The production of broad and strict senses in the discourse on musical creativity and their influences on the self-concept of musicians as creative

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the construction of beliefs/values related to musical creativity. From the perspective of critical discourse analysis, we seek to comprehend how individuals constitute broad and strict senses of creativity and how these senses can influence their perceptions of themselves as creative. Open questionnaires were administered to students in the process of scholarly training and non-scholarly musicians. The results indicate that the presence of both senses of creativity in participants’ discourse reflects a social order that qualitatively and quantitatively produces and reproduces those senses. The broad sense of creativity has a smaller incidence rate (about 31%) and tends to allow participants to form a positive self-concept. In contrast, the strict sense appears more frequently (about 69%) and may lead to a negative self-concept when subjects do not reach the assigned values.