Pointless but Significant: The Case for Play

April
15
2011

Yeah ... I know. Two in two weeks is a bit much. But the experience that serves as provocation for this one is still fresh. It’s now or likely never. Let me set the scene.

On the first Sunday of every month, various combinations of the musicians who comprise the Getting in the Groove cohort make music for jazz vespers at St. Jude’s Anglican Church in Oakville. No rehearsals for this gig, but a week or so before the day, we begin emailing tune possibilities – both sacred and profane – to each other. One of last vespers’s suggestions, “Onward Christian Soldiers,” came from the guitarist, Nathan Hiltz. This is one of my red button tunes coming, as it does, out of a childhood spent listening to earnest sermons and singing earnest hymns. My first reaction was to dismiss it − my gig; my call. But I’m nothing if not selectively open-minded. And so I asked Nate to send along the chart and I’d have a look at it.

In the email to which the chart was attached, Nate mentioned that he played it up-tempo; allegretto, if you like. I saw this as something of a minor blessing – it would be over faster. The red button activated childhood tape inside my head played it at a dirge-like pace. (Dirge-like pretty much captures my memories of that era.) But a major blessing − one more significant than tempo – lurked. I discovered that Nate had reharmonized the tune and I found myself leisurely luxuriating in the richness of the reconstituted chord changes. “Leisurely” is the important adverb here. In a liberating, transformative instant, dirge-like had become adagio and my prejudice had been reharmonized. And adagio sounds nicer when you say it. Bonus.

In his book, “On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand,” Jerome Bruner speaks of the creative moment in art as one of “illuminating novelty” and "effective surprise." This was one such moment; one of those surprising “I-never-thought-of-it-that-way-before” moments. It was the reharmonization that constituted the “illuminating novelty,” but it was the leisurely tempo at which it insisted it be played that constituted the “effective surprise.” I came to think of what had happened in this moment as the reharmonization of a prejudice.

You will not know this – which is why I’m going to tell you. Having named the dirge to adagio conversion experience as the “reharmonization of a prejudice,” I had no idea where to go next. 24 futile hours passed. Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought, if I were able to crank out something that I might, for example, call, “The 7 Habits of People Who Can Effectively Surprise Themselves” or “Five Steps on the Path to Illuminating Novelty?” Well, that’s not going to happen. I was, however, pretty sure − in a robustly tentative way − that those transforming “I-never-thought-of-it-that-way-before” moments emerge out of playfulness. Play, somehow, is important − I was, after all, playing the piano when I was surprised out of my prejudice. The piano is, in fact, of all the mechanical devices and instruments which surround me, the only one I play; the only one that can effectively surprise me. The others − my watch, my car, my blender, my computer, my microwave, the elevator I ride to the garage − I manipulate. And while they too can surprise me, these surprises are never pleasant.

OK … so what’s the point about play? Here’s where it gets tricky. Let me introduce you to Romano Guardini, a Roman Catholic priest and academic – not someone any of us is likely to bump into in the course of our daily lives. In 1918 he wrote a little book which he called “The Spirit of the Liturgy” in which he says that the liturgy is pointless but significant. I’m well aware of the irony of attempting to make a point about pointlessness. So I’ll not attempt it. All I ask of you, good-natured reader, is to noodle with the notion and see where it gets you. Nate’s playing with the reharmonization of “Onward Christian Soldiers” was pointless as was my playing with the product of his playing.

But the outcome was significant. I’d argue that the playing of jazz is a wonderful example of a human enterprise that is pointless but significant. (I shall likely hear from some jazzer friends about this.) One might, in fact, make such an argument for all of the arts. Which is why, I suspect, relationships between governments and arts communities are not always amiable: one focuses on pointlessness and the other on significance. I don’t have to tell you which focuses on which.

Listen to Johan Huizinga, in his book, “Homo Ludens,” speaking of play.

The spirit of playful competition is, as a social impulse, older than culture itself and pervades all life like a veritable ferment. Ritual grew up in sacred play; poetry was born in play and nourished on play; music and dancing were pure play. We have to conclude, therefore, that civilization is, in its earliest phases, played. It does not come from play...it arises in and as play, and never leaves it.

Well, that’s me done. I’m off to see if there are any others of my many prejudices that might be so easily playfully reharmonized − except, of course, those few that I cherish and will not readily abandon.