What holds true for all music is that if a musician does not evolve with the times and trends their music will become irrelevant and dated, this is one of the issues that arises from exclusively playing old music. Doing this will also influence your originality by instilling pre conceived ideas into your head about what good music should be without exploring the endless possibilities of what it could be. A piece that I would perform if only today’s music remained would be Dean Town by Vulfpeck. In place of a singer, a bass player grooves out the melody to this song the whole way through. Crowds at Vulfpeck shows sing the bass melody (which I think is amazing and hilarious) and I especially love that there are no lyrics to interpret. It simply exists to get you groovin. That Nietzsche quote is basically saying that if you don’t already have a unique and developed music taste and style, trying to interpret works of the past will get you no where as you will not understand what is worth preserving for you. The music catalogue of humanity is deep and vast so you want to know what you are looking for. I do think this quote holds some interesting food for thought. Do people that base their musicality off of research into past music have less original and evolved musical ideas? Is it better to stay as far away from old music as you can if your goal is to be as authentic and unique as possible or is there still something to be learned from it? It will take me longer than by 10am October 20th to contemplate this.
I recommend a watch all the way through, it is truly food for the soul.
