Creativity and originality are the most important aspects of making music is a myth? (Article Excerpt)

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"Society regards creativity as something special, even magical, that only 'true' artists possess. People want originality in music, right?

Not exactly: people are straight-up biased against creative ideas, which explains why the same standards get recycled on X-Factor every year, chart hits sound eerily familiar, and everything in the Beatport Top 100 sounds practically identical. In fact, every tune your other-half loves is basically the same: Neil Young wasn't kidding when he said "it's all one song", and, as Nile Rodgers puts it: "the genius is really in the rewriting".

Despite all the evidence to the contrary - including the shocking revelation that Mozart was just like the rest of us and that everyone uses the same samples - we've got some rather confused ideas about originality that are deconstructed in this excellent article which concludes with some excellent advice: be sincere. Alternatively, you could always get into a new field."
https://blog.ninapaley.com/2009/12/28/t ... iginality/
Music had a one night stand with sound design.....And the condom broke

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I could rant about this like...for hours, but I promise this is as short as I can make it:

This is a topic rooted in modernism. Modernists sought to "improve" art (and everything else) via "new" ideas mostly stemming from scientism which persists in the 21st century.

Artists of all types sought "progress" — which really just means "destroying everything our ancestors nurtured" — and valued "originality" above else (because original and progress are often the same) and sought to create new methods and techniques of creating music in pursuit of something "better".

For the most part, they failed miserably. Schoenberg's "serialism" and Picasso's "cubism" garbage died for good reason. Did you know that Picasso created an average of 5.4 paintings every single day for 75 years? Clearly they were all masterpieces with deep meaning.

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:lol:

Now, we're at a point where the craft our ancestors nurtured, the keys to the kingdom they left for us, have been cast aside; a total lack of beauty standards, complete loss of a hierarchy of quality, and definitions of "music" stretched to such an extent that differentiating professional from amateur results is now nigh on impossible in many cases.

Some guy can now leave a pair of glasses on the art room floor and people actually take pictures of it thinking its an exhibit. Pieces totally devoid of melody and much in the way of rhythm pass for "music" now. Towering, hideous glass prisons of cubicles loom over our once-beautiful cities of stone and timber in the name of "practicality" and supposedly "improved architectural designs". Women wear plaid pajamas outside where they once wore stunning dresses...the list just goes on.

And we got here in the name of "progress" and "originality" and "new ways of thinking". Well, those new approaches have failed to produce as good or better of a result as what we had before. The modernist or post-modernist approach (the latter more accurately being described as relativist-nihilism) were really just a way of the upper class throwing away the standards set before them because that was just too hard to live up to, and not everyone even COULD live up to. Then, when everyone else said "wow that sucks", they tried to gaslight everyone into doubting their gut reactions and telling them they were just "Dunning-Krugered" and too stupid to know what was good.

Picasso said he could spit in a jar and they'd call it art; obviously he knew he was a charlatan. Chopin wrote a letter complaining to his sister than no one in Vienna liked his crap over Strauss' waltzes and this showed "the corrupt taste of the Viennese public". What an asshole.

We don't need a new approach to completely redefine music. Those developments already happened. Has there been a tome of such significance in western music as say the Treatise on Harmony in the 18th century? No. And there never will be.

I'm not interested in people composing music that totally "breaks the mold" and is entirely different than everything that's come before it (this isn't to oppose different genres though) because so far, 90% of those ideas sucked.

What we need is people writing good music, and much like everything else, it's amusing that people have actually duped themselves into thinking that in thousands of years of civilization, that we somehow just haven't actually figured it out yet.

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The tl;drs so far

Blog in OP: repeats some good points...but very poorly.

ACO: modern life is rubbish and I hates it precioussss.

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Chopin pre-dates modernism. Western music has been developing at a fair pace since the Renaissance. At what point should composers have decided all the important work was finished?

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imrae wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 10:22 am Chopin pre-dates modernism. Western music has been developing at a fair pace since the Renaissance. At what point should composers have decided all the important work was finished?
Chopin absolutely doesn't pre-date modernism because the idea that "modernist" and "post-modernist" eras are separate "movements" that can be dated specifically in the 20th Century or so is nonsense.

These things are ideological and born of the enlightenment. "Modern" and "Post-Modern" thinking and approach has been around since the enlightenment and in force since the industrial revolution.

But again, a better term is just "scientism" and "relativism" respectively.

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@ AngelCityOutlaw
You seem to question art I love. Nothing wrong with that if it does not touch you, but the art you don't seem to like, does touch me!
Also the OPs link to an article which does not seem to have reflected much about what we would call “creativity” or why we recognize some artists being original and others just being copycats. Of course its hard nowadays to even find original art, as our commercial world is flooded with copycats of all sorts. Of course longtime successful copycats also have original aspects and have their creativity. Often though the marketing is more creative than what they sell...

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AngelCityOutlaw wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 9:43 am This is a topic rooted in modernism. Modernists sought to "improve" art (and everything else) via "new" ideas mostly stemming from scientism which persists in the 21st century.
interesting...thanks for taking the time
Music had a one night stand with sound design.....And the condom broke

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Gamma-UT wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 9:52 am The tl;drs so far

Blog in OP: repeats some good points...but very poorly.

ACO: modern life is rubbish and I hates it precioussss.
the coin pic swung it for me.
until that, i was ready to call him a hack in a scathing comment such as
"hack calls picasso charlatan, f**king kvr at its finest :lol: " or something along tbose lines.
glad i waited till the end or id look a fool :ud:

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Tj Shredder wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:29 pm @ AngelCityOutlaw
cmon, he out bonesed bones there :lol:
why even entertain him with discourse?

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one persons garbage is someone else's masterpiece...

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AngelCityOutlaw wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 12:20 pm Chopin absolutely doesn't pre-date modernism because the idea that "modernist" and "post-modernist" eras are separate "movements" that can be dated specifically in the 20th Century or so is nonsense.
Ah, it's one of those arguments that relies on re-defining words to something totally different from their usual meaning.

Well by "Chopin" I meant the Big Bang, which pre-dates everything by definition.

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I believe this to be an ecumenical matter

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vurt wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:07 pm
Tj Shredder wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:29 pm @ AngelCityOutlaw
cmon, he out bonesed bones there :lol:
why even entertain him with discourse?
Its my entertainment...
If it entertains some more, even better - I love all... :hug:

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imrae wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:54 pm
AngelCityOutlaw wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 12:20 pm Chopin absolutely doesn't pre-date modernism because the idea that "modernist" and "post-modernist" eras are separate "movements" that can be dated specifically in the 20th Century or so is nonsense.
Ah, it's one of those arguments that relies on re-defining words to something totally different from their usual meaning.

Well by "Chopin" I meant the Big Bang, which pre-dates everything by definition.
No, it's just an honest assessment of what the words are actually describing.

The ideologies that characterize these "movements" pre-date their supposed start dates, and are better described and summarized by the terms "scientism" and "relativism" respectively.

"Modernism" is characterized by desire for objective improvement and progress, with science, logic, reason and "value-free fact" triumphing over all.

"Post-modernism" is characterized by a lack of any hierarchy and objective value-judgement which organically arises from the previous.
vurt wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 7:07 pm
Tj Shredder wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:29 pm @ AngelCityOutlaw
cmon, he out bonesed bones there :lol:
why even entertain him with discourse?
Notice that you, nor any of the other people mad, have said that my assessment is incorrect. Merely, you are mad that the point was raised.
Tj Shredder wrote: Sat Feb 29, 2020 6:29 pm @ AngelCityOutlaw
You seem to question art I love. Nothing wrong with that if it does not touch you, but the art you don't seem to like, does touch me
Liking or creating works similar to Picasso or Van Gogh doesn't make one "wrong" for having the taste, but suggesting that such artists possessed the same caliber of craftsmanship as Da Vinci or Andrey Shishkin and that the latter shouldn't be seen as the standard to aim for is a problem.

The best works are the ones which are farthest from the layman's ability AND have a near universal appeal; are understood by everyone at once and take nothing to "get" and continue to be so throughout time.

Starry Night is an eyesore that could've been painted by a middle-schooler. I've actually seen middle schoolers do better.

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With something like Shishkin's work, one doesn't need to attempt to rationalize or explain why it's actually really good via some convoluted explanation — "obscurantism".

Their beauty and the craftsmanship behind them, is obvious and I'm forced to doubt anyone who says they'd settle with Van Gogh's ability when Shishkin's is possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rg6qJtBCroA

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You obviously mix craft with art and on top your personal (kind of simple) taste with art. You definitely should read up about kitsch. If your craftsmanship is exceptional, but you only create kitsch, you’ll rest as a side note in history. Shishkin seems to be an exceptionally crafted copycat. No wonder I never heard of him, and I am not impressed at all (by his art, which still is in there as well...)
Btw. all experts agree, that the craftsmanship of Picasso is in the same league as Da Vinci... (look at some early works which could be closer to your personal taste...)
Tell us about the flaws of Salvador Dali, I bet you’ll find some...

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