Don’t forget about the roots
March 12th, 2008Roger Sessions on the roots of musical feeling (from The Musical Experience of Composer, Performer, Listener):
In the last chapter I discussed what I may perhaps call the roots of our musical feeling—roots lying in the very depths of our nature as animate beings. Here I should like to stress the vast sweep of the topmost branches of the tree that has grown from these roots.
My metaphor, I believe, is not a bad one. For it emphasizes a fact we ought never to forget: that a genuine culture is an organic growth, and not a self-conscious achievement. Possibly we Americans especially need to remember this. We are aware, quite aside from any self-congratulatory spirit, of having accomplished a very great deal in a very short time, and we tend sometimes to minimize all that is implied in the growth from roots to topmost branches; to seek short cuts that would make this arduous process unnecessary.
Very applicable to design, if you ask me.
[no tags] Tags: design, music, Roger Sessions
March 13th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
I wonder what he means by “genuine culture.” If culture is an organic growth, can it be designed?
March 14th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Not sure. But if I’m going by what Dick’s class has taught me so far it’s that culture can be changed, but not necessarily created.
Or maybe designing culture is like designing experience… you merely design the means to the end; you can’t design the end itself.