Food for thought

Okay, so we are, I believe, at half of our classes by now and until this point one matter has been occupying my thoughts. It has to do with the subject of innovations itself, I cannot stop questioning/thinking why one would innovate, or better stated, what would cause one to create new things? Taking Nancarrow for example, why a person is instigated to compose in such an innovative manner that makes even the possibility of performance scatter?

Well, in some of innumerous conversations with my husband we sort of addressed this matter of innovations. Our impression is that people do different things for three basic reasons: 1- they probably get bored of what is in fashion and fell like forced to change; 2- sometimes there is a need for change (I think we thought more about inventions to come up with this one); and 3- maybe changes occur because of an inherent need, that human race have, to be noticed. Is more like if every one of us, in our heart of hearts, always have dreamed on leaving a legacy behind ourselves. We want to be pointed out as “someone who did something remarkable.”

I was pretty satisfied with our conclusion, but I wanted to go further on the subject and I started my search for articles that could enlighten my curiosity. I looked on JSTOR, in their psychology collection, and found some articles, I glanced through them but they were not very helpful (well, if my inquiry was about the need of change related to marketing and products I would have been much rewarded with the results…). I finally found one which proved to be the more helpful, so far, even though it deals with sociologic aspects of it instead of psychological ones. It is a short and easy to read article “Some Sociological Remarks on Innovation in Music” from the International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Dec., 1972), pp. 252-258 by Hugo de Jage.

I’ll try to summarize some of his points in here. When defining innovation Jager states that it “means deviation from accepted ways of behavior, in this case, of social accepted ways of creating music.” (252) He goes on further to say that the need for innovation is a psychological phenomenon and that sociology will try to investigate and explain “under which social conditions these psychological phenomena can successfully occur.” (254)
Jager believes that an individual can be innovative in two different ways: innovative in the means, and innovative in the goals. He gives Beethoven’s use of seventh chords at the beginning of his 1st Symphony as well as the addition of a third horn on his Eroica as examples of innovation in the means. According to him, what modern composers do is to “write music not to elevate the human mind or to please the ear but to arouse the political conscience of their audience” (254) and that should be considered innovation of the goals. Well, I don’t know if these were the correct motivations of Beethoven or modern composers (maybe Beethoven wanted to be innovative in the goals and modern composers just want to innovate in the means) but it is an interesting view.
The author points out some social conditions which can promote or delay innovation in music: 1- “the total of available elements in a society, (which is called its ‘cultural base’) influences the number – and perhaps the kind – of innovations a composer living in that society can make.” 2- a composer’s “social position and the roles assigned to him.”

At this point I don’t know if I have a definite answer to why innovative composers do/did things the ways they do/did – I actually don’t think one can have a definite answer to this matter – but
I surely have more food for thought now!

“So, indeed, all music was once new but – as the late John Mueller never tried to observe – one has to add: not always equally new.” Hugo de Jage