'Creative collaboration': an 'eminence' study of teaching and learning in music composition

The image of the composer as a lone seeker of creative inspiration is embedded in popular views of the creative artist. This isolationist view ignores the 'thought communities' on which composers draw in their development as musicians, composers and teachers, the relationships that hold between composer-teacher and student-composer, and the role of these relationships in the ongoing development of all participants in the teaching and learning process. This article draws on 'eminence' studies of creativity to investigate the teaching and learning beliefs, processes and practices, of an eminent composer-teacher when working with a tertiary-level student-composer over the course of one academic semester. The emergent view of the teaching and learning process in music composition is one of a dyad working towards shared goals in a process characterized by collaboration, joint effort, and social support. This suggests that the teaching and learning process in composition may be a form of creative collaboration.