In a qualitative study, we explored the range of reflections and experiences involved in the composition of score-based music by administering a 15-item, open-ended, questionnaire to seven professional composers from Europe and North America. Adopting a grounded theory approach, we organized six different codes emerging from our data into two higher-order categories (the act of composing and establishing relationships). Our content analysis, inspired by the theoretical resources of 4E cognitive science, points to three overlapping characteristics of creative cognition in music composition: it is largely exploratory, it is grounded in bodily experience, and it emerges from the recursive dialogue of agents and their environment. More generally, such preliminary findings suggest that musical creativity may be advantageously understood as a process of constant adaptation – one in which composers enact their musical styles and identities by exploring novel interactivities hidden in their contingent and historical milieux.

在一项定性研究中，我们通过对来自欧洲和北美的七位专业作曲家进行 15 项开放式问卷调查，探索了基于乐谱创作的反思和经验范围。采用扎根理论方法，我们将数据中出现的六种不同代码组织成两个高阶类别（组合和建立关系的行为） ）。我们的内容分析受到 4E 认知科学理论资源的启发，指出了音乐创作中创造性认知的三个重叠特征：它主要是探索性的，它基于身体体验，它来自代理及其环境的递归对话. 更一般地说，这些初步研究结果表明，音乐创造力可以有利地理解为一个不断适应的过程——在这个过程中，作曲家通过探索隐藏在其偶然和历史环境中的新颖互动来制定他们的音乐风格和身份。