On Musical Thesis

The problem is that after a certain point, cleverness doesn’t do. It creates a cap beyond which the music can go no further. Skill is reduced to a shtick, innovation reduced to novelty. And perhaps more dangerously, cleverness becomes the object of attention for those with the skill to perhaps do something else. Talented musicians come to believe erroneously that increasing their talent alone will be satisfactory to the market, the culture, and perhaps their self worth. And what a sad psychological state of affairs that leaves us in. The most worthy are confused about their worth, their gifts go unrefined and given stingily if at all, and those who would receive them but don’t have no idea what they are missing.

To be clear, music itself needs nothing. The creative spirit in music, understood here, for simplicity, as an “entity” dwelling a higher realm and making its appearance here, is at all times intact, perfectly wise, and full. There is nothing that we as humans can add to or subtract from it. A tradition can pass away, a language can be rendered culturally dormant, musical tools can go out of fashion, perhaps forever, but music itself is unchanged. In sacred or in profane, it will express itself. It will grow as a flower in the cracks of concrete, or as a redwood in a lush forest. But actually even those biological images are too blunt. I’m referring to the invisible impulse to grow, not merely to it’s results. For the music isn’t just the thing you hear, but is also the yearning people have to express themselves in sound and time. And music is the source and realization of that impulse.  Giving music such an identity precludes us from reducing the conversation to biology or physics, which may identify the methods of action of the expression but confuse the present conversation about creativity. This is because the creative person doesn’t think in such terms when in the throes of their craft, either in creation or appreciation, considering rather, the music as a friend or muse or world or deity. More dangerously, such a reduction serves to dismantle the narrative meaning of the creative act and reduce it to so many charts and formulae, often times without incorporating the narrative spirit of science itself into the reduction. As an aside, It is a modern tendency to scoff at meaning, because it is a premodern tendency to assume meaning was fully known and set in stone. Both positions are too prideful for their own good, and I personally like to make it a habit to assume meaning exists but that it is mercurial and that it is my job to investigate it.

Because it is meaning that overcomes cleverness in the cultural imagination and ultimately in social coherence. It is not just important that music hold meaning, it is essential. Now, music always means something to its creator. There is always an intent to putting dots on a page or rectangles on a DAW. I think we don’t spend time as musicians clarifying what that meaning is. It is common for a musician to say they want to “bring people together” or “make the people dance” when the underlying motivation is really something like “pay my rent”, “ become famous”, “make myself feel less inadequate” or maybe even “find my way back to that sacred place that I stumbled into when playing that one time.”

Now consider the following: Someone comes up to you and offers to talk to you about how much they wanted to pay their rent, become famous, feel better about themselves, or attain enlightenment. They may or may not be speaking in a language you are familiar with. You vaguely relate to their stated goals, but they mention that the details of their story maybe very personal to them and a community that they belong to and they don’t feel the need to give you situational context because “the story will speak for itself”. In addition because they are very clever and have worked diligently on this particular style of speaking for several years, perhaps even going to school for it, you are asked to pay a premium price for your strict attention to them for however long they will be talking. Does this sound like an attractive proposition to you? Some of us would take it and in fact some practitioners are skilled enough at doing such a thing that they can earn fame and fortune. However, it would be more difficult to believe that covering for personal inadequacy or striving for personal gain are unifying, life giving ethoi. Certainly, hearing that others are struggling or chasing like we are can evoke empathy, commiseration, or schadenfruede, but this is not full nourishment for the cultural soul.

It’s not that these subjects are best excluded from music as music excludes nothing. The question is what are the ingredients you are drawing from your musical garden to prepare something tasty and healthy for the spirit. I suspect that musicians don’t even know that some of the emotions mentioned above feature so prominently in their work and shape they way audiences listen to them. When following one’s bliss or bolt of inspiration, the filter through which the inspiration is brought to reality, by the hands or pen of the artist is baked into the final creation. Some filter will always be present as we are human, and the light of inspiration should be followed no matter how the artist’s lens refracts it. I am only suggesting not to be so damn haughty about it and that perhaps one way to make better music is to have greater mastery of one’s emotional/spiritual dynamics. Nadia Boulanger said that the music is never better or worse than the musician.

All kinds of music from all kinds of people resonate with other people in the world. Put another way, impact is a function of more variables than “skill” or “degree of personal enlightenment.” Music is smarter than we are and doles out gifts to her children as she deems fit. So while we as musicians are potential spiritual stewards, part of our filial role, should we care to honor our sacred mother, is to be ever present to the piece of the zeitgeist meant for us to pick up on and to follow that. This framework enables the musician to connect to their audience spiritually, which lasts longer than mere entertainment and hits deeper than marketing. Learning to evoke this requires a musical thesis, an organizing principle that informs their composition, performance, and technique. This thesis will manifest itself as criterion for what notes to play, how to curate a set, what to practice how to dress and whom to collaborate with. This need not be articulated in the “elevator pitch” format, even though it would be helpful. It is most potent when a listener can articulate your own thesis to you, prompted only by your work.

Locking down such a thesis is quite difficult. One guiding question that I have found most useful is, “whom do I serve?” One can identify a market, a language demographic, or a tradition. I have found that a good place to start, given that we are invoking a spiritual potency in the music, is “God” or the “Great Spirit” or the “spirit of music.” In one sense this answer is not binding as it doesn’t clarify what practical steps to take next, however, I find this answer valuable as service to something fixed, unwavering, and eternal gives a sense of inner peace, grounding, and insight into what can be. For then the hard questions come. What does my music stand for? Who will buy tickets? When should I go with trends? In all honesty, I have not answered these questions yet satisfactorily. My experiment is to try different things out with you the audience and see where our truths overlap. But I suspect the real trick is to have a single question in your heart that is worth returning to; And building on the answers music gives you.