Schopenhauer-Target

[tallpoppygrower]

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

Standards, Licks, Individuality etc..they all came from an deep improvisational place. A place of searching, Discovery. Who is prepared to go there?

so many musos can play standards and have chops and can sound just like 'so and so'...and can play this era of music, that era of music, but the thing musicians today tend to forget is that innovative source music comes from a place none else can see.
Seems so much energy is wasted by musos overly busy trying to hit a target no-one else can hit.

That music is BORING and never moves the audience. Apart from those 'trustafarians' at Penny lane on Friday and Saturday who approximate jazz appreciation for cache ( a whole other thread).

Trane, Bird, Miles, Ran Blake,Ligetti, etc are very powerful forces and they all saw and hit targets no-one else can see...then all the talented ones, swept into the vortex of the above masters, started hitting targets no-one else could hit....and this trend has gotten out of control in since the 60s. Not to say that a few didn't survive the overpowering influence of great masters.

My question is: Why dont creative artists focus solely on developing the targets that are invisible to others and then spend their precious energy to hit them, because this would save souls.

[hewlett packard]

Nice work. I agree.

[jamie]

I agree with most of this TPG, the only thing is if you read any interviews, biographies etc, guys like Miles, Bird and Trane were all trying to sound like other people when they started out. Eventually they worked out that they had absorbed enough of everyone else's shit and started trying to find their own. I think the problem is that lots of people forget to find their own voice after they have absorbed concepts from the great players. Is there any kind of endeavor where you don't learn from the people that have gone before you? Just take a look at Einstein, Stravinsky, Pollock etc

[mim]

Hear, hear.

TPG, do you think that someone who tries to find their own voice without absorbing the music might lack depth, as someone who can only sound like someone else might also lack depth?

[timothystevens]

But which music? No-one exists without hearing anyone else, and who's to approve the repertoire with which another must be acquainted?

[aka]

It's not a concept that solely applies to jazz musicians of course..all artists,or people in general who follow a creative path, if they are alert ,will always go through a stage of learning the building blocks of their craft..painters, writers, musicians all do this..the truly original ones use this experience in forging their own voice..experience can be musical or non musical...Ornette Coleman played in R & B bands..Coltrane similar experiences..so did Hendrix...musicians or any other artists who lack the personal experience or grounding in thier craft will maybe be able to make a splash with something new, but ultimately fade quickly..
If you're talking about music that comes from a place that 'no one else can see', only your own experience and maturity can allow you to find this place...
you can't push it.

[jamie]

Surely Tim if we are talking about improvised music, then we would look at the jazz tradition right? (and I'm not saying it's the only improvised music on this planet). We are on Ozjazzforum here....

[mim]

timothystevens said:

But which music? No-one exists without hearing anyone else, and who's to approve the repertoire with which another must be acquainted?

Well, I don't think repertoire approval is really the discussion here. You can spend time absorbing influences from whatever genre, we're talking about pulling original music from pretty much nothing, or some undiscovered place.

And, as everyone knows, there's a difference between hearing and listening.

[antboy]

mim said:

timothystevens said:

But which music? No-one exists without hearing anyone else, and who's to approve the repertoire with which another must be acquainted?

Well, I don't think repertoire approval is really the discussion here. You can spend time absorbing influences from whatever genre, we're talking about pulling original music from pretty much nothing, or some undiscovered place.

hi all,
I don't read this article as saying that you can't have influences, and you must pull genius out from your hat!
to me the question that is more relevant ( and helpful to my development ) is the question of 'to what extent will l look at the masters etc...',
as jamie said the danger of looking TOO much is staying there and never moving away from that...

[tallpoppygrower]

...deep down you know the answer Tim.
Semantics and questions about approval are for intellectuals and not artists.
I'm talking about the deeper intuition about what music is within you.
Of course you have to learn from tradition to some extent and your questioning about that somehow leads me to believe


...you want to word spar as quickly as possible in order to avoid looking at the real issue which is...originality ..in its true form.

What is it? Who is privy to it and why?
Your soul needs no approval.
....... i can already see your response ....along the lines of:
'oh this is hippy waffle' etc...

Carl Jung was a hippy to and many of his concepts came from a "chanel" or telepathic communication with a spirit named Philemon. Without his hippy waffle we wouldn't have terms like "introspective" , "Extrovert", "Archetypal", and my old favorite

SHADOW SELF!

I come in peace

TPG

[tinky]

Why dont creative artists focus solely on developing the targets that are invisible to others and then spend their precious energy to hit them, because this would save souls.?

Nice ideal. People do have rent, bills, etc, life doesn't just disappear if you make amazing creative Art. Maybe the question should be WHY DONT YOU DO IT? Also, if others can't see that place how do you know who's going there or not? Do I? Does Tim? Grabba? Anyone else on here?
I've spent the last 15 years fully focusing on my music and that space. When I look back each year I realise I was nowhere near where I am the year later, so does that place also keep changing or am I living in an illusion of self the whole time? (most likely with me)
Maybe Arthur Schopenhauer could say that because he had been there, I'd be carefull about spouting it out if you don't really know what he means, or are you genius?

[timothystevens]

Mim: there is no nothing, that's what I'm saying. The idea of a position of musical nothingness is absurd so long as you can recognise anything as music. It's just that you said 'the music' (and Jamie 'the jazz tradition') as if these were fixed, known and agreed-upon things. I don't believe that they are, and I question whether they can ever be. This is not mere word-sparring, but an attempt to find some precision. It's all I'm ever on about, as I hope might even be evident from my playing.

As for TPG's distinction between intellectuals and artists, well, the less said about that the better. Obviously it's unseemly to have a brain, and in the poorest of taste to use it in public. In any case I believe I do know the answer, as you put it, but only for myself and always in acknowledgement that further questions are an indispensable part of whatever it is.

And don't put words in my mouth or I'll sic Vicki onto you. Unless you are Vicki of course. I guess it's a possibility. If only I could address you as familiarly as you address me.

[tinky]

Wasn't jazz something that was used to break from tradition? So really there should be no jazz tradition only traditional jazz. Unless the jazz tradition is to go against the tradition? Fuck thats confusing for a trumpet player, then again so is doing up my shoes.
Oh, Tim, how dare you question things with your intellect, thats just unfair to TPG.

[isaacs]

It's interesting that the Schopenhauer quote has led to a discussion about "influences". Is that really what it is about? It wasn't what popped into my head when I read it. But still worth addressing.

Such a vexed question this "influences" one. And so unnecessarily. I tend to agree with Tim, it's self-evident that everyone has to in some way be a product of at least some of what comes before them and is around them. But I also agree that it's one thing to show a healthy interest in the "canon" another thing for there to be a prescribed list. What tends to be missing is a comfort with the individual's right to be excited and influenced about what specifically excites them. People are timid about that, but I note great artists are perfectly comfortable to speak about what works for them, even if it goes against absolutely all conventional wisdom. Glenn Gould hated Mozart and said so. Vaughan Williams hated Beethoven and said so. Jazz it seems to me has a problem with anyone but Miles daring to express deeply personal views about key figures in the history. Supreme geniuses become Supreme Beings in jazz, partly I think because its dead geniuses are still warm and it's almost as if they may yet be seen to arise and roll back the stone. I'll stop talking generally and give a personal example in relation to living artists. For me the music of Chick was far more influential to my development than the music of Ornette. I pick that example because the greatness equation commonly runs the other way, and some would want to howl me down. By all means do so - I don't give a fuck - if an artist is not comfortable to even choose their own influences and instead follows the flock, what hope is there? I also think that artists aren't entirely honest in other ways about their influences, because they only talk about the FAMOUS people that influenced them. For me, as a teenager I was much more interested in sitting 20 metres from Roger Frampton at the Basement than sitting at home listening to a Monk record. I have since been absolutely captivated by Monk, but by and large Frampton has influenced me more than Monk, obviously because of proximity at crucial times. So I should mention him in interviews before I mention Monk, and try to do so. And there are others, less well-known than Frampton (who's unknown once you step out of Australia) people who are hugely insignificant on one level, but massively significant on a personal level for me.

I think part of "hitting targets no one else can see" is having the courage NOT TO BE INTERESTED in things even if everybody around you is interested, and the converse of course.

But influences and interests are only a small part of the equation: Schopenhauer's statement surely must cover things like motivation, direction, choices, ideals. I can't help wondering if it goes still deeper again. Maybe genius is also sometimes about hitting targets that even you yourself cannot see.

[plunk]

Maybe genius is also sometimes about hitting targets that even you yourself cannot see.'
Nicely said. I may just be preinterpreting what youve said here Mark.
So maybe there are no geniuses - just acts of genius that may arise from deep research and commitment to ones work. After all , acts of genius are essentially judged so by concensus, and that requires some degree of publicity and external scrutiny to occur. How else does the world conform to the view that an act of Genius has occurred? Does everybody agree that Miles, or Bird or Coltrane was a genius ? - of course not. The only thing we know is that these individuals were deeply committed to their work. How many acts of genius have gone completely unacknowledged?The whole concept of genius , and perhaps the point Schopenhauer is making - is one of subjectivity. The notion of a personal target relies on honesty - the honesty to acknowledge those influences outside of you which inspire or motivate- to whatever degree you choose, and to accept that your target may remain invisible to all others , even after you have hit it yourself.