Hey, Musicians - especially you classically trained ones - you are NOT creative!

[Rabrrrrrr]

For example, I can think of certain proportion of classical musicians, dancers, actors, even writers who no doubt are very good but they don't need to be creative. Take an award winning violinist for example, is she being creative? she practises hard, perfected the skills, play each note of a piece of music perfectly. What's so creative about that? It is just clinical like the doctors above.

According to the jackass who wrote the first review of "The Rise of the Creative Class" on this page:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0465024777/sr=1-1/qid=1184696839/ref=cm_cr_dp_hist_1/002-9454250-0608855?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=byExactRating%5F1&qid=1184696839&sr=1-1#customerReviews

[billyskank]

1. For some reason high skills are not esteemed any more.

[AllegroRondo]

2. what an idiot

something tells me he's never tried to "play each note of a peice perfectly" before. Its A LOT more than just playing notes.

[Beaverhausen]

3. at the risk...I think there is a difference between 'talented' and 'creative'

someone can be both, of course, but having musical talent might not necessarily mean you can create music. You can perform music that others have created, and you can put your own inherent musicality to a piece, but someone else actually did the creating.

:hide:

[SteppingRazor]

4. Well, they do have a point.

It's not a knock on the skill level of a musician performing someone else's work. It's just simply stating that the musician in question is not creating anything new. I think it's kind of an obvious, superfluous statement, but I don't consider it particularly insulting to musicians, classical or otherwise, who perform the work of other composers and/or songwriters (and for what it's worth, I'm a guitarist with some classical training).

[AllegroRondo]

5. but is it creative to interpret someone's composition?

Ive known musicians who could play stuff note-perfect, but couldnt add nuance or interpretation to save their life. Is it creative to be able to add emotion and feel to an existing piece?

Personally, I say yes. Although I think Im biased, as I'm classically trained and have been playing for over 20 years.

For example, check out the many different recordings of a famous piece, like Tchaikovski's 1st piano concerto. What makes one performance better than another? Its not just the skill of being able to play all the notes, a trained monkey could do that. What makes one recording have a different emotional feel than another? I say theres definite creativity in there.

[supernova]

6. Yes, I make the same distinction

I'll be honest.

My SiL plays classical piano very well. She had a BA in it as a matter of fact. Her technique is flawless and she hits every note on the page. Technically, she plays it exactly as written.

But when she plays, I don't FEEL it. I don't "get" what the composer was trying to relay when he wrote the piece or where she wants to go with it. There's something missing.

Listening to Van Clyburn, OTOH, whole different world. I see colors, textures, I feel the music in my body, my soul. He manipulates me and I happily let him. That's the sign of a true artist.

[tonkatoy57]

10. I've given lot's of thought to this over the years

As someone with two worthless degrees in music performance I've thought about this a lot. I've worked it out for myself that there is a difference between a creative artist like a composer, visual artist, or playwright and what I think of as a "recreative" artist.

I know about composition. I've had years of music theory. I've had to write as class assignments two and three part fugues, sonata form compositions, and examples of twelve tone rows. However, I'm not a composer. The worst hack composer in the world can write better music with one hand tied behind their back than I ever could. Sometimes I hear a piece of music that I'm not familiar with and my first thought is, "what a piece of shit". Then I remember that I could never do as well. My point is that I'm in awe of the thought processes and talent it takes to be even a shitty composer.

I was trained to be a "recreative" artist. Aside from the native talent and the years of study and independent work required to master (yeah, right) an instrument there are other gifts and skill sets needed to be an effective interpreter of a composer's thoughts. You need to present musically and intellectually informed performances. You have to know performance practice for many different periods and schools of composition and you have to feel it. The technical and physical portion of it is no different than any skill that requires a great deal of physical dexterity and hand to eye or hand to tongue coordination. We're surgeons or dentists in that way.

Are compostion and performance both creative? Certainly, but the art of the composer is different than the art of the interpreter.

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. No - interpretation is a highly creative act

Not that all musicians are necessarily creative in their interpretations of the music, but the good ones are - YoYo Ma, Joshua Bell, Heifetz, Kirsten Flagstad, and so on.

Even if they are performing music that someone else wrote, they can be and are highly creative.

Please do not shortsell people, or think that the only creative act in music is the initial composition. That's pure crap, and does an awful disservice to everyone.

[SteppingRazor]

11. I think tonkatoy's post, above, does a lot to address this.

Certainly both the composer and the musician play creative roles, but it's an apples/oranges sort of discussion.

[Le Taz Hot]

7. Well, that and there's

"too many notes." :eyes:

[Inchworm]

8. This is a reason I started that art/love thread

I was speculating the idea that repetitive tasks are part of the art. The artist is what brings the art out of the tasks. The "flare" between the set parts of the particular art is what makes the artist.

Words are just words, a chord is a chord, shadowing is shadowing, and grande jetes are grande jetes. Its the "flare" the artist puts into the standards that make it art...


hehe.. whaddya think?

:shrug:

other thread art vs. love
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x6726335

[asthmaticeog]

12. The reviewer is an ass, but the book is STILL bullshit.

[Maraya1969]

13. Different composers want their pieces played a certain way. Bach

is even specific about the way a person should play one of his trills.

That being said: To be able to play Bach and play Bach well takes an incredible amount of work. You can't improvise a Bach work, (or most famous composers works....according to them, which I suppose is where the "non creative" assertion come from).

I studied classical music for many years and was a complete fish out of water when I tried to go into improvisation. And I believe that great works of music follow mathematical certainties. So yes that does take the creativity out of it.