doi: 10.56294/sctconf20241096

 

Categoría: Category: Arts and Humanities

 

ORIGINAL

 

An analysis on the factors of teachers’ influence on the musical creativity of college students in Zhejiang University Music Association

 

Un análisis de los factores de influencia de los profesores en la creatividad musical de los estudiantes universitarios de la asociación de música de la Universidad De Zhejiang

 

Hu Yingmin1,2, Jiang Man1 *

 

1Chinese International College of Dhurakij Pundit University. Bangkok,10310, Thailand.

2Ningbo City College of Vocational Technology. Ningbo,15200, China.

 

Cite as: Yingmin H, Man J. An analysis on the factors of teachers’ influence on the musical creativity of college students in Zhejiang University Music Association. Salud, Ciencia y Tecnología - Serie de Conferencias. 2024; 3:1096. https://doi.org/10.56294/sctconf20241096  

 

Submitted: 12-02-2024          Revised: 09-05-2024          Accepted: 11-07-2024          Published: 12-07-2024

 

Editor: Dr. William Castillo-González

 

ABSTRACT

 

In the wave of new educational curriculum reform, exploring how to stimulate and cultivate college students’ musical creativity has become an important topic that cannot be ignored. In order to achieve this goal, we must focus on enhancing the innovative ability and consciousness of college students, which is the key to cultivate their musical creativity. This study takes the students in the music clubs of colleges and universities in Zhejiang as the object, and discusses the influencing factors of the creativity of music creation from the perspective of teachers. Through the establishment and analysis of the structural model, it is found that teachers’ intelligence, personality, motivation, knowledge and skills, diversity of music preferences, social and cultural tendencies and other factors have significant effects on students’ musical creativity. Among them, long-term memory and retrieval ability, openness to experience, internal motivation, diversity of music preferences and sociocultural tendency have positive effects on music creativity. Based on the research results, this paper puts forward specific educational countermeasures and suggestions, aiming to stimulate students’ musical creativity comprehensively and improve the quality of music education through innovative teaching methods, changing the role of teachers, weakening the sense of competition in learning, integrating collective culture and other measures. This study not only enriches the theoretical system of musical creativity, but also points out the direction of college music community education practice, and provides valuable inspiration and practical reference.

 

Keywords: Music Creation Creativity; Influencing Factors; Structure Model; Educational Countermeasure.

 

RESUMEN

 

En la ola de nuevas reformas curriculares educativas, explorar cómo estimular y cultivar la creatividad musical de los estudiantes universitarios se ha convertido en un tema importante que no se puede ignorar. Para lograr este objetivo, debemos centrarnos en mejorar la capacidad innovadora y la conciencia de los estudiantes universitarios, que es la clave para cultivar su creatividad musical. Este estudio toma como objeto a los estudiantes de los clubes de música de colegios y universidades de Zhejiang y analiza los factores que influyen en la creatividad de la creación musical desde la perspectiva de los profesores. A través del establecimiento y análisis del modelo estructural, se encuentra que la inteligencia, la personalidad, la motivación, el conocimiento y las habilidades de los docentes, la diversidad de preferencias musicales, las tendencias sociales y culturales y otros factores tienen efectos significativos en la creatividad musical de los estudiantes. Entre ellos, la memoria a largo plazo y la capacidad de recuperación, la apertura a la

la motivación interna, la diversidad de preferencias musicales y las tendencias socioculturales tienen efectos positivos en la creatividad musical. Con base en los resultados de la investigación, este artículo propone contramedidas y sugerencias educativas específicas, con el objetivo de estimular la creatividad musical de los estudiantes de manera integral y mejorar la calidad de la educación musical a través de métodos de enseñanza innovadores, cambiando el papel de los profesores, debilitando el sentido de competencia en el aprendizaje. integración de la cultura colectiva y otras medidas. Este estudio no solo enriquece el sistema teórico de la creatividad musical, sino que también señala la dirección de la práctica de la educación comunitaria musical universitaria y proporciona valiosa inspiración y referencia práctica.

 

Palabras clave: Creatividad en la Creación Musical; Factores que Influyen; Modelo de Estructura; Contramedida Educativa.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION

As an important carrier of human culture, music has been carrying multiple functions such as expressing emotion, inheriting culture and enlightening wisdom since ancient times. With the development of The Times, music creation is no longer limited to the traditional mode, but increasingly shows its diversified and personalized characteristics. In the field of higher education, music majors not only focus on cultivating students’ musical performance skills, but also focus on stimulating students’ musical creation potential and innovative thinking (Zhao Min, 2024).(1) As the core element of music art, music creativity plays an irreplaceable role in the all-round development of students. However, it is not easy to cultivate musical creativity, which is influenced by many factors such as students’ personal characteristics, educational environment and cultural background (Cheng Nina, 2024).(2) Therefore, an in-depth study of college students’ musical creativity and its influencing factors is of great significance for improving the quality of music education and promoting the development of music art (Tang Sheng, 2023).(3)

This study takes the students in the music community of colleges and universities in Zhejiang as the entry point for the study of musical creativity. By examining the personal situation, psychological characteristics, music major learning status and environment of the students in the music community of colleges and universities in Zhejiang, based on the perspective of teachers, this study attempts to reveal the composition of the group’s musical creativity with a structural model, and quantitatively measures the correlation degree with a multiple linear regression model. And screen out the factors that have causal influence on music creativity. Experiment method is used to test the causal relationship between variables. In the process of experiment, observe and analyze the effect of control variables on the dependent variables. Students’ musical creativity level was assessed according to the subjects’ completion of the task (Bai Yun, Wu Tingting et al., 2023).(4) The dependent variable in the experiment is the individual musical creativity of the subjects, and the independent variable is the intelligence and personality of the subjects measured by the scale.

Under the background of music associations in colleges and universities in Zhejiang, China, this paper discusses the influence on college students’ musical creativity from the perspective of teachers, which not only helps to deeply understand the inherent laws of music education, but also provides targeted strategies and suggestions for enhancing college students’ musical creativity. It is expected to provide beneficial enlightenment for the educational practice of Chinese college music associations, promote the all-round development of college students’ musical creativity, and further promote the prosperity and progress of social music culture.

 

Related concepts

Musical creativity is the concrete expression of creativity in the field of music. Some scholars believe that musical creativity refers to the ability to produce new, unique, applicable and valuable musical works. People often equate musical creativity with creativity in music creation, despise or even negate the creative behavior in other musical activities; Or people think that music creation is necessarily creative. Both views are one-sided (Wang Yiyang, 2023).(5)

With the music industry and entertainment, games, edition, film and television industry mutual penetration, music creativity has been widely existing in all music activities, including music creation, performance, listening; Music product production and dissemination; Music education and various music theory research. Some scholars believe that the play of individual musical creativity is decisively influenced by the field in which they live (Fang Xiaojun, 2023).(6) Different fields mean different kinds and forms of musical activities. Music professionals are most creative when they are in their most comfortable field, when they are engaged in their favorite musical activities.

In the music associations of colleges and universities in Zhejiang, China, teachers play an important role in the cultivation of college students’ musical creativity. In this study, four key demographic variables and nine factors closely related to the dependent variable of musical creativity will be deeply explored.

 

Method

This study takes the musical creativity of college students as the dependent variable of multiple linear research, and the alternative independent variables include 4 demographic variables and 9 factors related to teachers: intelligence, personality, motivation, knowledge and skills, mental health, professional knowledge and skills of music, diversity of music preferences, school environment and social and cultural tendencies.

 

Research object and implementation

This study adopts random sample selection, and tries to ensure that the number of subjects in each demographic variable is balanced, so as to increase the representativeness of the subjects. After screening, the number of subjects in this study was 96, aged between 18 and 25 years old, and all of them were studying in universities or comprehensive universities in Zhejiang. In this study, the nine subscales and the questionnaire of influencing factors of students’ musical creativity were published through the Internet; All subjects were required to fill out the questionnaires in the same order, and 96 questionnaires were collected with a recovery rate of 100%. The number of female students in the sample group of major type is more (65,2 %), and most of them are liberal arts students in high school (82,6 %). The subjects mainly majored in composition, music performance, musicology and other majors.

 

Research tools

In this study, nine independent subscales were used to measure nine alternative independent variables except demographic variables, as shown in table 1.

 

Table 1. Independent subscale measurement

No.

Scale

Scale Dimensions (title)

Measurement Factors

1

Cognitive Ability Test (3rd Edition)

The “long-term memory and Retrieval” dimension

Intelligence

2

Big Five Personality Inventory

 

 

3

Academic self-regulation questionnaire;

Academic Motivation Scale

The “internal motivation” dimension;

The dimension of “external motivation”;

Internal motivation

External motivation

4

National civil servant recruitment examination review special textbooks of some common sense test questions

 

Knowledge and Skills

5

Eysenck Personality Questionnaire

The “psychotropic” dimension

Mental health

6

Grades in courses related to music creation skills

 

Music professional knowledge skills

7

Music aesthetic preference and personality comprehensive scale

 

Professional knowledge and skills of music

8

Teacher’s teaching style questionnaire and several self-written questions

 

School environment

9

Individualism and collectivism Scales

 

Sociocultural tendencies

 

 

Reliability and validity analysis

Reliability mainly refers to the stability and consistency of measurement results. In this study, the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the overall internal consistency reliability of the scale was 0,83, which is a relatively high value. It is generally considered that Cronbach’s α coefficient above 0,7 is acceptable, indicating good reliability of the scale. Therefore, it can be considered that the scale used in this study has a high internal consistency, and the measurement results are stable and reliable.

Validity refers to the degree to which the measuring tool can accurately measure what it wants to measure. In this study, multiple linear regression analysis was used to explore the factors affecting the creativity of music creation, so as to verify the validity of the scale. The bartlett sphericity test was significant, and the KMO test value was.81, indicating that there was a strong correlation between the variables, which was very suitable for factor analysis.

Therefore, the scale used in this study showed good performance in terms of reliability and validity. Through multiple linear regression analysis, the key factors affecting the creativity of music creation are successfully identified, which provides a valuable reference for further research and practice.

 

results

After the test and data collection were completed, the data were preliminarily processed to screen out the alternative independent variables that were significantly related to music creativity; Then, multiple linear regression analysis was carried out, and multiple linear regression model was established and analyzed. Among the alternative independent variables of the multiple linear regression model, the chi-square test results of each variable and the total score of musical creativity are shown in table 2:

 

Table 2. Chi-square test of qualitative variables

Variable name

Variable Factors

Number of people

percent

X2

p

Gender

male

33

34,8

16,46

69.

 

female

63

65,2

 

 

Age

Under 20 years old

42

43,5

44,52

29.

 

Ages 21-23

33

34,8

 

 

 

Over 23 years old

21

21,7

 

 

Type of Specialty

Composition major

24

25,0

78,78 *

.05

 

Music Performance major

34

35,9

 

 

 

Musicology major

23

23,9

 

 

 

Other majors

15

15,2

 

 

High School Arts and Sciences

Liberal Arts

79

82,6

18,91

53.

 

Science

17

17,4

 

 

College entrance examination cultural course score

501 or above

17

17,4

63,71

35.

 

451-500.

24

25,0

 

 

 

401-450.

29

30,4

 

 

 

Under 400

26

27,2

 

 

Other specialties

Not good at any activity

7

7,6

122,36

42.

 

Be good at Type 1 activities

14

14,1

 

 

 

Be good at 2 types of activities

29

30,4

 

 

 

Excel in Category 3 activities

29

30,4

 

 

 

Be good at Category 4 activities

13

13,0

 

 

 

Be good at Category 5 activities

3

3,3

 

 

 

Be good at 6 types of activities

1

1,1

 

 

Music expertise skills

Under 70

23

23,9

77,98

0,6

 

70-80.

26

27,2

 

 

 

80-90.

27

28,3

 

 

 

Over 90

20

20,7

 

 

Sociocultural tendencies

Vertical individualism

20

20,7

93,98 * * * *

0

 

Horizontal individualism

27

28,3

 

 

 

Horizontal collectivism

28

29,3

 

 

 

Vertical collectivism

21

21,7

 

 

Note: (1) Sample size n=92; (2)*p<0,05        , **p< 0,01         , ***p<0,005        , ****p<0,001.

 

The correlations between all alternative independent variables and individual scores and total scores of musical creativity are shown in table 3. Each index of musical creativity of the subjects was significantly correlated with the total score, and the greater the absolute value of the coefficient, the stronger the correlation. The * after the correlation coefficient indicates that the two variables are weakly correlated, and ** indicates that the correlation is strong. Therefore, in the multiple linear regression model of this study, this total score represents the musical creativity Y of the subjects.

This study explores the factors that influence the musical creativity of students in clubs, and constructs a multiple linear regression model to analyze the correlation between them. At the intelligence level, the long-term memory and retrieval ability in the CHC intelligence theory are adopted as key indicators, and it is found that they are significantly correlated with musical creativity, so it is set as the intelligence factor X1 in the model; The dimension of openness to experience in the Big Five personality theory is chosen as the representative of personality factor. Its six sub-factors and total score are significantly related to musical creativity, so it is regarded as personality factor X2; In terms of motivation, both internal motivation and external motivation are significantly related to musical creativity, and the total score obtained by adding them together is regarded as motivation factor X3; In terms of knowledge and skill, only “other specialty” has a significant relationship with musical creativity, so it is chosen as the knowledge and skill factor X4; At the same time, the “mental quality” dimension of Eysenck personality questionnaire, the average score of undergraduate music creation courses, and the diversity of music preferences assessed by a specific scale, as mental health factor X5, music professional knowledge and skill factor X6 and diversity of music preferences X7, respectively, showed a significant relationship with music creativity. Among the school environment factors, the radical subfactor had the most significant relationship with music creativity, so it was selected as the school environment factor X8; Based on INDCOL scale and Wu Mingxia’s measurement, the socio-cultural tendency of the subjects was determined and found to have a significant relationship with musical creativity, and was set as X9; Among the demographic indicators, major type was significantly correlated with musical creativity, as X10.

In summary, through careful selection and in-depth analysis, nine factors that are significantly related to musical creativity are identified, and a multiple linear regression model is successfully constructed, which provides a powerful tool for further exploring the influencing factors of musical creativity.

 

Table 3. Shows the correlation coefficients between subjects’ respective variables and their musical creativity

 

Variable

Fluency

Flexibility

Systematicness

Appropriateness

Uniqueness

Value

Total points

Demographic variables

sex

- 020.

122.

- 131.

030.

- 033.

001.

- 011.

 

Age *1

140.

106.

270.

- 025.

027.

073.

210.

 

Major type *1

- 316.

- 127.

- 299.

- 144.

- 145.

- 237.

- 453.

 

High school Arts and Sciences

013.

- 069.

074.

014.

060.

008.

036.

Music creation creativity

 

531.

472.

429.

389.

526.

453.

 

Long term memory and Extraction *1

 

513.

332.

144.

135.

271.

156.

567.

Openness to experience

Total score *1

634.

260.

189.

179.

249.

209.

630.

Motivation

Total score *1

500.

058.

183.

018.

256.

217.

453.

Knowledge skills

Other strengths *1

411.

140.

176.

023.

271.

207.

447.

Mental Health *1

 

- 320 * *

011.

- 208 *

- 060.

- 201.

- 315 * *

- 392 * *

Music Expertise Skills *1

 

294.

402.

123.

261.

260.

149.

535.

Variety of music preferences *1

 

286.

409.

128.

239.

248.

127.

517.

School environment

Radical Type *1

486.

128.

218.

019.

247.

196.

474.

Sociocultural orientation *1

 

113.

371.

265.

283.

326.

248.

564.

Note: Sample size n=92; *p<0,05, **p< 0,01.

 

 

Establishment of multiple linear regression model of music creation creativity

The entry method of multiple linear regression analysis was adopted, with the total score Y of the subjects’ music creation and creativity as the dependent variable, intelligence X1, personality X2, motivation X3, knowledge and skill X4, mental health X5, music professional knowledge and skill X6, diversity of music preferences X7, school environment X8, social and cultural tendency X9, major type X10 as the independent variable. The analysis results are shown in table 4.

In the multiple linear regression equation, there is an inverse relationship between the tolerance of independent variable and multicollinearity, that is, the higher the tolerance and the lower the variance inflation factor (VIF), the less significant the multicollinearity phenomenon. The generally accepted standard of tolerance is no less than 0,1, while the ideal value of VIF should be less than 5. According to the collinear statistical analysis in Table 4, it can be judged that there is no significant multicollinearity problem in this model, which means that the respective variables remain relatively independent and there is no obvious linear correlation between them.

 

Table 4. Linear regression analysis results of respective variables and dependent variables

 

Regression coefficient

Standard Error

Standard partial regression coefficient

t

p

Collinear statistics

Tolerances

VIF

Constant a

37,428

3,818

 

9,802

0

 

 

X1

054.

022.

191.

2,485

015.

626.

1,596

X2

118.

039.

281.

3,057

003.

434.

2,303

X3

- 976.

331.

- 197.

2,949

004.

824.

1,214

X4

- 351.

402.

- 088.

- 874.

385.

360.

2,775

X5

- 012.

074.

- 010.

- 156.

876.

909.

1,100

X6

307.

419.

066.

734.

465.

457.

2,187

X7

058.

027.

172.

2,154

034.

582.

1,718

X8

008.

092.

009.

- 083.

934.

333.

3,007

X9

1,567

332.

330.

4,718

000.

755.

1,325

X10

110.

076.

137.

1,445

152.

412.

2,425

R square

707.

Adjust R square

663.

Durbin-Watson

2,086

 

 

 

Among the 10 alternative independent variables, X1, X2, X2, X3, X7 and X9 have significant influence on the music creation creativity of music majors (QV0,05). Using these five independent variables to reconstruct the multiple linear regression model (table), the equation can be obtained: Y = 40,366 + 0,058 X1 + 0,140 X2-1,074 X3 X7 + 0,060 + 1,574 X9

 

Table 5. Parameter estimation results of the multiple linear regression model

 

Regression coefficient

Standard Error

Standard partial regression coefficient

t

p

Collinearity statistics

Tolerances

VIF

Constant a

40,366

2,397

 

16,837

000.

 

 

X1

058.

021.

203.

2,767

007.

658.

1,519

X2

140.

030.

334.

4,576

000.

667.

1,500

X3

1,074

312.

- 217.

3,439

001.

891.

1,122

X7

060.

022.

177.

2,689

009.

824.

1,213

X9

1,574

308.

331.

5,117

000.

847.

1,180

R square

694.

Adjust R square

677.

Durbin-Watson

2,050

 

 

 

DISCUSSION

Musical creativity is a multi-dimensional and complex ability influenced by many factors. From intelligence, personality and motivation, to the diversity of music preferences and social and cultural tendencies, these factors all shape and influence individual music creation to varying degrees. In the ecology of creativity, teachers play an extremely important role. They not only impart knowledge, but also shape and guide students’ music creation. Teachers need to be perceptive, identify and encourage their students’ uniqueness, provide support, maintain their individuality and meet social and cultural expectations. Through professional teaching, activity organization and cultural guidance, teachers should nurture students’ musical creativity in an all-round way, and cultivate talents with solid skills and innovative spirit.

 

The influence mechanism of intelligence on musical creativity and the role of teachers in it

Under the CHC theory of intelligence, creativity is closely related to long-term memory. Long-term memory has a huge capacity and depends on efficient storage of information, fast retrieval and resistance to forgetting. Compared with short-term memory, information in long-term memory has more personal meaning, forming deep “associative memory”. In music creation, the creators need to accurately extract information from long-term memory, which enhances the creativity of the works. High creatives can suppress the interference of dominant information and establish new connections in memory, explaining the process of “gestation” (Yang Xiyuan, 2023).(7) Therefore, strong long-term memory and efficient retrieval ability are essential for musical creativity.

The study further suggests that the frontal cortex was more active when musicians engaged in creative thinking, providing further evidence that creativity requires intellectual support. The fluency and flexibility of music creation largely depend on the speed at which the creator memorizes and retrieves musical knowledge. Those musicians who pursue innovation will carefully sift their knowledge reserves to find and create novel combinations (Lv Binbin, 2023).(8) Therefore, the works of individuals with superior long-term memory and retrieval abilities tend to be more unique and creative.

In this process, the role of teachers cannot be ignored. They can not only strengthen students’ long-term memory and retrieval ability through professional teaching and training, but also guide students on how to effectively search and extract information from memory, thus inspiring more creative inspiration. In addition, teachers can also help students build up a rich reserve of music knowledge, improve their understanding and perception of music, and provide a broader source of material and inspiration for music creation. Therefore, teachers play a vital role in cultivating students’ musical creativity.

 

The influence mechanism of personality on music creativity and the guiding role of teachers

Highly creative people usually possess the characteristics of self-confidence, autonomy and steadiness, and show a strong determination to work independently. These excellent personality traits enable them to think outside the traditional framework, innovate ideas, achieve effective self-supervision and control, while maintaining a continuous passion for creation. In college music majors, when students exhibit these characteristics, their works tend to exude a unique creative temperament (Kong Deying, 2023).(9)

These students are aggressive and their works can deeply reflect their indomitable spirit; They are full of curiosity and desire to explore unknown areas, which makes their works extremely smooth; They pursue unique ways of thinking and acting to inject novel themes into their works. At the same time, they are full of love and dedication to music creation, giving their works high artistic value (Gao Wei, 2022).(10) It is this confidence and courage that make them dare to break the rules and use deviant musical elements and techniques to create unique music works.

In this process, teachers play an important role in guiding them. First of all, through daily teaching and interaction, teachers can find and encourage students to show self-confidence, autonomy, stability and other positive personality traits. Secondly, teachers can design challenging music creation tasks to stimulate students’ initiative, curiosity and desire to explore, thus improving the fluency and novelty of the works. In addition, teachers can cultivate students’ love for and devotion to music creation by sharing the creative stories and experiences of music masters, thereby enhancing the artistic value of the works. Finally, teachers should encourage students to have the courage to try different musical elements and techniques, break the shackles of tradition, and create truly unique music works. Therefore, teachers play an irreplaceable role in shaping students’ personality traits and guiding students’ music creation direction.

 

The influence mechanism of motivation on music creativity and the guiding role of teachers in it

As the core driving force of creative activities, creative motivation has a profound impact on the expectations, evaluations and experiences of creators. In music creation, the motivation can come from the deep love and pursuit, or it can be the external environment or the expectations and requirements of others. For college music club students, their creative motivation has a profound impact on the development of their creativity (Tan Zhilin, 2022).(11) Internal and external motivations have a profound impact on students’ music creation activities. Self-directed students have the courage to innovate and challenge, control-oriented students are limited by external evaluation, and non-individual-oriented students may be limited in creativity due to external pressure. Internal motivation stems from the three basic needs of autonomy, ability and belonging (Ding Shuang, 2022),(12) which are innate human needs that are essential for mental health and work together to push students to be creative in music creation. College students’ “three perspectives” have a deep influence on their creative motivation and are closely linked to their emotions and needs. Positive “three views” stimulate spontaneous creation and creative pursuit, while excessive pursuit of external goals may lead to conservative creation. According to the self-determination theory, internal and external motivations act on music creation together, and different types of external motivations have complex relationships with internal motivations, which can either enhance or weaken them (Qiu Dongyan, 2022).(13)

For college music community students, the source, attribution and intensity of motivation are crucial to the development of their creative activities. Teachers can help students transform external forces into internal motivations, which can effectively promote their music creation. By stimulating students’ internal motivation, teachers help them form a virtuous circular mental system conducive to the development of creativity.

 

The influence mechanism of music preference diversity on music creativity and the guiding role of teachers

The diversity of music preferences has a significant impact on music creativity. Students’ favorite music style will directly affect their creative mentality: simple music style may bring a relaxed and pleasant creative atmosphere, while complex music style may stimulate students’ curiosity and desire to explore. This diversity of preferences not only guides students to pursue their favorite music field in depth, for example, students who are keen on rock music are more inclined to participate in related activities and actively seek practical opportunities, thus deepening their learning, but also encourages them to create music works with more personality and creativity.

The diversity of music preferences has a profound impact on students’ creativity and is closely related to their identity. A wide range of preferences makes it easier for students to see themselves as “musicians” and pushes them to pursue innovation and uniqueness in their creations. This will not only maintain their creative enthusiasm, but also gain more support from the society. But diversity also brings challenges. While it provides exposure to a wide range of musical styles, the absence of a clear professional direction may limit a student’s creativity in a particular field. Therefore, it is important for students to focus on a specific area, to study a particular style in depth, and to improve their creative skills.

In this process, the guiding role of teachers is crucial. Teachers adopt diversified teaching strategies, including planning various forms of music activities and recommending music works covering different styles, aiming to broaden students’ musical horizons, stimulate their interest in music, and provide them with rich and diverse materials for music creation. At the same time, teachers can help students clear their major direction and encourage them to dig deep into and study the music field they really love on the basis of a wide range of dabblings. Through such guidance and support, teachers can help students make better use of the diversity of music preferences and enhance their creativity in music creation.

 

The influence of sociocultural tendencies on musical creativity and the guiding role of teachers

Social cultural tendency has a profound influence on individual musical creativity. In the context of China’s collectivist culture, although there are factors such as group dependence and conformity behavior that may suppress creativity, there are also traits such as diligence, mutual assistance and information sharing that can stimulate creativity (Yang Lu, 2022).(14) This culture does not seek a radical break with tradition, but rather encourages innovation on the basis of respecting and inheriting tradition. Students need to have a deep understanding of this cultural background in order to explore new breakthrough points in the inheritance, and thus enhance the novelty and creativity of their musical works.

Chinese culture places special emphasis on the usefulness of creativity and the value of its contribution to society. The Confucian principles of “cultivating qi and managing peace” and “the mean” guide individuals to give full play to creativity while adapting to the objective environment, which has positive guiding significance for music creation (Liu Chunhong, Cao Lili et al., 2022).(15) In a collectivist cultural atmosphere, students tend to pay more attention to the applicability of their works when creating music, in order to meet social expectations and gain recognition from others.

Under this social and cultural background, teachers play a pivotal role in cultivating students’ musical creativity. By encouraging students to have the courage to show their individuality, accept the uncertainty in music creation, and appropriately weaken the blind obedience to authority, teachers help students release and give full play to their creativity in music creation. At the same time, teachers can also guide students to deeply understand and respect traditional culture, draw inspiration from it, and innovate on the basis of tradition, so as to create music works with both cultural deposits and new ideas. Through such guidance and education, teachers can help students better adapt to the social and cultural environment, and at the same time fully display and enhance their musical creativity.

 

EDUCATIONAL COUNTERMEASURES AND SUGGESTIONS

Teachers should encourage students to innovate, improve their creativity, and affirm their creativity. Enhance students’ learning initiative, attach importance to their uniqueness, and organize communication activities. Teachers should be professional and have a wide range of interests to make teaching lively. By stimulating interest, helping students to express themselves confidently, developing a variety of motivational ways, and fostering musical creativity.

 

Stimulate the creativity of music creation at different levels

Encouraging students to display their musical mini-creativity can enhance confidence, promote innovation, and facilitate self-reflection and creative sharing. Teachers can guide students to find interesting themes and techniques, freely generate music creativity, reduce evaluation pressure, encourage students to create independently and seek help, so as to deepen music understanding and promote innovation atmosphere. Teachers can specially design teaching activities closely related to music creation. They can also invite composers or composition theorists to hold lectures, so as to promote students’ understanding of professional music creation creativity by letting them understand the process of music creation and the knowledge and experience required. These activities, both inside and outside the classroom, can stimulate and sustain students’ willingness to express creativity in music making in the long run.

Teachers can use outstanding composers as role models, and by reviewing their evolution from mini creativity to great creativity and the help, setbacks and opportunities they encountered along the way, students can understand the full trajectory of creativity development in music making. In sharing these examples, teachers need to dispel students’ misconceptions about music-making; It should be emphasized that most musical masterpieces are the result of a composer’s long training and hard work, and require certain social support and opportunities.

 

Innovate teaching and cooperation to encourage creativity and diversity

With the popularity of cross-border cooperation in the field of music, cooperation between music teachers and professional musicians is becoming more common in school music education. Due to the different ways of understanding and teaching musical creativity, this collaboration opens up a variety of forms and provides new perspectives for observing musical creativity. For example, some musicians believe that “teaching” does not foster creativity, preferring to view interactions with students as “conversational improvisation” or a “game of strategy”. In this interaction, musicians propose musical ideas to students and give rapid feedback on their thinking, so that students can participate in music creation and other activities with professional musicians and peers. This kind of cooperation not only enriches music teaching, but also opens up new ways to cultivate students’ musical creativity.

Improvisation plays an important role in music teaching to enhance students’ knowledge and skills and stimulate their creativity. The process is synchronized with the product, and the guidance and evaluation need to be immediate and more challenging. Combining the professional ability of musicians with the teaching skills of teachers can help students freely construct and present creative ideas in improvisation, improve completeness and rationality, and complement each other in group cooperation.

 

Changing the role of teachers to enhance their sense of autonomy

Although teacher-student relations are becoming more and more equal, the traditional concept of “the dignity of teachers” still has a profound influence, leading students to regard teachers as authorities, and teachers do not respect students’ individuality. This relationship inhibits students’ creative thinking and adventurous spirit. However, modern educational practice has turned to teacher-student cooperation to jointly stimulate new ideas, deepen teaching and promote positive changes in teacher-student relationship.

Music creation teaching is no exception. According to the scientific theory of learning, students can actively construct the learning environment in the process of continuous exploration and verification of music knowledge, thus developing the creativity of music creation. The music creation classroom under the guidance of scientific learning theories emphasizes students’ internalization of music creation knowledge, searching for the potential relations and rules between new and old knowledge, and integrating them into an interactive knowledge system; Students also need to start from the knowledge system, acquire new creative experience and ideas through spontaneous music creation, and constantly reflect on their own knowledge system and learning methods during the whole learning process. In such a classroom, the role of teachers is no longer to act as “evangelists” imparts knowledge, but to guide students to understand the current knowledge in the context of music discipline, social background and historical background, so that students can feel the historical and realistic significance of music creation, and enhance their independent learning ability and creativity. Such a new teaching relationship puts forward higher requirements for music creation teachers: they not only need good professional standards, but also should develop their own teaching methods and procedures, so that students can appreciate the techniques and ideas of music creation through independent learning, and carry out creative music creation.

 

Dilute the sense of competition in learning and enhance the sense of achievement

In a music class, competition as an external stimulus may damage the intrinsic value of music. Music creation teaching should focus on the artistic properties of music, and excessive competition may deviate from this goal. Music performance and creation involve factors such as skill, style, emotion and culture, which are difficult to be accurately measured by scores and reviews. Too much emphasis on competition can lead to students’ narrow musical perspective and inhibit self-expression. Music creation is an adventure, and excessive competition can make students afraid to try creative techniques. In addition, teachers’ personal preferences may influence students invisibly, leading them to give up better ways of composing in order to satisfy the teachers. Although competition provides short-term quantitative feedback, it may transform internal motivation into external motivation, turning students’ lasting interest in music into a superficial pursuit of “correctness” and “victory”, which affects the focus and persistence of learning.

In the teaching of music creation, excessive competition will weaken the mutual assistance and sharing among students. By setting a common goal, such as creating better music, students can express themselves more freely without the pressure of competition, increase their sense of pride and accomplishment, and promote group cooperation and interpersonal relationships. Of course, a moderate level of competition can stimulate students’ initial interest in music creation and clarify their knowledge and skills. Therefore, teachers can divide students into groups, and guide students with low ability to regard music as a tool to express their ideas and personalities, so as to reduce frustration. By learning the background of music works and creative ideas, students can have a deeper understanding of the intrinsic value of music and improve their skills and creativity. This kind of teaching is far more impactful in the long run than simply competitive rewards.

 

Integrate collective culture to stimulate musical creativity in an all-round way

When cultivating music students’ creativity, teachers should integrate collectivist culture and emphasize the close connection and contribution of music and society. Teachers should build an open and inclusive communication platform, promote information sharing and experience exchange among students, and jointly explore the possibilities of music. Through collective wisdom, combining traditional and modern elements, music inheritance and innovation can be realized. In teaching, teachers should weaken the authority, encourage students to think independently, challenge the traditional creative mode, and create a relaxed and free creative environment to let students fully release their creative passion.

When evaluating students’ music works, teachers should adopt diversified evaluation criteria, focusing not only on the novelty and technicality of the works, but also on their social value and creative process. Through comprehensive evaluation, students should be guided to pay attention to the social influence and artistic value of the works, so as to promote the all-round development of music creation. In addition, combined with social practice activities, teachers can allow students to present music works to the public for social inspection and evaluation. This can not only improve the practicability of students’ creation, but also enable them to continue to learn and grow in practice, and finally realize the overall improvement of musical creativity.

 

CONCLUSIONS

This study takes the students of music associations in colleges and universities in Zhejiang as the research object, and probes into the influence factors of teachers on the music creativity of college students in music associations. Through structural model and multiple linear regression analysis, it is found that teachers’ intelligence, personality, motivation, knowledge and skills, diversity of music preferences, social and cultural tendencies and other factors are significantly related to music creation creativity. Among them, long-term memory and retrieval ability in intelligence, openness to experience in personality, internal motivation in motivation, diversity of music preferences and sociocultural tendency have significant positive effects on music creation creativity. Based on the above findings, this study puts forward targeted educational countermeasures and suggestions.

Future studies can be conducted across different countries and cultures to reveal the commonalities and differences of musical creativity in different contexts; At the same time, explore the influence of individual differences, such as personal experiences and personality traits, on music creation; In addition, combined with the rapid development of science and technology, research how to integrate new technology with music education to promote the improvement of music creation creativity; Finally, through long-term tracking research, the development track of music creativity and the dynamic changes of influencing factors will be more clearly depicted. These comprehensive studies will provide a solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance for the innovation and development of music education, so as to promote the progress of the field of music art in an all-round way.

 

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FINANCING

The authors did not receive financing for the development of this research.

 

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.

 

AUTHOR CONTRIBUTION

Conceptualization: Hu Yingmin.

Methodology: Hu Yingmin.

Investigation: Jiang Man.

Writing - Original Draft: Jiang Man.

Writing - Review & Editing: Jiang Man.

Supervision: Jiang Man.