ABSTRACT
This chapter presents research that explores the creative process of songwriting. Two contrasting perspectives are considered: a professional songwriting team and a student songwriting team, both working to the same 'real-world' brief. Key findings reveal that both teams worked in a similar way in terms of the procedure of songwriting, but that there were great differences in the way that each team searched for and selected ideas, and evaluated the emerging song. The student team seemed to focus more on the task of completing the composition, whereas the professional team seemed to focus more on the transaction between the social domain, the creative work and then back to the social domain. Working to the same professional brief, two teams were asked to create a new piece of music for a television commercial that was due for broadcast in August 2014. Higher education has rarely made creativity "an explicit objective of the learning and assessment process".
