Bang on a Can

Sometimes a piece will seem to write itself, and when this happens I'm always happy to alter my plans and obey orders. Artists having this experience will often talk about feeling like a conduit or a vehicle; a passive delivery system for their work. That's how this piece felt, and it set me wondering where that kind of feeling comes from. A superstitious interpretation might take the usual charming but child-like approach: a big strong Something is downloading data into my small (but apparently rather worthy!) self. But one doesn't have to imagine a depositor in order to be a repository. Our most personal creations are still dependent on an intricate substructure of learned and inherited patterns, and most of our attitudes are individualized copies of the shared ideas of our culture. Just as we are the temporary vessels of our DNA, so we are hosts for ideas. They travel between us like viruses, replicating themselves in the stream of individual minds that flows towards the future. An artist, like anyone, is quite literally both a channel for accumulated knowledge, and the carrier of a particular version of the world. Thus a feeling of being guided is not a metaphor, or evidence of otherworldliness: it's actually quite accurate for a social primate to feel like a conduit. This worldly, naturalistic, and physical way of viewing creativity gives me a sense of mystery and pleasure that mysticism can't provide. The music is arriving from a wildlife refuge that's incompletely mapped, but unquestionably real. -Scott Johnson