In one of my favourite books, “Where Does Music Come From?”, the late musicologist Gunnar Valkare asserts that music isn’t something we learn to do or consume, but rather something we are born with an innate affinity for. Music, he argues, is foremost a human activity, a human behaviour.
The book is named after a quote from legendary director Ingmar Bergman; he put this rather open-ended question out to the listeners in a syndicated radio programme back in 2004, garnering a great number of written replies sent in to the Swedish Radio from the listeners. Reading Valkare’s book for the first time a few years back felt like a bit of an eye-opener, and it remains a book I both refer to as well as keep as as an unconscious reference in the back of my head. It has helped me formulate a clearer purpose for why I want to keep writing and working with music – apart from the fact that it is really fun, of course. Regular readers of my blog might remember that I have mentioned Valkare several times in the past and discussed my views on music and art at length, so I will try to keep myself short here.
In the latter half of the 19th century, the slogan “l’art pour l’art” or “art for art’s sake” caught on in Europe, particularly as a kind of counterargument or defence against those who argued that the value of art was to serve some kind of external purpose: moral, didactic, political, or otherwise. The American 19th century painter James McNeill Whistler wrote: “art should be independent of all claptrap – should stand alone […] and appeal to the artistic sense of eye and ear”. His countryman, writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, going even further, argued thus:
We have taken it into our heads that to write a poem simply for poem’s sake […] would be to confess ourselves radically wanting in the true poetic dignity and force […] but under the sun there neither exists nor can exist any work more thoroughly dignified, more supremely noble, […] than this poem written solely for the poem’s sake.
Edgar Allan Poe (1850) The Poetic Principle
Naturally, there have been plenty of critics of this stance, from various points of view, even as far back as during the 19th century. Friedrich Nietzsche, rarely one to back down from a fight, wrote in his 1889 book Twilight of the Idols: “Art is the great stimulus of life: how could one understand it as purposeless, as aimless, as l’art pour l’art?”
In a 1936 essay, German philosopher Walter Benjamin related this slogan to the Italian Futurist artistic movement, which was then still in relatively recent memory, and part of which morphed into the National Fascist Party. Benjamin notes that one of the Futurists’ slogans was “fiat ars – pereat mundus”, roughly translated as “make art, though the world perish”, putting a bitter perspective on how purposeless art might be ideologically appropriated. (Perhaps a paraphrase, or perversion, of the older “fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus”.)
Personally, I find that Gunnar Valkare makes a fairly salient argument against art for art’s sake, at least drawn to its logical extreme. If music – being a form of art – is something intrinsically human, would we even want to make music devoid of purpose? Is it even possible? I mean, perhaps I’m either splitting hairs or in over my head here (possibly both!), but in my opinion even if you would sit down and create the most soulless husk of a commercial ditty, squarely aimed at attracting as many listeners as possible, that’s still some kind of purpose. It’s not a purpose I would encourage or aspire to myself, but a purpose nonetheless.
Music is and has also been used for centuries for purposes that could be described as worthy or important, by their proponents at least. These include music for religious services, working songs, parades or other royal displays, various ceremonies both religious and civil, and at least historically also practical military use.
It would be easy to use “art for art’s sake” or something similar in a derogatory way for something with a purpose you disagree with or do not acknowledge. The same phrase could also as easily be used as it was in the 19th century to assert a sort of inherent value of art, irrespective of political, social or religious alignments. In my admittedly only somewhat informed opinion, as long as we humans make art it has some form of purpose, whether humble or lofty. What is purpose – as active intention behind the work’s creation – and what is meaning – as either the creator’s intent or a subsequent claim to the work by others – could also be discussed, and at length. But not here.
I have been diligently writing my daily etudes every day now for a week. Two dice lay ready on top of my keyboard on my desk. It’s been fun, but also a bit frustrating a couple of times this week when I got a good idea and didn’t have the space to develop it into something more substantial. That limitation is by my own design, of course. I choose to interpret that frustration as something inherently positive, as a sign that my creative juices are indeed flowing.
These etudes are for both my own enjoyment and utility. They are no masterpieces, but they aren’t supposed to be, either. One or two of them might end up as the seeds of something bigger. But even if none of them do, they will still have served the dual purpose of keeping my creative process going and helping me get some composing done every day, even in periods where I can’t properly dedicate time to work on new music.
Sharing them here is not for artistic bragging rights (as you’ll see) but rather, as a kind of public accountability to make sure I can’t cheat, and primarily to serve as inspiration for others – you, perhaps! – to try the game out yourself. As long as you have the resources to write down music, you just need two regular six-sided dice.
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And now, without further ado, here are last week’s etudes!