Creativity and conceptual blending in high-school student improvisations of film music

The aim of the present study is to investigate the cognitive strategies employed in common by the members of two groups of high-school students while contributing to the group improvisation of a musical accompaniment to a silent short film. To analyze and interpret the data collected both from the students’ own testimonies about their creative thinking during the improvisation and from the performances themselves, the methodological perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT) is adopted. The research findings showed that all students directed their attention to the overall affect of the film as a dynamic process and responded musically to it by manipulating the musical parameters along the trajectory of an analogously dynamic process. The present study hopes to add to ongoing research efforts to offer empirical backing to CBT, while answering to the call for more education in musical creativity in general and in relation to film music in particular.