Teaching Beyond the Curriculum

Abstract

Traditional definitions of creativity define an outside expertise, a critique and acknowledgement of the final work to deem it novel, innovative and defined inclusion within a certain domain. Recent academic discourse in applied record production interrogates the Csikszentmihalyi’s Systems Model of creativity for record production including the traditional record label commercial framework, i.e. a record label, a producer, the engineer, and the musical artist. This presents a strong commercial and historical framework for decision processes of creativity in record production to date. With the demise of commercial studios and record labels, this has created a world of convergence for these traditional roles within the creative process. Integrating theories of the creative process, Bourdieu, Csikszentmihalyi, Velikovsky’s, Walla’s, Barron, and Koberg & Beganal, have external decision gatekeeper roles in each of these models. But what if all decisions are being made by the practitioner for the practitioner? These creativity models need integration and overlaying with Vygotsky’s zones of proximal development, Booms’ taxonomy and Ericssons’ deliberate practice models of learning development to reflect the new world students see of a successful career path through self-production and a DIY aesthetic. Relevant to pedagogy, student learners and independent professional artists, the paper will discuss the development of a hybrid a methodology for defining creative practice for an independent practitioner within the context of creative production projects. This is, and will help define clear workflows of process, documented performance through deliberate practice, artefact creation and the outcome which is a simple, effective, and definable research model and methodology for setting students into independent learning projects and reflection towards their creative practice as musicians and audio producers.