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Originally posted by EEB

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Originally posted by banjoboy

(I will note that in the recent past, I had the very interesting opportunity to play fingerstyle banjo in 1. a "free improvisation" ensemble and 2. a class on South Indian music. Perhaps I am the first to ever do so?) 

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Personally I think you're perfectly entitled to chalk that up as a 'first'!

In regard to finger-style original composition there are objective and subjective perspectives. My comments are entirely viewed from the former. What interests me is the evidence of prevalence and whether (or when) consistent patterns of activity become associated with 'tradition'. Subjectivity - preference, or a judgement on quality - can be applied to any creative work and in practice can be really problematic to distinguish from simple opinion.

Is a painting by Vermeer 'better' than one by Van Gogh? Neither was applying the same criteria to their expression. If we suspend our somewhat lazy concern with superficial technique we are left with emotional affect. No person has ever come up with a 'formula' that defines that fundamental aspect of creativity.

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Yes, the Vermeer is objectively better than the Van Gogh, and not solely because of the former's superior technique. It's a question of teleology; let's not fall into relativism. 

That would be an opinion based on a belief that technique equates to the accuracy with which 'realism' is imitated i.e. the more 'real' a picture appears, by definition the better it is. Very often a belief that co-exists with the person feeling that anything other than ‘realism’ is an attempt to deceive or defraud.

Yet one powerful and very noticeable pattern among some of the finest modern painters (for the sake of argument, Turner onwards) is that their youthful works reveal that they had mastered and - in terms of creative interest - mined-out the seam of objective drawing by their late teens. Pre-modern painters were constricted by convention and commission. This inhibited creative progression beyond the patron's own limiting expectation. The moderns restructured that relationship to where the artist's creativity set the agenda.

Teleology has no part in the equation simply because all visual art has a motivation or a ‘purpose’. Even where that visual is an exercise in spontaneity or ‘lack of purpose’.

But I’m not going to go any further down that rabbit hole on a banjo forum.