Musical Extrapolations: Towards an Understanding of Creative Processes Involved While Music is Being Listened to and Composed

Abstract

A systematic understanding is suggested about the conditions, mechanisms, influences, and processes evolving into a creative behavior in music, based on interdisciplinary perspectives of the cognitive sciences: developmental psychology, neuroscience, music psychology, emotions research, and creativity research in general and in music. The focus is on so-called musical extrapolations processes which bring the elusive quality of music into mental existence by creating extrapolations about: first, possible future occurring events; second, their musical meanings; and third, the meanings of their interrelations. These processes, involved while music is being listened to and composed, are defined as the result of implicit and explicit problem-solving processes which are tangibly guided by factors of: intrinsic activities and motivation, pre-disposed and experience-based structures, and environmental pressure. This so-called Model of Musical Extrapolations structures a new perspective in research, and furthermore, provides an enormous potential for future extensions, not least because an enhanced perspective is opened about the complexity of highly creative and parallel processes organizing sounds while listening to what is called music, as well as musical ideas while composing.