I am often struck by the strange cyclicality of history, philosophy, fashions and technology.
A great example of this phenomenon is in music, where the trends have gravitated between the two poles of ornamentation and simplicy. Medieval music was quite ornate, Renaissance music was not, Baroque music was, Classical music was not, Romantic music was and 20th Century music (for the most part) was not.
Schoenberg's twelve-tone serial music was essentially a revisiting of J.S. Bach's fugues, after re-thinking the idea of tonality. In fact, when aspiring composers came to Shoenberg to learn about his new twelve-tone serial music, he made them practice writing Baroque-style fugues before he would teach them anything about atonal music.
The same cyclicality seems to happen (to greater and lesser degrees) in all kinds of fields, even (though many people are shocked and scandalized by the suggestion) in technology.
I noticed today that pocket watches are starting to replace wristwatches again. They've been re-imagined and re-packaged, but they're quickly regaining currency.
Don't believe me? Ask a few people on the street for the time. I guarantee it will not be long until someone pulls a cell phone from their pocket instead of glancing at their wrist. Cell phones are a re-worked version of pocket watches.
I think that's neat.
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4 comments:
Huh! Good point.
You sure know a lot about music!
How come? =)
Actually, in my first year at CMU I was a music major. But it turns out that while I like and am good at both music theory and music history, I pretty much suck at practical music. I almost flunked out of my music performance class, and changed my major to Philosophy.
Then to Theology.
Then to English.
Then I started an education degree.
Then changed back to English.
Oh my.
Well, now I don't feel so bad.
:P
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