Theoretical Approaches to Musical Creativity: The Ubimus Perspective

Abstract

We tackle the theoretical implications of an emergent field of study, ubiquitous music (ubimus). Striving to place musical research within the wider field of creativity studies, this paper covers theoretical background and critical discussions of three music creativity models - a model proposed by Mannis (2014), the In-group, Out-group model (MDF - Ferraz and Keller 2014) and the ecologically grounded perspective (Keller and Lazzarini 2017). Data and on-site observations of creative activities provide the raw materials to test musical theories. Recent ubiquitous music research features multiple experimental initiatives, involving children (Pereira et al. in press), adolescents (Lima et al. 2012) or the elderly, and targeting trained musicians (Ferreira et al. 2015), novices (Miletto et al. 2011) and cognitively challenged adults. We chose three ubimus studies to exemplify empirical research that brings to light issues that have not been considered by some of the current theoretical approaches to musical creativity.