Having been quite heavily involved in the classical music scene here in Cambridge since I arrived, I occasionally find myself in danger of unthinkingly adopting the institutional attitude towards Music (with a capital M): the privileging of the acoustic, the prizing of virtuosity, the hero-worship of composers. While all of these aspects of music are certainly worthy of admiration, I think it's a mistake to think that all musical creativity must be seen in those terms.
One particular area of musical creativity that doesn't fit this model is the rise of the 'virtuoso producer', to (possibly) coin a phrase. The skill that these individuals show - people like Trent Reznor, Danger Mouse; bands like Massive Attack - is not to be underestimated. It's orchestration on steroids. Traditional orchestration is an admirable skill, but at least the acoustic symphony orchestra is a relatively stable space of possibilities with its own established set of heuristics. For the studio producer, however, anything is possible. Instruments are not chosen, so much as sounds, which in most cases have to be constructed, either by analogue chains of signal-processing pedals (in the case of guitars, for example) or in their digital equivalents in the various software packages that exist for the purpose of production. Of course, like orchestrators, producers have their heuristics - but producers must, in many cases, construct the 'instruments' in their ensemble as well as arranging the overall texture. No mean feat.
Any account of musical creativity must bear in mind the ways in which the musical landscape is shifting. And that's just within Western culture; we haven't even begun to think about the ways in which the creative activity in other cultures differs from ours. Given the monolithic nature of Western classical music, it could even be that a university music department is exactly the wrong place to start a review of creative musical practice.
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