Formalizing "surprising, yet inevitable"?

Question

My music teacher told me that one property of great music is that it is both surprising and inevitable - you don't expect something, but looking back you see that it has been carefully prepared for. Is there a more formal understanding of this principle or a source of examples with explanations? And how do I deliberately use it in composition?

Answer 1

The answer is: There is no formal school of “surprising, yet inevitable” music.

However ...

SURPRISING

All music seeks to take the listener on a satisfying journey. One way to fail at doing that is to bore the audience. The value of “surprising” your audience is to keep them alert and amused. Just don’t forget, surprising the audience too many times also bores them.

SURPRISING AND INEVITABLE

Two ways of looking at the combination of “surprising and inevitable”:

1. The entirety of the piece works within the context of the audience’s expectations — Ex., Your audience is expecting a roller coaster ride that delivers them safely back to reality. And it makes sense that they would arrive back from where they started. If you build to a big climax and a resolution that both surprises AND makes sense, then you have successfully written a piece that is is both “surprising and inevitable"

2. Another way of looking at “inevitable” is whether audience members leave your piece literally whistling or humming parts of it. Like people hum and air drum hooks in pop music.