Creativity

in
Music
Lecture THREE
How to Appreciate
Creativity?
Creativity in Contemporary Music
Experiment
1
Please rank the following orchestral music accordingly to your taste.

1 being the most favourite, 5 being the least favoured.

A
B
C
D
E
Experiment
1
designed by Charlene Paullin Archibeque in 1966
Experiment
1
Lessons incorporating the desirable musical activities of singing,
playing, studying, listening, and creating were all related to music of
the 20th century. Student creativity was especially encouraged and
promoted through class exercises in rhythmic, melodic, and
harmonic ideas all based on the contemporary idiom.
Experiment
1
The hypothesis—students who have studied contemporary music will
evidence a greater degree of acceptance and understanding of it than
students who have not studied contemporary music was formulated.
Experiment
The setup—This is a required one-semester course for all seventh grade
students.
1
Students are grouped homogeneously by ability as determined by group
intelligence tests and classes follow the same schedule throughout the
day.

The students who comprised the pilot class were of “average ability (i.e.
I.Q. of 90 and above). Only one “advanced” student (I.Q. over 130) was in
the group of 54 students who completed the questionnaire.
Experiment
The questionnaire was devised in order to find answers to the following
1
questions:
1. Do students who have studied contemporary music show a greater
preference for it when compared with music of earlier periods than do
students who have not studied contemporary music?

2. Do students who have studied contemporary music show a greater

understanding of it than do students who have not studied it?
Experiment
1
3. Do such factors as previous musical training, attitude toward the
music class, and academic grades have any relationship to student
preference for and understanding of contemporary music?

4. Is there any relationship between student understanding of

contemporary music and their preference for it?
Experiment
1
A. Bach - Brandenberg Concerto No.2, first movement (~1720s)
B. Mozart-Overture, The Marriage of Figaro (1786)
C. Brahms-Symphony No.2, third movement (1877)
D. Copland-Third Symphony, second movement (1946)
E. Antheil-Ballet Mécanique (1924, revised 1952,3)
Experiment
The result
1
Experiment
The findings
1
1. Seventh grade students seem to prefer contemporary music to music
of earlier periods regardless of the study or lack of study of
contemporary music.

2. Students who had studied contemporary music indicated a greater

preference for an experimental-type composition than students who had
not studied contemporary music.
Experiment
The findings
1
3. Students who had not studied contemporary music disliked the Ballet
Mecanique significantly more than students who had studied
contemporary music.

4. Girls who had not studied contemporary music liked the Copland
Symphony significantly more than boys who had not studied
contemporary music.
Experiment
The findings
1
5. Students who had studied contemporary music scored significantly
higher on a test of musical understandings related to an unknown
composition than students who had not studied contemporary music.

6. There was no evidence that previous musical training, attitude toward

the music class, or academic grades have any relationship to preference
for contemporary music or understanding of it.
 if seventh graders find no problem in
appreciating contemporary music, why are
we often scared away by “contemporary
music concerts”?
‘Appreciating’ Contemporary Music, by Robert Jacobs
in August 1955
 (1) Appreciation depends in the first place upon
sympathy with the ethos of a work. If this sympathy is
lacking, analysis can do no more than arouse interest
in the mechanics of its construction; if it is present, a
person lacking the musical-intellectual ability to grasp
fully the structure of a complicated work may still, up
to a point, be able to appreciate it.
(2) It lies in the nature of the case that few people are
in sympathy with the ethos of a work couched mainly
in an idiom of unresolved discords, conveying a
predominant mood of gloom, fury and despair…… the
brutal fact remains that 'weep and you weep alone'.
Pain is hateful, a thing to be rid of, and to make a
display of sheer suffering is to affront the instincts of
all save those endowed with an exceptional elasticity
of emotion and imagination.
 (3) Although in the absence of sympathy with the
ethos of a work analysis cannot lead to appreciation, it
should be added that analysis may, by unravelling the
design of a complex work, release a latent sympathy
which, at a first hearing, was outweighed by
exasperation and bewilderment……In a re-hearing of
the analysed work the parts fuse in the whole, and the
fusion, if it is to occur at all, can only do so
effortlessly and spontaneously. Unless sheer pleasure
has taken the place of mental effort, the work has not
been appreciated.
(4)…Though music rewards study, the composer does
not provide it for that purpose. True, he does not feel
bound to make his meaning perfectly clear at a first
hearing, nor does anyone expect him to; but if there is
to be a second hearing his music must somehow
recommend itself. No wonder concerts consisting of
works of painful mood or complex design-or both-are
thinly attended; the wonder is they are attended as
well as they are.
Contemporary music
=
Unresolved discords?
 You are given two scores on moodle,
please tell what they share in common.
(5 minutes)
Excerpt 1 - Mozart’s Sonata in C
Excerpt 2 - Philip Glass’s Metamorphosis
Musical Parameters
rhythm
tempo
harmony
melody
instrumentation
dynamic
texture
genre
form
timbre
How are these works different from the
previous ones?
George Crumb Makrokosmos
Morton Feldman Last Pieces
 Sympathy
+
Understanding
(the ability to analyse)
Other means of “knowledge transfer”?
“Why don’t they just compose “easy-
listening” pieces?”
self expression is the goal of creative
artist.
— Mark Applebaum
It is really a sequence of mood painting,
throughout which the desires and
dreams of the faun move in the heat of
the afternoon.
— Debussy
 What about NOW?
What do we refer as “contemporary”?
Glocalisation in Music Making
Peter Sculthorpe’s Quartet No. 16 with dijerido (2005)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=C5y1TUFiG18&ab_channel=QuatuorMolinari
Yip A Mournful Cry
A Mournful Cry
for a solo performer on guzheng and voice
Ho Kwen Austin YIP
(2011)
transposed score
詞選自李清照《訴衷情》
Senza Misura, Tempo rubato [ q ~ 52 ]
j
>‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚‚ ‚ ‚ molto vibrato >‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ ‚ 5 ‚ b‚
U U
left side of the bridge 5

J ‚ J J ‚ æJ æ
!"#"

& Œ Œ

U Í F p U Í F p f
pizz. !"#" pizz.

? >± ± !"#" >± ±!"#"

Guzheng

R R
!Í f Í
! f
strike on string with the tuning key on the
right-most, then slide towards the left-most until hitting the bridge

~15"
ª
accel.
œ œ œ œ œ œ œ
3

œ
play on both sides of the bridge alternatively

#œ
j
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j ‰ j
j ‰
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j ‰
& # œ œœ
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#œ p ƒ
p
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> p
f
ª

?
a tempo U
¿¿¿ ¿ Œ
tap on body

&

p slow
?U
3

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molto vibrato

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3
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- - - -
sprechstimme
œ œ

ye ye ye ye ye ye ye ye ye ye lai ai ai ai ai
夜 來
Debate on glocalisation
 Think about “NOW”
Consumption +-*/ Experimentation
See you next week.