6-Diane Cai: Originality

I know a bunch of people have made references to music already, but when I was considering the argument for authenticity, the idea of cover songs immediately came to mind. And I don't mean teenage rock bands that play "Freebird" at high school musicfests, because there is definitely a difference between COPYING something, and USING something as inspiration. I remember seeing The Fray in concert and hearing them do a cover of Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie." It was slower, sensuous, tragic, and at times comical -- definitely nothing of the original's spicy dance flavor. So while there were elements of the original, The Fray had infused something else that was entirely their own.

And then something else occurred to me. In terms of musical notes, there are a finite number of them. And therefore a finite combination, in a finite number of rhythms and beats. Eventually, someone postulated, we will have written all the music there is to write.

I really do feel like originality, at least in intention, is a prerequisite for art, but I say "in intention" because I half-feel like novelty might in fact just be a moot point. With 6 billion people in the world currently, X billion people in the past, and however many to come, can we really expect anything we produce to be completely original? And if we do come up with an idea that can be considered innovative, is it innovative because we were the first ones to make it public, and under our names? A poster below me had noted the painting she had seen as a child whose ingenuity her mother had opened her eyes to. But for all we know, it could have been successful because of the artist's persistence, connections, or talented agent. Perhaps, before him stood a multitude of gifted artists, aspiring novices, or fingerpainting children with the same, simple design.

Additionally, (I know this sounds terribly fatalistic, and I haven't even decided if I completely agree yet), I can't help but think sometimes that everything we create, feel, or think about, is simply a product of all the nature and nurture we have been dealt. Our outputs are the functional outcome of all our inputs.

Perhaps.

Or, perhaps, we can make new instruments. And new synthesizers. We can add lyrics in poetic verses. In new, more perfect languages of our creation. And if/when we exhaust all of those possibilities, we'll invent entirely new modes of art.