Developing Musical Creativity Through Movement: Navigating the Musical Affordance Landscape
Open accessAbstract
Schools too often undermine creativity, said Ken Robinson, an educationalist who has changed thinking on schools.In his famous TEDtalk "Do schools kill creativity?," he argues that the undermining of creativity results from being too focused on children's heads rather than on their bodies.In line with Robinson's observation, music education has been criticized for a lack of creative approaches, and a focus on disembodied learning experiences.In our view, the development of creative and embodied approaches to music education needs a deeper understanding of the embodied processes that underlie creativity, especially with regard to the use of the body in music learning.Using a dynamic, relational, and action-oriented perspective on creativity, we connect creativity to the concepts of affordance navigation, metastability, and cognitive flexibility.Next, we elaborate on how body movement may support creatively exploring the musical environment and developing a deepened musical understanding through purposeful affordance navigation.
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Different features of technology and its affordances enable creativity for users.
“This reflects research in human-computer interaction, design studies, and psychology on how different features of technology, and its affordances, enable creativity for its users (Hall et al. 2021, Nijs et al. 2025).”
From Entrepreneurial Selves, Emotions, and Algorithmic Creativity Among Young Content Creators in the Philippines (2026) · cites this paper as Nijs et al. 2025
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- Authors
- Nijs, L., Grinspun, N., & Fortuna, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Luxembourg (LU)
- Universidad Metropolitana de Ciencias de la Educación
- Ghent University (BE)
- Corresponding author
- Nijs, Luc
- Venue
- Creativity Research Journal
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2024-01-29
- Volume
- 37
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 427-451
- ISSN
- 1040-0419 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-6934
- OpenAlex
- W4391315168
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 228
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2
- FWCI
- 58.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Creativity Research Journal (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (publishedVersion)
- Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Open Repository and Bibliography (University of Luxembourg) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- EmcoMetecca II
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Music › Diverse Music Education Insights
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Creativity in Education and Neuroscience
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Visual Arts and Performing Arts › Artistic and Creative Research
- Keywords
- musical creativity, embodied learning, body movement in music, metastability, cognitive flexibility, music education, Ken Robinson, relational creativity, dynamic systems perspective
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