sevenhelz

You know, I'd quite like to live in a world where the arts are considered useful, and not just by people who work in them. I'd like not to have to justify to people *including myself* the usefulness of what I do.

Because I can't be arsed writing this up properly, here's a conversation I had earlier with @jaimelicious on twitter:

me: it's problematic for me that my talents aren't overtly categorisable as innovative. I'm good at interpreting but it's composers who tend to be making from scratch, as it were.

J: think with music, interpretation is innovation. Hearing a familiar piece in a totally different way, or with new subtleties

me: also interpretation is applied to every piece, whether it's something new or old, obscure or well-known. It's complicated. i used to steward for hcmf, recognise value of the completely new, but for me the most interesting stuff is when you apply new ideas to older genres eg hearing new brass band testpieces incorporate 'contemporary' techniques. When you consider the history of brass bands, bringing high-brow music to a wider audience, educating the folk involved, it isn't so different now it's valuable to bring ideas to a wider range of people even if you're not constantly at the forefront of innovation yourself. i think that's always been my conclusion

It was really useful to talk that through, even though I tend to prefer to throw ideas at someone in person, so I know I'm not freaking them out. Eh. I think it says enough for now.