The Damage Of Specialization

 

Fluidity can emerge in performances or re-arrangements of musical "blueprints" using improvisation to a large degree. I tend to think architecturally, so I like the metaphor of musical blueprints in which the outer structure, as well as the interior, can be designed in different ways. If the structure itself is more curvilinear or parametric, then the entire work has different possibilities than a rectilinear form. If you are working in a score it has to be through-composed to the tiniest of details, perhaps on every bar or on every note. I don’t know why you’d want to do that these days because it couldn’t be performed.

In the long view, consider what your overall music (and life) philosophies are. What typically happens over time is that you tend to revisit older ways of working. But if there is a constant thread through everything, then you can work freely without "analysis/paralysis". Simply, find your own unique working style. (Pierre Boulez talked about this in his lectures, re the "damage of specialization"). 

"Our character, our individuality, directs us towards choices that match our own core,  choices that change perhaps not with the seasons, but at least according to our needs:  some experience that preoccupied us seems less urgent after a while, we had for some other one which in the moment will be able to offer us more."  Boulez, Pierre. Music Lessons: The Collège de France Lectures. United States, University of Chicago Press, 2019. p. 445

10/29/2022