Gonna play devil's advocate here.
Basically agreed with the initial premises (premisii?
) until I got to this point:
As a creative outlet, performance is subservient to composition.
Why?
As a performer I am evaluated by how well my performance matches the composer's vision.
Can I take that to be your definition of how all performers are "rated", or specifically only yourself?
Am I misinterpreting your intent if I see that as being predicated on a "classical" or western traditional view of composition and the role of the performer, ie, "to be performed exactly as written"?
What I'm getting at is that there are whole schools of music for which there ARE no compositions but only modes, rhythms, and philosophies of construction, such as classical Indian music .
So Ravi Shankar is rated entirely on his performing technique, how well he strings together the building blocks of whichever raga he's performing at the time, and for which there
is no specific composition.
In Hesse's
Magister Ludi: the Bead Game the Bead Game itself was a metaphor for this philosophy of creativity.
I have pieces at both ends of the extreme myself: pieces for which I've constructed a very specific composition which is intended to be played EXACTLY the same way every single time, (and with a specific place for improvisation if there's to be any improvisational soloing in a particular performance); those are primarily intended as "busking tunes" because I know
that audience normally prefers exact repetition of piece, they find comfort in the familiarity of repetition of whatever they liked in the first place.
The other end of the spectrum are "themes" which are based on modes and scales and perhaps a few bars of identifying theme but which are specifically intended to be vehicles for open-ended improvisation, ala Coltrane's "A Love Supreme". Those are normally more appreciated by other musicians or "creative" types.
In fact it was probably my earliest form of composition and was even directly inspired by a quote from Grace Slick, or at least
somebody in the Airplane: "Never play it the same way twice".
:friendly_wink:
Mellow clearly establishes that performance of his own compositions is his creative outlet and thus he cares about which instrument and what sounds are heard in a much different way from someone who is a technician focused on realizing someone else's artistic vision.
I'm reminded of some interchange I had with Walrus a few years back, "IIRC" he mentioned at the time that he was feeling like something was lacking , and I suggested to him that he should try composing something of his own.
As I recall though he mentioned he's never felt "the call" and was pretty well fulfilled with his ongoing quest to achieve satisfying performance of other people's compositions.
So the itch
is scratched in different ways by different folks, and that's meant to corroborate your earlier comments on how happiness is achieved.
I'm not so sure
everybody has an urge to create though, even at the most flexible definition of "creativity".
I
do think everybody's got a natural instinct to "tinker", though, as in play around with found objects, which I see as predecessor to creativity.
I also believe
that instinct is stimulated
or stifled by conditioning which will ultimately lead to "genuine" creativity (or "kill it").
Consider the old saw that classical musicians are great sight-readers but lousy improvisers, and supposedly the converse for jazz players.
I think that's just a result of imbalanced conditioning of the creative impulse and the greats in either school are great because they've mastered
both elements: composition AND performance.
Compositional ability is enhanced by performing capabilities and the converse is true as well, although I believe normal variation in dexterity does put a greater limitation on performing capabilities as opposed to composing ability.
In any case, I think if anything,
composition is subservient to performance.
Composition's utterly worthless without performers to play it.
But performers don't
require composition to perform.
:friendly_wink: