Composing, Innovation and Perseveration

Composing

Composing is the art of blending the sounds of different instruments into a pleasing composition. Instruments have always been used to make music. One can imagine early music as a spontaneous combination of rhythm instruments, flutes or strings and singing. In every region of the world, music developed with combinations of folk musicians and more formal music cultures that involved instrument makers, teachers, notation, composers, sponsors and producers of rituals and entertainment. In China, a music culture was well developed by the second millennium BC. In ancient Greece, choirs performed for entertainment, celebration and religious festivals. Music education was considered essential; music theory included the modal scales that became the basis for European classical music. In India music developed along with Upanishads as Ragas, devotional music. Raga theory developed remarkable complexities in terms of scale structure, microtonal distinctions and song structures.

Small ensembles evolved in the European Renaissance with little distinction between vocal or instrumental parts. Music for dance emphasized rhythm and repeating sections with changes in tempo. Liturgical music often involved an organist alternating with a hymn sung by the congregation or choir. The prelude was a short performance piece that involved improvisation on a keyboard or lute. Variations on melodic themes formed the structure of longer pieces. Themes of four to eight measures were repeated but with different counterpoint and different voices.

These simple elements continued to evolve in the classic repertoire with increasing complexity and growing ensemble size until you had orchestras playing symphonies. The progression of European music involved increasing reliance on music notation and obedience of musicians to the instructions of composers.

Progress in European music from the Baroque to the present involved the development of better instruments and enlarging orchestras. The task of composition increased in scope and complexity to include complete orchestral scores. The dynamics of a score begins with the composer's decisions about melody, harmony, rhythm, voicing, loudness and articulation.

Composers with intimate knowledge of instruments and the skills of performers were best equipped to expand their basic ideas of melody and harmony into polyphonic, multi-instrument arrangements. Beethoven, for example, took advantage of improvements in instrument construction that allowed players to develop more virtuoso techniques. Beethoven is credited with progressive innovation in orchestration toward grand, heroic spectacles.

Innovations and Perseveration

Each musical "genius" added his own innovations so that the ideas that drove musical composition progressed, despite the resistance of patrons and audiences. There has always been a battle between audiences who want more of the same and composers who were innovative. Many creative composers suffered repeated rejection and penury.

You can view music as a culture marker and music evolution as a measure of how cultures have evolved, recognizing that the European cultures that spread to and dominated the Americas were and still are quite different from African and Asian cultures. All human societies at every level display a dialectic with innovative changes on one side and stubborn persistence of old culture on the other. You could argue that older is better and that innovations have lead us in the wrong direction. Or you could argue the real progress has been made, especially in the 20th century toward a more civil and affluent world that will be united if not liberated by free electronic communication networks.

Innovations in music have been slow and incremental. I will celebrate fusion as the main method of combining old cultures into new expressions. I will regret at the same time the emergence of noise and confusion as a toxic effect of "music" production in the absence of credentials and esthetic sensibility.

The term perseveration is essential to describe human dynamics. It originates from the Latin verb, persevere, which means to persist. In psychopathology the meaning is extended to repetitious behaviors that persist even when they are no longer appropriate. The other term used in biology is isopraxis ( same movement) which describes the reptilian tendency to repeat behaviors even when they no longer work. If you read the I Ching and cast your horoscope, you will often receive the advice "perseverance furthers one." Common advice suggest if you do not succeed with the first try, you should try and try again. You might realize that perseveration is a universal human characteristic and not the exclusive domain of humans with damaged brains.

We have recognized that learning is based on establishing enduring memories of rewards and punishment. The close linking of a behavior to a reward or punishment is “conditioning.” The real value of learning is to repeat successful behaviors. Life is a repetitious affair. Well conditioned humans act like programmed robots, and have difficulty changing their programming. Repetition is often in the form of recursive loops that repeat at intervals. Recursive loops are patterns of perseveration that all humans display.


The Sound of Music by Stephen Gislason. download from Alpha Online.