2 Things:
1. I am obsessed with innovation.
2. This topic has been discussed differently before on this blog.
Music has math embedded in it. Well, technically it’s physics. Air vibrations are perceived by some very special body parts as sound. As the hertz, or cycles per second, changes the tone changes. The “A” string on a guitar, if in tune, vibrates 440 times per second: 440 Hz.
Math is repeatable. A proof in math can be demonstrated and taught. In a sense, music is a proof. The combinations of tones that elicit certain feelings can be repeated and demonstrated. They can be learned.
The demonstrability and repeatability of music proofs is proven by the fact that far more than half the songs I know how to play (and have written) use the same few patterns (click). Leonard Cohen’s classic, “Hallelujah,” references this: “it goes like this; the fourth, the fifth, the minor fall, the major lift…”
Understanding that art, and everything else, has underlying mechanics and science has enabled me to be a better producer and evaluator of the things I am passionate about (music, church-planting, parenting, watching television). I don’t “wing it” when I put my fingers on a fretboard. I take science, history, my “talent” and my taste and blend them together to create.
My indie rock, damn the man friends, please don’t jump to the conclusion that I’m suggesting following the proofs of the past is the way forward. I don’t want Empire Records to turn to Music Town. I want innovation. I, like you, have the desire to bend, break and reinvent, but I know what has worked before and WHY. Knowing why gives me the launching point. When I deviate from the existing proofs, I have the foundation to know WHY the new proof works or the background to evaluate WHY it does not.
Anyone can stand up and say they are innovating and really just create garbage. Back when MySpace was a thing, a ton of bands listed one of their genres as “experimental.” Typically, it meant garbage. People would play things that deviated from “norms” in ways that weren’t thought out and clearly showed their lack of knowledge of the mechanics of music. You have license to do whatever you want, and you may be “innovative” in the purest sense, but what good is innovation if it is not significant and successful? The Library of Congress is full of stupid patents. Being significant is more tenuous than being innovative, and the likelihood of significance is bolstered by a strong background in the fundamentals.
Poets should understand the mechanics poetry if they want to excel at making poems; even if they want to do crazy things like e.e. cummings. Painters should understand painting if they want to excel at making paintings; Picasso wasn’t always a cubist. CEOs should study Jack Welch if they want to excel at being a CEO; even if they don’t want to create or run a diversified industrial.
This is not because we should strive to repeat but because very, very, very few people are blessed with a degree of innovative thinking that allows them to create new proofs from a vacuum. Knowing the pillars and foundations of a pursuit provides a launchpad for innovation and also exposes unexplored regions and behaviors and chord patterns that could provide the next generation of proofs.
So, here is my challenge:
Do you even know the math and science of your craft? What are you doing to be a student of your craft? What have been the pillars of your field? Are you trying to trail blaze without that knowledge?
I once saw an interview with a homeless, street musician whose voice was flat and his guitar was out-of-tune. He INSISTED that he was innovating, and it would be impossible to deny him that, but so what? He told the interviewer that he did not listen to other musicians because it would cloud his creativity. Are you so arrogant that you believe you can create in a vacuum? I think a lot of us are, and I think a lot of us are failing just like that homeless, street musician.
Matthew F. Murphy 