Musical innovation clusters

The author of this piece hopes to explore creativity in contemporary music.

The Creativity Exchange: It's Only Rock and Roll...: "But musical creativity occurs in sharp bursts, there are cycles of it. Sure, people are developing musical talent all along, but for a variety of reasons due to the social character of innovations, major outbursts of creativity occur in bunches or clusters. Major innovations in jazz for example occurred in the period from roughly 1920 through the 1950s, roughly. In rock and roll, innovation starts in the late 1940s, with upticks in the mid-1960s, and mid-to-late 70s, according to rock critic and social theorist Simon Fricke ....

But these concentrated bursts of transformative energy are not evenly spread across geography. They occur in space as well as in time. In other words, they cluster, concentrate and pull talent into tight spaces or scenes. Just think about the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s and 1970s, producing a series of stunning innovations in semiconductors, computing, software and the like, all the while informing a much broader process of cultural change and musical innovation, from its vibrant music scene to its advances in commerce and distribution especially with the invention of large music festivals."