Seeking Creativity: A Case Study on Information Problem Solving in Professional Music

This study explored the information problem solving behavior of a professional jazz musician during creative work. It aimed at revealing information seeking activities necessary to execute present-day musical projects. A single case was studied in depth. First, a narrative interview was conducted to reveal project phases and corresponding information seeking behavior. Second, hereupon a semi-structured interview was taken to identify information seeking activities per phase. Results indicate that the musician deliberately searched for musical information especially in the first project phases. The internet was used as main source. Both data and goal driven strategies were applied, of which the latter were relatively scarce. This means that in this case the musician sporadically searched information based on a contemplated search plan. Future research should aim at generalizing findings. It should further validate the underlying analytical framework that proved to be useful for describing and categorizing musical information seeking behavior.