Art vs. craft: what's what and what am I?

A little while back, I posted a comment on Bobby Owsinki’s blog in response to a post titled Being an Artist vs. a Craftsman. Bobby posits that “Art is something you do for yourself. A craft is something you do for someone else."

I don’t see it this way at all. To me, irrespective of whether or not you have an audience, art is when you try to do something that hasn’t been done before, whereas craft is when you seek to match or improve on what already exists. 

When I posted this definition on Bobby’s blog, he commented back, asking “hasn’t everything already been done?” I don’t think so. There are too many variables, especially in music (voice, instruments, digital wizardry), for everything to already have been happened upon. But more important, intent matters. To me, creating art by accident doesn’t quite cut it (although, I confess, I’m on thin ice here); you have to be acting intentionally. You need to be saying to yourself stuff like “I am going to put paint down in ways it’s never been put down before” or “I am going to create a fundamentally new song structure” etc.

So which am I, artist or craftsman? By my definition, I am definitely a craftsman. I am trying to hone something that already exists, the pop/rock song. I am in no way trying to break the mold, challenge the form or waltz down unexplored paths. And you know what? I’m totally okay with that.

One more thing: I do not pretend for a moment to have ended the art vs craft debate, much less to have come up with a fundamentally correct definition of art! I know it’s all pretty subjective, so I’d love to hear your opinion.

The 7th song.

As an encore post (not that anyone asked!) for My World In Six Songs, my series of posts inspired and informed by Daniel Levitin’s book The World In Six Songs, which posits that music played a key role in human evolution, I bring you the Seventh Song.

For me the Seventh Song is simply a musical experience that combines any number of the six song types Levitin writes about: friendship, joy, comfort, knowledge, religion and love. Truth be told, no song could ever be only one of Levitin’s six; I think every song is a combination, but with a lead theme, so with the Seventh Song all I’m doing is recognizing this fact.

I’ve had a gazillion “Seventh Song” moments in my life, but the most recent was Saturday night. Catherine and I were in Monterey over the weekend visiting her brother and his steady, Morgan, and for dinner Saturday we decided to go to Dametra Café, an Italian/Greek restaurant in downtown Carmel. About midway through our meal, the maitre di and the head chef (I think) serenaded diners with a performance of Besame Mucho (see photo!). The chef sang and the maitre di played an oud, and the dinning room was bathed friendship, joy, comfort and love. Maybe knowledge, too, although I can’t be sure since the song was sung in Spanish.

What a grand moment. Food, friends and song. And if there is no such thing as a Seventh Song then let’s just say I experienced seventh heaven.

 

Migraines, what a headache.

These past few days I've suffered more migraines than usual, three in a row, and just a plain old headache today. As a result, I haven't been blogging or doing much else. Sigh. On the bright side, the doctors at the hyperbaric oxygen facility I'm using theorize that my headaches are the result of changes taking place in my brain because of all the extra O2 I'm getting. They think it's a transition phase, as dormant cells come back on line. Sure hope they're right. In the meantime, I have a few days off from my treatments, so maybe I'll be good as "new" come Monday when the treatments begin --  again.

Does anyone else out there have "six songs"?

Not that I have very many readers, but for those few loyalists (thank you!) and for anyone else (pre thank you!), I'd love it if you would offer up your world in six songs.

To refresh, the song-types are:

Friendship

Joy

Comfort

Knowledge

Religion

Love

The songs you chose should be the ones that have most shaped and are most inspired by the above feelings.

For further reading, visit www.sixsongs.net, which is the site for the book The World In Six Songs, by Daniel Levitin, who formulated the theory that our brains are attuned to music because being musical has been an evolutionary advantage.

My world in six songs: Part six, love.

Part six of a six-part series inspired by Daniel Levitin’s book “The World In Six Songs”, which describes his theory that music is core to being human, and how six types of songs enabled the social bonding necessary for human culture and society to evolve. These song-types are: friendship, joy, comfort, religion, knowledge, and love. See part one here. 

There are so many great songs about love, but in the spirit of this list I'm making, which is about songs that have influenced me rather than songs I simply like, I'm going to go with the songs that I've have fallen in love to more than with. So, what follows are the songs I most associate with meeting Catherine, with getting to know her, and with marrying her. (By the way, the photo is of our feet on the sidewalk where I proposed; neither of us knew the writing was there until we were walking back home later!)

Blue, by The Jayhawks, because it's the first song on Tomorrow The Green Grass, which we listened to all the time back when we first met.

Blue - The Jayhawks

The Lifting, by REM, because like Blue, it is the first song on an album that we always seemed to have on the stereo in our earlier years together.

The Lifting - R.E.M.

Strange, Tori Amos, because it is my favorite song on yet another album we listened to constantly called Scarlet's Walk.

strange - Sinfonia Of London, ...

Angel, by Robbie Williams, because we discovered Robbie together through some friends from Great Britain and this song became Catherine's go-to karaoke number during our "Mint" phase.

Angels - Robbie Williams

Here Comes the Weather, me, because love is not perfect and sometimes you fight, which is what this song is about (I wrote it right after a doozy.)

Coming Together (By Falling Apart), me, because I wrote it for Catherine to chronicle how my brain injury brought us closer to one another and because three of my very best friends in the world sang and played it at my wedding.