Creativity in electronic music: unravelling the sociocultural fabrics of expression

Abstract

This thesis explores the sociocultural factors that influence creativity within electronic music production, adopting a constructivist approach to examine the interplay between individual creativity, social creativity, and cultural fields. Through a combination of traditional social scientific research methods and autoethnographic reflexivity, this study investigates the experiences of nine highly accomplished electronic music producers and how their sociocultural interactions and positions within the field shaped their habitus. The author, also an accomplished electronic music producer, provides a first-person narrative to compare and contrast his experiences with those of the research participants, grounding and contextualising the theoretical findings. In addition to contributing to the broader literature on creativity, this thesis aims to expand the understanding of creativity in electronic music production, and specifically the cluster of genres associated with hiphop, trip-hop, dubstep, and ambient music. It also seeks to enrich the theoretical frameworks used to study creativity by providing a deep and nuanced understanding of the role of social and cultural contexts surrounding the creative process, and the technological affordances that facilitate creativity both in this field and more widely. The findings of this research indicate that the development of creative expressions within electronic music production is influenced by the sociocultural interactions and experiences of its practitioners, which are mediated by their sociocultural fields, and catalysed by the technologies they use. However, creative expressions also rely on individualities of influence, thought, and technique, which can challenge the rigidity of cultural field values and structures. These findings provide a fresh perspective on the nature of creativity within electronic music production and underscore the importance of sociocultural context, community, and individuality in shaping the creative process. Overall, this thesis offers an innovative and comprehensive exploration of creativity in electronic music production and provides practical insights that can be applied to other creative fields. It not only advances theoretical debates surrounding creativity but also offers a practical framework for understanding the sociocultural mechanisms that underpin creative expression within cultural fields.