This collection initiates a resolutely interdisciplinary research dynamic specifically concerning musical creativity. Creativity is one of the most challenging issues currently facing scientific psychology and its study has been relatively rare in the cognitive sciences, especially in artificial intelligence. This book will address the need for a coherent and thorough exploration. It comprises seven sections, each viewing musical creativity from a different scientific vantage point, from the philosophy of computer modelling, through music education, interpretation, neuroscience, and music therapy, to experimental psychology.

Each section contains discussions by eminent international specialists of the issues raised, and the book concludes with a postlude discussing how we can understand creativity in the work of eminent composer, Jonathan Harvey.

This unique volume presents an up-to-date snapshot of the scientific study of musical creativity, in conjunction with ESCOM (the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music). Describing many of the different aspects of musical creativity and their study, it will form a useful springboard for further such study in future years, and will be of interest to academics and practitioners in music, psychology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, neuroscience and other fields concerning the study of human cognition in this most human of behaviours.

Preface

Creativity, alongside awareness and intelligence, is one of the most difficult issues currently facing scientific psychology. Study of creativity is relatively rare in the cognitive sciences, especially in artificial intelligence, where some authors have sometimes actively argued against even beginning a research programme. Nonetheless, in recent years, some success has been achieved.

However, much of this success has been in areas of creativity related to science, architecture, visual arts and literature (or at least “verbal” activity). Music has not often been viewed as an object of study in the creativity field, except in the area of education, which is surprising, because in at least one sense it has a major advantage: it is usually possible to study music and musical behaviour without the added complication of referential meaning, which, while it may illuminate the output of other creative processes, also may obfuscate the mechanisms that underpin them.

The objective of this anthology is to help initiate a research dynamic specifically concerning musical creativity. To this end, its content is resolutely multidisciplinary, in the spirit of openness that has animated the European Society for the Cognitive Sciences of Music (ESCOM) since its foundation. Nevertheless, the volume should not be taken as a “handbook”. It should be viewed more as a source of ideas, research topics to start on, to follow up, or to develop.

The collection comprises seven sections, each viewing musical creativity from a different scientific vantage point, from philosophy, through the increasingly reified activities of listening, performance, education and therapy, via neuroscience, to computational modelling. Each section contains proposals, discussions, and theoretical or review chapters by eminent international specialists on the issues raised.

The material presented here has been developed from the proceedings of a conference held at the University of Liège in April 2002 on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the founding of ESCOM.

It had long been planned that this event would be celebrated in the birthplace of the society, at the University of Liège. In fact, it was in December 1990 that the ESCOM Founding Committee had a meeting in the department of Professor Marc Richelle at the Faculty of Psychology. This committee consisted of Mario Baroni, Irène Deliège, Kari Kurkela, Stephen McAdams, Dirk-Jan Povel, Andrezj Rakowski, and John Sloboda. With the help of lawyer Philippe Dewonck, this committee founded the society and drafted its statutes and internal rules over the course of two days of work and discussion.

Following on from this, a general assembly was called, to which the founding members were invited, with the dual purpose of putting to the vote the articles and statutes proposed by the Founding Committee and electing the first ESCOM Executive Committee. This first general assembly was held at the University of Trieste in October 1991, at the conclusion of a three-day conference.

We sincerely thank our distinguished colleagues who made the 10th jubilee an outstanding event in the development of ESCOM and for their updated and polished contributions of the chapters in this publication, providing a permanent record of the event.

The papers published in this book were all subjected to a rigorous review process. The editors would like to offer their warmest thanks to those who have contributed to this onerous task: Eckart Altenmüller, Mario Baroni, Elvira Brattico, Warren Brodsky, Roger Chaffin, Nicholas Cook, Roger Dannenberg, Jane Davidson, Jos De Backer, Irène Deliège, Goran Folkestad, Enrico Fubini, Alf Gabrielsson, Marie-Dominique Gineste, Maud Hickey, Michel Imberty, Colin A. Lee, Jean-Luc Leroy, Scott Lipscomb, Martin Lotze, Björn Merker, Janet Mills, Raymond Monelle, Oscar Odena, Suzan O’Neill, Johannella Tafuri, Neill Todd, Mari Tervianiemi, Petri Toiviainen, Colwyn Trevarthen, Geraint A. Wiggins, Tony Wigram, Aaron Williamon, Betty-Anne Younker and Susan Young. The editors also thank their editorial assistants, Ollie Bown, Alastair Craft, David Lewis, Dave Meredith, and Christophe Rhodes. We are grateful for the support in kind of Goldsmiths College, University of London.

Finally, the editors and the ESCOM Executive Committee would like to thank the institutions that provided financial support for the 10th anniversary conference and this publication:

• The University of Liège

• The Belgian Office for Scientific, Technical and Cultural Affairs

• The National Foundation of Scientific Research, Belgium

• The University Foundation of Belgium

• The General Commissariat of International Relations, Belgium

• The Ministry of the French Community, Belgium

• The Ars Musica Festival