I'm a visual artist and even though I've played shakuhachi for nearly
10 years I don't consider myself a musician. But there are so many
similarities here, between the visual arts and music, that I can't help
commenting on this thread.
No knowledge should be avoided. For years I worked hard at learning the
rules of visual art. I studied design, color theory and composition and
all the rest. For every new project I looked for a formula that would
give me the solution. Somewhere along the way I quit caring so much
about doing things by the book. I discovered that I could break the
rules and the result still worked. Breaking the rules can be a lot of
fun, but you run the risk of generating a lot of crap in the process...
which is okay. You just have to have the judgment and the courage to
identify the crap. And that's impossible without knowledge.
Sometimes it's fun, educational, and inspiring to just mess around with
the media to see what happens. Sometimes you get some surprising and
helpful results that you can add to your visual vocabulary - in the
same way that messing around with the shakuhachi can sometimes teach
you something new. Occasionally, bystanders might be entertained by
what you're doing. Mostly they'll just shake their heads and move on.
The messing around is just exploration and experimentation and play.
The process is the important thing... the journey, not the destination,
is what it's about.
However, when it comes to making a painting, or sculpture, or a
performance - then just messing around doesn't quite cut it. There
might still be a little experimentation and some happy accidents can
occur, but when you're trying to communicate something to other people
you have to use everything you know on every level to get your idea, or
mood, or whatever across.
Messing around is good. Messing around is totally open.
However, a work of art or a performance has form and unity. Your
audience knows when you've got it together and when you're faking it.
If you're just messing around you can, and should, do whatever you
want. If you want to perform and connect with others, then it's best to
know what you're doing, and have some idea of where you're going.
If innovation is your goal, you are more likely to come up with
something new when you know what's already been done. It can be
disappointing and embarrassing to present something that you think is
totally new and unique, only to have it compared to something just like
it that was done 30 years ago.
Okay. I'm going to go play now.
- Al
On Feb 7, 2005, at 4:35 PM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
> It's almost as if traditional knowledge is something to be avoided -
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