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Learning From Masters of Music Creativity: Shaping Compositional
Experiences in Music Education
Lapidaki, Eleni.
Philosophy of Music Education Review, Volume 15, Number 2,
Fall 2007, pp. 93-117 (Article)
Published by Indiana University Press
For additional information about this article
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/pme/summary/v015/15.2lapidaki.html
Access Provided by Stanford University at 11/18/11 4:47PM GMT
LEARNING FROM MASTERS OF
MUSIC CREATIVITY
SHAPING COMPOSITIONAL EXPERIENCES IN MUSIC
EDUCATION
ELENI LAPIDAKI
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Abstract: There are several possible ways for investigating the creative
process in musical composition in order to induce certain assumptions
about the nature of the compositional experience that may provide a certain
philosophical framework for shaping compositional experiences in music
educational settings at all levels. By taking an approach mainly based on
writings and interviews of twentieth and twenty-first century composers,
such as Boulez, Ferneyhough, Foss, Ligeti, Xenakis, Reich, Reynolds,
Schoenberg, Stockhausen, and Varèse, among others, Eleni Lapidaki illustrates certain parameters about their actual compositional process.
Implications for music education are suggested for immersing student composers in learning experiences that respect their intuitions, search for their
individuality, and place emphasis on innovation and creative freedom as
inseparable from expression in their compositions.
Asked in an interview how he could explain the creative processes involved in
his composing, Gunther Schuller readily admits that the element of mystery that
© Philosophy of Music Education Review, 15, no. 2 (Fall 2007)
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PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC EDUCATION REVIEW
lies beyond rational explanation plays an important part in the creation of his
music:
As an artist—and I believe I am a thinking artist, not hopefully a mindless
artist—it doesn’t bother me that I don’t know everything about either the
creative process or its progeny. I am happy to know that it works, and that in
the main I can rely on it and the way it functions. The fact that there are
unrevealed and incomprehensible mysteries in the creative-arts process and
in our evaluation of its products does not disturb me, although it arouses my
curiosity. But I don’t have to know how something works in order to use it.1
The present study, however, is based on the premise that a music teacher
needs indeed to grasp how this creative process works in a real world context in
order to foster and expand the student composers’ craft of composition in educational settings at all levels. More specifically, the present study involves the
investigation of the compositional process as seen from several twentieth and
twenty-first century influential composers’ viewpoints that may help us gain
insight into a domain coated with a colorful diversity of personal experiences and
theoretical speculations.
The composers chosen for examination include the following: Luciano
Berio, Pierre Boulez, Robert Erikson, Brian Ferneyhough, Lucas Foss, György
Ligeti, Tristan Murail, Steve Reich, Roger Reynolds, Arnold Schoenberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Edgar Varèse, and Iannis Xenakis, among others. The
choice of these individuals was dictated by my wish to include composers from
as wide a variety of compositional styles as possible including serialism, avantgarde, modernism, minimalism, musique concrète, and electronic music and
who placed emphasis on innovation and creative freedom as inseparable from
expression. Their musical styles which opened up new possibilities of expression
encompass, as Elaine Birkin wrote, “free form, unequal time segments, fuzzy or
non-tonality, angled contours, rapid change, multi-hued harmonies, dense texture, dissonance, mixed—or no—meters, an exploration of instrumental
resources, and more.”2
The choice of the above-named composers by no means implies a value
judgment on my part about the importance either of their accounts or of their
compositions and their respective styles. It is simply that their writings, lectures,
and interviews demonstrate a dedication toward capturing the subtleties of the
creative process and are especially elaborate in their description of the nature of
creativity, in contrast to others who are not as prone to divulge their feelings
about their creative process. In order to draw any kind of philosophical implications, I strongly believe that one should have in mind what Arthur Danto wrote
in Beyond the Brillo Box: “Variation in style may have historical explanation but
ELENI LAPIDAKI
95
no philosophical justification, for philosophy cannot discriminate between style
and style.”3
I have carefully selected and linked together thoughts and emotions from
their interviews and writings, as connected with the realities of the creation of
music viewed from the internal frame of reference of the composers themselves.
Since there is not one single reality but many, I attempted to show how they
“challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each
other, tease each other, are blind to each other,”4 to draw on the opening words
of Harold Pinter’s powerful Nobel lecture on Art, Truth and Politics on December 7, 2005. The testimonies of the composers concerned bear on questions
about (a) the role of the conscious and the unconscious in music creativity,
(b) how the compositional process gets started, and (c) how the compositional
process moves forward.
In my exploration of the composers’ realities of their creative processes, I
chose to present this material using an approach not so common in academic
discourse: a collage-like dialogic as a structural device of fecundation as used by
the composers themselves. Therefore, the composers’ words are, where helpful,
extensively quoted, instead of being conveyed by means of paraphrases. Commentaries refer merely to research in philosophy, psychology, and music
education that bear on problems posed by the composers themselves concerning
the creative processes. This approach will, I hope, maintain the discussion of the
composers’ realities of music creativity as vivid, dramatic, and edifying as possible and, in turn, help the reader grasp the peculiarities of experiences while
composing music.
VALUE OF COMPOSERS’ VIEWS FOR MUSIC
EDUCATION.
It is hoped that the themes that emerge by setting twentieth and twenty-first
century professional composers’ accounts of certain compositional experiences
or phases of their creative processes against one another will provide a philosophical framework for teaching composition. I strongly believe that it is important
for music educators at all levels of instruction to become mediators of professional composers’ creative concerns for their student composers. Thus, music
educators could bridge the gap between classroom music and real world music.5
Furthermore, the knowledge of how professional composers compose offers
the potential of finding the missing link in music education; that is, the writing
of music by students within the school curriculum. As Bernard Andrews wrote
about the benefits of “investigating the life reflections of Canada’s senior composers” for the Genesis Project, which aims to advance music composition in
Canadian classrooms:
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PHILOSOPHY OF MUSIC EDUCATION REVIEW
Students will have the opportunity to express themselves in a new way, that
is, by writing their own music in a systematic way. . . . Such involvement may
deepen their understanding of musical relationships and how one articulates
feelings through sounds beyond rudimentary improvisational and creative
activities currently available.6
With so many researchers of music education looking at the compositional
processes of students in classrooms7 and music technology laboratories,8 it would
be very helpful to acknowledge and draw philosophical implications for music
composition in schools from recognized composers’ voices about their individual composing realities. This may be especially effective since the composers
under examination are in the service of discovery and idealistic seekers of the
new in order to reject musical conventions and to shock accustomed listeners
into an awareness of their mired condition.
It is hoped that the direct access to these composers’ thoughts about the subjective experience of composing Western art music in the second half of the
twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century may also promote the
image of a fragmented culture whose ghettoization in music education is a serious impediment to the development of a comprehensive aesthetic education.
THE COMPOSER, THE CONSCIOUS, AND THE
UNCONSCIOUS
What may be of issue in almost all composers’ views is that the main or essential mechanisms of the composers’ creative faculty are both the unconscious
inspiration and the conscious desire and effort to produce a musical work. In
other words, there is a striking unanimity among composers that the role of the
unconscious is vital in order to start and/or to complete a work to their own satisfaction. It is interesting to note that such attitudes are not restricted to
composers of the Romantic period where we might expect to find them.9
Arnold Schoenberg’s book, Style and Idea, contains the clearest and most systematic picture of his compositional process which encompasses both
inspiration “that gives its undemanded blessing” and the conscious working out
of a composition:
Only one thing is certain . . . : without inspiration neither could be accomplished. There are times when I am unable to write a single example of
simple counterpoint in two voices, such as I ask sophomores to do in my
classes. And in order to write a good example of this sort, I must receive the
co-operation of inspiration.10
For Ligeti “instinctive” and “constructive,” seen as complimentary modes,
are the basic rules of musical creativity:
ELENI LAPIDAKI
97
In my music the musical instinct plays an important role. Nevertheless, this
instinct must never be over evaluated, so that this alone guides the compositional result. . . . During the composing, the instinctive and the
constructive aspects are complimentary modes.11
Writing in 1978, Stockhausen, for whom musical creation is founded on
metaphysical and religious percepts, admits that the act of composition (the
“incarnation” of the mentally conceived musical image) also demands the necessary combination, in the composer’s terms, of “intuition” and “mental
construction.”12 In an interview with Iara Lee in Frankfurt in August 1997 for her
film, Modulations, Stockhausen’s response about the role of intuition in his work
was that
[i]ntuition transforms every normal action into something special that one
doesn’t know oneself. So I am a craftsman, I can start working with sounds,
with apparatuses and find all sorts of new combinations. But when I want to
create something that amazes me and moves me, I need intuition. I don’t
mean an intellectual idea. I need . . . to become involved, to come into a
state where I do something without knowing why I do it. . . .13
Moreover, Boulez defines the fundamental components of creativity as
“imagination” and “intelligence.” Writing about the composer’s creative faculty,
Boulez made the following statement:
Creative mechanisms are nothing without imagination, but they are also
nothing without the training that immeasurably strengthens them and perpetually enriches the means at their disposal.14
Finally, with regard to the unconscious Boulez sums up most composers’
belief about its significant role in the compositional process:
A great part is played by the imagination, which is the most irrational of our
faculties. Why should our imaginations carry us at some given moment in
one direction rather than another? This is a complex problem and difficult
to explain: all that one can say is that the unconscious plays an incalculable
role.15
Nonetheless, these self-observations about the complementary roles of the
unconscious and conscious aspects of musical creativity do not cover the wide
range of claims in psychological research on creativity. The contrasting views of
psychological research illuminate the tension between, on the one hand,
researchers16 who deny that moments of instinct, intuition, or insight have any
significant importance for creative processes and are “mysterious gifts disconnected from knowable psychological processes”17 and, on the other hand,
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researchers18 who imply that creativity is little more than building on an initial
intuition or insight. More specifically, David Feldman stated that creative individuals show “a natural tendency of the mind to take liberties with what is real,
mostly in non-conscious ways. These transformations, nonetheless, have the possibility of becoming conscious.”19 But rather than putting the one view against
the other, the majority view claims that insight is a necessary and rather complementary component of creativity, along with the conscious checking of the
insight’s validity.20
It is noteworthy that the unconscious aspect of the composer’s imaginative
experience has not been adequately discussed in the research concerning music
creativity in music education. In fact, most theoretical considerations underscore
the idea that imagination in creative thinking is confined to a complex process
of consciously shuffling already experienced or “funded” meanings21 and the
concomitant role of problem-solving during the creative act.22 So, it is in respect
to the role of the unconscious that we seem to be in the dark.
The philosopher, however, will have to enlighten us on the manner in which
the above-mentioned synthesis of the old and the new comes about.23 The problem does not consist of delineating the old elements and differentiating them as
such, but of examining the origin of the new elements or of disproving the assertion that anything new was born.24 I strongly believe that, if we cannot explain
this process, then we must acknowledge it as a mystery.25 Mysteries are not solved
by encouraging us not to declare them to be mysteries.26
THE BEGINNING OF THE COMPOSITIONAL PROCESS
Summing up most composers’ experiences, we may say that composition is a
rather slow activity that starts either “out of nothing” or with a process of silent
hearing, seeing, touching, feeling, transforming, or improvising. On the one
hand, discussing how he starts composing a piece, Steve Reich speaks of a
chance-like conception and working out of his musical compositions, as if they
originate out of nowhere. In his words, “Material may suggest what sort of a
process it should be run through, and processes may suggest what sort of material should be run through them. If the shoe fits, wear it.”27
Xenakis also admits that he starts a composition “out of nothing”:
I have no basic material. In every case I start out of nothing. I consider this
to be right because I try to break away from the past. . . . I don’t force myself
into a predetermined structure, I want to navigate freely.28
Lucas Foss states in this regard,
[s]ince age seven, I’ve been composing and have never stopped composing:
ELENI LAPIDAKI
99
yet, the creative process is as elusive to me as it has ever been. I still do not
know where the notes will come from when I accept a commission for a new
work. As I sit down I often panic. I stare at the empty space of music paper.
How can I say that my piece will be ready for performance next January
when I do not have a recipe for making it happen?29
He goes on to say,
What is an idea? Years ago I organized a symposium in Buffalo featuring
Xenakis, Cage, Gregory Corso, and others. . . . The question Cage chose to
ask me was, “What is an idea?” I was nonplussed for a moment. Then I
found myself declaring, “An idea occurs when there is chaos, and suddenly
you see relationships; when you find meaning where you’ve looked before
and there seemed to be only disorder.”30
On the other hand, in response to a question about what comes first as the
idea of a piece, Ferneyhough remarked in an elaborate manner:
I have to say, it depends entirely on the piece. Usually I would say that the
first sensation, the experience which begins to persuade me that I am actually going to write a piece, is very often a cross between a tactile, a visual and
an aural one. That is, I tend to perceive a mass, almost a tangible sculptural
or sculpted mass, in some sort of imagined space which is made up of these
various elements. . . . That can quite often be allowed to revolve in my mind
for some considerable time—it might be a year or 18 months—before it
clicks together with whatever else is buzzing around in my mind at the
time.31
Ligeti explains that he finds his way into a composition by improvising on the
piano:
The naïve initial musical idea can be described as music in the raw state. It
could be quite possible for the music to be heard in this state—indeed, it is
thus heard when I am improvising on the piano—but the sound, measured
against the standards I regard as adequate for the structure and form of the
piece, is far too primitive.32
Unused or undeveloped material of a finished composition has also been the
ground for a new composition. In an interview with Joshua Cody, artistic director of the Ensemble Sospeso in Chicago in 1993, Pierre Boulez recalled,
“Absolutely: it’s [the compositional activity] a tree which gives another tree
which is another tree.”33
Moreover, this inner thinking process is not put into motion in an instant
with a single flash of inspiration, but is the result of a complex, careful, and
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painstaking preparation before the composer starts writing a composition. As
Boulez remarked, “It is only very seldom that the composer finds himself in the
presence of a world that he has glimpsed . . . in a single flash of heightened
awareness, a world he then has to bring into actual existence.”34
However, Schoenberg gave the following example of the conception of
sound images that had already taken a completed form in his head before he
started writing the piece, when he discussed the compositional act of his First
String Quartet. He composed parts of the work in his head while taking a long
walk and then he put them down on paper upon his arrival home. “Even a fast
writer could not copy them in less time than it took me to compose them.”35
Composers may also be stimulated by the actual sound of a musical instrument or a remarkable performer. When Ligeti was commissioned to write a
companion piece for Brahms’ Horn Trio, he declared, “When the sound of an
instrument or a group of instruments or the human voice finds an echo in me,
in the musical idea within me, then I can sit down and compose. [O]therwise I
cannot.”36
Extra-musical images may also provide the composer with ideas and material
and contribute to musical creativity. This was certainly the case with Varèse who
often borrowed his ideas from higher mathematics or astronomy but gradually
gave them an expressive overall musical shape beyond the blindfold use of mathematical formulas or scientific processes. “I am often inspired by higher
mathematics or astronomy simply because these sciences stimulate my imagination and give me the impression of movement and rhythm,”37 he wrote for the
program notes for his piece, Intégrales.
Furthermore, one can find many examples of composers whose direct personal (autobiographical) emotional exaltation triggered the unformed mass of
creative volition. In order to realize the creative potential of this volition, some
composers need to have something for it to react against.38 Xenakis, however, asserted that “all …
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