Novelty?

This has interested me from when I was very young. If we wish to be a success we need to be able to generate novelty. Essentially the same question as Creativity.

But how is this possible?

If someone plays us brand new music we will hate it.

But if someone plays us the same music all the time we will get bored.

Somewhere in the middle is Novelty.

Now this is interesting cos it means that Novelty is a mix of what we already know and the new material.

It means what is Novel to one person is not novel to another, because it depends upon the listener (not needing to split a listener into an individual or a society - an Indonesian will have more familiarity with Gamelan than an Eskimo, that's true for most Indonesians and Eskimos so any will do) .

It's conceivable that there are still people who do not know Electronic Dance Music, but unlikely cos since the 80s it has steadily grown to take a central place in Western mainstream culture. Even adverts consider it reaching target audiences it is so widely known.

But time was when the majority rejected it as repetitive, lacking a tune and even dismissed it as not even music.

So Novelty and Creativity is conditional on time and place. This is obvious: otherwise something would remain Novel forever! It must be novel and then while not itself changing become familiar as the world changes around it.

But at the same time, Novel things are not entirely built from the current conditions and the world around them. This is when things get boring and musicians just rework existing material with little novelty and new substance.

There is that sweet spot between the contemporary and the completely avant guarde which is Novel. Its actually directly linked to the nature of existence. We are all exactly in this sweet spot all the time: each day neither totally the same as the last nor totally different.