Forum 1 - Week2 - Originality

For our forum presentation this week our teacher gave a talk about the topic "I want to be original... like everyone else"
He covered some very impotant points whilst talking about this. Some of these were:
Plaigerism.
He talked about the saying," Stealing from one person is called plaigerism, stealing from many is cal research." I thought this was a very good point. How can you make your own opinion of something, or educate yourself about something if you have not learnt about it first from somewhere else? I can also see the point that you cannot just copy someone else opinion word for word when you could perfectly well make up an opinion of your own.

Erik Satie.
This was a famous composer that was actually expelled from music school after being deemed 'lazy'. He ended up composing a wole genre of pieces even with his limited knowlegde about composing music. Although they were all very similar, the first of three was a worldwide favourite. "Gymnopedie No.'s 1,2 & 3."
When he did go back to school at 40 years of age and completed a three year composition course, fans of his music started saying that he had lost his originality in the pieces he wrote after the course was completed.

"How much value is it worth? Is it important?"
Stephen then talked about how in the sixteenth century composers names were never released with a piece, as it was not deemed that important. After that people started realising their efforts should be recognised, and after the sixteenth century names started being published.
In theearly days in Europe originality was seen as being loud, having power, and making a point, where as today originality can be seen as many different things, even a simple as just writing down your feelings. It doesnt always mean making a point or having power.

"What does the idea of originality mean in the 21st century?"
He then told us a story about how in the 1930's, a man named Benjamin wrote an essay, and in it he wrote, "In the process of reproduction, something from the original work is lost.: He called this 'aura' Later on in the century this thesus was taken further by a man named Bandrillard, calling it 'Simulacrum.'

Lastly, we listened to a few pieces, one being 'Roadrunner', a solo accordian piece by John Zorn. These pieces showed extreme originality, and pushed the limits of what is defined as 'noise' and 'music'.

I was suprised by the amount of opinions made by the class. I also was suprised by my own opinion. A man in our class, Bradley, made a very oing point by which i completely agreed with. He told us of the saying, " Poeple don't know what they like, they like what they know." This made me realise why originality was so important, as showing your passion may be rejected by many, as they only want to hear what they know and like.
Overall i thought it wa a very good speech :).