In this week’s reading response I would like to discuss design principles 2.2 and 2.3:
These two principles strike me as similar, because they both stress about the importance of respecting the original properties of the medium of the design. It reminds me of the Chinese idioms “事半功倍” and “事倍功半”, which mean “half the effort with double the effect”, and “double effort with half the effect” respectively.
As a child, I calculated the ratio between their “derivatives” (4:1) every time when I hear either one of the idioms. But today during my brainstorm, I realized that they may also be pretty fit for describing the outcomes of respecting and disrespecting the forms.
When I try to connect them to music, they make me think of orchestration. In orchestration the first thing one needs to learn is what each instrument is capable of. As a result of studying orchestration we could find the most suitable key to write for an instrument, the registers they sound the best in, and the “flashy” sounding patterns that they can do that are technically not too difficult. Similarly, making a sculpture that uses the jade’s original color and shapes, as well as the designing the mobile phone into the Ocarina, are all examples of designing inside out.
However, as I keep letting my brain sink into this concept some counter-examples the intentional “事倍功半” (2x effort ½ effect) also make their way into the stream of thoughts.
One of the strange things I find in the piano community is that many pianists roast Maurice Ravel’s “uNpIAnIsTiC” piano writing with a passion, yet also regard it as a “showoff” to be able to play his works. Undeniably, the biggest reason is definitely still the musical beauty of his works despite not being completely “inside out” for the piano, but there are also comments that say that if Ravel played the piano better he would’ve never written those pieces, which would have been a shame.
Going deeper down the rabbit hole -- is the whole realm of “extended techniques” essentially designing ¿Outside-in? If so, are they meaningless or “bad” designs under the context of these two principles?
More examples can be found in mobile and computer games. I remember banging my head against the walls as a teenager playing some rhythm games that made me arrange my fingers in the most “unpianistic” ways. Yet I was so addicted to it that I spent almost a week on that level. Could this be the “Type II fun” that we talked about in class?
I will keep pondering on these questions as I explore through the rest of 256A (aka Type II fun according to its inventor).