Creative Music Making since the Time of the Singing Schools: Fringe Benefits

Abstract

cation also stress the importance of fostering creativity in public schools.2 However, the history of creativity and creative music making in American education in the last 250 years constitutes a checkered and uneven road.3 Periods of growth in musical creativity in schools and communities have alternated with periods in which little formal creative activity occurred. It is the contention of this writer that the history of musical creativity in America mirrors the creative act itself. Musical creativity is at once fresh, original, and unpredictable, and as such it cannot be suppressed or easily legislated. Instances of creative activity in schools and the community spring up unbidden, guided by visionary individuals. Such instances often take place at the edges of the societal mainstream, sometimes funded by benevolent foundations or corporations. An historical tracing of musical creativity reveals familiar names and movements, as well as those that are relatively unknown and unheralded. If one could glean a