A synthesis model of creative thinking in musical composition

Introduction With the exception of research carried out by Bamberger (1977, 1978, 1991), studies of the music composition process have used predominantly positivistic approaches, in experimental, laboratory, non real-world scenarios for data collection. The aim of this paper is to describe the cognitive processes, in real-time, of a composer in the act of writing music by assuming an alternative qualitative stance, using a constructivist, naturalistic case-study methodology.