ABSTRACT
It should be obvious, but it is sometimes forgotten, that musical creativity cannot be defined without reference to the quality of the music it produces. If a greater degree of creativity does not result in a better piece of music, what is the meaning of creativity? And with that one might feel compelled to abandon the topic forthwith, because judgements about what constitutes good music are notoriously contentious. Since musical tastes differ, the question “which music?” immediately arises, and with it a descent into parochial preferences and acrimonious argument. This may account for the tendency to discuss musical creativity in terms of novelty or originality instead of the quality of the creation, a tendency reinforced by the value accorded to novelty and originality in contemporary Western culture. Yet if novelty were the only, or even the most important, dimension of musical creativity, we would be at a loss to explain why one would return to a piece of music after the first hearing (Belkin, 2002), or, indeed, why some pieces of music retain the power to fascinate audiences through centuries. Moreover, the prizing of novelty as an end in itself is not necessarily shared by non-Western musical cultures (see Napier, 2000), yet that does not allow us to conclude that these cultures are devoid of musical creativity. Musical creativity cannot be equated with the production of novelty any more than it can dispense with it altogether.
