A brilliant musician can in fact be / an innovator / without strictly speaking being an inventor.

In such cases, / those who expect "great discoveries" / will be disappointed.

Let there be no doubt: / the eager need for novelty, / so characteristic of the escalating modernist auction, / involves the idea / that a musical act is a thing, / in which case, / music is no more than technique, / technique alone.

And just as technique is / the consequence of an indefinite process of perfection / — with each automobile or kitchen appliance show / introducing what is new and improved / in comparison to last year's — / so never-ending progress / shall be the law of music.

Farther, faster, more powerful!

In this arms race, / each new music, / breaking its predecessor's records, / offers itself / as the last thing in modernity;

and each musician, / forcing predecessors / into the category of the unfashionable and outmoded, / claims the patent / on the invention.

In an era / where pastiches of "scientific investigation" / have become quasi-universal, / musicians owe it to themselves / to become "researchers" / just like everyone else.