Part of the documentation for the project
“New creative possibilities through improvisational use of compositional techniques,
- a new computer instrument for the performing musician”
Øyvind Brandtsegg, research fellow.
NTNU, Trondheim.
Program for Research Fellowships in the Arts
Reflection on working within the Program for Research Fellowships in the Arts
On the inadequacy of language (05.2005)
Working within the fairly new Program for Research Fellowships in the Arts has been rewarding as well as frustrating. The interdisciplinary environment has given new perspectives on my own work in general and specifically on the project work. However, the expectations to the finished product of the work have been unclear, especially in regards to the style of the written material. I have repeatedly asked myself the question: “Is this supposed to be up to academic standard?” It has been evident from the start that I was not to produce a traditional doctoral thesis, and that the focus for the work should be the artistic research. Still, there seemed to be an expectation that I should describe how my work relates to relevant work by others and I should produce documentation of reflection. As the Program for Research Fellowships in the Arts is considered an equivalent to a phD degree, it was hard not to compare the writing process to a traditional doctoral thesis. This might partly be related to my own expectations regarding what a phD equivalent level was supposed to mean, but it is fair to say that the directions given by the board of the program have not been totally clear, especially in the early phase of the work (they have been getting clearer).
As the work has progressed, I have become more and more assured that the main product is the artistic result and the artistic research, and that the written material can be seen almost as a by-product helping to convey the documentation of insights acquired during the process. Obvious as it might seem in hindsight, this was not apparent to me until sometime during the spring of 2007 with only a few months left of the project. This confusion may be natural in a new research program, and even more so in an artistic and interdisciplinary research program, as each artist/researcher needs to define his or her own format for documentation that will suit the specific project.
The following reflections were written in 2005, and they are possibly somewhat more academic in style than the reflections on the process. At the time of writing, I was under the impression that this was expected of works produced within the scholarship program. The focus of the reflections is an argument against using academic methods in the documentation.
As part of the scholarship project, I have been asked to write a description of how my work relates to other similar works. In order to do so, I need to pinpoint certain aspects of my own artistic work, to be able to select the appropriate references. I wish to point out that it is difficult for an artist to define objectively his or her own work, and in the following, I want to focus on how this is so. First and foremost, one may say that the artist’s intentions are not the same as the work’s intentions. The concept work is here used to designate the whole artistic production that is carried out during the scholarship project. Here, the work does not exist as the intentions are described. Therefore, one may not say anything about the work’s intentions at this point in time. The context is another after the work has been created, and in this way, one may say that a report of the context before the work has been completed may be likened to the story of the creation of the work. In my opinion, an analysis of my own intentions in writing and up to (academic) standard will lead to unwanted interruptions of the creative process. Further, the process may be disturbed to the extent that it runs off the tracks from a hopefully potent idea in the first place, in that conclusions of the analysis are compared against intuitive feelings of what the idea might bring about. The analysis may, because of its apparently greater scientific momentum in such situation, conquer greater weight than the intuition. The artist and the analyst of a work are separated roles with separate areas of expertise and objectives, a fact that also the philosopher Adorno discusses and he points out that the one role excludes the other. However, the artist may make an account of his sources of inspiration and impulses.
It might be helpful with a closer look at the various types of knowledge that are used in such a work, and Wittgenstein’s thoughts to the effect that aesthetic insight may not be communicated by means of a logical language. Further, one may point out that the foundation of the academic scientific tradition is based on logical thinking and rational description. This is true for both the formulation of theses, and in the circumstantiation to prove the theses. The importance of using other forms of knowledge is discussed in Kjell S. Johannesen’s article “Grunnlagsproblemer og vitenskapssyn i de estetiske disipliner” (Basic problems and philosophy of science in aesthetical disciplines) (Johannesen 1991). Further, this issue is discussed in Tom Osa's “Om kunnskap i kunst som å sjå noko som noko” (About knowledge in art as in seeing something as something) (Osa 2000), which also refers to Kjell S. Johannesen’s theory of knowledge in “Kunst, språk og estetisk praksis” (Art, language and aesthetical practice) (Johannesen 1984) derived on the basis of Wittgenstein’s “Philosophical Investigations” (Wittgenstein 1953).
Using my own words, I’ve tried to sum up the different types of knowledge (as described by Wittgenstein):
1. Tacit knowledge that in its very nature is unutterable, insights that may not be articulated, it is implicit, intuitive, inherent and “silent” knowledge. In it, the artist’s knowledge about his material in a wide sense, both in the form of knowledge of his own process, ideas, stylistic direction and aesthetical judgments are included. Improvisation is primarily based on this type of knowledge.
2. Proficiency knowledge, which may be exemplified by the craftsmanship a carpenter has with his tools, a skill for the physical execution of an activity. The same type of knowledge is essential for the performing musician.
3. Cognitive knowledge, the theoretical and rational knowledge that may be explained verbally.
The education of performing musicians puts very little emphasis on cognitive knowledge. This is a fact that I have become increasingly more aware of during the work with this report. Through conversations with J. P. Inderberg and E. Aksdal at the department of Music, NTNU, it has also become clear to me that this is a conscious choice in the design of the education. This is partly explained by requirements for proficiency and familiarity that are put on a performer on a high level. Partly, it is also explained by the fact that experience has shown it difficult to motivate the students for such subjects and that the institution’s profile in this area has an influence as to which type of students it attracts. In order to make it attractive for the best performing talents to apply to the institutions, the cognitive subjects have been subdued in the education. The following quotation may be said to underpin the choice of emphasizing other types of knowledge in the performing education:
“Both in art and philosophy there is for Wittgenstein something that is unutterable, that may just be demonstrated” G. Fredriksson in “Wittgenstein” (Fredriksson 1994)
“Philosophy could just detail what we already know, he asserted – an approach that may be said to be closer to the artist’s than the scholar’s" (Fredriksson 1994)
It seems to be an old and continuing polarization between the various views on research within artistic disciplines. As an example, we might use the different views of the musician and the musicologist. Musicological works may oftentimes represent the classical scientific approach. Here, rational thinking and cognitive knowledge are used as methods of approach and language is used as a tool in order to serve these methods. Further, language is used for documentation of the results one arrives at. The edifice of knowledge, if one may be permitted to say so, is constructed on a framework of theses that one assumes to be true. These methods and tools based on natural science serve as a basis for research and documentation within academic subjects. I am aware of the fact that humanistic subjects in part employ other methods than those of natural science, but the use of language in the circumstantiation of cognitively formulated theses seems from my point of view to be concurrent. With all due respect for the natural sciences, we may not, however, blindly use the same methods within other areas of research. Formulation of inherent orderliness is no guarantee to have described the core of the matter, or to have arrived at the nature of the problem, to put it that way. The following quotation may illustrate the issue from a broader perspective:
“The whole modern view of life is based on the illusion that the so-called laws of nature constitute the explanation of the phenomena of nature" Wittgenstein quoted from “Tractatus” in G. Fredriksson’s “Wittgenstein” (Fredriksson 1994).
In the Survey of the field, I have previously mentioned Derek Bailey’s thoughts about description and evaluation of musical improvisation (Bailey 1992). Here, he discusses that a scientific approach requires a technical analysis, which again is based on transcription. Bailey writes that all transcription of improvisation can only be a misrepresentation, irrespective of how meticulously it has been done. Without extending the comparison too far, one may say that a transcription in some situations is analogue with the verbal language, in that it is used as a tool in order to affirm properties inherent in the object that one tries to describe and analyze. The inadequacy of language (or inappropriateness) is evident in the grammatical and semantic traps that language apparently communicates precise knowledge. The greatest problem with this is not that language is not adequate in order to describe the phenomenon, but that it, in addition, apparently communicates precise knowledge. You may say that language, in the same way as the transcription, may be used for precise descriptions of elements that possibly are irrelevant for the experience and evaluation of the core of the matter.
In this context, it may be relevant to discuss the scholarship program’s objective related to the requirement that the scholarship holder is to formulate new insight that has been developed during the work with the project. I want to make use of Gunnar Fredriksson’s description of Wittgenstein’s thoughts in order to focus on how language may create traps for the understanding of the phenomena that one tries to describe verbally:
“To those who claim that the philosophers always have dealt with the same problems without results, he wrote (Wittgenstein) in 1931: “But those that say this do not understand the reason to why it must be like this. The reason is namely that our language is and becomes like itself and continuously seduces us again and again, to pose the same questions. As long as there exists a verb “to be” that seems to function as “to eat” and “to drink”, as long as the adjectives “identical”, “true”, “untrue”, and “possible” exist, as long as we talk about the flow of time and the extent of space, and so on and so on, this is how long humankind will continuously meet the same mysterious difficulties again and again, and to stare at something that no explanation seem to clear away” (Fredriksson 1994)
This creates a perspective of the extent to which it will be possible to formulate insights gained in the scholarship work, through another medium than the produced art itself and, at the same time, to avoid formulating apparently precise, but nevertheless irrelevant insights.
A part of this issue is also reflected upon by Olav Anton Tommesen in an interview with Glenn-Erik Haugland (Haugland 2005):
“Remember that music is not language! Music is much closer to thought that to language. I have been very interested in linguistics and Noam Chomsky said that our ability to talk is a gift of God, it just is there. Everyone has it; these patterns are embedded in our brains from birth. It is molding patterns like these that music may come much closer than language. Take music's ability to simultaneousness, or how music can break down the logical and still create coherence! Just because thought is irrational, music is the closest we can get.”
In light of the inadequacy of language, one should, in the same meticulous manner, focus on all tools that one makes use of in order to find the areas in which they are valid. Within the scope of this document, I am only able to point out, not explain this phenomenon. The fact that an artist “knows what he must do” in order to obtain results, entails knowledge about his or her own process. This knowledge is not necessarily explicitly formulated. The act of going out on the porch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and feel the sun in your neck may be regarded as a “break from the work” seen from the outside, whereas it might just as well be regarded as a conscious technique for reflection or more to the point: the act of putting oneself in a position where both reflection and inspiration is provided with space in which to work. This may, to a certain degree, be compared with the preparations one carries out in connection with meditation or yoga, in which one puts oneself in a state, prepares oneself to carry out meditation, yoga, or whatever one intends to do.
When I focus on these elements, it is to point out my view that writings such as the one you are reading now (and other parts of the documentation for my scholarship work), never will deal with what it pretends to be dealing with. This is partly due to the language’s grammatical and semantic traps. This has also been touched upon in connection with Wittgenstein’s thoughts about the inadequacy of language. In his essay, Magnus Andersson connects these elements specifically to music (Andersson 2005). Here, Andersson says that:
“… the implicit requirement of natural science to the effect that our language is to be able to demonstrate our knowledge about art in provable movements, hangs like a heavy yoke over language’s possibilities to grasp the meaning and essence of art”.
This may partly explain the approximations of language we run into in relation to music and musicians, in that we try to communicate indescribable phenomena. As one of a multitude of possible examples, I may mention that the music “swings”, or "grooves". These are used as unambiguous concepts [1], and musicians are rarely in doubt as to what the concepts really describe, at the same time as it is impossible to prove scientifically what actually is included in the concept. The common understanding of the content of the concept has come about through common experience, something that makes it to an “internal” language that only with difficulty is communicable beyond the professional communal boundaries. Andersson goes on to say:
“But the knowledge and know-how that the directly experienced music gives us, does not coincide with the way our verbal language is capable of describing the phenomena of reality.”
This may be kept valid for a linguistic description of an experience of art in general, and is not specifically related to music. The performing arts’ characteristics and the relationship between the composition and the performance are described more concretely by a later statement in the same essay:
“… the score is not the music. In order that the music is to become music, it must be experienced in two ways. It must be experienced in the performer’s way of dealing with the score, and it must be experienced through the listener's ability to lose himself in the music."
The act of describing the performing artistic activity linguistically precise becomes even more difficult than what is the case with other artistic expressions. This is because it uses as a starting point something that may only be described through experience (the composition, the work), and ends up in something that only may be described through experience (the experience of the music). Furthermore, the experience is inextricably connected in time. Andersson sums up this total inadequacy on behalf of language:
“Experience is like silence. If you utter yourself about it, it is no longer there”
In light of the fact that the scholarship program for artistic development work is an interdisciplinary forum, it may be appropriate to reflect on music and the performing art forms compared to other artistic disciplines represented in the program. Research fellowship seminars twice a year function as a forum in which representatives for various artistic directions and expressions meet to discuss, and I experience this as very positive. Simultaneously, the governing of the program is designed to try to make considerations for the various artistic directions’ distinctive character and formal criteria are to be determined in order to approve the works. It may seem as these criteria are being determined on the basis of a context with an emphasis on the history of art and art criticism in an academic tradition. This seems to be so to such an extent that the performing arts’ distinctive character has not been emphasized to the same extent in the preparation of the criteria and formal requirements. This is not intended as a direct criticism of the Board of the Program, but in order to point out elements one should consider in the future development of the scholarship program.
Now, to the music’s and the performing disciplines’ distinctive character: As mentioned previously, the cognitive knowledge has not been emphasized a lot in the education of musicians. This is due to the strict requirements with reference to proficiency and familiarity knowledge, and it may seem as if representatives for the education of performing musicians want to draw the conclusion that a musician does not have a direct need for philosophical and humanistic studies in order to perform the existing repertory on an internationally high level. We also see that within music, there is a greater focus on interpretation of an existing repertory in new ways than what seems to be the case within, for example, visual arts. From the perspective of a performing musician, I experience vagueness as to the content of the prevailing view of art, an experience that I want to exemplify through quotations from two different contributions to the public discussion of art.
Aaslaug Vaa and Per Gunnar Tverrbakk say in “Utdatert Kunstsyn” (“Outdated View of the Arts”) (Vaa 2005) that “the centre of rotation in all production of art is criticism and discussion”. This is to say that “all production of art” takes place within the framework that is constituted by the art academies, colleges of art, galleries and museums. Further, one may say that this type of artistic expression has moved away from the galleries, but the basic set of values related to art seems nevertheless to live on, however in a new context. Whether music, and in particular the performance of music, is to be designated as art may at this point be considered an open question, but it seems self evident that “the centre of rotation” for the performance of music is not criticism and discussion.
Perspectives on this topic may also be found in Per Boye Hansen’s article “Kunstens egenverdi” (The Inherent Value of Art) (Boye Hansen 2005), in which the distinction between art and culture is discussed. Boye Hansen maintains that “Culture is about taking care of tradition; art is about creating new traditions”. If one regards the performing musicians’ culture in perspective on the basis of this quotation, it may seem as if performing musicians to a great extent are active in culture, but not in art[2]. I do not think that this is a view that Boye Hansen represents in general, and it would be far fetched to draw far-reaching conclusions on the background of such a short quotation. The quotations from Boye Hansen and Vaa/Tverrbakk nevertheless serve as an example of how reality is presented, which concepts are used, and what is included in the various concepts. Boye Hansen says later in his article that “One of the best definitions I know is that “art is the space where we recognize ourselves in what we do not know from before"", a definition that seems somewhat more open. It is, of course, to make the scope wide in talking about all performing musicianship collectively, as there is such a great variety of directions within this field of expertise. And this is an important point because the field ranges from entertainment music, which for many will not be considered as art but as culture, on to ground breaking contemporary works or interpretations of existing repertory that absolutely must be considered as art. This span creates a continuous field from entertainment and culture over to art, with overlaps both in terms of genre and performers that operate in several genres.
The references are to be found in a separate document here.
[1] Groove is used as an unambiguous concept, even if “unambiguous” with reference to this concept may seem misguiding as the concept in itself may point at a number of different musical elements.
[2] One may argue that interpretations of historic works both may be and ought to be innovative. To a varying degree, one may say that this is to take care of a tradition, the development of a tradition, or even to create a new tradition.