Creativity, originality, and value in music performance.

In this chapter we aim to distinguish between the concepts of creativity, originality and value and argue that future research in this area must unpack the various roles of each in order to understand human excellence. We proceed to consider the relationship between originality and value in the context of Western classical performance, and offer a tentative model of how they may co-vary. We refer to research in the field of artificial intelligence which have attempted to offer new explanations of the phenomenon of creativity, (Boden, 1991, 1994; Wiggins, 2001, 2003). We maintain that there are closely confined, stylistic boundaries for what is usually acceptable as a performance and suggest that creativity in performance, therefore, must occur in relation to these boundaries if the performance is to be deemed appropriately original and/or valuable at all. We also maintain that the performance outcomes within a given creative tradition will be distributed normally around a hypothetical mean of perceived originality. Through clarification of the conceptual framework in the way we have suggested, it becomes apparent that much work is still needed to explain the connection that exists between individual creativity and the wider social context in which it is situated. In particular, research should begin to explore the relationship between degree and frequency of creativity in the individual, and the extent to which these correlate with the perceived originality and value of their creations. We have plans to undertake empirical research which will build on the theoretical framework established in this chapter.