Originality

[avevale_intelligencer]

Some time ago I wrote a song (yes, it's true, I used to write songs. With notes and everything) called Song of the Tyrants, in which I contrasted the artist's never-ending quest for originality and freshness with the public's continuing demand for more of what they enjoy, plus I got to sing in a funny accent over an accordion accompaniment with a bassoon solo. (If I sing in a funny accent nobody notices that I can't actually sing.) I came out on the side of the public, mostly, not only because I am completely devoid of originality myself but because I identify as a member of the public rather more than I do as an artist. I like what I like, and I like as much of it as I can get. If people who were making something I like start making something I don't, it makes me sad and I probably won't go to those people again. Which is not to say that I don't give new things a chance, or even a second chance. Just probably not a third or a fourth.

But it seems to me that the quest for originality as an end in itself is quite a recent development in human cultural evolution. When Beethoven started writing, his work was very little different from that of his predecessors and teachers. As time went by, it developed and became unique, but I don't think that was necessarily because he was trying to be different. He explored new ways of doing things because that was a way to do what he was doing better. Even then people were very down on him for it, but not nearly as down as they would have been if he'd abandoned harmony and melody entirely and produced something akin to Schoenberg or Webern in the seventeenth century. (He got close in the last few quartets, I believe, but those who came after him were less adventurous.) I'm sure people can think of other examples.

More recently, and in a different field, the Goons pioneered a kind of surrealism in comedy, which was taken up by such as I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again and Hello Cheeky, but the surrealism was always subordinate to the comedy. With Monty Python the balance started to tip the other way, and the quest to do something different started to outweigh the need to be funny. This led to series like The Boosh, which as far as I can see is pure surrealism without benefit of jokes, and The Office, which ditched the boom-oo-yatta-ta-ta, I mean the surrealism, but didn't put the jokes back. Nowadays we laugh nervously at something embarrassing, or out of shock at something disgusting, but shows which allow us finally to laugh at a joke because it's funny are derided as unoriginal. "Cosy" (and when did that become a dirty word?). Safe (ditto). I don't know about anyone else, but I find cosy quite comforting in the cold wind of reality, and I'd certainly rather be safe than not.

The search for originality necessarily proceeds outward, from the centre where most of us still are. As it does so it gets further and further away from us, and no matter how we run to keep up, we can never stop. Some of us don't change fast enough, either because we can't, or because we don't want to. Sooner or later the searchers must either stop and turn back, or leave us behind entirely. If they're happy to do that, then they have, I think, forgotten what they are doing it for.

What does the team think? Am I a reactionary old fart just wishing for things to be like they were when I was young? Or do I maybe have something resembling a point here?

Comments

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe there is some reactionary old-fartness in there somewhere, but if so you have plenty of company.

I think the point about over-emphasis on originality is that when something loses or abandons all connection with what is known, then there is nothing we can easily relate to so that we can begin to understand it. One doesn't necessarily need much, but something is necessary.

I'm always suspicious of things which strive for "originality" above all other qualities. It makes me thing that the other qualities are abandoned because the perpetrator is incapable of achieving them. Much of modern art is like that. However, sometimes, one does come across something that is really new and startling but still "talks" to us - and why? Because it connects with something we know and understand sufficiently that we are willing to stretch our understanding to encompass something new.

Addendum: I first saw "The Office" after I'd been out of the UK for some years. I'd never even heard of it before. When I saw it, I thought it was a rather boring fly-on-the-wall documentary about people behaving in various embarrassing ways. Perhaps I'm just stupid.
I don't find "Little Britain" funny either.
I do, however, think that Harry Enfield is hilarious. But then I fall about laughing to "Just a Minute" and "I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue", so that's got me pigeonholed, then.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I love Just A Minute and ISIHAC as well, but Enfield eludes me. He started out with routines that were funny, and then seems to have decided that all he needed to do was don a costume, put on a voice and utter a catchphrase and everyone would fall about laughing every single time. ISIRTA did that with "teapot" years ago. I seem to see also the beginning of the edge of cruelty in his work that comes to full fruition in Little Britain and such.

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Well, I suppose it's a while since I saw Harry Enfield, too...

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

But your mileage may vary from mine.

[do0odlebug.livejournal.com]

Beethoven was at the beginning of a period where (allegedly) people's perception of the future began to change quite radically. Up until that time (very early stages of what we call the Industrial Revolution) people expected the future to be exactly like the past - or rather the present which they thought was exactly like the past. That's why medieval artists often put people in biblical scenes in medieval clothing, among other things. Now, we know the future will be different from the present, and that the present is different from the past (or those who think about it do, anyway). This change percolated through society (from an "educated elite" to the "masses") during the 19th Century. And the 20th Century's discoveries in the sciences (especially Biology and Astronomy) are increasing this awareness even now. At one level, Beethoven was merely responding to the changing social environment to experiment with the form of music - as was, for example, Richard Trevithick, when he built his moving steam engines, though in his case it wasn't music ;-) . Maybe the changes in the arts, Goons, Atonality, etc are merely a continuation of that in the same way as many industries today are a product of the work of Trevithick and his contemporaries. That he "drifted" into originality may reflect his courage (remember he HAD to sell his work in order to feed himself and his family), or his dawning realisation of the potentials on offer.

It's worth noting, of course, that this isn't the only time great artists have responded to social changes. One of the Bach's (the first I assume) wrote music based on the mathematics that were emerging as a fascination for his patrons (and himself), an interest (as a personal opinion) owed as much to Newton's Pricipalia, and the work of HIS contemporaries.

I'm sure I could find other examples, and indeed I expect you may have thought of a few yourself by now.

On "cosy" and "safe", I'm inclined to agree with you.

On modern comedy; I realised that, frankly, most of the comedy I was seeing on TV at the end of the sixties was based on laughing at other peoples' embarrassment. I (thankfully) don't find this funny, so I stopped watching "humour" in the early seventies, and though I still occasionally dip my toes in those waters, I have seen little to persuade me to change my opinion.

Thankfully, humour in books can be a LOT better. And often is.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

You're "a reactionary old fart just wishing for things to be like they were when I was young?" AND you have a point. Several of them, in fact.

I find a whole load of 'modern' music to be like 'modern' art of the same period, a triumph of form over function. The forms praised originality and getting away from anything which had been done before, but most of the time the purpose of the art, to communicate, was lost. If the audience can't understand the new 'language' then there is no communication, they might as well listen to the sounds made by an AM radio set next to a computer or some other fairly random noise. Beethoven's genius, like Bach's, Dali's, and many others, was that he was able to talk both 'languages' and communicate in both, so that we both understand what he is saying and also see how he expresses it in new ways.

Humour is a funny thing. The puppeteers' description of is as an "imterrupted defense mechanism" explains some kinds of humour, especially the type you describe which is a form of embarassment, but not all. A particular exception is original wordplay, at which the Goons excelled (the "running gag" however is back to the expectation of interruption).

I have no idea when 'cosy' and 'safe' became bad terms, but I think it was a long time ago that they became associated with 'boring' and 'predictable', and they are usually the opposite of humour or at least can become so. With most of the arts I think it's dependent on fashion, some things being 'in' and others being considered 'old', I think humour often does that. Although using sex and smut for humour is probably the oldest humour there is...