G? just brought me up to date ... now we are getting somewhere. It is this common experience that we seem to have -- is it innate?
You use the "burning your hand" analogy in your argument. But, just because something happened before, doesn't mean it will happen again. If you flip a coin and it comes up heads, can you tell me what will come up the next flip?
May I point out the film "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead", 162 consecutive instances of heads out of 162 tosses. Now the situation was quite ludicrous, and the author intentionally wrote it that way, but the subtle point was that generally speaking the laws of probability mean squat in ordinary every day situational experiences like auto accidents or how much ketchup you'll receive on your next Big Mac. Quit trying to think in absolutes.
Now, I'm saying you don't know what's going to happen on toss 162 or 161 or any toss, and you are telling me I think in absolutes?
Another point I don't quite get ... if the musicians have never played the songs (theirs or the ones from their past experience) or even the instrument before ... how do they know how to copy from the past?
The same way I first picked up a set of keyboards, toyed with the notes, and taught myself how to play "Mary had a Little Lamb" in the first two minutes. The simple fact of experiencing MUSIC in the past leads the musician down a path towards non originality. Now of course, in a perfect Schrodinger's Cat experiment, the musician could be told to play music without ever laying hands, eyes or ears upon music, but then they would not be able to due to the simple fact of not having the slightest clue what music even is.
Finally, if you are correct in your thinking, what about the point of collision -- where the individuals come together spontaneously ... and something new is created from the old -- that moment ... what about that instant? What guided these individuals together through the collision of their past experiences? You don't hear 4 different songs at the same time do you?
This is the ONLY moment where the sparkle of originality may become possible. The glimmering moment where each artists has the distinct possibility of being able to quit playing the four distinct movements and weave a new sound derived from the whole, allowing the sum to be something quite more than it's parts. However in most modern music, too much is stressed upon the individuality of the vocals, the drums and guitars to even hope for something so miraculous to occur. In premise, what your trying to do with your music is perhaps the closest man can ever come to creating a new tonal level since the dawn of mankind.
B ute if all ... simply, b ute if all.
That is such a load. The entire point of originality is a creation of new from old. If that means rehashing something old to create new, so be it. An infinite number of people, using the traditional I-IV-V progression can write an infinite amount of songs, all of them new. Are they considered un-new do to common origins. If that is so, all sounds are just poor imitations of the big bang, and even that may be the bargain bin equivalent of something even bigger.
