On 26/08/2009 10:10, "Michael Brady" <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Aug 25, 2009, at 8:37 PM, Allan Sutherland wrote: > >>> To know what is art, is to eliminate the joy of doing it. >>> mando >> >> This sounds like absolute improvisation, making music without >> knowing how to play an instrument or make a sound. It is likely >> possible, it is likely it has been done, but is it adequate to >> enable a variety of arts to be produced, I don't think so. It is >> rather romantic or even mystical to think art is created without >> knowing or knowledge; making art entails knowledge and skills. . . > > I think you've over-construed Mando's comment. > Perhaps, but I think you have under-construed mine. I was not making the point that absolute improvisation was possible, if so I would probably have referred to free improvisation or non-idiomatic improvisation which has a clear history and some semblance of meaning. I was also making more or less the point you make below, that improvisation is the product of disciplined and skilled people. But, contrastingly too, Derek Bailey argues that anybody can improvise musically, they either do so with a low or extremely high level of sophistication. Thank you for your response. Toodle-pip, Allan. > To think about "what is art" while you are in the process of making a > work of art is to keep you eye on two things at once -- not easy to > do, and usually not successful for either. > > When I stand in the studio with a canvas on the easel and a paintbrush > in my hand, I know that whatever comes next "is art"--i.e., I intend > to make a work of art, all of what I do in the service of that end > during the next hours is part of the process of making a work of art, > and that all of my concentration will be on ... NOT making art, > because I've already set myself to that task ... but on painting > different specific parts on the canvas. Everything about painting for > me is enjoyable, as I assume it is for Mando, even the tedious parts > and the dull or repetitive or mere housekeeping parts. > > BTW, "absolute improvisation" is not "making music without *knowing > how to play* etc." What you describe is just banging the keys or > strumming the guitar. It's undiscipline. I expect in the music world > that "improvisation" denotes a way of producing music by trained and > disciplined performers who know what goes into music-making and how to > depart from a fixed point of reference. (Perhaps the point of the > anecdote was the fact that Lacy couldn't think of how to get to the > point of departing from the fixed score). Discipline is the basis of > freedom in making things, whether it's carpentry or music or painting > or writing. Just now, as I am typing this, my skills and discipline in > word usage, composition, logic, etc., allow me to compose quickly and > with a high degree of confidence that I'll form a cogent comment. > Those same skills and discipline enable me to produce the puns and > wordplay that I do almost effortlessly--a kind of improvisation with > language. > > Unskilled people cannot improvise: they just make odd noises in > public, or strange marks, or misshapen forms, or clumsy movements. > > Your reference to "romantic or even mystical" strikes me as a throw- > away dismissal of both of those mental stances as insubstantial. > Perhaps the vast majority of the people you've met of a romantic or > mystical persuasion have been rank amateurs (that is certainly my > experience), but the good Romantics (think of Wordsworth's Preface to > the "Lyrical Ballads") or mystics (Hildegard of Bingen, e.g., or > today's vogue for Rumi, and, of course, Thomas Aquinas) certainly rise > above vulgar fatuity. > > > > > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > Michael Brady > [email protected] > http://considerthepreposition.blogspot.com/ > > Subscribe: [email protected] > Unsubscribe: [email protected]
