543744

research-article2014
JMTXXX10.1177/1057083714543744Journal of Music Teacher EducationAbramo and Reynolds

Article
Journal of Music Teacher Education
2015, Vol. 25(1) 37­–51
“Pedagogical Creativity” as a © National Association for
Music Education 2014
Framework for Music Teacher Reprints and permissions:
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Education DOI: 10.1177/1057083714543744
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Joseph Michael Abramo1 and Amy Reynolds2

Abstract
Creativity research has a long history in music education, including the development
of theories and strategies to foster the music creativity of students of all ages and
levels. Underexplored is how teacher education programs can cultivate pre- and
in-service teachers’ abilities to develop their educational creativity when designing
curricula and delivering instruction. By reviewing key research in creativity and the
traits of creative persons, this article demarcates characteristics of creative music
teachers, as well as their instruction and curricula, in order to offer implications
for music teacher education. This framework suggests that creative pedagogues (a)
are responsive, flexible, and improvisatory; (b) are comfortable with ambiguity; (c)
think metaphorically and juxtapose seemingly incongruent and novel ideas in new and
interesting ways; and (d) acknowledge and use fluid and flexible identities. The article
provides possible strategies music teacher educators can employ to help pre- and
in-service educators develop the dispositions and core practices of creative music
pedagogues.

Keywords
core practices, creativity, dispositions, music teacher preparation, strategies

As one of the central foci of music education, creativity has a rich history in the litera-
ture. Researchers have focused studies on defining (Burnard, 2012), evaluating
(Hickey, 2001; Webster, 1987), and educating music creativity in general (Odena,

1University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA

2Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT, USA

Corresponding Author:
Joseph Michael Abramo, Assistant Clinical Professor of Music Education, Neag School of Education,
University of Connecticut, 249 Glenbrook Road, Unit 2033, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
Email: joseph.abramo@uconn.edu

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38 Journal of Music Teacher Education 25(1)

2012) and in composition (Burnard & Yonker, 2004; Hickey, 2003) and improvisation
(Hickey, 2009; Whitcomb, 2013). Some music educators also use creativity research
to provide frameworks for fostering music creativity for practicing and preservice
educators. Randles and Smith (2012) found that U.S. preservice teachers are less con-
fident about their own music creativity, as well as teaching music creativity, as com-
pared to English counterparts. Odena and Welch (2012) found that in-service educators
with composing and improvising experience were more comfortable with these tasks
in their classrooms. Because of this, music teacher educators have called for music
teachers to be educated in skills that readily employ creative thinking, such as compo-
sition (Kratus, 2012; Odena & Welch, 2007, 2012) and improvisation (Bernhard,
2013; Wright & Kanellopoulos, 2010). Knowledge and skills in these areas increase
preservice teachers’ ability to foster differing types of music and musicking, which
“might gradually lead to the development of a critical perspective on both music edu-
cation theories and practices” (Wright & Kanellopoulos, 2010, p. 71).
This body of research has focused on creativity within music—the process of gen-
erating and having knowledge of music—for the betterment of students and teachers.
In other words, creativity research has centered on creativity pertaining to content
knowledge and how teachers might foster, in themselves and their students, skills and
dispositions to become creative musicians. But may a broader application of creativity
benefit music teacher education? What if music teacher educators apply this attention
on creativity to pedagogical skills and knowledge, including the formation of instruc-
tion and curricula? A broader application is appropriate because focus on music cre-
ativity is important and necessary but, alone, insufficient. Music creativity, when not
made explicit to teaching, does not necessarily transfer to pedagogical creativity.
Becoming a creative musician or composer is not the same as, or a guarantee of,
becoming a creative educator, and thinking creatively about music does not necessar-
ily lead to creative teaching.
In hope of fostering creativity of teaching equally with music creativity, this article
proposes a framework for what may be called pedagogical creativity in music teacher
education. By reviewing key research in creativity and the traits of creative persons,
this article demarcates characteristics of creative music teachers, as well as their
instruction and curricula, to offer implications for music teacher education. This
framework suggests that creative pedagogues (a) are responsive, flexible, and impro-
visatory; (b) are comfortable with ambiguity; (c) think metaphorically and juxtapose
seemingly incongruent and novel ideas in new and interesting ways; and (d) acknowl-
edge and use fluid and flexible identities. Music teacher educators can employ specific
strategies to make these traits explicit to pre- and in-service educators and to develop
the dispositions and core practices (Grossman & McDonald, 2008; McDonald,
Kazemi, & Kavanagh, 2013) of creative music pedagogues.
“Pedagogical creativity” has a broad application to music teaching in a variety of
settings. A creative pedagogue employs creative strategies when instructing and
designing curricula, even when creativity is not the explicit topic of the lesson. Creative
pedagogues do not necessarily teach “creative thinking” and may not be musically
creative themselves, but they creatively approach the application and refinement of

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Abramo and Reynolds 39

their educational practices. For this reason, pedagogical creativity has application to
all music teaching.

Trait 1: Responsiveness
Creative pedagogues are responsive to their students and environments, and as a result,
they are also flexible and improvisatory. Many conceptions of music pedagogy empha-
size preparation by the teacher: determining objectives, organization of curricula into
a sequential predetermined order, devising and collecting materials, and so forth.
Although these activities are important, the ability to continually respond to unplanned
changes, such as student input or results from formative assessments, is equally neces-
sary. As the educational philosopher David Hansen (2005) notes,

Creativity in teaching often has less to do with inventiveness per se than it does with . . . .
a kind of ongoing attentiveness, by which I mean a dynamic combination of patience,
listening, and initiative. Rather than issuing solely from what the teacher brings to the
educational setting . . . creativity can point to what the teacher is capable of deriving or
drawing from it. Creativity as responsiveness denotes a form of openness to the setting,
which may or may not complement or fit harmoniously with what is preset, prefigured,
or anticipated. (pp. 57–58)

Other educational researchers have described this ongoing attentiveness in similar

terms. Halliwell (1993) suggests that teacher creativity is characterized by “the ability
to read a situation; The willingness to take risks; The ability to monitor and evaluate
events” (p. 71). Craft (1997) found that creative teachers display “personal flexibility,”
or the ability to adapt. In their study of three creative female teachers, Horng, Hong,
ChanLin, Chang, and Chu (2005) found that the teachers “all possessed a sense of
keen observation, perception and sensitivity. On discovering novel ideas, the subjects
were easily able to infuse these skills into their instruction” (p. 353).
This responsiveness requires that teachers remain flexible in their instructional
goals. These studies speak to a flexibility in the aims and means a teacher employs.
“An aim” in education, Dewey (1916) notes, must

be flexible; it must be capable of alteration to meet circumstances. An end established

externally to the process of action is always rigid. Being inserted or imposed from
without, it is not supposed to have a working relationship to the concrete conditions of the
situation. What happens in the course of action neither confirms, refutes, nor alters it.
Such an end can only be insisted upon. The failure that results from its lack of adaptation
is attributed simply to the perverseness of conditions, not to the fact that the end is not
reasonable under the circumstances. (p. 104)

Creative teachers adapt, and sometimes even abandon their lessons based on infor-
mation students offer. Rather than creating an entire curriculum ahead of time or uni-
laterally subscribing to one specific methodology, creative teachers find what is best
for those particular students, at that particular time, using the materials found in the

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40 Journal of Music Teacher Education 25(1)

environment at hand. This might preclude a universal adherence to specific teaching

methods. Instead, educators may use these and other sources as structures from which
they borrow and adapt to students’ needs, jettisoning them if necessary, combining
them in unique and interesting ways when possible.
This responsiveness and flexibility are employed through a sort of reactive impro-
visation. Like the creative music improviser, the creative pedagogue derives new
meaning from a situation not completely created nor planned prior to the experience.
Similar to the ways jazz musicians follow chord changes, creative pedagogues work
within restraints that guide their improvisation. This requires an ongoing awareness of
the students and the environment. As Sawyer (2004) notes, this improvisation is not
haphazard, occurring spontaneously without preparation or rigor, but is “disciplined”
because creative teaching “always occurs in broad structures and frameworks” (p. 13).
This disciplined improvisation helps teachers navigate the “gap between the curricu-
lum-as-planned and curriculum-as-lived” (Beghetto & Kaufman, 2011, p. 94), allow-
ing the curriculum to “come to life” and meet student needs.
Music teacher educators may use a variety of music improvisation metaphors that
stress attentiveness. As noted above, improvisation in jazz and popular music may be
adequate. However, some music education students may feel that such an educational
structure leaves too much undetermined. Therefore, it might be important to stress that
instructional improvisation may be more predetermined, as in a da capo aria, where
only embellishment is improvised. Within these metaphors, students may imagine a
continuum between improvisation and the predetermined, finding levels of improvisa-
tion they feel comfortable with, which can serve as a gateway to practicing instruc-
tional improvisation.
Although metaphors allow students to conceptualize instructional improvisation,
its effective execution requires the acquisition of some necessary skills. For example,
lesson planning is often a part of teacher education preparation, but how do students
prepare for unanticipated reactions to that lesson plan? Improvisation requires a series
of responses to unanticipated or spontaneous factors, including students’ actions, as
well as changes in the teaching environment. As Grossman, Hammerness, and
McDonald (2009) note, “Having opportunities to rehearse such responses ahead of
time, in environments that are less complex than classrooms, can help novices hone
their practice and prepare them for when they will need to respond in the moment” (p.
279).
Music teacher educators may “fix” or prescribe other parameters within the class-
room for students to address pedagogical responsiveness and improvisation. For
example, the instructor may provide students with objectives, materials, or even a
complete lesson plan and then create scenarios involving unanticipated events. He or
she may devise questions typical school-age students ask, inviting pre- and in-service
teachers to generate as many answers as possible. The instructor may posit misunder-
standings that may arise and devise potential responses with the student on how to
address such concerns on the spot. He or she may also eliminate materials or parame-
ters that the student expected to be present, such as simulating a technology failure or
the truncation of the class period, as commonly occurs during a typical fire drill or

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Abramo and Reynolds 41

other classroom disruption. Creating such situations allows pre- and in-service teach-
ers opportunities to “practice” their creative pedagogical skills.

Trait 2: Comfort With Ambiguity

Another trait of the creative pedagogue is the desire and ability to accept, and even
find comfort in, tension and ambiguity; music teacher educators can encourage pre-
and in-service educators to develop this ability. Davis (2004) notes that creative per-
sons enjoy working with new ideas, unformed thoughts, and seemingly incongruent
concepts. Fromm (1959) described creativity as the capacity to be puzzled; the ability
to accept, rather than avoid, conflict or tension. Similarly, Rogers (1959) believed that
creative persons are open to experiences that prohibit rigidity; they are able to accept
instability and experiment with different possibilities. Insecurity and the unknown do
not discomfort them; conversely, they enjoy playing with and testing uncertain ideas
and solutions.
The opposite of comfort with ambiguity is “cognitive closure,” the need for swift,
unambiguous solutions. Research has suggested that a high need for cognitive closure
is linked with lower levels of creativity (Chirumbolo, Livi, Mannetti, Pierro, &
Kruglanski, 2004; Wiersema, Van der Schalk, & Van Kleef, 2012). Persons who exhib-
ited an elevated discomfort with new ideas and open-ended situations demonstrated
less creativity than participants more at ease with ambiguity. DeBacker and Crowson
(2009) found that students with a high need for cognitive closure were more likely to
force conclusions, seize on obvious solutions, and assume the veracity of erroneous
ideas. Students uncomfortable with ambiguity were also more likely to be satisfied with
a generalized understanding of a topic; they were less likely to explore a topic more
deeply, frequently seeking out opinions and strictures that conformed to their precon-
ceptions. Music teacher educators might actively seek to help students develop a com-
fort with ambiguity so that they are open to educational ideas that are new to them and
to create unique pedagogies with creative solutions. Music teacher educators may use a
variety of strategies to help pre- and in-service teachers recognize and accept ambigu-
ity. Students may take an ambiguity tolerance test to better understand their personal
acceptance of tolerance (Kruglanski, Webster, & Klem, 1993; for a free online test, see
http://www.psyctherapy.com/Enrolled/Activities/ToleranceForAmbiguityScale.htm).
This allows students to become aware of their natural affinity for, or aversion to, ambi-
guity and assess whether this is an area they need to development.
Creative music pedagogues highlight the value of ambiguity and avoid cognitive
closure by accepting and displaying knowledge as conditional and ambiguous. For
example, rather than uniformly teaching that the transition from the Baroque to the
Classical period was a change in texture and form, creative pedagogues might explore
similarities between periods and search from contradictory evidence, realizing the ten-
sion of viewing classical music history as both a continuous evolution as well as a
series of regular ruptures. Creative pedagogues accept that the answers worth knowing
often do not have unambiguous, fixed answers and, most important, lead students to
those conclusions as well. Even the most commonly agreed-on truths were once

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42 Journal of Music Teacher Education 25(1)

controversial, or people were unsure of their validity. Rameau (cf. 1722/1971), for
example, was unsure of the existence of chords, a truth that seems logical and obvious
to contemporary musicians. The theory of gravity was once in doubt. Individuals come
to truths through uncertainty, illuminating the joy of answering real and ambiguous
questions. Music teacher educators can invite their students to explore the ambiguities
of the “truth,” testing to see if information they hold as immutable are products of
doubt and discovery. This may assist pre- and in-service teachers to approach all
knowledge differently and to form dispositions of interrogating the content of curri-
cula by questioning how knowledge is constructed and structured in music education
settings.
Acceptance of ambiguity also allows creative pedagogues to forge dialogic rela-
tionships with their students. Creative pedagogues believe that uncertainty and ambi-
guity do not display intellectual weakness or a lack of knowledge, and as a result, they
make new discoveries together with their students. When knowledge is considered
fixed, it can follow that information can be deposited within the student. But if teach-
ers believe that knowledge is often ambiguous and dynamic, that it can be viewed
from multiple perspectives, and that ideas may contradict and not lead to definitive
answers, they take their students’ perspectives seriously, engaging in true dialogue,
and devising provisional truths together. Music teacher educators may ask students to
create lesson plans with ambiguity specifically in mind. They can ask students to write
lessons that purposely elicit a variety of divergent and sometimes conflicting answers
to a music problem, lessons that deliberately do not privilege any one or group of
answers. By exploring ambiguities of knowledge, music teacher educators can help
pre- and in-service educators develop a disposition of accepting and incorporating
their students’ constructions of truth.

Trait 3: Combination of Disparate Ideas

Creative pedagogues juxtapose seemingly incongruent and novel ideas in new and
interesting ways, and developing this manner of thinking helps pre- and in-service
music educators devise innovative instruction and refine their understanding of stu-
dents’ abilities and development. The process of combining disparate ideas is often
called “analogical” or “metaphorical” thinking (Davis, 2004), and it occurs when ideas
are transferred or applied to a new context, often in surprising ways. Treffinger,
Isaksen, and Dorval (2000) suggest that creative thinking includes “encountering
gaps, paradoxes, opportunities, challenges, or concerns, and then searching for mean-
ingful new connections by generating many possibilities, varied possibilities (from
different viewpoints or perspectives), unusual or original possibilities” (p. 7). Khatena
and Torrance (1973) argue that the creative person has “the power of the imagination
to break away from perceptual set so as to restructure or structure anew ideas, thoughts,
and feelings into novel and associative bonds” (p. 28). Mednick (1962) describes these
typical ways of organizing ideas or perceptual sets as “associative structures.” Creative
thinkers, Mednick argues, dig deeply into their “associative structures,” probing
beyond obvious connections to find novel or remote linkages in order to form original

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Abramo and Reynolds 43

solutions to problems. These researchers suggest that creativity involves combining

unlikely associations in original, unexpected, yet useful ways.
Gordon (1961) uses the Greek word synectics to refer to this process of creatively
combining different and apparently irrelevant elements. His technique has been used
for years in diverse environments, from advertising agencies to preschools, as a means
of formally encouraging analogical thinking. Synectical exercises could be useful in
music education courses to promote flexibility and the combination of incongruent
elements in teaching. Music teacher educators could require students to create lesson
plans that combine differing pedagogies and design curricula that approach a single
pedagogical problem from varying perspectives. Music teacher educators can also ask
students to combine music education with other disciplines. Teachers should have a
wide range of knowledge in many areas, across music and across disciplines; music
teacher educators may encourage the introduction of, say, sociological perspectives,
comparative literature, popular culture, and even the culinary arts into the music class-
room. Music teacher educators might provide the following scenario:

You have been notified by your principal that next year you will teach music, physical
education, and art in one combined class. You are further instructed to teach it
interdisciplinarily. What do these disciplines have in common? How can you use each
one to support and strengthen the other? What classroom activities will best facilitate
this?

This process of combining disparate ideas may help pre-and in-service teachers
approach music education from new and interesting avenues.
Researchers propose that exposure to variety is one way that analogical and meta-
phorical thinking can be developed. Ritter et al. (2012) found that diversifying experi-
ences—“highly unusual and unexpected events . . . that push individuals outside the
realm of ‘normality’” (p. 961)—often led to creativity via cognitive flexibility—“the
ability to break old cognitive patterns, overcome functional fixedness, and thus, make
novel (creative) associations between concepts” (p. 961). These diversifying experi-
ences created active schema violations. Active, not passive or vicarious, engagement
with new and novel experiences caused people to question the ways they organize
experiential knowledge. This study found that new experiences led to increased cogni-
tive flexibility and the ability to combine disparate ideas in interesting ways.
To foster this cognitive flexibility through highly unusual ideas and events, music
teacher educators may ask students to explore diverse examples of education. This
could include unique models of domestic K–12 education, adult education, informal
settings of music, or conducting a comparative study of educational paradigms from
around the world. Exposure to differing, unusual, and unexpected examples may push
students outside the realm of what they consider “normal” or “correct” music educa-
tion practice. Teacher educators may also take common aspects of instruction, such as
rhythm reading, breath support, or diction and devise highly unusual strategies to
address those skills.
Music teacher educators might also encourage an exploration of the diversity within
music and teaching. Students are aware of diversity in music genres such as classical,

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44 Journal of Music Teacher Education 25(1)

jazz, hip-hop, mariachi, and pop and of modes of production such as playing from
notation, improvising, performing live, and creating electronic music. Innovation can
come from combining these elements in new and unique ways. It is just as important
for students to discover that there are equally inexhaustible forms of music education.
A variety of educational paradigms exist: constructivist, behaviorist, Orff, Kodály,
Music Learning Theory, Dalcroze, and critical pedagogy, among others. These music
and educational practices sometimes buttress each other, but they can contradict and
expose competing epistemologies. Inviting pre- and in-service educators to live among
these tensions, accepting and enjoying the possibilities of these dissonances, and find-
ing ways to appropriately combine these pedagogies can inspire creativity. This stands
in contrast to an approach to teacher education where the “best” or correct form of
practice is sought. Perhaps surprisingly, from a creativity perspective, delineation of a
singular, “best” pedagogy may encourage cognitive closure by prematurely foreclos-
ing inquiry. Conversely, exploring multiple practices develops the cognitive flexibility
that may foster creative pedagogical dispositions.
Finally, it is reasonable to assume that analogical and metaphorical thinking is
linked to a comfort with ambiguity. A person with a higher comfort with ambiguity,
who does not feel compelled to force a solution or immediately derive the “right”
answer, would be more likely to assemble a fresh idea from seemingly incongruent
ones. Facility with one trait leads organically to ease with the next. A person with a
lower need for cognitive closure would take time to “play,” transferring ideas from
other areas, because they do not as highly value conformity. The traits of comfort with
ambiguity and facility with metaphorical thinking underscore the active nature of cre-
ativity. Not innate qualities, students can learn these dispositions and behaviors.
Because of this, the ability to combine disparate ideas may also influence pre- and
in-service teachers’ expectations of their individual growth and the growth of their
students. Pre- and in-service teachers who understand that intelligence and creativity
are dynamic constructs are more apt to develop their own creativity and the creativity
of their students. Blackwell, Trzesniewski, and Dweck (2007) described the difference
between the achievement of students possessing a fixed view of intelligence and those
who consider it malleable. Students who possessed a “growth mind-set,”—a belief
that individual efforts increase intelligence—outperformed students who had a “fixed
mind-set”—believing that intelligence was an unchangeable construct. Similarly, cre-
ativity can be understood through a “growth mind-set.” Individuals who believe that
creativity is inborn and fixed would not expect to develop and use their creativity.
Conversely, students and teachers who believe they can advance their creativity will
more readily benefit from explicit education on in this area. It is important that pre-
and in-service teachers understand creativity research and develop a growth mind-set.
Comfort with ambiguity and the ability to combine ideas in unique ways are behaviors
that transcend any specific music or pedagogical knowledge or skill. From this per-
spective, a creative teacher does not require an ever-growing arsenal of teaching tech-
niques but simply needs the responsiveness to know when and how to apply
already-possessed knowledge and skills with fluidity, novelty, and flexibility. Also,
familiarity with growth mind-set research may help pre- and in-service educators

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Abramo and Reynolds 45

develop a disposition of teaching every child regardless of ostensive abilities. The

belief that every child can learn helps question binaries of “talented/untalented,”
“gifted/ungifted,” and teachable/unteachable.

Trait 4: Fluid and Flexible Identities

Some researchers suggest that individuals who embrace and combine multiple identi-
ties devise more creative solutions to problems. In an experimental study of female
engineering students, Cheng, Sanchez-Burks, and Lee (2008) found that students who
possessed higher levels of identity integration, who saw themselves as “female engi-
neers,” rather than “female and engineer,” viewed their identities as related and pro-
duced solutions that were more creative. Cheng et al. (2008) concluded, “Higher levels
of identity integration—perceived compatibility between two social identities—pre-
dict higher levels of creative performance in tasks that draw on both identity-relevant
knowledge domains” (p. 1178).
Embracing multiple identities has direct implication for music teachers. Research
in music teacher identities has suggested that pre- and in-service music teachers often
struggle to integrate their teaching and musician selves. Music educators often have a
bifurcated self, wrestling between an identity as performer of their primary instrument
and sometimes conductor and composer, and their identity as music teacher (Austin,
Isbell, & Russell, 2012; Bernard, 2004, 2005; Bouij, 2006; Dolloff, 2006; Pellegrino,
2010; Roberts, 2004; Scheib, 2004). Pellegrino (2009) notes, “The literature suggests
that preservice and in-service music educators view themselves first as a performer
and second as a music teacher” (p. 40).
This bifurcation of musician and teacher identities may be a result of the structures
of music schools, which typically foster stable, clearly divided identities. Nettl (2002)
argues, “within the social structure of the Music Building, the concept of ‘studio’ is
much more personalized than that of ‘department.’ A student identifies himself or her-
self as belonging to a particular teacher’s studio” (p. 71). A student’s instrument is
central to the formation of identity. Ensembles, he notes, fulfill a similar social func-
tion by creating and maintaining fissures between band, chorus, and orchestra, and
“select” ensemble from everyone else. This suggests that the careful circumscription
of identities created by the structure of music schools discourages the creative thinking
that is increased by the cultivation of more fluid and integrated identities (Cheng et al.,
2008; Craft, 1997).
For Scheib (2007), music schools’ structures perpetuate this preference and esteem
of performer above teacher, insufficiently preparing students for a career in education.
The structures of schools and the division of musician and teacher may lead to a
decrease in job satisfaction when music education students enter the profession
(Pellegrino, 2011; Russell, 2012; Scheib, 2006). Russell (2009) found that in-service
string educators with a stronger teacher identity, as opposed to musician identity, had
higher job satisfaction. Russell (2012) found that, generally, in-service secondary
music educators had a more integrated musician/educator identity. To counteract this
lack of job satisfaction and other difficulties teachers might find resulting from this

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46 Journal of Music Teacher Education 25(1)

bifurcated identity, Austin et al. (2012) suggest that music teacher educators should
foster a holistic musician/teacher identity. Others have argued for in-service teachers
to integrate their music selves into teaching (Pellegrino, 2011; Scheib, 2006). For
example, Pellegrino (2011) suggests that teachers should receive professional devel-
opment credit for making music with others because it helps them integrate high levels
of musicianship into their teaching and grow as musicians and educators.
A creative pedagogical framework not only supports these researchers’ argument
for the integration of pre- and in-service educators’ musician and teacher identities but
also extends these assertions by suggesting that music educators’ instruction would
also benefit from the purposeful incorporation of nonmusic avocations. Craft (1997)
notes that creative teachers are able to access their “multiple selves,” meaning, as one
participant commented, “You can’t separate yourself from your teaching” (p. 84).
Teacher educators can better prepare preservice students for the demands of teaching
by exploring these music and nonmusic “multiple selves.” Teachers’ identities are pro-
fessional (performer, theorist, composer, pedagogue), personal (amateur chef, golfer,
painter, parent), and social (race, gender, sexuality, class, and able-bodiedness).
Creative music educators engage in a variety of activities both within and outside of
music; they use and combine experiences to positively inform their teaching.
In addition to acknowledging the various attributes in themselves, creative peda-
gogues recognize these qualities in their students. Rather than viewing their students’
roles in the music classroom as fixed around that of “musician,” or more narrowly
around, say, a “theorist,” “performer” of a particular instrument or voice, or “com-
poser” of a specific genre, educators can begin to see students’ desires, goals, and
interests within and outside of music. Creative pedagogues use these various identities
to connect with students and create relevant curricula. This trait is related to the previ-
ous trait of juxtaposing disparate ideas: Creative pedagogues combine their identities
in unique ways. Acknowledging shifting identities also allows for a dialogical rela-
tionship with students.
Music teacher educators may foster this creative melding of identities by asking
students to identify and articulate their varying identities. Students can delineate their
music identities—performer, composer, improviser, theorist—and “nonmusic” identi-
ties—gender, age, class, interests, and hobbies. Coming to view their identities as com-
plex, multifaceted, and intersecting will help them approach future students and
teaching in more creative ways. Furthermore, imagining and creating curricula and
instruction that acknowledge the various and intersecting identities of themselves and
their students may spark pedagogical creativity. Music teacher educators might invite
pre- and in-service educators to combine identities in education by asking questions
like, “How would you teach ritornello form to someone who is a chef? What analogies
might you use?” Students can be asked to identify a personal identity to combine with
their musician identity, and use it to construct a lesson. For example, a student might be
an athlete, as well as a performer. Their knowledge of physical training can be used to
construct an innovative lesson on practicing strategies. Students could also interview an
elementary or secondary student, asking them about their personal interests, as a means
of finding ways to motivate their at-home practice and participation in class.

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Abramo and Reynolds 47

Disposition Core Practice

Responsiveness and attentive- Demonstrate fluency, flexibility, a “keen sense of observa-
ness tion,” and responds in the moment to students’ actions and
input in a process of “disciplined improvisation” (Beghetto
& Kaufman, 2011; Craft, 1997; Halliwell, 1993; Hansen,
2005; Horng et al., 2005, Sawyer, 2004).
Embracing ambiguity Use instability and tension to create positive products and
processes for themselves and their students (Chirumbolo
et al., 2004; Fromm, 1959; Rogers, 1959; Wiersema et al.,
2012).
Juxtaposing ideas Combine and reorganize a variety of differing conceptual
frameworks and seemingly disparate ideas to create in-
struction and guide the epistemology of curricula (Gordon,
1961; Khatena & Torrance, 1973; Mednick, 1962; Treffinger
et al., 2000).
Embracing of multiple and in- Call upon these identities to devise innovative curricula and
tersecting identities of them- instruction and to connect with students (Cheng et al.,
selves and their students 2008; Craft, 1997).

Figure 1.  Dispositions and core practices of creative music pedagogues.

Conclusion
The previous exposition of creative traits suggests the following dispositions and core
practices listed in Figure 1.
Although this is not an exhaustive review or a complete list of all creativity, these
traits serve as a framework for music teacher educators to help students cultivate cre-
ative dispositions and acquire and refine core practices.
The specific language of “creativity” is particularly important in these aims.
Although many teacher educators may stress some or all of these traits, it is beneficial
to explicitly describe these traits as “creative” because creativity has cultural capital,
and in particular, music creativity is important to students. Great performers and com-
posers are often admired for their “Creativity” (with a capital C). Stressing educators’
work as purposefully creative and explicitly inviting students to be “creative peda-
gogues,” similar to creative composers or performers, is a metaphor that students can
use to conceptualize their dynamic roles as educators.
These creative pedagogical traits may also be placed on music making. Relishing
ambiguity, cultivating responsiveness, and combining disparate elements may aid stu-
dents in the cultivation of their musicianships. Emphasizing this crossover may make
these ideas palatable to reluctant students. For students who believe aiming for inno-
vation risks abandoning tradition, demonstrating that the history of music practice is
built on innovation and creativity is an effective way for them to similarly conceive of
pedagogical practice. In addition, for students who identify as musician above educa-
tor, highlighting that these ideas benefit their musicianships provides an avenue for
them to become interested in creative pedagogy. This is another reason it is beneficial

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48 Journal of Music Teacher Education 25(1)

for teacher educators to explicitly use the language of “creativity” and of becoming a
“creative pedagogue.”
Approaching music teacher education as a process of becoming a creative peda-
gogue can serve as a complement to the cultivation of creativity in performance, com-
position, and improvisation. Stressing that the development of their creativity as a
pedagogue is independent of, albeit related to, their creative music development allows
students to nurture their teaching. Creative musicianship is different from creative
pedagogy, and teacher educators can and should encourage specific dispositions and
core practices in the development of pre- and in-service teachers.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of
this article.

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