Consider the tomato. Despite its common treatment as a vegetable due to its savory application in culinary contexts, it is botanically a fruit. Its conventional purpose does not determine its taxonomy. I apply the same principle to music performance, which I argue should be classified as a sport rather than an art, regardless of its conventional purpose. This excludes impromptu composition, such as improvisational jazz.
A sport, as understood here, is an executory activity with an emphasis on rules and a limited set of accepted executable moves. For example, swinging a tennis racket randomly by itself is not tennis; to play what is identifiable as tennis, you must conform to performing game-specific actions such as serving and forehand. On the contrary, I define art as a generative activity that produces an innovative (as in, this composition has never existed before) creative product. For example, Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” and Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring” are both oil paintings that prominently feature ultramarine blue but are recognizable as unique art pieces regardless of their similarities. Mozart and Dvořák both composed piano quintets, but they are distinct due to the variation in the composition of the notes. Of course, those whom I have presented this argument to have raised objections, which I will proceed to acknowledge and address to further my argument.
Objection A: Music's purpose of eliciting emotion distinguishes it from a sport, whose purpose is winning.
I argue that the purpose of something does not determine its classification. Music performance’s association with eliciting emotion does not necessarily make it artistic. Even disregarding Tomato Theory™’s debunking of this idea, spectators of sports competitions can also experience profound emotions watching their favorite team win or witnessing an aesthetically pleasing serve. Furthermore, music can also be competitive, as seen in piano competitions, while sports are not always necessarily: Someone shooting basketballs alone is still engaging in the sport.
Any performance, whether it be sports or music, can still be performed with an emotional stake or an emotional edge. This does not mean it isn’t still following the technical rules very closely and replicating a limited set of rules (i.e., specific notes or specific sports moves), which categorizes it into sports.
Whereas the primary monetization of music is via singular performances and the primary monetization of sports is through competitive team vs. team, music can still be competitive (e.g., piano competitions) and sports can still be solo (e.g., gymnastic routines or basketball shooting practice). So it cannot be separated via competition vs. performance because either can be both, and it cannot be separated via group vs. solo because either can be done solo or in groups.
Objection B: Is the performance itself not an original creative product?
A terrible pianist and a great pianist can both play Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2. It is not more or less Nocturne, similarly to how tennis remains tennis regardless of the skill level of the player. Similarly, a printed reproduction of any original art piece displays the work without itself constituting a new creative product. The composition of music and the design of tennis are distinct creative products, while music and sports performances adhere to these preexisting creations. The quality of their execution does not determine whether a new product has been created.
A music performance (filmed or not filmed) is equivalent to a printed reproduction of a visual art piece. The original creative product can be viewed or heard in the printing or performance, but the performance itself is not artistic.
Objection C: Can artistic products not be evaluated and ranked by objective standards just like musical performances?
Musicians and athletes are primarily evaluated through technical accuracy. A violinist is praised for precisely executing difficult passages as a tennis player is praised for accurately executing serves. A pianist who consistently misses notes is usually considered a bad pianist, regardless of how emotionally expressive they are. On the contrary, one cannot definitively establish that Mark Rothko is a worse artist than Leonardo da Vinci because their paintings display different levels of precision. You may ask: What alternative criteria determine artistic excellence?
If artistic excellence is determined by complexity
If artistic excellence is determined by complexity, the composition with the most brushstrokes and colors is the best, and thus Jackson Pollock defeats all in artistic excellence even though he is often dismissed by critics as a mediocre artist. If the quality of a music composition is determined by the number of notes, the consequences of this position would be that I could write a composition with one billion 256th notes across the entire range of a piano and have supposedly created the best piano composition ever.
If artistic excellence is determined by conceptual depth
I could paint a still life of a lemon and say that it was inspired by grief, happiness, joy, death, trauma, social hierarchies, etc., and no one could prove me wrong.
Alternatively, I could depict figures experiencing every conceivable social issue in one huge mural, making it the most complex art piece ever created, and then excellence in art would be a competition of who can visually represent more of these concepts in their work.
If artistic excellence is determined by originality
It is epistemologically impossible to determine that something was never done before. A composition we consider highly original could have been influenced by lesser-known composers who died before publishing their music. For originality to determine who is a better artist, it would have to be meaningfully quantifiable, which it is not in the way that technical accuracy in sports is.
It is impossible to know whether Schoenberg actually produced his innovative ideas independently or if he was influenced by XYZ influences.
Most people would consider Picasso more innovative than Mark Rothko because Picasso “invented” Cubism, whereas Rothko is perceived as “just painting color blocks on a canvas.” Not even getting into how heavily Cubism drew inspiration from African masks, Picasso is not necessarily more innovative because his contributions are more widely recognized in the cultural consciousness.
If artistic excellence is determined by precision
There is no way to determine how precise the original artist was unless you reach into their mind and observe their every intention, which is impossible. It’s also impossible to judge this in the actual creative product because one cannot measure the precision of brushstrokes or how precisely the notes were placed to a granular level.
Also, what if someone imprecisely, or unintentionally creates a very accurate recreation of “The Starry Night,” while an artist acting with more precision and intentionality does not create an equally accurate or lauded art piece?
Thus, the goodness of art cannot be determined by the same objective standards that music performance and sports are evaluated by.
Objection D: Is a composition not more “actualized” when played by a better musician? Does it not reach a level of artistry that constitutes it as a new creative product?
This claim actually reinforces the sportshood of music. One can soundly argue that X player is better than Y player at tennis because X is better at Z techniques and has won more matches. If X pianist is better than Y pianist because of superior piano technique, that is structurally the same way sports skills are compared. Or is the pianist better because they are more emotional? If someone screams and cries onstage while smashing the piano keys, they are certainly conveying more outright emotion. But one would not argue that this makes them a better pianist, right?
Objection E: What if a visual artist made a one-to-one recreation of “The Starry Night”? Can this still be considered art? Isn’t it similar to a tennis player’s “recreation” of tennis rules?
The process and recreation of a painstaking replication of “The Starry Night” is still artistic. However, the act of mass-printing existing art pieces (such as on postcards or T-shirts) is not artistic or art-making.
Similarly, a tennis player “recreates” tennis rules in the same way a musician recreates the notes in a composition; there are a limited set of executable actions that identify it as the sport they are playing. This is not the case for visual art or music composition (infinite possible composition options).
One of my close friends plays five instruments and has endured many painstaking debates with me on whether playing them constitutes a sport. I have spent four years in a flute studio myself, and I do not intend for this argument to belittle or diminish the talent of musicians; I do not find sports to be inherently inferior to arts or vice versa. I am more interested in the philosophical complications of distinguishing between the disciplines.
