An interesting read. Most intriguing to me was this part:

My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)

The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.

We came upon a somewhat similar sentiment during one of the piece I studied for my critique of research module. Allbeit, it approached the notion from a different angle. This is from Milton Babbit's article 'Who Cares If You Listen?'

And so, I dare suggest that the composer would do himself and his music an immediate and eventual service by total, resolute, and voluntary withdrawal from the public world to one of private performance and electronic media, with its very real possibility of complete elimination of the public and social aspects of musical composition. By doing so, the separation between the domains would be defined beyond and possibility of confusion of categories, and the composer would be free to pursue a private life of profession achievement, as opposed to a public of unprofessional compromise and exhibitionism.

The difference being that Babbit, a serialist composer from the 50s, believed that best and most creative ideas were inhibited by the ignorant masses, rather than a fear of embarrassment.

Either way, I think general idea of isolation is certainly a key factor. Beyond either interpretation of why that's important, I also think it has do with translation. Within a group situation, you not only have to conceive new ideas, but also almost immediately have to process a way of accurately portraying said idea to an audience. This has the danger of setting something in place before it's really had time to come to fruition within the mind. But then again, in 'cerebration sessions', I guess you'd have a good chance of that idea then developing with a multitude more minds.

I love exploring the foundations of creative thought, there's so many unending facets to be explored. I reckon I'm going to do my essay for the aforementioned module on creativity and tradition, exploring what relationship there is between the two and why.