slacker

I didn't say "expression of the artist's experience," I said "With sculpture, painting, poetry,et al you color the artists expression with your own experience. " Not equivocation.

slacker

Ender

Again, you seem incapable of answering my questions. From what context did you remove that quote? Why should I take you seriously if you are not going to bother reciprocating? Please include the page number at least, so I can look it up and get a better idea.
What exactly do you agree with? That the “spirit world” must be the ceaseless Will?
Theistic overtones again. I think you’re reading too much into this “spirit” as something immaterial and immortal- correct me if I am wrong. In any case, Schopenhauer thought that there was no such individual, that the self is an illusion. You may be saying, aren’t there obvious differences between individuals? How can any holistic idealist theory blithely overlook this? Schopenhauer backed up his declaration with three arguments, three explanations that accounts for the peculiarity of individualism:

• Each individual human being is a manifestation of an idea of humanity and is refracted back through an idea of one’s own humanity.
• Ergo, each and every human being has his own character, which is fixed and immutable from birth. Schopenhauer goes on to argue that character dictates ethical behavior, not some Kantian practical reason or categorical imperative.
• The most dramatic or crucial case of individualism is the Genius- an idea Schopenhauer got from Goethe and Kant.

Schopenhauer thought that we do not observe our own will alone, since our will is not exclusive but a door to the universal Will, the only thing real, the “re-Schopenhauerized” Kantian thing-in-itself that exists independently of empirical perception (space & time). The Will drives us with subliminal, libidinal desires, and is not under any control. The Will, much like Hegel’s Geist, holds no private or individual characteristics- it is the ultimate reality of all things. This is what led Schopenhauer to paint life with an intrinsically absurd brush. By denying the futile desires generated by the Will, we graduate to a higher plane of consciousness, a quasi-Nirvana realm. The will is not beholden to anything, but it determines everything. Given that everything is determined it is a mistake to take this as a predestination or fate, since that would be far too optimistic. These interpretations of determinism implies purpose. Only the will is free, not the will of individuals. The prhase “acts of will” is a self-deceptive concept, since they are mere illusions, and manifestations of the Will, & never under our control. We obey the dictates of our desires/inclinations, not some Kantian practical reason. Reason is but another self-interested aspect of the Will.
Schopenhauer presents a model of dualism: we are equally objects in nature (phenomena) as well as the privately known manifestation of the Will (thing in itself). We can have representations according to phenomena, but regarding the Will we are capable of holding “ideas” which are perceptible only through the imagination, not ‘ratiocinative thinking.’ Ideas are perceptible, unlike concepts (they are abstract) in art. It is only through a special intellectual insight we have access to ideas, not via experience. Schopenhauer borrows from Kant’s Critique of Judgment that platonic “ideas” are accessible only through art, not science. In addition, Schopenhauer thought that characters from art weren’t representations of people but manifestations of the Will. E.g., Tyler Durden was created in a single vision, not “concocted out of variety of real folks.”
Ayn Rand’s theory of esthetics notwithstanding, before we move on, what is your interpretation of Rand’s quote? Please, do and try give this your best shot, a honest college try.
I don’t know how to answer the “how” but as for the “why:” Desire. It is because of a psychological defect Man projects his metaphysical need for interpretation, of explanation, of purpose, and re-identifies his emotions with sound.
~WiGGiN~

Ender

I apologize for misreading you, but that doesn't help in the least- how does the observer's experience differ in the appraisal of (sculpture, painting, poetry) from music? Do you mean to imply that the observer has a direct access to the artist' pure subjective will in music as opposed to the images of sculpture and concepts in poetry?

It seems to me that the observer still has to filter any form of art through his sensory data first- music/poetry via hearing, sculpture/painting/poetry via sight, sculpture via touch, etc. Given the empirical access, where is the "direct access to the artist' pure subjective will" in music?

~WiGGiN~

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Re the exchange between Wiggin and Walrus:

I was certainly thinking more in terms of cognitive psychology when I started this thread, because that seems the most obvious context from which we might tackle the idea of creativity, and the mechanism by which it comes about. I'm not complaining if the discussion turns to philosophy, because this is the philosophy forum, after all. But I won't join this particular debate. Frankly, I don't think very much of what Ender has written is relevant to the topic, so I won't address anything he has to say. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with him -- it's more that I don't give a sh*t.

Since I last posted here, I've actually been up on stage and done my thang. This included about thirty minutes of improvisation on the bass -- the instrument WJ and I share in common. It's kind of fun being "the" bass player in the room. They say, "Come on Kim, get up and have a go." So I do. And I end up playing behind songs I haven't heard or rehearsed, while someone's shouting out the chords to me as I'm going. Real, seat of the pants kind of stuff. I love it. On the bass, my specialty is the "Sydney underground" style (i.e. lots of synchopation played slightly ahead of the beat, giving it an edgy, energetic sort of feel), which I play very rhythmically with a pick. Unless you've heard stuff like Blast Off by The Birthday Party, or Audrina by Toys Went Berserk, you probably wouldn't be familiar with it.

With a good half hour of made-up-on-the-spot bass playing to go by, I tried to analyse what I was doing a bit more, with this thread in mind. I found that I generally started by playing the root notes in the chord sequence, and I continued playing the root note quite frequently -- at least once per bar. On top of that I added elaboration -- extra notes, and stops, and other rhythmic bits. The elaboration is where the creativity came in. That's where I had the opportunity to pick and choose what I would play. I also noticed that the kinds of elaboration I did changed when there were different chords and chord sequences.

Other than that, it was all a bit of a blur. So much stuff happens up there on the stage (at the Brass Monkey in Cronulla) that I always come off with a feeling something like Amnesia -- what the hell did I just play then?

In retrospect, though, it strikes me how great an effect the personality of the musician has upon the creative elements of music. I played with two different groups of musicians that night, and in each case, the results were entirely different. That makes sense, because everybody is different. We are all different in terms of the physical skills and weaknesses we have. We are all different experientially, in that no two musicians would ever have heard the exact same list of songs, or listened to those songs in the exact same way. We are all different temperamentally, which effects the kind of music and the kind of parts we want to play. For example, in one song the drummer leaned over to me and said "more laid back." I'm so used to being a laid-forward kind of guy that "laid back" just didn't occur to me, and until he said it, I didn't hear it.

When you're alone, writing songs, you bring to that creative process a repertoire of moods, technical ideas, and attitudes that is unique to yourself. Furthermore, that repertoire is not static, because you are constantly listening to new songs (or old songs with a new appreciation), and learning things from other musicians. In that context you can't help but write something unique, even through a simple process of deconstruction and reconstruction, because your personal repertoire is different from the repertoire of any other musician, past, present, or future. If you add to that the occasional bit of serendipity, then I don't think you need anything else to explain how a unique song can come into existence.

Now let's consider what happens when four musicians get together in a group. You now have four unique sources of ideas, moods, and songs (though probably not four times as many ideas, due to what psychologists call social loafing). For example, it would never have occurred to me to play Under the Bridge by The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, yet that is the first song I ever played on stage, because one of the other guys liked it. And our version was unique, because I was singing and playing bass at the same time, so I had to simplify the bass line in the chorus (which the Red Hot Chilli Peppers don't have to do). Any particular grouping of four musicians is unique. Changing just one member can alter the entire dynamic of the group. I experienced this the other night when we swapped drummers. Furthermore, I noticed the other night that I was adjusting what I was playing to the group dynamic. I was, if you like, using a different part of my repertoire with each new line up of musicians.

To recap, there are different ideas, moods, preferences, capabilities, roles, and line-ups, each of which makes its own contribution to the uniqueness of every song. We have a multiplicity of creative imputs, similar to the multiplicity of musical variation I described in an earlier post. I think it is possible that this multiplicity, by itself, is enough to explain why musicians and groups of musicians are able to create unique songs and performances.

Ender

Et tu, Brutus? Perhaps your convictions that cognitive psychology is the answer to the aesthetic phenomenon is at issue here- and that phenomenology isn't even considered.

~WiGGiN~

WJ

Hi Kim!

RE: Approaching a cover tune viz. novel creativity

Indeed, one item you spoke about rings true with regard to bringing one's whole Being into the process [the situation] of creating music to begin with. Two fabulous guitar players I know (in their 40's been playing since teen years) seem to approach music differently. One's an engineer [we'll call type A]; the other a journeyman [we'll call type B].

It seems that the personality type A is a bit critical in making sure the song is perfectly covered with appropriate licks, accents, fills etc., kind of like his day job. The other seems more open to improvisation while only keepng the basic recognizable 'signature licks' in tact. Plus, the type B player is seemingly more interested in exploring different voicings, chord progressions versus doing a 'note for note' replica... .

On the other hand, I notice type A has a greater sense of rhythm and 'tasteful phrasing' when soloing, (almost methodical) verses type B who plays so fast and with so many notes yet still sounds like there is a methodical pattern... . Nontheless, dynamic's is lacking (playing a section very softly, then building back-up)for both types.

Point being, is one's personality directly relative to their playing style or approach? I want to say yes to a degree. (I also want to say that the inexperienced egoist types are more apt to simply 'wanking' on their instrument seemingly without much thought to some of the above. or perhaps they are angry or want to express anger from life...)

So, one common sort of trait or theme here is that one's own experiences can have the potential to impact their 'creative desire' for expression (or individuality). I think that say not only can exposure to different styles of music provide for a distinction, but different personality types may effect this same expressive need. Thus if the same two people have had the same background or training or exposure, I bet their own personality may be either the boon or the bust in determining how and why the difference(s) in this manifestation of creativity.

Perhaps not only in the mediums of art do we find one's approach to life (philosophy and psychology) having such an impact. My question is, what can or cannot be changed with respect to these variables? And what should or should not be 'changed' to maximize the power of expressing or producing truly novel, creativity?

In otherwords, assuming 'personality' is our target, how can we 'percieve' thru our senses, in a way that enhances a [this] so-called creative process? Or better yet, what comprises the creative process itself? Is it the putting- together of things in a different way; the putting-together of the same external things of perception yet internalizing them differently? Or is it the other way around, or a combo?

What makes a 'Mozart' mindset?

Walrus

Graeme

Great thread! I'd like to jump in at this stage and give my own understanding of the creative process as it applies to musical art specifically.

As a musician, I have often been disappointed with the amount of creativity afforded by certain genres. It has been suggested earlier in this thread that the maximum amount of creative advances within a certain genre may be of a finite quantity - I certainly believe this to be true.

While the western basis of musical theory is potentially quite broad in its application (as demonstrated by Kim on page one of this thread),
the limitations of genres are at the same time enabling (in giving the musician a 'canvas' as it were, to work creatively on) and stifling (in defining boundaries that impose limitations on the number of creative applications avaliable.

This is further complicated by the ever-changing definition of the word 'genre' in music. Where one musician may define the 'common genres' as 'jazz, rock, blues', another may define them as 'instrumental, vocal, electronic' and yet another may define them as 'improvisational and structured'.

I personally felt myself forced to give up the limitations of the guitar/bass/drums combination at a fairly early stage in my development as a musician. I felt that no matter how many subtle changes could be applied within this formula, at the end of the day it seemed INCREDIBLY limiting, due to what I saw at the time as a winding-down trend in the creative aspect of 'rock' music. Whether or not I was correct in my assumption that this finite limit was about to be reached is beside the point - I moved past it and began to explore other non-traditional forms of music creation, from sampling/sequencing technology to turntables to ancient Indian hand-drumming.

I don't believe that truly novel creativity can be acheived within the limits of a firmly established genre - truly novel creativity, in my opinion, is only achieved in the process of CREATING a genre's boundaries - and even then, the creation of genre boundaries may very well be only a by-product of this novel creativity.

Of course, this neccesarily limits 99.9999% of musicians to a musical career of secondary creativity. However I don't see this as neccesarily a bad thing - just a neccesity. Even Mozart was making music WITHIN an already-established genre - and he was using the genre boundaries to his distinct advantage, letting the previous work of musicians before him be the foundational aspect of his music, to which he applied his own creative and technical prowess in order to refine the genre to a stage previously unknown.

Truly original? Perhaps not. Artistically valid? Of course!

Genre boundaries, IMO, are both a blessing and a curse to the artist. The musician who knows how to use these boundaries to his/her advantage will take the genre and emphasize its best aspects in ways not done before. The musician who is truly exceptional will move the genre boundaries and change the definition of the genre. And the musician who is both creatively exceptional and exceptionally lucky (in being in the right place at the right time, or a part of the right happy accident) will transcend the genre boundaries to create something TRULY new.

This is why, in my opinion, most of the really earthshaking advances in music over the past 20 years have been based firmly on technological advances, and not intentional musical creativity.

At this point I'll stop ask for your initial responses. I have more to say, but I'd like some feedback as to my admittedly sketchy assumptions regarding the subject being discussed.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

WJ,

I like your distinction between Type A and Type B musicians. That could prove very useful. I've been playing for 14 years, but I've only been playing live for about a year and a half, so I don't have nearly as much experience of performance as your two friends. Still, I can say that I am sometimes a type A and sometimes a type B. It's good, occasionally, to forget all the technical stuff and just play. On the other hand, I wouldn't like to do that all the time. With some things its better to work out your parts beforehand and stick to them -- particularly when you're working with inexperienced musicians, as I often do. I wouldn't like to have to choose between being a type A or a type B.

In fact, I embrace everything that serves to create variation, and to break old habits, particularly when I'm writing songs. I've written some songs to a formula and others freestyle. I've written some songs analytically, and some emotively. I've done some things in a minimal style, and some in the "wall of sound" style. I've used samples and sequencers (trackers are my favourite), and I've used the traditional three piece (drums, bass, guitar) played in real time. I've used all sorts of tunings, including dropped D, open A, and open E flat. I've used every trick you could possibly imagine to create new works.

Oooh, bit of a sore point there. I'm constantly having to curb the urge to show off at rehearsals. And even when I'm on my best behaviour, people still say, "Shut up Kim, you smug bastard."

I tend to think that almost anything can be changed, depending on how much effort you put into it. And I'm a fan of lateral thinking, so I know a few techniques for doing it. But not everything should be changed. You shouldn't change those things that made you want to be a musician in the first place. If, for example, you're into jazz and blues, then you shouldn't change to writing pop songs just for the chance of being successful, because (1) it will be fairly obvious that you don't enjoy what you are doing, and (2) people who are dedicated to writing pop songs right from the start will always do it better than you anyway.

Again, I would mention lateral thinking. Edward de Bono's ideas, with only a little effort, can be adapted to music.

I find that fascinating, because basically, I've come to the exact opposite conclusion to you. In part, I suspect it might have something to do with the different kinds of music we must have been listening to. I own several recordings that, to me, demonstrate the infinite possibilities of the drums/bass/guitar combination. These are:

Sonic Youth -- Bad Moon Rising
Electro Hippies -- Play Fast or Die
Hunters & Collectors -- The Fireman's Curse
Hunters & Collectors -- Payload
The Scientists -- Human Jukebox
Lush -- Spooky

Hunters & Collectors had a brass section, a keyboard player, and a percussionist, but the core of their music was still drums, bass, and guitar. None of these records is very easy to listen to (the avant garde stuff never is), but each one is utterly and relentlessly unique. To my ears, most electronica seems almost formulaic in comparison.

But it's not like I'm against sampling. When I'm writing and recording songs, I will sometimes use sampling and sequencing (particularly for drums, because I don't own a kit). I find it rather limiting, though. Your sound pallete is only as large as your collection of samples. You can alter those with volume envelopes and filters, but that's about it.

However, when I strap on a guitar, I find the possibilities are almost endless. I can alter the attack and decay. I have precise control over notebending and vibrato. I can change the entire sound of the instrument, simply by plucking the strings closer to or further away from the bridge. Also, because its me doing it, I can play around with the timing, going slightly ahead of the beat, or slightly behind it, or any number other fancy tricks. Of course, you can do all of these things with a good sequencer, but I can do it immediately and in real time, without all that laborious programming, and without having to resample something if I want to change it. So while I do use sampling and sequencing, the guitar and the bass plays a much more prominent role.

Now, I know some people are going to say, "it doesn't matter how many different ways you play a guitar, it still sounds roughly the same." And I will admit that some guitarists are quite unadventurous in their choice of sounds. I'm not one of them though. These days, there are so many effects available for electric guitar that I can think of no other instrument that comes close to having such a variety of sounds. I can hugely vary the sound by adjusting the tone and volume knobs on the instrument itself. I can change the amplifier settings as well. But between the instrument and the amplifier, I typically have between 4 and 7 footpedals. The ones I use regularly are compression, overdrive, distortion, equalisation, phasing, flanging, pitch shifting, delay, chorus, wah wah, and tremolo. The number of different things I can do is insane. Sometimes you would never guess that it was a guitar making that noise.

Well, this is where we part company completely. I'm from Australia -- a child of the Sydney underground music scene. I lived and breathed that stuff back in the eighties. I believed then and still believe now, that the Australian underground produced some of the most creative music of its day, and which I continue to see echoes of all the way up to the present. It more than held its own against the similar scenes in New York and Manchester.

Out of that whole scene, I can only think of two bands that used the new technology in any significant way -- The Residents, and The Models. All the others -- The Birthday Party, The Scientists, Hunters & Collectors, Do Re Mi, Toys Went Berserk, The Hard-Ons, The Wreckery, Dave Graney & the Choral Snakes, Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, The Go-Betweens, The Beasts of Bourbon, and more -- they all did their thing with guitar, bass, drums, and the odd brass section. And I would still hold that these bands were more creative than just about any other thing you would care to point to.

The bands that did use the new technology were the cheesy pop groups, like Pseudo Echo. In this country, there was no general move towards electronic music, like there was in Britain (it's still only a recent phenomenon here).

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

I would also like to point out that the Australian underground did actually make a conscious and deliberate effort to be different, and to be creative. To them, it was necessary, because by 1980, the live scene in Australia had come to be dominated by just a handful of bands (Cold Chisel, AC/DC, The Angels, etc).

They knew they could never compete with the popularity of these bands, so they had to do something radically different, just to carve out a niche for themselves. (They never actually succeeded in doing that, which is why the whole scene died in 1990. The Australian music scene has never fully recovered, and that's why Silverchair is about the only Australian band to get international recognition in the last decade.)

WJ

Graeme, Kim (all)!

Lots of neat and interesting thoughts. I'd like to briefly explore or pick-up on the points about limitations within the genre viz. the instrument itself.

As some of us know, the artist's who had the ability to be 'the first' in their respect genre of creativity (for lack of), were indeed the first. (I was watching the SNL behind the scenes 'creativity' documentary last night and the original producer mentioned the psychological componet of inventing the 'first' stays in people's mind forever.)the point relates to truly novel ideas about a genre. In the case of SNL, no one has done that type of television comedy, live, with that form of satire, etc. before it inception.

Anyway, the parallel to true inventiveness with regard to one's instrument relates to my experience with the electric bass. Most bassists know the impacts/influence that Larry Graham and Jaco had on the approach to the instruments function during the 60-70's. (Of course Larry invented Slap; Jaco: the electric fretless, adding a melodic almost funk-ified/harmonic/double stop/fusion 'whatever' tonal aspect (whew)that went beyond the normal/traditional contributions and functionality for the instrument itself.)

So one of many points I wish to make in that regard is that a person can arrive at an idea that truly new. (Though this probably is not new, I'd like to build a double neck fretless/fretted bass instrument, as my instrumental gig would be perfect for that need to change on the fly.) Well, we have to ask ourselves how can one take the [our very own perspective] experiences and formulate a concept that effectively adds to the genre itself(?).

To that end, Graeme's points are well taken; what are the alternatives? Do we move 'outside box', yet within the genre (to help facilitate this creative process)? or do we venture into a completely diffrent 'world music' genre that Graeme suggested? i think we do both. Everyone knows what the 'sitar' did to the creative genre of Beatle pop/rock!

Pacasso had the abilitiy to take opposites [from life] and effectively create a unique picture of existence. (IE, Larry approached the bass like a drum because they did not have a drummer in his band with his mom. The thumb was bass drum;pop was snare. Jaco, took the parts that the horn players would normally play and applied them to the bass, among other things.) In fact, life is about opposites! As Maslow would say, integrate! The psychology of how one approaches their own existence, as result from life's experience, could indeed be a start in developing a sense of newness in expression [of reality].

just some more thoughts...


Walrus

Walrus

[ April 23, 2002: Message edited by: WJ ]</p>