There is nothing new under the sun

I'm a reasonable man, get off my case.

If this is true, why is drawing the connections between old things musically more 'creative' than drawing the connections verbally?

So how do you define 'drawing connections musically'? I think an answer to this would answer your question of why this is thought to be more creative than doing it verbally. You would have to think of a musical process which could be said to draw connections, you would have to actually write some music, whereas verbally you would just draw connections full stop. The extra 'level' to making the musical connection - that of actually creting a new musical artefact, whether or not it 'sounds like' something(s) older - could be said to make it more creative.

Or you could say that both ways of connecting are equally valid - the medium or process that encourages your brain into making new and interesting links is not the issue here, it's the links themselves that are important?

But I do think it uses less creative muscle to say xxx band sounds a bit like xxxx and xxxx than it does to actually be in that band. Your response depends on whether you like muscles, I guess.

It's the question I always ask of conceptual art - if the point of the art is the concept then why does it actually need to be made?

(The answer is simply that I like looking at it, so the qn is rhetorical in a sense)

That's the 'art' bit, Tom. Otherwise it's just conceptual...nothing. Just concept.

But wouldn't writing a description of the artwork-to-be express the concept equally creatively?

A picture says a thousand words.

replying to Tom... yes, a piece of writing could express the concept, so could a piece of music, a dance, a TV programme, whatever. But if you're an 'artist' (I guess you mean visual art, going by your comment about looking at things) you don't necessarily want to write about your concept, you want to express it in the medium you feel best in, to an art audience, in an art space.

I guess I was seeing the art as the product, the thing you see, and the concept as the idea behind it.

I don't really know what I'm talking about but, like a friend of mine wrote to me the other day, the web makes us think we are experts on things. So excuse the half-baked cultural studies blollocks.

Anyway, we diverge from the original question, about music and synthesising what is old. what do you think about this?

Oh, and art is an industry which people work in. So whatever the 'point' is of conceptual or any other kind of art, this is why people do it, even if it's not their primary motivation. If galleries and dealers didn't buy conceptual art, no-one would make it. They might then just write their concepts instead. Right, I'll shut up now.