I enjoyed this article. However at the end, he states that the reason Bach created many works of genius is that he wrote so much music that statistically some of it was bound to be great.
I feel this is a deeply flawed claim. First, I would like to see a list of the works by Bach which are not staggering works of genius. What percentage of his output is not in this category? Is it 0% or something ever so slightly more?
Compare this to my friend who sends me CDs of his latest compositions. He produces several of these each year and all are uniformly poor. He is very prolific yet the odds don't seem to be helping.
I would assert that raw talent is key, not producing tons of output and hoping for the best.
Comments
I enjoyed this article. However at the end, he states that the reason Bach created many works of genius is that he wrote so much music that statistically some of it was bound to be great.
I feel this is a deeply flawed claim. First, I would like to see a list of the works by Bach which are not staggering works of genius. What percentage of his output is not in this category? Is it 0% or something ever so slightly more?
Compare this to my friend who sends me CDs of his latest compositions. He produces several of these each year and all are uniformly poor. He is very prolific yet the odds don't seem to be helping.
I would assert that raw talent is key, not producing tons of output and hoping for the best.