Popular music: Individual creativity and social framework

Abstract

In the past hundred years, especially in the period after the Second World War, popular culture, and thus popular music, has become a vital part of the daily social life activities of individuals. Through the method of understanding and interpretation, the paper examines the processes of action and influence of popular music. The subject of the paper is to observe the relationships that are established between the individual as the bearer of the creative process in popular music and the social and cultural environment in which the creation process takes place and, in that sense, to determine the contribution of the scientific community in shedding light on these issues. The goal is to establish which factors and in what way they influence popular music, and what is the scope of individual creativity in the process of communication of this musical form with society. The opinion is that the individual creative personality of the author is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the creative process in popular music. The influences of society and culture, especially the mass media (radio, television and the Internet), in which it originates, are crucial factors that condition and / or mediate the creation of popular music. Thanks to interdisciplinary endeavours, primarily the synergy of musicology (especially critical musicology) and sociology, the knowledge about popular music has increased significantly in recent decades.