Developing musical creativity in the social world

Marilyn Zimmerman's pioneering work on the applications of Piagetian theory to the study of children's musical development has had a profound impact, and has stimulated a body of empirical research which is still growing. In this paper I should like to make an appraisal of Zimmerman's contribution s ome 40 years after her original studies, and to look at some current and fu ture developments. It falls into three main parts. First, I shall briefly r eview Zimmerman's pioneering work on "music conservation," and describe a r ecent original study which investigates the effects of changing the mode of stimulus transformation on children's performance. This leads to a more ge neral consideration of the current status of the Piagetian model in explain ing musical development, and two issues in particular: the implications of the sociocultural perspective, and the study of musical creativity. The fin al section focuses on the latter, and develops the concept of improvisation al thinking as a key source of everyday creativity. This is illustrated and "unpacked" by means of a detailed analysis of a short collaborative blues improvisation by a musician (myself) and my two preschool children.