Music, Medium, Creativity

Every Art has its medium--paint, ink, bronze, etc.--and according to Dewey, the basic medium of Music is a "tone".  However, a tone is part of given tonal system, in the same way that a word in a poem is part of a given language, in which case the medium of Music is the entire pre-established system.  However, as experimental improvisational Music shows, any 'noise' can be spontaneously integrated into a performance.  Hence, the basic medium of Music is, more accurately, a sound.  Furthermore, as that Music illustrates, a performer can be the source of not only the organization of the medium, but of the medium itself, unlike e. g. a painter, for whom the paint pre-exists the the artistic production.  Thus, a musical performance can distinctively exemplify pure Creativity, i. e. it is constituted by the production of both its matter and its form.  However, Nietzsche's allegiance, at least at an early stage, to Schopenhauer's concept of Will prevents him from appreciating the Dionysian as a principle of Creativity--for, according to that concept, Will is the perpetuation of the same, with respect to which any novelty is merely phenomenal.