Cultivating music students' creativity in piano performance: a multiple-case study in China

Although creativity in music performance is a global issue among music educators, it has nevertheless received less attention in China. How do piano teachers in China cultivate their students' performance creativity? This article reports on a multiple-case study undertaken in a university located in Guangzhou, China that aimed to examine the teaching strategies of three piano majors and observe their learning responses. The first author taught the students for 14 lessons within a semester, the data coming from a combination of video recordings for observation, self-reflection and semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data from the interviews and video recordings were coded based on the categories and themes that emerged from repeated observations of the video clips. The results indicate that teachers may cultivate performance creativity by nurturing students' imaginations as it relates to individual knowledge and experience. Autonomy in musical expression should be encouraged through teaching genres other than Classical music.