Assuming that the destruction is intentional, I don't think there is any justification- although there may be a somewhat reasonable explanation for why a musician would destroy his/her own instrument. I was always under the impression that when a band smashes their guitars at the end of a show, it was because they were so overwhelmed with the energy and emotion of the performance that it was a sort of expression of their feelings. I guess I was naive to assume that, because Krystal mentioned that Nirvana would destroy their instruments to ensure they wouldn't have to play an encore. This is incredibly selfish. They obviously don't care much about their fans or their music if they would destroy an expensive instrument just to make sure they got off stage as quickly as possible. Artists (and musicians) are often very eccentric, overly passionate, and compulsive people. This might be why they would do something so drastic on stage. Davies cites a few examples of instrument abuse, such as a score that calls for a person from the audience to throw darts at the back of the piano. This just seems pointless to me. I can't understand why a musician would include that in the piece (although, I couldn't understand why John Cage would sit on stage for 4 minutes and 33 seconds in silence and call it music until I read more about it, so maybe there is an artistic reason for doing something so bizarre, and I just don't understand it). I think there are two kinds of instrument abuse: the kind that is done spontaneously, and it is separate from the actual music, and the kind that is supposed to be a part of the music. I can understand the spontaneous instrument abuse better than the planned kind, although I am not a fan of either.
Question: Has anyone ever destroyed an instrument? For what purpose?
I responded to something you said in your blog.
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