If you read reviews of concerts, the word 'creative' comes up all the time. However, performers playing music usually aren't creative. Critics might say they are, but they're just playing another persons work. They didn't create it.
Ned RoremThe hardest of all the arts to speak of is music, because music has no meaning to speak of
Ned RoremIf a composer could state in words what being a composer means, he would no longer need to be a composer.
Ned Rorem