Amazing post. But I want to maybe push it a bit further.
From the perspective of creativity, any given domain (like music, writing, drawing, mathematics and so on) can be seen in two ways:
A target of translation. You come up with things that are “good” in other domains, then translate to this one.
A creative medium of its own. You first learn it by imitation, then try to synthesize little bits, and gradually learn what’s “good” or not.
You approach jazz saxophone as (2), and say poetry is more (1). But from what I understand about poetry, and writing in general, it’s also much more (2) than (1). Good writers use language the way you use the saxophone. Annie Dillard mentions a young writer who is asked “do you like sentences?” and becomes confused by the question—but liking sentences is precisely the right way to good writing! It’s not so much about having cool thoughts and translating them into sentences, but more about directly creating cool sentences, and even cool individual words. The poet Mayakovsky said a rhyme is a barrel of dynamite, and the line leading up to the rhyme is the fuse.
So the question “is music a language?” is a bit of trick question. When treated as a target of translation, music is poorer than language: things like mathematics can be somewhat translated into language, but not into music. But as a creative medium, language feels similar to music and other creative media.
That’s an interesting perspective. I wouldn’t have described poetry writing as being a clear case of 1), since on my model ordinary thoughts already spawn in language, and so wouldn’t require “translation” rather than just massaging or reshaping into cool sentences. The model you suggest, where for experienced writers their poetic thoughts spawn ex nihilo rather than being the result of this sort of massaging, seems plausible as well.
One example I like is Eminem’s line “I make elevating music, you make elevator music”. The meaning behind the line is unremarkable: “I’m better at music than you”. But it works so well on the level of language, it’s clear that it was born in the form of language straight away. I think all good writing (rap, poetry, prose) is full of this kind of thing.
Amazing post. But I want to maybe push it a bit further.
From the perspective of creativity, any given domain (like music, writing, drawing, mathematics and so on) can be seen in two ways:
A target of translation. You come up with things that are “good” in other domains, then translate to this one.
A creative medium of its own. You first learn it by imitation, then try to synthesize little bits, and gradually learn what’s “good” or not.
You approach jazz saxophone as (2), and say poetry is more (1). But from what I understand about poetry, and writing in general, it’s also much more (2) than (1). Good writers use language the way you use the saxophone. Annie Dillard mentions a young writer who is asked “do you like sentences?” and becomes confused by the question—but liking sentences is precisely the right way to good writing! It’s not so much about having cool thoughts and translating them into sentences, but more about directly creating cool sentences, and even cool individual words. The poet Mayakovsky said a rhyme is a barrel of dynamite, and the line leading up to the rhyme is the fuse.
So the question “is music a language?” is a bit of trick question. When treated as a target of translation, music is poorer than language: things like mathematics can be somewhat translated into language, but not into music. But as a creative medium, language feels similar to music and other creative media.
Thank you!
That’s an interesting perspective. I wouldn’t have described poetry writing as being a clear case of 1), since on my model ordinary thoughts already spawn in language, and so wouldn’t require “translation” rather than just massaging or reshaping into cool sentences. The model you suggest, where for experienced writers their poetic thoughts spawn ex nihilo rather than being the result of this sort of massaging, seems plausible as well.
One example I like is Eminem’s line “I make elevating music, you make elevator music”. The meaning behind the line is unremarkable: “I’m better at music than you”. But it works so well on the level of language, it’s clear that it was born in the form of language straight away. I think all good writing (rap, poetry, prose) is full of this kind of thing.