Mapping research on musical creativity: A bibliometric review of the literature from 1990 to 2022

Abstract

This study aims to map the research literature on musical creativity that was published from 1990 to 2022 by using metadata extracted from 1,177 Web of Science-indexed publications in terms of trends in publications and citations data, leading journals, authors, institutions/organizations, and countries, collaborative networks between authors, institutions, and countries, and trends in keyword frequencies and co-occurrences. The main findings of this study are that (1) research on musical creativity has undergone an incipient phase and has had a growing scientific interest since the mid-2000s, (2) musical creativity is a relatively more specific research field compared to general creativity research that has been represented by more specific sub-fields, e.g., music psychology and ethnomusicology, (3) a small number of scholars – especially from the USA, England, Russia, Spain, Australia, and some countries from South Europe – have made the more impactful contribution as regards musical creativity, (4) there is a small number of research collaborations among scholars, yet the collaborative networks among countries and institutions occur intercontinentally, (5) musical creativity research is growing with cross-disciplinary links with several branches of psychology, neurosciences, cognitive sciences, education, sociology, arts and humanities, and computer sciences, and (6) eight main topical foci have been founded in the literature from 1990 to date – i.e., computational creativity, processes of improvisation, improvisation teaching and learning, interactions/collaboration during improvisation, effects of improvisation practice, innovative music technology, esthetic aspect of everyday creativity, and music therapy. Further research on musical creativity could map the literature by focusing on contextual themes.