I recently heard a great physics lecture that suggested “a good explanation is one that can’t be varied.” For example, if I say Zeus made the world, I can change an almost infinite amount of details about it and it has the same explanatory power. I can say he wears a hat or a beard, or he made the world in one day or one year, and it has the same explanatory power. Good explanations, on the other hand, for example, the Big Bang Theory, have variables in which the smallest fractions of change are argued over for decades, as the smallest discrepancies in numbers changes the explanatory power. When Kepler found the orbit of Mars to be elliptical rather than circular, it was a matter of mere millimeters of difference in (Earth’s) observation.
Anyway, I think the same concept works for art. I hear so much music and see so much “art” on the internet now that at first glance it all seems relevant. In fact, it seems hyper-relevant. It’s polished and perfect, or ironically-grungy and virtually raw, or pseudo-honest. But why do I still listen to David Bazan or Tom Petty over (insert trending internet band here)? I think I’ve found the answer. Good art, like good science, is not arbitrary. Rimsky-Korsakov poured over single lines of melody for his whole life. Hemingway distilled prose to it’s molecular level in a meaningful way. When I see eye-candy or hear ear-candy I often find that I’m reveling at the state of aesthetic technology over the meaning or beauty of the work. It’s easy to confuse the two. But a simple test you can perform; how often do you go back to it? Could you change a color here and there, a reverb effect, a drum part or bassline, without changing the power of the piece?
