Diego Schaps

20 April 2014
Consistency

For his last memo, Calvino sought to explain the importance of

consistency to the past, the present and the future. Now, in English, the
word consistency has two main meanings: one explaining the texture of a
material and the other explaining congruence. In order to fully understand
which meaning Calvino employed, I found the Italian word that Calvino
used: coerenza. When I translated this word to English, I was left with the
following words: Coherence, cohesion, congruence, coherence, and
consistency. Therefore, the consistency that Calvino meant to impose on the
students was not one of texture. This was the meaning brought on by the
translation made by Patrick Creagh. It is, of course, not his fault that
English has another definition for the word he employed. At the end of the
day, this form of consistency refers to cohesion, congruence; of something
being essentially in agreement throughout and I will use this definition
consistently.
To begin, Calvino was an author so he related the importance of his
memos to writing. Because I am not a writer, I cannot do this. What I will do
instead is relate consistency to science and music. I will first begin with
science. The closest homologue to the word consistency in science is the
word reproducibility. Reproducibility is one of the main principles of the
scientific method because in order to publish viable results, they must be
reproducible. In other words, the outcome of an experiment must be the
same every time in order to be accepted as fact. The first mention of
reproducibility emerged in England during the 17 th century when Irish
scientist Robert Boyle was creating an air pump in order to generate a
vacuum: quite a controversial topic at the time. Notable philosophers such
as Descartes and Hobbes claimed that such a feat was impossible, but Boyle
maintained that knowledge should be constituted by experimentally
produced facts. He also constituted that these facts should be made viable
to the scientific community by their reproducibility. In order to test this, a
Dutch scientist named Christiaan Huygens built his own pump and came up
with the same results. This concept of reproducibility is important in the
science of the present and future as well as of the past. With the increasing
availability of scientific literature due to the Internet, it is becoming ever
more important to consider reproducibility in experimentation. It is quite
easy these days to publish completely false claims therefore tainting
scientific exploration. In order to maintain the integrity of the field, we must
look to reproducibility and therefore, consistency as an integral part to
scientific discovery. Now getting caught up in reproducibility is, in some
ways, negative to the scientific development of mankind. It is negative if we
concentrate solely on reproducing past experiments and not producing new
ones. In order for science to advance, we must look forward and make
hypotheses that past generations could not even comprehend.
Concentrating too heavily on the reproducibility of experiments would
therefore be negative. Overall, however, correctly employed reproducibility,

Diego Schaps
20 April 2014
Consistency

and therefore consistency, is integral to scientific discovery, scientific

development, and scientific evolution.
In continuation, I will discuss consistency and how it pertains to
music. Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote the following statement about
consistency in his essay entitled Self-Reliance:
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little
statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul
has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his
shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it
contradict every thing you said to-day. 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be
misunderstood.' Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras
was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus,
and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took
flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

Emerson is stating that maintaining too much consistency causes a delay in

progress. This delay in progress can be translated to the evolution of music.
During the classical period of music, there were
many rules that applied to classical harmony. Composers of the era (i.e. J.S.
Bach and Mozart) all abided by these rules of harmony consistently and
therefore music of this period took on a very characteristic tone and color. If
the rules would have remained consistent throughout musical history, we
would not have had the musical development that occurred throughout the
19th, 20th, and now the 21st centuries. As Emerson elucidates, those that
remain consistent will not be different, and those that are not different will
not be great. In music history, those that dared to break of from consistency
were the romantic composers (i.e. Debussy and Mendelssohn). They pushed
the development of music forward. Due to the romantics, composers look at
music not as a formula but rather as an expression of emotion or as a
depiction of nature. As Emerson says, these composers were probably
misunderstood when they began writing their music yet now we consider
them great. Consistency in music can be a force that inhibits creativity and
holds back evolution. Consistency is, ironically, integral to musical
development. Without the consistent application of rules during the
classical period, composers would not have perfected these techniques.
Without the consistent application of these techniques, Romantic composers
would not have had the urge to change the paradigm. Without the urge to
change the paradigm, consistency in music would not have been removed. It
is ironic that consistency in music is necessary to remove consistency in
music. It is evident, however, that too much consistency truncates creativity
and therefore truncates the development of music.