ABSTRACT
This chapter has two distinct aims: one is to discuss the kind of behaviours possibly underlying the process of recognizing a musical style; the second is to discover whether specific aspects of creativity can be observed during this process and how they are manifested. The chapter is divided into three main parts: the first is devoted to defining what is meant by “style” and “recognizing a musical style”; the second tries to pinpoint which of the numerous concepts of creativity might be applicable to the situation outlined in this chapter; the third part describes and comments on an empirical study that involved 13 subjects in a task of recognizing a particular example of musical style. Some general remarks on music listening are given at the end.
