brettworks

(Photo: Jonathan Greenaway)

Serendipity is fortune’s role in artistic and scientific practice via accidental discoveries and discerning their value. The term was coined by writer Horace Walpole in 1754 with reference to an old Persian fairy tale (“The Three Princes Of Serendip”) in which three perceptive princes notice clues to insightfully describe a lost camel they have never seen. For Walpole, serendipity is a way of being, a way of moving forward, a pursuit of “always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which [we] were not in quest of.” Making music feels most alive when it creates conditions for serendipities to happen and conditions for us to notice this happening. Pursue what you didn’t know you were in quest of by listening for serendipities–in improvising, misusing musical tools, hitting the wall of What should I do next?, tweaking timbres, juxtaposing loops, and recycling old work into new findings.