The Beauty of Rough Edges

Little Cat was rooting around in some old pile of things today, and what he found surprised him. Lately, Little Cat is used to being the co-star of a bunch of three-cell comics with thought bubbles and a little signature in the corner. But what he uncovered was something older. A series of one-cell memes depicting his interactions with Big Cat. He remembers posing for these. He remembers having to recite the dialogue a few times to get the frame just right. (Or when Big Cat forgot his lines. Big Cat means well, but is a bit of a himbo.) At first he was taken aback. There were some rough edges he hadn’t remembered, and he felt a bit embarrassed. “I really put this stuff on the internet?”

Anyway, what did he find in these older versions of the artistic collaboration? The production values were rawer. The jokes were, in some cases, more primitive… more bone-deep. He would have said that these older pieces were mistakes. First attempts. But does an artistic collaboration ever do its best work before it learns polish? Before it learns to sand off the jagged edges?

What if there’s something more vital about a work of art with rough edges? What if the rough edges are how you know the artist hasn’t settled into a kind of lazy competence?

Big Cat, Little Cat Quickies!

The Power of the Rough Edges in that Raw First Attempt

There are two types of firsts. There’s the first thing you ever do in an artistic medium. And there’s the first thing you ever try to publish. In either case, the attempt will feel raw. Beethoven, in his early published works, still sounds a lot like a cross between Mozart and Haydn. Don’t get me wrong: he’s good at being Mozart and Haydn. And even in those early works, you can hear the emergence of an individual style. But the fullness of what would make him him; the great, crashing joys and sweet, agonized yearnings of his middle- and late-period works were still far below the surface.

Bach, Beethoven, and Boogie

There are moments in Bach that sound like they were ripped straight from a 20th century heavy metal album. And they sound all the more crazed and magnificent for occurring during a Bach concerto rather than during a rock concert.

Then there’s that moment at the end of Beethoven’s 32nd piano sonata where he accidentally invents Boogie.

The Ninth Symphony was Written by a Master of the Craft. So Why the Rough Edges?

And think about that Ninth Symphony. For three-and-a-half movements, it’s just a regular symphony, except that a chorus and four soloists are awkwardly sitting in the back like a relic from the days when audience members used to pay extra to sit onstage (the most expensive seats in Shakespeare’s Blackfriars Theater were on the stage where you see and be seen). The audience was surely wondering: “What are all of those extra bodies doing onstage?” And the soloists and choristers were surely wondering: “What if I have to pee?” But then all of those bodies stand up and become instruments for a song that, up until that point, had only ever been heard in beer gardens.

A deaf person took a literal drinking song and stitched it to the end of a symphony. Ask any musician who knows the piece and they’ll (affectionately) tell you that it’s a mess. There are places where the contrabasses have to play rapid runs that are too low and soft to hear. There are places where the singers have to make awkward jumps. The whole thing at times feels at times like a weird first draft. And yet it’s perhaps the most beautiful ode to secular joy and ecstasy that’s ever been written and performed.

See what happens when the performance is as surprising to today’s listeners as it was to the first audience. I never watch this video without crying:

Okay but I’m not Beethoven

I’m using the Ninth Symphony on purpose. Even Beethoven’s Opus 1 was the result of over ten years of music theory and practice at the piano, violin, viola, and so forth. How much more so his Ninth Symphony, completed some thirty years later? But in each case, what I’m saying holds true. In each case he’s trying something new. And in each case there are rough edges. As long as you’re trying something new, there will be rough edges. And that’s good. Don’t strive for them, necessarily. But know that they’ll happen.

Description

This time we see three consecutive single-cell memes. Each features a large orange cat with dark orange stripes looking down smilingly on a small grey cat with dark grey stripes. The small grey is looking out of the frame with a dissatisfied expression on its face.

First Panel

Big Cat: Oh boy, Little Cat! A new day! What do you think we should do?

Little Cat: Kill a bird. Feel its life snuff out. Then tummy-skritchins.

Second Panel

Big Cat: Little Cat, I’m working on the acknowledgment section of my book. Any suggestions?

Little Cat: “Thank you to my upbringing for putting a hole in my spirit that I try to fill with reading.”

Third Panel

Big Cat: Little Cat, you seem to be in a bad mood. Is there anything I can do?

Little Cat: I am? Crap. You’re right. I am.