Honoring Creative Voices: Thoughts for Developing Practice in Music Education
Shannan Hibbard
From the outside looking in, the field of mu- sic education is often seen as a creative sphere. In my school setting, I often hear co-workers, parents, and administrators express beliefs that music education is linked to student creativ- ity. Their assumption is that students studying music, a fine art form, are involved in an inher- ently creative endeavor. And while I hope this is true, I often sit back and wonder about the certainty of this association. With a rich musical lineage so focused on interpretive performance traditions, I question the role of creativity in our music classrooms. When I hear a live musical performance, I often wonder how much of it contained the creative fingerprints of the stu- dents. Or was their teacher primarily “training” them toward a desired end, thus, not allowing them to express voices of their own?
Questioning assumptions about creativity
Before we think about creativity in our teach- ing, we should first consider the importance of instilling creativity in students. Why should mu- sic teachers be concerned about creativity? Phi- losopher David Elliott (1995) said, “creativity and musicianship are mutually interdependent and interactive” (p. 227). That is, our musician- ship and creative abilities work together as we grow as musicians. Seen one way, creativity and musicianship are like threads in a fabric, woven together to create a beautiful tapestry. Seen an- other way, creativity is like the hinges of a door. The door, like our musicianship, cannot fully open without the function of our creative capac- ity. However you visualize it, creativity is an es- sential part of our musical development, not just as an “add on”, but an integral element of the way we grow.
I would like to make the distinction between two ways of viewing creativity that may be im- portant for us to consider in our teaching: cre-
ative thinking and creative music-making. Al- though they may often be experienced together, I separate them here for clarity. First, creative thinking, or higher order thinking, is to conver- gently explore many possibilities to solving a problem. In this situation our prior knowledge and imagination can lead toward an unlimited range of prospects. Philosopher Peter Webster (2002) described the “magical” interplay be- tween thinking divergently (exploring many possible solutions) and convergently (toward one correct answer).
Second, creative music making is to explore many possible solutions in the act of making music. In the field of music education, this is how we commonly refer to creativity overall: through improvisation and composition. The in- duction of the first set of National Standards in 1994 brought about an evolution of expectations for teachers to move beyond a performative fo- cus to include these creative practices in instruc- tion. Composition and improvisation have been advocated for strongly as critical components and enriching facets of a comprehensive educa- tion in music. And while they are extremely im- portant, I would like to challenge the notion that creativity in the music classroom is relegated solely to the acts of improvising and compos- ing. We must consider how students’ creativity is not enlivened exclusively only through these acts. I often catch myself thinking of improvisa- tion and composition activities as our designat- ed “creative” time in the classroom. By placing these activities in their creative box, a sectioned time “for creativity,” I greatly underestimate how creativity may be instilled in all classroom endeavors, and in doing so, underestimate the creative capacities of the students with whom I engage.
Although I advocate strongly for them, this ar- ticle is not a piece about the importance of im- provisation and composition. The purpose of
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