Preserving Creativity in Music Practice

Preserving Creativity in Music Practice is the third publication in the UPM Book Series on Music Research. Creativity, performance, and preservation are metaphorical nutshells. In a few syllables, each contains a wealth of ideas that have provoked debate and stimulated discussion. Singly, each has contributed richly to intellectual discourse. In combination, they are as yet an underutilized resource.

In the belief that the interplay of creativity, performance, and preservation can become increasingly implicated in a musical world that grows in complexity by leaps and bounds, this paper aims to focus on relations between the concepts that these terms represent and to explore their potential contribution to musical scholarship.

Many music research questions are dedicated to the preservation of music and dance traditions. Often confronted with radical changes in times of globalization of the music marketplace and the vanishing of diversity in music practice, researches try to verify certain stages of music developments as so-called “originals” or “intended interpretations”.

On the other hand, creativity is a central issue in music practice as well as in music education. All cultures, regardless of their connection to the global world, experience changes, and creativity in their diverse appearances. There is an urgent need to discuss contradictions in methodologies and presentations of cases connected to these two sides of the same coin.