This essay focuses on “Music Decomposed” and, to a lesser extent, “A Matter of Meaning It” (they are companion pieces), contextualizing these texts, and exploring some important parallels between musical composition and philosophical authorship. Colapietro shows how, in subtle and surprising ways, some of the main themes of Cavell’s philosophical investigations are articulated in “Music Decomposed” (themes such as voice, timing, extemporaneity, contingency, deep listening, rule-following, and an uncompromising affirmation of the radical nature of human responsibility made in the teeth of one or another fashionable celebration of impersonal mechanism). Tradition and technique are necessary for creativity, even if creativity reconfigures tradition and transcends technique.