Studying music has helped humans grow for thousands of years. Even today, music is an important part of many people’s lives. This is also a creative outlet. Music can also be a catalyst for personal growth. Music has the power to understand and express emotions. It can encourage creative ideas and new ways of thinking. Richard Hovan argues that music should be used as a tool for personal growth.

Creativity and Innovation

Ability to develop fresh ideas and intriguing connections is called innovation. It leads to original artistic or scientific of the products.

Music stimulates diverse creative breakthroughs in various domains. Historian and Beethoven biographer Maynard Solomon noted that “Beethoven’s most important ‘creation’ had been the re-creation of his own soul.” A similar phenomenon is observed when visual artists begin painting to recover from trauma, individuals start gardening or working with animals to reconnect with themselves through all senses, and managers listen to music before or during intensive work to spur creativity.

Richard Hovan’s key principle proposes that music is a huge development potential and can be used for personal growth. It helps a person become who they really are, understand themselves better, experience life more intensively, express one’s feelings and emotions, meet new aspects of oneself, broaden one’s horizon and liberate the mind. Music is thus a ‘creative’ instrument, helping to focus on what one is doing – thereby stimulating creative processes and fostering innovative ideas.

The Psychology of Music and Creativity

Creative behaviour in music is usually associated with the composition of new pieces and the performance of these pieces in recitals, concerts, and such. The intellectual processes of composition or interpretation are difficult to observe directly, but perform an important role in determining the output of creative behaviour. Sonnenschein argues that creative behaviour in music (and probably creative behaviour in general) is mediated by unconscious intellectual processes. She suggests that the intellectual, often unconscious, processes of creative composition should be considered from the perspective of functional structures in the brain. The conscious intellectual processes are linked to the function of the left part of the brain, and the unconscious processes are associated with the function of the right part of the brain. As the latter play an important role in the creative involvement of the composer, it may be useful in the course of introducing the creative involvement of the performing artist also to explore a few aspects of the functioning of the right part of the brain.

Creative intellectual processes are involved also in the interpretation and performance of compositions formed by others. Some composers indicate that the creative process involved in the performance of a composition should be inspired mainly by an awareness of the composer’s state of mind and of external and self-communication associated with the work—and less by the structures or form that the composition entails. The creative processes involved in live performances are thus subject to layers of complexity. However, according to Milton, the question What is creative behaviour in music? has been theorised for more universal creative behaviour. The approach is to investigate the main component during the act of recognising common patterns in different forms of behaviour, whether transacting an everyday life-problem or exploring a music composition. Creative behaviour is then viewed as the symbolic form of a higher capability to establish a useful relationship between the different elements of an achievement, whether being proved in a purchasing transaction or a concerto performance.

Contemporary Views on Music as a Developmental Tool

Music has always influenced human growth. Advancing this concept today, Richard Hovan advocates a vision of music as a developmental force.

Originally Posted At: https://richardhovan.wordpress.com/2025/08/26/unlocking-creativity-richard-hovan-personal-growth/