brettworks

(Photo: J.S. Bach, “The Well-Tempered Clavier, Prelude in C Major”)

Maybe the parts will eventually add up to something. Maybe the perfect sound will present itself. Maybe the track is good enough as is.

A maybe rationale is a speculative rationalization we offer ourselves as to why it’s acceptable that the music in its present state isn’t, well, happening. But rationalizations can’t fix what’s dodgy about the music. A maybe rationale is fanciful thinking getting ahead of itself, a wanting to know outcomes rather than a willing to commit, a preoccupation with goals instead of process. As computer scientist Donald Knuth famously put the matter (in a very different context), “forget about small efficiencies […] premature optimization is the root of all evil” (Knuth, Structured Programming, p. 268). Rationalizing doesn’t help the artist further explore the problem her art is solving for because it prematurely optimizes expression that’s far from finished. In sum, art action is speculation that justifies itself. To find out how the work will turn out, forget about small efficiencies and instead keep tinkering (theorizing through practice) with what you have to distill it into a version of itself that’s, well, happening. It’s by working on the work that we turn maybes into facts.