More Braid, less Cage

The Company of Myself is a fun and simple puzzle-platform game in the vein of Braid, where the player manipulates time in order to successfully navigate to the end of the stage. And, like Braid, its storyline is a little depressing, so skip the words and stuff if that's not your thing. Anyway, as I whiled away an hour playing it today, I was thinking about all the video games I've seen lately that have explored new capabilities for the puzzle-platform genre: the aforementioned Braid, Portal, Shift, and so forth. In doing so, I was suddenly able to pinpoint exactly what it is that troubles me about a lot of conceptually inventive musical works.

When a video game designer comes up with an innovative concept for a new video game, the real work has yet to begin. Countless weeks, months, and even years of sweat and toil still need to go into executing this concept before the results are ready to be seen and judged by the general public. When a composer or songwriter comes up with an innovative concept for a new musical work, on the other hand, all too often this means it's more or less fully formed in essence. For example, John Cage wrote Atlas eclipticalis by tracing notes from star charts. Now, I'm not denying the artistic relevance of this piece; I'm just asking whether I haven't already absorbed 95% of everything there is to know about it through that explanation alone.

In a video game like Braid, the point of interest is the execution of its novel concept; in a piece by Cage, it's the concept itself. And that's problematic, because a concept is novel only once. After that, if it doesn't fundamentally call for an overlying craft to be developed further and taken to new heights, then it's an evolutionary dead end, existing only for itself. It strives to mark, not to pave. And that's what frustrates me about a lot of conceptually inventive musical works: They don't plant seeds of ideas in my head that might benefit my own music later on. From my perspective, then, they're not the best way to spend my time.

But never mind what all this might mean for other creators. Think about what it means for us purely as consumers. Experiencing someone else's work is a time-consuming commitment; the opportunity to explore the implications of a novel concept together with its creator is what makes the experience enjoyable and meaningful. But if the underlying concept is a means to its own end, then the remainder of the creative process simply involves going through the motions. Which means that the creator, upon releasing such a new work, is essentially asking the user to go through the motions as well. Yet we would never tolerate such self-importance in a video game, so why do we indulge it coming from composers and songwriters?

Perhaps we shall do so less and less as time progresses, as each subsequent generation grows further entitled regarding what it deserves to get for free. That's my personal hope, anyway.

Addendum, August 18, 2011: I declined to list more examples of such musical works, as I thought it would distract from my argument. However, my singular focus on John Cage led a friend of mine to infer that conceptual invention for its own sake necessarily makes for a disagreeable experience. That's not always the case; if one enjoys a particular artist's aesthetics and musical habits, then it's hardly a liability to see them used as window dressing for his or her novel ideas. I'm really commenting on such works as an aggregate phenomenon, not as standalone entities. Here's a good analogy: Edmund Hillary and Albert Einstein are both renowned for inspirational feats, but only one left behind work upon which others may build further.

Although I don't care for his music, I do hold Cage and others like him in high esteem. The questions they raise and the points they prove do serve a purpose, even if, for me, they only serve to confirm why certain boundaries are better left uncrossed. I just think that when we set out to find and reward conceptually innovative works, it's important to remember there are actually two kinds: those that mark, and those that pave. And we must stay vigilant about not letting the former overshadow the latter, because, let's face it, invention removed from craft requires so much less time, thought, and labour. It's just inherently easier, and anything that's easier to do will be attempted much more frequently, with much quicker turnaround, by many, many more artists. That's not a knock against this kind of approach; that's just a commentary on human nature.