The Apperception of Musical Creativity: Performance as Ritual, Composition as Self-Realization

Abstract

Musical invention is defined in this article as a form of inward creativity. The creative acts of musical performance are understood in terms of ritual-like symbolic and stylized actions, and those of musical composition as the mind's enactment of meditation and reflection. This article draws on the relationship between two psychological attributes of musical creativity: the cognitive ones controlled and sustained by the central nervous system, and the emotional attributes that may be understood as a sense of inward reflection. The complex nature of musical creativity suggests further emotional and musical representations accumulated and constructed by the composer or performer. When this occurs, music's distinct character is apperceived as a musical ritual in terms of self-realization, rather than a mere execution of idiomatically constructed musical sequences. Along with present-day research in psychology and perspectives on cognitive neuroscience of creativity, this article brings forth a direct link between musical creativity, ritual, and self-awareness. It develops a theory of the apperception of musical creativity in performance and composition using the notions of ritual and self-realization as mutually inclusive idiosyncrasies of musical experience.

Acknowledgments

The publication of this article was supported by the Duquesne University Presidential Scholarship Award.