How to be a Creative Crab

Creativity is a vital skill needed for a prosperous life in the 21st century. Where else to cultivate it but through music? Through the exploration of sounds, within a workshop, where the outcome is the creation of a musical piece that is not only of value but also original to the creator themselves, the researcher attempted to determine just that - How the creative music making process of students aged 9 to 14 can be guided with the utilization of electronic sound generators. Why electronic sound generators as instruments for creative music making? Because of the way they function, lending themselves out to exploration and inviting their user into a world of unfamiliar and intriguing sound possibilities. As a result of their hands-on, portable, easy to manipulate, unbiased and invitational properties electronic sound generators are ideal for anyone to participate in developing sound awareness leading toward the formulation of a creative product. The Crab Music workshop was designed and actualized by the researcher as a platform from within which the outcome of the research investigation could be determined. The researcher used three workshops as a case study to investigate, through the principles of action research, an outcome for the research question. Each workshop was analysed with the aim of determining if the guidance strategies employed were successful and where improvements could be made. Once determined, these improvements were implemented into the subsequent workshops as adjustments. As a result of the research it was found that all aspects of the workshop’s content and context needed to be focused on sound. Therefore, the incorporation of sound exploration and application activities designed to focus on sonic associations and musical development, instrument setup and focus on instruments sound production, sound analysis activities, specific sound related reflective questions, reflective listening activities and suggestions for sonic alterations and transformations, setting up problem-solving contexts with multiple possibilities for solutions and with ample time for development, was essential for the creative music making process to be successful. It was established that within a sound exploration workshop there will always be multiple factors that influence the creative music making process in various ways. But, it is the workshop teacher’s responsibility to have sufficient knowledge and skills to be aware of all these contributing factors in order to plan and carry out the goal of successfully guiding the creative music making process as it occurs.