Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Program in Music Education
The Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
New York University
MPAME-GE.2033 CREATIVE PROCESS IN MUSIC EDUCATION
Course Syllabus
Introduction
This course, unlike many other courses, depends entirely upon who we are and where we
begin. This is not so much a syllabus as it is a design to facilitate process. From the
references, the personal exploring, and the activities of a community of creators, we hope
to reveal something more of ourselves and our own creative process so that as teachers
we can facilitate the creative growth and activity of our students. In the class you are a
composer, a poet, a music maker, an improviser. These will be the activities that will
form the daily substance of our meetings. From the topics below and from our own
experience and reading, other topics will develop. What this course becomes, what we
become, will be unique to this class and this journey.
Course Description
Through creating and improvising music you explore your own creativity in the context
of reflection, meditation, and the literature.
Course Objectives
Students will investigate their own creative process. Experiences in creating and
improvising music are pursued in a context of reflection and meditation. The literature
provides an investigative horizon through which each student pursues a personal path.
What this course becomes, what we become, will be unique to this class and this journey.
Students will develop the capacity to look within themselves and to harness creative
energy and ideas in musical and personal expression. Students wil learn to use the
internet creatively as a resource and a medium for personal expression.
Topics
Selected from but not limited to:
NOTHINGNESS AND SILENCE
AN INNER JOURNEY
IMPROVISATION
Syllabus for E85.2033 Creative Process in Music Education
Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Program in Music Education
SPONTANEITY
ORIGINALITY
INNER MUSIC, IMAGINATION AND AUDIATION
LISTENING AS CREATIVE RESPONSE
MAKING MUSIC AND MUSIC MAKING
CREATIVE PROCESS AND THE CLASSROOM
CREATIVE TEACHING AND CREATIVE LEARNING
EQUIPMENT
Yourself---dressed for adventure, a portable sound and/or video recorder, an instrument, a
blank book.
Keep a journal of the class activity, the reading, and your own reflection on your creative
process and activity. This journal is for your eyes only. For the class, provide a version of
the journal and critique of the process of journal keeping as a means of personal inquiry
and post it on the WWW.
TERM PROJECT
1. Develop a creative project which will draw upon your personal resources and talents,
and which will challenge you to grow conceptually and in acquiring additional or new
skills.
OR
1. Develop a research paper which focuses on some aspect of creativity suggested by this
course, your experience, and your reading and apply your research to some aspect of your
teaching either through classroom strategies for implementing creative process or through
application of methods to curriculum, or both.
EVALUATION
Students will be evaluated on class participation, requested written assignments, and term
project.
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Syllabus for E85.2033 Creative Process in Music Education
Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Program in Music Education
ASSIGNED READINGS
1. Hemingway. "A Clean, Well Lighted Place"
2. Novak. The Experience of Nothingness
3. Pirsig: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
4. Read at Least One Reference and provide written response.
REFERENCES
Three Classics in the Aesthetic of Music.1962, New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 188.
Adams, Kathleen. Journal to the Self: 22 Paths to Personal Growth. Warner, 1990.
Arieti, S., Creativity: The Magic Synthesis. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1976.
Baldwin, Christina. Life's Companion: Journal Writing as a Spiritual Quest. Bantam,
1990.
Barron, F., Creative Person and Creative Process. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
Winston, Inc,. 1969.
Berendt, Joachim-Ernst. Nada Brahma--The World is Sound: Music & and Landscape of
Consciousness. Destiny, 1987.
Berendt,Joachim-Ernst. The Third Ear: On Listening to the World. Element Books, 1988.
Boden, M.A., The Creative Mind. 1991, New York: BasicBooks. 303.
Boyd, J., Musicians in Tune. 1992, New York: Fireside Simon and Schuster. 288.
Burrows, David., Sound, Speech, and Music. 1990, Amherst: The University of
Massachusetts Press. 138.
Cameron, Julia. The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. G.P.Putnam's
Sons, 1992.
Capra, Fritjof. The Tao of Physics. Shambhala, 1975.
Edward T. Hall. The Dance of Life. Anchor Press, 1983.
Copland, A., Music and Imagination. 1952, Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 116.
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Syllabus for E85.2033 Creative Process in Music Education
Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Program in Music Education
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper
Perennial, 1990.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow & the Psychology of Discovery & Invention.
Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.
Damasio, Antonio R. The Feeling of What Happens. 1st Harvest ed.
New York : Harcourt Inc., 2000, c1999.
DeBono, Edward. New Think: The Use of Lateral Thinking in the Generation of New
Ideas. New York: Basic Books, 1968.
DeBono, Edward. Serious Creativity: Using the Powers of Lateral Thinking to Create
New Ideas. Harper Business, 1992.
Dewey, John. Art as Experience. 1979, New York: Paragon Books.
Dilts, Robert & Todd Epstein. Tools for Dreamers: Strategies for Creativity & the
Structure of Innovation. Meta Publications, 1991.
Earley, Jay. Inner Journeys. Samuel Weiser, 1990.
Fezler, William. Creative Imagery: How to Visualize in All Five Senses. Fireside, 1989.
Gawain, Shakti. Meditations. New World Library, 1991.
Ghiselin, B., ed. The Creative Process. 1952, Mentor Books: New York. 249.
Gilbert, John. V., ed. Qualitative Evaluation in the Arts. Vol. II. 1984, New York
University: New York. 208.
Harmon,Willis & Howard Rheingold. Higher Creativity: Liberating the Unconscious for
Breakthrough Insights. Jeremy Tarcher, 1984.
Hamel, Peter Michael. Through Music to the Self. 1978, Longmead: Element Books, Ltd.
Hemingway, Ernest.,"A Clean, Well-lighted Place," in The Short Stories of Ernest
Hemingway. 1966, Charles Scribner's Sons: New York. p. 379-383.
Henri, Robert, The Art Spirit. New York: J. B. Company, 1951.
Herrigel Eugen., Zen in the Art of Archery. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Humphreys, Christopher. Concentration & Meditation. Element Books, 1968.
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Syllabus for E85.2033 Creative Process in Music Education
Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Program in Music Education
Karagulla, S., Breakthrough to Creativity. 1973, Santa Monica, Ca.: DeVorss and Co.,
Inc. 263.
Koestler, Arthur. The Act of Creation. Danube ed. / with a new preface by the author.
London : Pan Books, 1970.
Leff, Herbert. Playful Perception. Waterfront Books, 1984.
Leonard, George. The Silent Pulse. Dutton, 1978.
Linn, Denise. The Secret Language of Signs. Ballantine Books, 1996.
Matanovic', M., Lightworks. 1985, Issaquah, Wa: Lorian Press. 204.
McLuhan, Marshall, Understanding Media: the Extensions of Man. New York: Signet
Books, 1966.
Morris, Jill. Creative Breakthroughs: Tap the Power of Your Unconscious Mind. Warner
Books, 1992.
Nadler, Gerald & Shozo Hibino with John Farrell. Creative Solution Finding. Prima
Publishing, 1995.
Nin, Anaís., The Diary of Anaís Nin. Vol. I. New York: The Swallow Press and Harcourt,
Brace & World, Inc., 1966.
Novak, Michael, The Experience of Nothingness. New York: Harper and Row,
Publishers, 1971.
Pirsig, Robert M. Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values.
New York: Morrow, 1974.
Ratner, Leonard G., The Musical Experience: Sound Movement and Arrival. New York:
W. H. Freeman and Company, 1983.
Rugg, H., Imagination. 1963, New York: Harper and Row. 361.
Rosanoff, Nancy. Intuition Workout. Aslan Publishers, 1991.
Russcol, H., The Liberation of Sound: An Introduction to Electronic Music. 1972,
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 315.
Slaboda, J. A., ed. Generative Processes in Music. 1988, Oxford University Press:
Oxford. 298.
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Syllabus for E85.2033 Creative Process in Music Education
Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions
Program in Music Education
Smith, F. J., The Experiencing of Musical Sound. 1979, New York: Gordon and Breach.
255.
Watts, Alan. W., The Book. 1966, New York: Collier Books. 150.
Zdenek, Marilee. The Right-Brain Experience. McGraw-Hill, 1983.
Zdenek, Marilee. Inventing the Future. McGraw-Hill, 1987.
Zuckerkandl, V., Man the Musician: Sound and Symbol. Bollingen Series XLIV, Vol.
Two. 1973, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 370.
Zukav, Gary. The Dancing WuLi Masters: An Overview of the New Physics. William
Morrow & Company, 1979.
Websites
New websites are being added everyday. Do a search and add to this list:
Convex Creativity: Music
<http://www.planetquake.com/cc/music.html>
Creativity in Music (The Year of Arts Education in Texas)
<http://finearts.esc20.net/music/music_strategies/mus_strat_crea.html>
The Franklin Institute Online:Creativity
<http://sln.fi.edu/tfi/units/life/publish/publish.html>
Morton Subotnick’s Creating Music < http://www.creatingmusic.com/>
Mosaic of Creativity <http://www.mosaicofcreativity.com/>
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