spice up the food of life
First of all, to all my regular readers, you might have noticed that I have a new blog link down there in the lower right hand part of your screen. Well, my friend Chris Heinrich here at Gonzaga apparently has a blog of his own that you might find interesting- and he doesn't seem to get very many comments. Go check it out if you have a few minutes to spare. So let it be written, so let it be done.I'm still looking forward to spring break in a week and a half. On the other hand, I still have the hardest stuff to do before then ahead of me still, so I feel like I'm on the part of the log ride when they've taken you through the forest with your canoe bouncing up and down and up against the sides, then taken you up to the top with the tip of the boat just peeking out before it tips over and you go screaming down towards the great splash. The splash is spring break, but I've still got a lot of screaming before I get there.
I have to go sign up for my dorm room for next year tonight. This is messing with my head a little bit because I can barely keep a plan for two weeks ahead, and they're asking me to be ready for next year before midterms this semester. And yet, though I seem incapable of planning for the future, I realized today that I had been doing the same routine out of sheer habit without realizing for the last month or so. Since my dorm next year is immediately next to the dorm I'm living in now, it seems that I will continue to do a similar routine next year.
By now, you may be thinking "What is Emmett doing? Is he copping out of his usual thought of the day in his post?" (Alternatively, I suppose you could be thinking, "thank goodness, he's finally not putting more of his insipid opinions up!) but, surprise! I have a thought. Here goes:
I have been considering people who play an instrument, or perhaps write poetry (those are the two best examples I have) without putting forth the effort to practice hard, revising their work and making sure that what they are putting forth is the best that they can do. I know I used to have that problem with poetry- I could write a bunch of poems a week because I would just scribble out what was in my head. As I kept doing this, the poems got better, but that method really didn't do much to help my poems. The same thing can be true of some people who attempt to play an instrument- my friend's roommate apparently only learns the beggining of a song and only plays that over and over again because he is unwilling to put forth the work needed to learn the whole song.
Common practice would tell us that we should define these people as a poet and a musician, respectively. I look through Poetry.com occasionally and I see people who obviously do the same thing I used to do with my poetry and it is painful to read. But they are there, anyway- and poets of their caliber get published. Have any of you listened to Nirvana? There is a band that obviously didn't know how to play their instruments, but they are still a 'must-hear' group of our era.
Most musicians, of course, can stick their noses down at Nirvana and other garage garbage sound bands; they have years of practice under their belts and can afford to be a little arrogant comparatively. As for poetry, Ezra Pound thought it would be a good idea if poets went throught the same kind of training as musicians did in order to get the same effect- to keep amateurs away.
A part of me sympathizes with the people who write poetry and play music like that, but for the most part I have to agree with Pound and the other 'elitists.' Partly because of all the work I put into orchestra, and am putting into my guitar now, I know the great pleasure and self-respect that comes with learning something difficult, and learning how to do it well. I know when it comes to poetry that I much prefer now getting out maybe one poem a month, but a poem that has been critiqued by people and worked over extensively by me to the stuff in my old notebooks that I now cringe at to read.
Wow, this has become long- but let me know what you think: is there any worth in having these kind of 'amateur' poets and musicians?
posted by Emmett @ 15:56
5 Comments:
You know what? This has occured to me and this is exactly why I classify myself as someone who writes but isn't a writer.
There's definitely an advantage to going through the 'amateur' phase (as long as ya don't get stuck in it...), as it allows you to practice the basics of the craft: getting the story out, making a decent painting, getting used to how songs fit together.... and once you have all these basics down well enough, you can move past the amateur phase and start obsessing over every detail to up the quality of your work.
As for having this type of amateur around and trying to make people pay attention to their stuff... well, yes and no. It allows for mass production of low-quality art which, although not the greatest, is still better than nothing if you're willing to suspend your disbelief (and everything you know about in-depth analysis). For all those goths who write bad poetry and in middle school and high school and all the garage bands, it works. Not the best stuff, but captures a feeling well enough and entertains their peers. It becomes trickier when you're marketing this stuff to everyone who walks into a book/music store; it's crap to the people who actually know what makes great music/poetry/whatever, but the fact is that most people's standards aren't high enough to be bothered by sub-quality stuff. I guess it just falls to everyone to decide where their tolerance is.
So, I guess the question I'm asking is, should we expect people to have a high tolerance for the finer things in life? Is there good reason for people to insist that the hard work that goes into this stuff is justified?
You know where I stand- but I can kind of understand the other point of view from a kind of egalitarian utilitarian standpoint: everyone should be equally able to do the things that make them happy. I understand that, but I think that society would be better off if we were more elitist rather than more egalitarian when it comes to artistic creations.
Hmm, fun question. I'll have to go with a 'yes' and 'no' as well.
I think that everyone should be allowed to write, or play, or paint, or whatever they feel inspired to do. And we all need to realize that a lot of this is going to be mediocre. And that the people doing it can either realize it's mediocre and learn from it, or think it's the most wonderful thing the world has ever seen. I cringe to think of junior high students who think their stuff is the best, but I also cringe worse to think that I used to be one of them. I hope I got over that.
Just a plug here for myself: I know I'm not a great writer, I'm still pretty rotten as things go, but the point is I'm enjoying it, I'm learning from my mistakes, and I don't think I'm all that. But yes, sorry, I am obsessive over it despite that. Okay, done with my face-saving plug.
I recently quit orchestra because I couldn't compete with the kind of competition colleges have. Yes, I will never be a concert violinist, and yes, I'm not willing to put in the time to practice when I'm not playing in a fun group, and yes, I'm throwing away a lot, in a way. I should be punched. BUT...I wanted to play for fun, for the spirituality of it, the beauty of the music, the companionship between an orchestra. People like that can't compete with the elite.
So to recap, because I don't think I've made a coherent point yet, I think the elite should be a bit more lenient with the mediocre and take it for what it is, as long as the mediocre know that's what they are, and aspire through dilligent practice to be more elite technically. But on both ends, there's a lot of pride. The ellite look down on the masses, and we're sick of it, so we look up our noses at them.
Have I made any sense...didn't think so.
And because the topic of your blog finally shifted to Writing and Art, I could no longer resist the impulse to comment.
And yes, I have been checking it faithfully for updates. Creepy, no?
The positives of elitism and egalitarianism regarding artwork are drawn at the degrees of publication applied to them, that is, the more public a work is made, the more professional it needs to be, for the good of society. One of the problems with modern poetry is the wretched communality of poets, who have all moved to the universities because they can there make a decent living teaching new poets. Which is fine, but in doing this they lose their independence that allowed them to honestly express themselves. Who reviews poetry anymore, save for other poets? The structure of poetic publications has become very internalized, with the same names appearing variously as teachers, students, authors, and editors.
The problem is that no one in this kind of system is much inclined to be critical of subpar work, because a cruel reviewer is far less likely to garner positive reviews of his own work.
Now the relatively uninformed public is being exposed to art that is not the best of its kind, but is being told be an informed person (the reviewer) that it is good. As a result, tastes degrade. In the case of poetry, it means that people end up buying far fewer books or anthologies of poetry, because so much is being published, so much is being lauded, and the statistical chances are good that they are being exposed to less enjoyable poetry than necessary.
This has been a terribly long example, but it is a strong argument for restricting the widespread distribution of poor art. It takes away from the opportunities of the viewer to see something even better, and causes them to like experiencing art less then they otherwise would.
On the other end of the spectrum, I believe that people should liberally produce as many bad paintings and as much hackneyed poetry as they want--just the act of creation is enriching, regardless of quality--as long as they keep it private, or only show the people who love them. Their trophies perhaps may be showcased on the internet, which is as lovely a forum for the egalitarianistically minded as you could ever want, and beyond that lie the misty realms of physical publications.
Perhaps my most pointful point should be that if people want others to read their poetry, they shouldn't cry about criticism. Criticism is the Darwinism of the art world.
I think we're all on the side of everyone continuing to create their own personal art, even if it is subpar- good point, Maren, on the different reasons people do things, I hadn't thought about that- and it reminds me of a work from the renaissance, Castiglione's Book of the Courtier, in which he says that the ideal courtier or gentleman (the description gets kind of muddled in the middle) should always know enough art to create it, and he describes knowing an instrument, knowing how to sing, how to paint, how to write poetry. But, he says, some people aren't as good as these things as other people- so always have one good friend that you can give the work to, or perform the piece for, so you can get feedback of some kind.
This has its own drawbacks- the person Castiglione was describing was a gentleman of means, which meant he owned property and didn't have to work. Nowadays we don't have this kind of person anymore- people well-off enough to not work usually run companies or find some other way to create more money. People have become specialists- but they still try to do things on the side.
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