addition, some passages were interpreted as regarding theoretical complementation (i.e., relating several theories to one another to strengthen the overall account), as suggestions concerning application to research (often stating a personal research interest involving the theory), or as problematization in which a given theory was more substantially argued against (instead of a simple negative claim concerning its suitability). This framework necessarily involves some interpretative leeway both in the boundaries between the categories and, especially, in how particular statements were demarcated and how separate arguments were individuated in the texts. In order to alleviate the latter problems, the quantitative parts of the following account are simply based on numbers of participants that were found to use given argumentative means somewhere in their essays in conjunction with given theories or given types of musical activity.

The distribution of the argumentative means in Table 4 shows that most (45/47) of the participants made direct positive claims regarding the suitability of theories in musical contexts and that the majority (40/47) argued for their views using at least some generalized illustrations. For a simple example of this argumentative strategy, consider the following extract from a musicology student's essay. A positive claim concerning the suitability of the Systems Theory is directly followed by a generalized illustration that simply states the main aspects of the theory in a musical setting:

The distribution of claims and justifications in the participants' essays (numbers of participants applying a given argumentative means for discussing a given theory).

[ Positive claim :] The theory of creativity as a system also well describes working out ideas for music (and composition). [ Generalized illustration :] Producing a musical idea requires knowledge about the domain, a person who knows things and can for instance develop a new instrument, and an area in which she can further her invention with the help of other colleagues. These, in turn, decide whether the idea is good enough to be published. (P15)

The passage following the positive claim would otherwise be labeled a theory description , but the idea of developing a new instrument turns it into a musical illustration of the theory—albeit a highly generalized one. Such generalized illustrations were used for all theories approximately in equal proportion to how often each theory was taken up by the participants. On each row of Table 4 , the numbers of participants applying the argumentative means in question to the 10 theories has been compared to the total numbers of participants discussing the 10 theories in their essays. On each row, the χ 2 test thus indicates whether the distribution of a particular argumentative means differed significantly from the distribution on the bottom row of the table. (The α levels have been adjusted for multiple comparisons: α = 0.05/13). Significant differences from the bottom row were found in the appeals to personal experience and in appeals to values.

First, we may note that more than half of the participants who made references to their own personal experiences did this (at least) in discussions of the Four-Stage Model. Some of them suggested that their own musical orientation (“toward the production side,” P14) or, in more essentialist terms, their nature as a “seeker” (P31) or “a logical person” (P13) made the Four-Stage Model relevant to their creative experiences. More often, participants simply mentioned that “the four stages of the theory are easy to discern in my own work” (P27; similarly P2, P9, P26, P32, P43). More specific applications were mentioned as well. One participant referred to having become convinced of the theory by listening to a particular musician (P46), and two mentioned their experiences of creating ideas for music (P36, P45). One of these, a young student of musicology, chose to write her entire essay on the virtues of the Four-Stage Model, explaining each of the four target activities on this basis. She fluently described her own experiences of incubation and illumination in two of the activities that were familiar to her and gave briefer accounts for the two others for which she apparently lacked personal experience. In her longer accounts, she described how ideas for musical compositions or arrangements had just come to her while sitting on a bus or while listening to the radio. In the more experienced end, a 34-year-old student of musicology who reported playing six instruments and working as a musical playschool teacher described her own work with children using the Four-Stage Model. She described a group process of creating music with children in which she felt that her own creative achievement was enhanced by giving the children time to incubate:

I create a lot of teaching materials: children's songs and rhymes as needed. Some of these come in a moment, but my best products I have managed to get notated and into heavy use through exactly this sort of many-staged process. […] This fall, in my work at a music playschool, I have tried to give more time to the children's own creative ideas and thoughts. I mean for instance when we made a little Christmas musical with one group. “Giving time” [i.e., incubation] consisted in returning to the ideas in many lessons—in refining and developing them over a longer period of time. (P29)

By contrast, other theories that were often discussed received very few justifications by appeal to personal experience, despite the many positive claims in their favor. As regards Divergent Thinking, two participants briefly mentioned how the theory “corresponds to my experience of improvising” (P15) or how “in my experience, this type of thinking works and yields good results in musical ideation” (P16), while one somewhat unclearly argued for the theory based on her predilection for working processually (P34). For the Developmental View, one of the students simply referred to her “personal experience” (P32), and two others gave examples of their family background that they did not seem to take as equivocal support for the theory. One of these participants wrote that she, as a musical person, was from no musical family herself, but that she had nevertheless been supported in her musical hobby when she had come upon the idea herself (P42). Another found support for the theory in that “I was never encouraged to improvise, which I believe to have affected my current [negative] attitude [toward improvisation]”; at the same time, she also used a counterexample from her family: “Exceptions always exist, and even providing creative space does not always lead to musical creativity. This happened to my sister, who went to piano lessons, children's choir, and to music theory and solfege lessons, but does not do music anymore in any way” (P39).

Turning to the Componential Theory, the only appeal to experience consisted of a single clause in which the participant referred to her experience of rating the theories earlier during the session (rather than to her prior musical experiences). Finally, in the case of Systems Theory, only two participants appealed to their personal experience, both of them using this less as an argument in its own right than to highlight the differences in how creative products could be received in different historical circumstances (e.g., because of their technological underpinnings, “the ideas for music production that we brought to class [in another course assignment] could have been received differently in another era” [P41]). In such cases, one might even contest the interpretation as appeals to personal experience, but the point is that for these theories, no clearer appeals to personal experience were made at all. This is perhaps understandable: particular, lived experiences as such may not be enough to support ideas of multicomponent systems, theories based on statistical observations (Developmental View), or ones that otherwise require judging the divergence or usefulness of ideas or products from an “outsider” perspective.

The other argumentative means with a unique distribution of participants between the theories was appeal to values (see Table 4 ). Here, the two favorite theories in the essays showed a picture quite opposite to what was above seen with personal experiences. While the Four-Stage Model was only twice justified by normative appeal to values (e.g., “A fine result […] requires preparation, mental processing etc.” [P44]), half of the 20 participants appealing to values used this strategy in connection with Divergent Thinking. According to these participants, musical ideation (P19) or composition (P34) can be “at its best” when the creator works divergently: “in musical ideation, diverting from mainstream thought can be essential” (P19), and “new ideas are needed for music to be reformed” (P47). A 31-year-old popular music guitarist, close to graduation in musicology, went into more depth about the “essential” role of divergent thinking in the creative process:

There is the danger that you cannot decide which idea to start working on, and that you instead even-handedly throw around different ideas. In order to progress, it is essential that you have an initial idea that is then subjected to incoherence. […] It is not so important what the original idea was, but it is important to begin from somewhere. (P12)

Some of the participants also showed awareness of how their own aesthetic values may have affected their attitude toward Divergent Thinking: “I may have chosen this theory, because I myself value creative ideas that are also practical” (P43). In other cases, the authors anchored their own value judgments in beliefs about other people's aesthetic values: divergent thought can thus be “important if the goal of the composers is to get credit for their creativity in a community” (P10). Indeed, theorizing about Divergent Thinking often seemed to require addressing the experiences of other people: “the divergent thinker should also show some practical thinking, so that the excessive originality of ideas does not begin to erode their value: […] when originality transcends the understanding of the audience, the value ascribed to the work by the audience begins to descend” (P14). In the following example, another student of musicology similarly made value judgments of his own, first about divergent thought in composition and then in improvisation, each time bolstering his own value judgments (“it may be beneficial,” “may be a double-edged sword”) by referring to the aesthetic values of the public:

In composition, it may be beneficial for the composer to think divergently. This is because the public often appreciates surprise in musical works—albeit too much surprise […] in composition may also be disadvantageous. […] As in composition, divergent thinking may also be a double-edged sword in improvisation. Too much “jazzing” by, say, a dance-band guitarist may lead to falling out of the audience's favor. However, some also prefer surprisingness and unconventionality in improvisation. (P4)

Argumentation Regarding Musical Activities

Running a similar analysis of argumentative means in connection with the four musical target activities led to a simple observation. For most argumentative means, the distribution of participants using the argumentative strategy in the four activities did not significantly differ from the overall numbers of participants discussing these activities (43 improvisation; 46 composition; 41 performance; 33 ideation). The exception was problematization for which the distribution of participants was heavily biased. Among the 30 respondents using problematization, 19 did this while applying theories to improvisation, whereas only 9 problematized theories in composition, 3 in performance, and 6 in ideation [χ 2 (3) = 16.57, p < 0.05/13]. Interestingly, 11 of the critical responses regarding improvisation were specifically about the Four-Stage Model, 10 of them pointing out problems in fitting something as fleeting as improvisation into the temporally extended framework of the theory. Some saw a problem in the first stage of preparation in which a problem is defined: “if by improvisation we mean expression taking place in a given moment of time, no first-stage problem actually exists” (P36); “you cannot prepare if you live in the moment” (P3). More often, the trouble seemed to lie in the incubation stage of the model: “there is no time for incubation in momentary discovery” (P10, similarly P3, P4, P20, P29). Along similar lines, one student of musicology remarked that applying the Four-Stage Model to improvisation would require either “running through the [four-stage] process very rapidly, leaving out certain stages, or confining oneself to only the last two stages (and thus improvisation would be ‘illumination’ or verification of what has previously been absorbed)” (P8).

While improvisation most often created problems for the Four-Stage Model, each of the other theories were problematized once or twice as applied to improvisation (with the exception of the Investment Theory that simply appeared to be ignored as irrelevant for improvisation). A heavy-metal guitarist, for instance, saw the Systems Theory as “leaving a cold view of improvisation” as it ignores “little pitch-level details” and generally “leaves in the dark the individual that is often central in improvisation” (P41). Overall, students' problematizations revealed a range of different conceptualizations regarding improvisation. Discussing the Systems Theory, a classical violinist expressed the opinion that “purely expressive improvisation […] is not even meant to be linked to a certain tradition, its products often not meant to be preserved for posterity” (P38). Quite to the contrary, a 33-year-old student of music education with multi-instrumental skills (nine instruments) and extensive improvisation experience saw Divergent Thinking as problematic for improvisation exactly because improvisation is often subject to traditional constraints (see Appendix 2 ). For another example of opposing views, one participant said she “feels that in improvisation a problem is not solved, but rather found” (P32), while another thought that “problem finding requires profound thinking of the matter” which is not possible in improvisation (P12). The participants' prolematizations thus show how improvisation often required stretching or reinterpreting the theories, leading the participants to different directions. One music education student in her senior year admitted that she had been unable to find “the most explanatory theory” for improvisation, because the notion of improvisation itself is slippery, lacking a clear definition. For her, this state of affairs was supported by her own musical experience: “sometimes, improvisation springs from a primitive unconscious, while sometimes it arises on the basis of certain musical models” (P43).

Combining Theories

In their essays, the participants chose to defend an average of 2.5 theories (SD = 1.0), and the chosen combinations of theories formed relatively distinct types. A hierarchical cluster analysis of the defended theories yielded a solution in which the first main branch included essays defending the Four-Stage Model and/or Divergent Thinking (two subbranches of 13 and 17 participants corresponding to the absence and presence of Systems Theory, respectively). Given the role of personal experiences in justifying the Four-Stage Model and the role of values in defending Divergent Thinking, this branch was characterized by a “subjective” argumentative style. The second main branch de-emphasized both the Four-Stage Model and Divergent Thinking, and presented more “objective” argumentative approaches instead. Its two subbranches focused on psychological explanations, on the one hand (6 participants choosing Seekers/Finders and/or Developmental View), and systems accounts, on the other (11 participants choosing Componential Theory and/or Systems Theory).

Whether it was an artifact of the study design or not, by choosing such combinations of theories most students seemed inclined toward a certain theoretical pluralism: “creativity can be approached from many perspectives” (P44). While the need for several theories was implicit in most participants' multiple choices of theories, some of them also presented explicit arguments regarding theoretical scope: “even the most interesting theoretical perspective is not necessarily suited for understanding all areas of musical creativity” (P42). Some of the students simply argued that “by combining these perspectives according to situation, we can reach a fairly good understanding of creativity as a process” (P10), but others draw the line between musical activities. For instance: “composition and musical ideation are close to one another as phenomena, whereas improvisation and musical performance require a different theoretical approach” (P11). Theories were frequently discussed as if they allowed to “put the focus on” (P46) various aspects of a phenomenon that cannot quite be grasped in its totality in terms of one theory only. A handful of students also argued for the multicomponent or systems views on the grounds that they are “more comprehensive” than other theories (P25) and “bring together aspects from several theories” (P38).

An elaborate example of such scope argumentation appeared in the essay by a 27-year-old graduate student of musicology, known as a competent jazz pianist. After a detailed argument for the Componential Theory—itself a pluralistic combination of aspects—he argued that the “downside of a model that applies to [several] different methods of music making is that it is broad by necessity” (P5). Hence:

Due to the vast number of different tasks and methods involved [in] music making, it is my view that no one theory of creativity can describe it perfectly. Instead, the main music-making processes can be seen as being composed of a variety of smaller scale processes, and these processes have their own sub-processes. (Meanwhile, the boundaries between simultaneous processes are unclear and sometimes disappear altogether, making this an even trickier subject to tackle.) Which model we use to describe music making should depend on how close we “zoom in” on each process. The component theory works well on a broad scale, with many of the other theories being relevant with more specific processes. (P5)

Thus, in particular:

If we are to look more closely at the domain-relevant skills component in the component model of creativity, we can see that the acquiring of these skills is in itself not entirely free of creativity […]. [The acquisition] of domain-relevant skills is often a process of problem solving, which can also include its own kind of creativity […]. Likewise, divergent thinking clearly falls within the “creativity-relevant skills” component, a skill that can be used in most aspects of music making, though maybe not on a regular basis. (P5)

Accounts such as this suggest treating theories of creativity less as mutually exclusive alternatives, and more as useful ideas that may be combined in various ways in order to grasp different facets of a more complex phenomenon. In the excerpt seen above, the student goes still further, in effect working out a reinforcement relation between theories in which one theory provides the “rationale” for another (see Laudan, 1977 ).

In the introduction, I noted that while theories of creativity have been applied in some areas of music research, other music scholars have either ignored such theories or even opposed them with skepticism. Assuming that most theories of creativity have been meant to cover musical creativity, too, my aim in this study was to analyze musically active and relatively well-informed adults' understanding of such theories in order to gain an overview of potential stumbling blocks in this domain. In the study, higher-education music students appraised general theories of creativity as accounts of four types of musical target activities—composition, improvisation, performance of composed music, and ideation (i.e., creating ideas for making music). These activities do not, of course, cover all possible forms of musical creativity (e.g., creativity in listening) but were chosen to present some variety that might help in assessing the context dependence of the theories. Based on a classification of creativity theories in a standard reference work (Kozbelt et al., 2010 ), a representative sample of 10 theory descriptions was subjected to music students' ratings. The participants were also asked to choose the “best theoretical perspectives” and to argue for them in written essays. The focus on musically active people's understanding of explicitly formulated scholarly theories of creativity is rather unique, given that most research about peoples' conceptions regarding creativity has focused on informal beliefs. I will now review the findings in response to the four research questions presented in the beginning.

The first half of the first research question asked whether the judged suitability of theories would differ between the target activities. Significant differences between the activities were found for eight of the theories, and they mostly had to do with problems of accounting for musical improvisation or performance. To condense the data, a principal component analysis of participants' theory ratings was carried out. This yielded four theoretical dimensions, respectively emphasizing creativity as an Orderly Process, as Strategic or Darwinian Divergence, and as a Socio-Cognitive System. Linear mixed models showed each of these dimensions to be dependent on the target activities. The dimensions of Orderly Process and Strategic Divergence, in particular, were favored when accounting for composition and ideation, but not so much in the contexts of performance and improvisation. The dimension of Darwinian Divergence, dominated by the Blind Variation/Selective Retention theory (Campbell, 1960 ; Simonton, 1997 , 1999 , 2010 , 2015 ), was found least appropriate for the performance of composed music. These results were complemented by how the participants in their essays chose somewhat different theories to account for various target activities. In particular, Wallas's ( 1926 ) Four-Stage Model of creativity emerged as a particularly suitable way of accounting for composition. Indeed, most of the participants who chose to defend the Four-Stage Model in their essays defended it at least as an account of composition. This resonates with some previous research in which the Four-Stage Model has been used to account for both music students' (Burnard and Younker, 2004 ; Chen, 2012 ) and professional composers' actual compositional processes (Katz, 2012 ; Katz and Gardner, 2012 ). At the same time, the theory ratings indicated appreciable problems in applying the Four-Stage Model to improvisation. All in all, the results indicate that the students viewed the theories as relatively context-dependent, and in this sense, not as very “general” theories. Based on the ratings, the exceptions seemed to be the Developmental Theory, Systems Theory, and, perhaps, Componential Theory, all of which received high ratings across the target activities. Other theories, however, seemed to encounter problems especially with the in-time processes of musical performance and/or improvisation.

The latter half of the first research question addressed whether theory appraisal would also be influenced by the “characteristics of the individuals who make the choice” (Kuhn, 1977 , p. 324). In this regard, most background variables, including gender, personality, and years of musical activity, showed no systematic effect on participants' ratings. However, composition and jazz experience apparently affected their views. On the one hand, participants' receptivity to creativity as a Socio-Cognitive System was furthered by their experience of playing jazz music. This could mean that experience in improvisatory music-making is associated with the emphasis of domain-specific knowledge and skills (mentioned in both of the relevant theoretical summaries), with awareness of the relevance of task motivation, and with understanding of how creative actions are received by other members of the field. On the other hand, composition experience decreased participants' approval of creativity as Strategic Divergence but increased their approval of the dimension of Darwinian Divergence. A possible interpretation would be that solitary compositional work may have accustomed students to thinking about creativity as playful engagement with musical materials, unhampered by strategic aims. Indeed, in the essays the Darwinian idea of Blind Variation and Selective Retention was never discussed as an evolutionary account of creative career trajectories (see Simonton, 1997 ), but rather as an account of particular creative processes (see Johnson-Laird, 2002 ). The few students who mentioned the theory saw blind generation as akin to free, imaginative play, or “wild experimentation” (P2), which contrasts both with the idea of orderly processes and with strategic planning. The finding that compositional experience increased receptivity to such playful attitudes indicates a stark contrast to 20th-century's modernist notions of systematic pre-compositional planning (e.g., Stockhausen, 1964 ; Boulez, 1981 ; Xenakis, 1990 ), and to ideas of creativity as anxious struggle against predecessors (discussed with the students during the course: Straus, 1990 ).

The second research question was about whether students' argumentative strategies in the essays would vary between the theories and/or between the musical target activities. For addressing the question, nine classes of justificatory strategies were identified in the students' texts, subsequently observing to what extent these different lines of argument appeared in connection with the 10 theories. For two of the argumentative means, the distribution of participants applying the strategy in the 10 theories differed significantly from the distribution of participants discussing the theories. First, references to participants' own personal experiences were particularly often combined with the Four-Stage Model. This might be explained by introspective access to the characteristic incubation–illumination sequence of the theory: it may be almost too easy to introspectively apply the sequence to episodes of one's own creative experiences. Patterns of action that can relevantly be described by the model can be a part of the life-worlds of creative persons themselves, as also indicated by Katz and Gardner's ( 2012 ) use of the theory in accounting for composers' processes on the basis of interviews. Second, in comparison to other justificatory strategies, references to values were significantly emphasized in accounts of Divergent Thinking. In other words, arguments for Divergent Thinking simply tended to emphasize the special value or essential role of divergent ideas for musical creativity. It may be noted that in the written summary used for the study, the core idea of the theory might not seem much more than a value judgment in itself: “It has been argued that the more remote an idea is […], the more likely it is to be original and potentially creative” (Kozbelt et al., 2010 , p. 29). Hence, many of the students' arguments in this category could be seen as simply affirming a definition of creativity as divergent thought and assuming that creativity is valuable.

A similar analysis regarding the uses of justification for the four musical target activities yielded one central finding: the argumentative strategy of problematization was particularly accentuated in the case of improvisation. In the introduction, we saw that while research in composition has frequently referred to general theories of creativity, such references have been all but nonexistent in some important anthologies of improvisation research. The argumentation analysis suggests that the participants of the present study may have felt similar problems in applying theories of creativity to improvisation. To be sure, a large share of the problematizations concerned the Four-Stage Model (e.g., claiming the notion of incubation to be inappropriate for improvising in the moment). In the creativity literature, such problems are well-known: Fischer and Amabile ( 2009 ), for instance, distinguish multistage “compositional creativity” from “improvisational creativity” in which the creative process “is one single step” (Fischer and Amabile, 2009 , p. 16). In the ratings, however, not only the Four-Stage Model but also Problem Solving, Problem Finding, and Investment Theory were rated especially low for improvisation (see Figure 1 ). Consequently, the two strongest theoretical dimensions in the above principal component analysis, too, were de-emphasized for improvisation (see Figures 2A,B ). It may have appeared somewhat contrived to the participants to interpret the continuous activity of improvisation as solving or finding discretely identified problems (see Mazzola and Cherlin, 2009 ). Of course, this does not rule out the possibility that other theoretical accounts might more successfully interpret improvisation in related terms—say, as an activity of solving problems of interactive coordination (Saint-Germier and Canonne, 2020 ; see also Sawyer, 2003 ).

The third research question asked which of the theories the students might see as particularly suitable for music. The highest mean ratings were received by Amabile's ( 1996 ) Componential Theory which was apparently deemed quite suitable for all of the target activities. In the essays where the students could freely choose their favorite theories, the three theories most often defended were the Four-Stage Model (47% of the participants), Divergent Thinking (43%), and Systems Theory (40%). Notice that while the first and last of these theories also align with the theoretical dimensions of Orderly Process and Socio-Cognitive System identified through the ratings, the theory of Divergent Thinking appeared in the ratings in two different dimensions, as either Strategic or Darwinian Divergence. Interestingly, most of the other theories loading on these two dimensions were only rarely chosen to be defended by the participants in their essays. It seems, then, that the students were unwilling to embrace explicitly strategic thinking (Investment Theory, Problem Finding), and perhaps even more unwilling to defend processes of Blind Variation/Selective Retention in order to account for the origin of divergent thought. Simply put, questions of creative intention vs. randomness rarely emerged as the main concern of the participants' arguments. Avoiding notions of strategic investment or defiance (see Sternberg, 2018 ) as well as non-strategic Darwinian thinking, the students more often chose to account for musical creativity as individual staged processes, as valuable divergence, or as complex systems that are either internal or external to the creative individual.

Finally, the fourth research question addressed the students' conceptions of theories and theory choice in general. In their essays, none of the students—despite reading Frith ( 2012 ) during the course—voiced anything like theory skepticism that would dismiss general theories of creativity across the board. (Given their oftentimes harsh criticism of individual theories, it does not seem likely that this was due to ingratiation with their teacher.) Perhaps less surprisingly, none of the students either proposed full-scale reorientation of the theoretical domain (theory revisionism). Instead, most of the students tended toward moderate forms of theory eclecticism, often choosing to argue for some combination of two or three theories. Many of them also explicitly argued that musical creativity cannot be accounted for just by a single theory. Accordingly, theories of creativity were treated not so much as mutually exclusive alternatives, but rather as spotlights illuminating the phenomenon of musical creativity from various angles. This eclectic approach is similar to the basic orientation of Componential Theory that indeed received the highest mean ratings in the study. It should be noted, though, that the concise theoretical summaries used in the present study may have supported an eclectic approach to theory choice and even favored some theories. In particular, whereas Amabile's ( 1996 ) full account of the Componential Theory also includes a model of creative response generation couched in information-processing terms, and even principles for predicting levels of creativity, the theoretical summary used in the present study was theoretically less precise, simply listing the three components of the theory (domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant skills, task motivation). This might help explain the high ratings: the summary might simply have been accepted as a bazaar of useful-sounding requirements for creativity, leaving room for the students' own theoretical thinking to connect the dots. In the field of music education, a similar, informally eclectic approach is present in Webster's ( 1990 ) model of creative thinking in music that combines ideas related to product intentions, enabling skills and conditions, and a core consisting of movement, in Wallas's ( 1926 ) stages, between divergent and convergent thinking.

Notice that while many of the theories discussed in this study could be seen as relatively complex belief systems (at least in their original contexts), the basic insights of at least some of them might also well be expressed as simple definitions (e.g., “creativity is divergent thinking” or “creativity is problem solving”). The students' theory eclecticism might thus be taken to demonstrate that many combinations between such rudimentary definitions are not contradictory or meaningless, but rather allow multi-perspectival views to the phenomenon at hand. In this sense, the students' individual approaches to theories sometimes resembled more comprehensive scholarly definitions of creativity that cover various aspects such as aptitude, process, environment, and social recognition (e.g., Plucker et al., 2004 ). Interestingly, even researchers' multi-aspect theoretical models of creativity sometimes do not amount to much more than definitions: a case in point could be Webster's ( 1990 ) abovementioned model of creative thinking in music. To what extent theories of creativity in general tend to collapse to definitions would require another study. Here, I just want to note that a definitory approach to theorizing about creativity might sometimes just serve the role of specifying the topic of investigation. For instance, in saying that “creativity is problem solving,” we might not intend to be making an empirically falsifiable claim about some independently identifiable states of affairs (referred to by the term “creativity”). Instead, we might just be suggesting how to identify instances of creativity in the first place. Accordingly, the participants in the present research seemed to use the theories more often to identify a phenomenon of interest than to explain one. Thus, in recording a person's acknowledgment of a definitory theory (e.g., “creativity is problem solving”), we might not yet have covered much of her belief system concerning creativity. Such a belief system—an “implicit theory” if you will—would also include aspects of how she understands problem solving and its role for some phenomena of interest, how she constructs her own identity in relation to such activities, and so on. As seen in the introduction, personal belief systems about creativity should not be equated with summaries of beliefs on a group level, but they should also not be equated with the scholarly theories endorsed by the individual. Quite often, the latter might just serve to broach a topic.

What has been said above also reveals a lot about the students' criteria for theory choice. Recalling Kuhn's ( 1977 ) list of criteria for theory choice, we may first take up the important question regarding accuracy. In the essays, 85% of the students used generalized illustrations to justify their favored theories, while agreement with other observations or knowledge was not quite as common: 45% of the students appealed to personal experience, 38% to authorities, and 34% to particular examples. As these categories imply, “factual” support for the theories was mainly sought through examples—many of which were drawn from the students' own experiences. In science education, students' justifications may appear inappropriate if they are based on personal experiences (see e.g., Sampson and Clark, 2008 ), but in the arts this should not be as clear, as it would rule out many aesthetic arguments. In any case, the notion of accuracy at play here has less to do with explanatory adequacy than with just some sort of “fit” or “coverage”—finding examples that would fit a given theoretical description of creativity. In other words, theories were often treated simply as “ideas with evidence” (see Dagher et al., 2004 ). It may be difficult to draw a sharp distinction between accuracy in this loose sense and some loose criterion of fruitfulness. Apart from the suggested applications of the theories to music research (32%), students' generalized illustrations often included brief hypothetical examples of what someone could do musically in accordance with a given theory.

Other possible criteria for theory appraisal were applied less often. While the task instructions prompted the participants to address issues of theory scope—this was already implicit in asking for separate ratings for different target activities—only a few participants in their essays explicitly mentioned broad scope as an argument for a particular theory. Problems of narrow scope were frequently acknowledged when a given theory was deemed unfit for a certain target activity, but such problems were solved by eclectically turning to other theories. Accordingly, issues of consistency were mostly apparent as theory complementation: 53% of the participants commented on how theories might support one another in the task of accounting for musical creativity as a broader phenomenon. As shown by the example of theory reinforcement in the end of the results section, this was sometimes done with great ingenuity. By contrast, questions of the theories' internal consistency or their consistency with other beliefs were not discussed in the essays. Likewise, concerns for simplicity were hardly mentioned at all. These findings are thus in line with Furnham's ( 1988 ) conclusions in his study concerning lay theories: “Few lay people undertake a formal evaluation of theories, preferring a more pragmatic evaluation” (Furnham, 1988 , p. 226). The students' thinking was driven by pragmatic concerns of finding fitting examples and fruitful contexts of application, but they largely ignored formal aspects that might affect theory choice—such as arguments for broad scope, simplicity, and consistency.

The study undertaken here has some obvious limitations, chief among which is perhaps the range of theories chosen to be addressed. In designing the study, I relied on what seemed one of the most balanced and wide-ranging chapter-length accounts of creativity theories available at the time (Kozbelt et al., 2010 ), but this selection has just scratched the surface (for a recent review, see Kaufman and Glăveanu, 2019 ). In the field of music, future work might especially need to pay more attention to theories with an eye on the embodied and socially distributed aspects of creative processes (see Linson and Clarke, 2017 ; van der Schyff et al., 2018 ; Schiavio et al., 2020 ). Another potentially problematic aspect, pointed out by two anonymous reviewers, is to what extent the results simply reflect the students' understanding or recall of course content. Quite obviously, some of the students may have studied the handbook chapter more carefully than others in the beginning of the course, thus “knowing” the theoretical context better than others who had to rely more on the short descriptions provided. Consequently, some of the theories may even have been misunderstood by some of the participants. While this is a genuine methodological issue, it also arguably reflects the situated character of the whole undertaking. In asking people to appraise theories of creativity, we are relying on the participants' individual points of view nurtured by their experiences and understandings regarding creativity, and it seems impossible to except the theories themselves from such “subjective” understandings. As any scholarly dispute about theories would suggest, theories themselves can be understood in different ways, and in the present context I have simply attempted to make such varying understandings more transparent by also engaging with the qualitative differences inherent in the participants' responses.

In closing, let us wrap up the challenges that the present research might raise to creativity research. Despite the lay character of their justifications, the participants were quite experienced musically, most of them reported rich creative activities, and they were all studying musicology or music education in the university, many at graduate level. In this sense, their views should arguably be taken more seriously than simply dismissing them as inaccurate if they do not align with research (cf. Introduction). Consider the case of improvisation. Jordanous and Keller ( 2012 ) have previously demonstrated that written accounts regarding improvisation might only emphasize a part of the concepts that characterize texts on creativity. The present results complement such findings by relating the problems of conceptualizing improvisation to theories of creativity. While some of the problems may be well-understood—e.g., the problems that the Four-Stage Model would have as a theory of improvisation—the study also reveals other aspects. The four theories that were least often chosen as favorite accounts of improvisation in students' essays—Blind Variation/Selective Retention, Investment Theory, Problem Finding, and Problem Solving—were also the least often defended theories overall. This suggests that improvisation may hold some keys to the intuitive acceptability of these theories. Of course, it remains open to the creativity theorist to hold that some such theories are not even intended to capture practitioners' beliefs about musical creativity.

Accordingly, such potential distance between well-received theories and musical practitioners' accounts of creativity should urge theorists to clarify on what basis their theories should be embraced. Or, in general, we may ask what theories of creativity are theories about, and in what sense they are theories. Supposing, for instance, that scientific theories should function as solutions to empirical problems (Laudan, 1977 ), the students' arguments analyzed in the present study would seem to fail to demonstrate a “scientific” use of the theories. Rather than as solutions to problems, theories were often used merely as descriptions that could fit some phenomena that the writer was familiar with. For the creativity theorist, possible responses might be either to show how her theory can be made to solve genuine problems, or to reject the suggested requirement for problem solving and explain what alternative functions the theory might serve. Similar points could be made regarding possible criteria for theory choice. In a sense, the pragmatic character of students' theory appraisals is not far from what was informally observed about music researchers' typical use of creativity theories in the introduction: in these applied contexts, explicit arguments regarding choice between theories of creativity are rarely put forward. For the creativity theorist, this poses challenges, one of which is not to propose yet a new theory of creativity without clearly articulating what its scope is supposed to be, and on what grounds it should be considered as rival to certain other theories.

At the outset, we saw that research on informal conceptions of creativity has been motivated by the idea that we should seek to align practitioners' views with research-based knowledge (Andiliou and Murphy, 2010 ). If so, the obvious step to take should be to actually engage students and practicing professionals with research on creativity. In the present study, I chose to do this with higher-education music students, but without assuming that the primary task was to “correct” them in their possible misconceptions. Instead, I have assumed that the students possess a wealth of first-hand experience in musical creativity and that their theory appraisals might thus tell us something important about the scope and nature of theories of creativity. If we are interested in fostering creativity in higher music education, we should arguably encourage students to engage with these theories with a similar sense of creative possibility that we expect to find in their music. Whatever philosophical conceptions we might hold regarding theory choice in research, as educators we probably should have no reason to argue against the students' pragmatic understandings of which ideas “work best” in relation to their own culturally specific and situationally changing creativities.

Data Availability Statement

Ethics statement.

Ethical review and approval was not required for the study on human participants in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.

Author Contributions

The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.

Conflict of Interest

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.612739/full#supplementary-material

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Teaching General Music: Approaches, Issues, and Viewpoints

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Nine Music Learning Theory: A Theoretical Framework in Action

Published: March 2016
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Music learning theory (MLT), which was developed by Edwin Gordon, provides a theoretical framework for teaching music. At its core is the goal of developing audiation skills so that students can become musically independent. MLT is built upon research focusing on the similarities between the music and language learning processes; acquiring a sense of syntactical structure is central to both. This focus on syntax differentiates MLT from most other music learning approaches. The two primary components of MLT instruction are learning sequence activities (i.e., tonal and rhythm pattern instruction) and classroom activities. These combine to form a whole-part-whole approach to teaching music, with classroom activities serving as the wholes, and pattern instruction serving as the part. Individualizing instruction to meet the musical needs of each child is fundamental to MLT. This chapter explores the theoretical underpinnings of MLT, how it unfolds in practice, and its strengths and weaknesses.

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As Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' drops, here's everything you need to know

A new era of Taylor Swift is near.

The artist's 11th studio album , “The Tortured Poets Department,” drops Friday.

The lead-up to release day has been littered with puzzles, Easter eggs and other hallmarks of Swift’s ever-theorizing fan base.

Here's what to know ahead of the release.

When does the album officially debut?

"The Tortured Poets Department" will be released Friday at 12 a.m. ET. It is currently available for preorder .

If you plan to stream "The Tortured Poets Department" right after its release, be prepared for potential delays. When Swift’s most recent brand new album, "Midnights" was released, Spotify briefly crashed because of intense demand.

How many tracks are there?

The album consists of 16 songs.

There will be four bonus tracks: “The Manuscript,” The Bolter,” “The Albatross” and “The Black Dog.” Each bonus track will be available on separate physical album variants and won’t be on the streaming version of the album.

Historically, Swift has made vinyl exclusives available on streaming platforms several months after their physical release.

The average track length on “The Tortured Poets Department” is 4 minutes and 4 seconds — the third longest across Swift’s discography.

The longest song on the album is “But Daddy I Love Him,” which clocks in at 5 minutes and 40 seconds. “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can) is the shortest at 2 minutes and 36 seconds. The length of each bonus track has not yet been revealed.

Who else worked on the album?

Florence + the Machine and Post Malone are both featured artists on the album. The two are also credited as co-writers on their songs.

Aaron Dessner — songwriter, producer, and band member of The National and Big Red Machine — is one of two producers who worked on “The Tortured Poets Department,” along with Swift’s longtime friend and collaborator, Jack Antonoff. Dessner is credited as a songwriter on five of the 16 tracks on the standard album, while Antonoff co-wrote eight tracks.

Swift is credited as a songwriter on every track on the standard album, including two entirely self-written tracks: "My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys" and "Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?"

Why is it called ‘The Tortured Poets Department’?

Fans were quick to note that “The Tortured Poets Department” is the longest title for a Taylor Swift album by a large margin, a distinction previously held by her third album, “Speak Now.” Before “TTPD,” “Speak Now” was her only album title consisting of more than one word.

Speculation surrounding the new album and its uncharacteristic title has primarily revolved around Swift’s 2023 breakup with British actor Joe Alwyn after their six-year relationship.

After the album announcement, a 2022 Variety interview between Alwyn and Paul Mescal resurfaced on X. The pair revealed in the interview that they were both members of a WhatsApp group chat titled “The Tortured Man Club,” prompting some fans to draw parallels between Alwyn and Swift’s upcoming album.

The true meaning of “The Tortured Poets Department” remains to be seen, but the rollout of the album has featured references to famous poems like Charles Baudelaire's “The Albatross,” among other literary references.

When can fans expect a new music video?

In a video of the “TTPD Timetable” posted on her Instagram account Tuesday, Swift announced she will release a music video at 8 p.m. ET Friday.

She did not specify which track the video would be for.

The announcement in the timetable was accompanied by 14 tally marks, leading some sleuthing Swifties to theorize that the video could be for the album’s first track, “Fortnight (ft. Post Malone), the title of which refers to a 14-day period, or the album’s 14th track, “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”

What's the Spotify pop-up that's in Los Angeles?

Los Angeles Swifties celebrated release week with a pop-up library in partnership with Spotify.

The three-day event ran from April 16-18 at the Grove and featured a sneak peak at some of the album’s lyrics.

A manuscript was front and center at the installation, revealing new lyrics periodically as the pages were turned over the course of three days.

Fans took to social media to identify other potential Easter eggs in the pop-up library, such as a bust of a peace sign, a quill and fountain pens, and a globe that appeared to be pointing to Florida, the name of a track on the album.

Were there any other notable Easter eggs leading up to the release?

QR code murals appeared in cities across the world such as Melbourne, Paris, Chicago and London. Each QR code revealed a singular letter, which Swifties pieced together to spell " For A Fortnight."

In a collaboration with Apple Music, Swift sorted some of her existing discography into thematic playlists , along with audio messages from the singer. These messages seemed to confirm some fans' theories that the playlists mirrored the five stages of grief – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance – indicating that the new album may grapple with grief or loss.

Swift later used a song from each playlist to reveal a hidden word on Apple Music each day leading up to the release of "The Tortured Poets Department."

The final word, "mortem," was revealed Thursday, hidden in the lyrics of the song "Begin Again." The secret message was "We hereby conduct this post mortem."

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The study of music theory, even from the very first rudiments, is thus transformed from a stern rite of passage mired in dry technicalities, into an expansive intellectual endeavor—reminding students that they themselves are theorists, both in class and in life. Keywords: music theory, pedagogy, epistemology, intervals, harmony, rhythm and meter.
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1. Understand the Assignment: The first step to writing your music theory essay is to really understand your assignment. Read the teacher's instructions carefully. Pay attention to any specific requirements, like the number of words, or number of sources you need to cite. Make sure you really understand the focus and main point of the assignment.
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Putting the Theory Back in 'Music Theory'

Introduction: theories of theory

An illustrative tale: the case of the hidden theory

The moral: theory versus hypothesis

Theorizing in the theory classroom

Explanatory power: measuring intervals

Listening as theorizing: hearing rhythm and meter

Theory-building: confronting anomalies in harmonic analysis

Symbolic representation: data compression and theoretical priorities in chord shorthand

Conclusion: learning goals in the theory classroom

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

About the Journal

Make a Submission

Open Music Theory - Version 2

Formats Available

Table of Contents

Ancillary Material

About the Contributors

Modal and Chromatic Harmony

Modal and Chromatic Harmony Essay Topics

Contemporary Music Techniques

Contemporary Music Techniques Essay Topics

Analysis of Music History and Styles

Analysis of Music History and Styles Essay Topics

Journal of Music Theory

Read Online

A Kiss across the Ocean

Making Value

Together, Somehow

Old Town Road

Get Shown the Light

Black Diamond Queens

Modern Language Quarterly

Public Culture

The Philosophical Review

An Analysis of Music Theory Synthesis Essay

Works Cited

About Eastman Research

Student Research Assistance Fund (SRAF)

Recent Dissertations

A Music Theory Curriculum for the 99%

How to Cite

About the Journal

Make a Submission

Theories of Creativity in Music: Students' Theory Appraisal and Argumentation

Introduction

Theories of Creativity in Music Research

Rationale for the Present Study

Research Strategy

Participants

Results I: Ratings

Target Activities and Individual Characteristics

Results II: Argumentation

Argumentation for Theories

Argumentation Regarding Musical Activities

Combining Theories

Data Availability Statement

Author Contributions

Conflict of Interest

Supplementary Material

Music Theory Essay

Nine Music Learning Theory: A Theoretical Framework in Action

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As Taylor Swift's 'The Tortured Poets Department' drops, here's everything you need to know

When does the album officially debut?

How many tracks are there?

Who else worked on the album?

Why is it called ‘The Tortured Poets Department’?