Dear Skooter :: Arthur Koestler Music Creativity Essays

Dear Skooter, How is it going? It seems to be an eternity since I last talked to you. As for me I am over here at MIT working from sunup to sunset. There is little time for fun anymore and I seem to have lost my sense of the little pleasures in life. That is what MIT will do for you. Well enough said about me, what about you? How is the band doing? I remember last time I saw you guys performing was at the senior field day. You guys did great by the way. I miss the old days when we used to jam out, out in the garage with you playing the guitar and me beating away at the drums. Hard to believe that I enjoyed playing music so much that I haven't touched a drumstick over here at MIT since I left in June. On another note it may seem a surprise but I thought of writing to you because the other day I came across a short essay by Arthur Koestler discussing creativity and the three domains that compose it; the "Haha!", the "Aha" and "Ah... ". At first I thought his theories could not relate to a musician because I mean what performing music has to do with laughing and crying. But as I fmished reading it, it seemed to make sense when I thought of what goes on when you perform on stage. In his essay Koestler introduces a new theory that describes the three domains of creativity that he discusses "artistic originality, scientific discovery, and comic inspiration". To better understand the domains he paired each one up with a reaction: comic inspiration - "Haha!", scientific discovery – "Aha", and finally artistic originality – "Ah..." Before I further dwell into describing his ideas we need to establish a term commonly used by Koestler in his essay, which is bisociation. In bisociation, two or more different frames of reference are combined to coexist on several planes at once. The three reactions follow no set sequence, the "Haha" is caused by the "collision of the bisociated contexts", and the "Aha" feeling can be associated with the word "eureka" who signals their fusion into a solution with truth to it and the "Ah..." reactions signals an emotion brought on by an artist focusing on beauty. Do you see what I mean by not having understood what it has to do with creativity?