Quality is a more actionable goal than originality and better predicts whether music endures

Originality is often cited in criticism as a primary musical virtue, but it is a poor operational goal: it is vaguely defined, cannot be self-assessed reliably, and is not correlated with quality. ‘Original’ and ‘good’ are independent dimensions — much original music is bad, much non-original music is excellent. Aiming instead for quality — the concrete goal of making the music as good as possible through varied listening, experimentation, synthesis of disparate influences, and work — naturally produces distinctive music over time without the anxiety of avoiding all influence. The music remembered is the music that is good.

Examples

A house producer who listens deeply to jazz, soul, and Brazilian music for their influence on house brings a richer harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary to their work — not because they are trying to be original but because they are trying to be good.

Assessment

Identify one area of your music where you have prioritised sounding ‘original’ over sounding ‘good’. Experiment by deliberately doing what sounds best, regardless of whether it is familiar. Evaluate the result.