Technical Disinterestedness and Spontaneity

For Rudhyar, art- and music making were not about commercial success, public fame, or technique. Pianist Anton Kuerti described and commented on Rudhyar's Theurgy:

This atechnical approach reflects Rudhyar's viewpoint that technique “is something that you should absolutely forget. It's of no value whatsoever after you gain it.” Such an attitude also resonates with the approach of Ives, who was on several occasions a target of charges of amateurism and even incompetence. Rudhyar believed that prolonged technical training often led to overspecialization, which, in turn produced professionalism only to undermine or neglect the crucial question: “Skill for what purpose?” In this respect, he associated technical skill with intellectual knowledge that operated best upon what he called “mechanistic structure.” This had sociocultural ramifications as well: in 1979, he continued to underline “fragmentation and specialization” as the sicknesses of modern Western culture, warning that techniques alone could “never go to the roots of any human issue.”

During the 1920s, Rosenfeld defiantly and idealistically compared the European preference for such “dogmas” as classicism, romanticism, impressionism, and neoclassicism with the American characteristics of “apparent indirection, experimentalism, fluidity.” Rudhyar's comments on Messiaen's music not only adopt Rosenfeld's view but also provide insight into his views on simplicity and spontaneity as opposed to intellectual planning: