Spent most of the day writing and rewriting my bio. And fixing up someone else's. And then practicing. And reveling in music that is not actually on my plate right now, but that my hands and heart wanted to experience today. Schubert does that a lot. He's quite a welcome distraction. And then thinking about my grand. Tossed around the idea of buying a smaller grand to suit New York City, and her crampedness. (She's so demanding, she is.) One day.... Maybe sooner than later.
Here we go, Day 230: https://ia600307.us.archive.org/13/items/Improv33112/20120331211633.mp3
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, March 30, 2012
Greeks.
I am suffering a bit of writer's block tonight... I'm just not inspired to write about anything in particular. So I thought I would post this speech. It has been swimming around the internet since 2004, and many of my musician friends have read it, forwarded it, felt like someone finally put into words why it is we do what we do. I once passed it on to my 15 year old student who was in a phase of feeling that music was unimportant in the grand scheme of things. After his dad read it aloud to us, his whole demeanor changed.
Karl Paulnack, the writer, pianist, and Director of Music at the Boston Conservatory, is so eloquent with this piece, it's hard to read without at least a little strain in the heart. Enjoy it, as I have many times. It is a welcome address to parents of incoming freshman.
My improv will go up here... because that speech is darn long in blog format. And about the improv, this one works on the piano, but to be honest, I played it with an orchestra in mind. Though the end is definitely more piano biased. I think it's that desire for the single note crescendo. Getting there....
Here we go, Day 229: https://ia800306.us.archive.org/10/items/Improv33012/20120330172712.mp3
“One of my parents’ deepest fears, I suspect, is that society would not properly value me as a musician, that I wouldn’t be appreciated. I had very good grades in high school, I was good in science and math, and they imagined that as a doctor or a research chemist or an engineer, I might be more appreciated than I would be as a musician. I still remember my mother’s remark when I announced my decision to apply to music school-she said, “you’re wasting your SAT scores!” On some level, I think, my parents were not sure themselves what the value of music was, what its purpose was. And they loved music: they listened to classical music all the time. They just weren’t really clear about its function. So let me talk about that a little bit, because we live in a society that puts music in the “arts and entertainment” section of the newspaper, and serious music, the kind your kids are about to engage in, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with entertainment, in fact it’s the opposite of entertainment. Let me talk a little bit about music, and how it works.
One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.
He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.
And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.
At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.
I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70′s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:
“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
Karl Paulnack, the writer, pianist, and Director of Music at the Boston Conservatory, is so eloquent with this piece, it's hard to read without at least a little strain in the heart. Enjoy it, as I have many times. It is a welcome address to parents of incoming freshman.
My improv will go up here... because that speech is darn long in blog format. And about the improv, this one works on the piano, but to be honest, I played it with an orchestra in mind. Though the end is definitely more piano biased. I think it's that desire for the single note crescendo. Getting there....
Here we go, Day 229: https://ia800306.us.archive.org/10/items/Improv33012/20120330172712.mp3
Karl Paulnack
One of the first cultures to articulate how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: the Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.
One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the Quartet for the End of Time written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June of 1940 and imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp.
He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose, and fortunate to have musician colleagues in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist. Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.
Given what we have since learned about life in the Nazi camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture-why would anyone bother with music? And yet-even from the concentration camps, we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen; many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, “I am alive, and my life has meaning.”
In September of 2001 I was a resident of Manhattan. On the morning of September 12, 2001 I reached a new understanding of my art and its relationship to the world. I sat down at the piano that morning at 10 AM to practice as was my daily routine; I did it by force of habit, without thinking about it. I lifted the cover on the keyboard, and opened my music, and put my hands on the keys and took my hands off the keys. And I sat there and thought, does this even matter? Isn’t this completely irrelevant? Playing the piano right now, given what happened in this city yesterday, seems silly, absurd, irreverent, pointless. Why am I here? What place has a musician in this moment in time? Who needs a piano player right now? I was completely lost.
And then I, along with the rest of New York, went through the journey of getting through that week. I did not play the piano that day, and in fact I contemplated briefly whether I would ever want to play the piano again. And then I observed how we got through the day.
At least in my neighborhood, we didn’t shoot hoops or play Scrabble. We didn’t play cards to pass the time, we didn’t watch TV, we didn’t shop, we most certainly did not go to the mall. The first organized activity that I saw in New York, on the very evening of September 11th, was singing. People sang. People sang around fire houses, people sang “We Shall Overcome”. Lots of people sang America the Beautiful. The first organized public event that I remember was the Brahms Requiem, later that week, at Lincoln Center, with the New York Philharmonic. The first organized public expression of grief, our first communal response to that historic event, was a concert. That was the beginning of a sense that life might go on. The US Military secured the airspace, but recovery was led by the arts, and by music in particular, that very night.
From these two experiences, I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t with our minds.
Some of you may know Samuel Barber’s heart wrenchingly beautiful piece Adagio for Strings. If you don’t know it by that name, then some of you may know it as the background music which accompanied the Oliver Stone movie Platoon, a film about the Vietnam War. If you know that piece of music either way, you know it has the ability to crack your heart open like a walnut; it can make you cry over sadness you didn’t know you had. Music can slip beneath our conscious reality to get at what’s really going on inside us the way a good therapist does.
Very few of you have ever been to a wedding where there was absolutely no music. There might have been only a little music, there might have been some really bad music, but with few exceptions there is some music. And something very predictable happens at weddings-people get all pent up with all kinds of emotions, and then there’s some musical moment where the action of the wedding stops and someone sings or plays the flute or something. And even if the music is lame, even if the quality isn’t good, predictably 30 or 40 percent of the people who are going to cry at a wedding cry a couple of moments after the music starts. Why? The Greeks. Music allows us to move around those big invisible pieces of ourselves and rearrange our insides so that we can express what we feel even when we can’t talk about it. Can you imagine watching Indiana Jones or Superman or Star Wars with the dialogue but no music? What is it about the music swelling up at just the right moment in ET so that all the softies in the audience start crying at exactly the same moment? I guarantee you if you showed the movie with the music stripped out, it wouldn’t happen that way. The Greeks. Music is the understanding of the relationship between invisible internal objects.
I’ll give you one more example, the story of the most important concert of my life. I must tell you I have played a little less than a thousand concerts in my life so far. I have played in places that I thought were important. I like playing in Carnegie Hall; I enjoyed playing in Paris; it made me very happy to please the critics in St. Petersburg. I have played for people I thought were important; music critics of major newspapers, foreign heads of state. The most important concert of my entire life took place in a nursing home in a small Midwestern town a few years ago.
I was playing with a very dear friend of mine who is a violinist. We began, as we often do, with Aaron Copland’s Sonata, which was written during World War II and dedicated to a young friend of Copland’s, a young pilot who was shot down during the war. Now we often talk to our audiences about the pieces we are going to play rather than providing them with written program notes. But in this case, because we began the concert with this piece, we decided to talk about the piece later in the program and to just come out and play the music without explanation.
Midway through the piece, an elderly man seated in a wheelchair near the front of the concert hall began to weep. This man, whom I later met, was clearly a soldier-even in his 70′s, it was clear from his buzz-cut hair, square jaw and general demeanor that he had spent a good deal of his life in the military. I thought it a little bit odd that someone would be moved to tears by that particular movement of that particular piece, but it wasn’t the first time I’ve heard crying in a concert and we went on with the concert and finished the piece.
When we came out to play the next piece on the program, we decided to talk about both the first and second pieces, and we described the circumstances in which the Copland was written and mentioned its dedication to a downed pilot. The man in the front of the audience became so disturbed that he had to leave the auditorium. I honestly figured that we would not see him again, but he did come backstage afterwards, tears and all, to explain himself.
What he told us was this: “During World War II, I was a pilot, and I was in an aerial combat situation where one of my team’s planes was hit. I watched my friend bail out, and watched his parachute open, but the Japanese planes which had engaged us returned and machine gunned across the parachute chords so as to separate the parachute from the pilot, and I watched my friend drop away into the ocean, realizing that he was lost. I have not thought about this for many years, but during that first piece of music you played, this memory returned to me so vividly that it was as though I was reliving it. I didn’t understand why this was happening, why now, but then when you came out to explain that this piece of music was written to commemorate a lost pilot, it was a little more than I could handle. How does the music do that? How did it find those feelings and those memories in me?”
Remember the Greeks: music is the study of invisible relationships between internal objects. The concert in the nursing home was the most important work I have ever done. For me to play for this old soldier and help him connect, somehow, with Aaron Copland, and to connect their memories of their lost friends, to help him remember and mourn his friend, this is my work. This is why music matters.
What follows is part of the talk I will give to this year’s freshman class when I welcome them a few days from now. The responsibility I will charge your sons and daughters with is this:
“If we were a medical school, and you were here as a med student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously because you would imagine that some night at two AM someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, someday at 8 PM someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed, a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft.
You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is you don’t have anything to sell; being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a firefighter, a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor, physical therapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they get things to line up, to see if we can come into harmony with ourselves and be healthy and happy and well.
Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don’t expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that’s what we do. As in the concentration camp and the evening of 9/11, the artists are the ones who might be able to help us with our internal, invisible lives.”
Pleasures.
It's hard to know when things are just the way they should be. Other times, it's so easy. They are just as they are. And as they are meant to be.
Wasabi octopus, yellowtail collar, beef tongue, tempura softshell crab, sweet fatty pork, wasabi shumai, bonito sashimi, takoyaki, fried oysters, seaweed salad, endless kirin, ceaseless sake. I'm sure there was more. There was definitely something with strands of... gossamer.
That's it. That's
Here we go, Day 228: https://ia600303.us.archive.org/21/items/Improv32912/20120329144343.mp3
Wasabi octopus, yellowtail collar, beef tongue, tempura softshell crab, sweet fatty pork, wasabi shumai, bonito sashimi, takoyaki, fried oysters, seaweed salad, endless kirin, ceaseless sake. I'm sure there was more. There was definitely something with strands of... gossamer.
That's it. That's
Here we go, Day 228: https://ia600303.us.archive.org/21/items/Improv32912/20120329144343.mp3
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Dona nobis pacem.
Why cannot it be...
... just...
... that cool, cold, quite cool,
swim...
... in the air
that passes
.
Here we go,
Day 227: https://ia600306.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv32812/20120328193640.mp3
... just...
... that cool, cold, quite cool,
swim...
... in the air
that passes
.
Here we go,
Day 227: https://ia600306.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv32812/20120328193640.mp3
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Cloudyclear.
As never-ending and complicated as everything presents, it's simultaneously simple. And for the exact same reasons, posed in slightly different perspectives. See? Truth really is a paradox. Every time. Think about it.... And that's why our decisions become tricky.
The improv: I don't even know what to say. Today was quite obscured. And in listening back, not so very terrible... hmmm.... The listenings; so haphazard. They have become specimens... not good or bad, but weird and interesting in their meanderings. So I'm picking the weirdest one of all. Who cares.
Here we go, Day 226: https://ia800307.us.archive.org/28/items/Improv32712/20120327203752.mp3
The improv: I don't even know what to say. Today was quite obscured. And in listening back, not so very terrible... hmmm.... The listenings; so haphazard. They have become specimens... not good or bad, but weird and interesting in their meanderings. So I'm picking the weirdest one of all. Who cares.
Here we go, Day 226: https://ia800307.us.archive.org/28/items/Improv32712/20120327203752.mp3
Everything will be ok.
Saw a great film collection and interview with Don Hertzfeldt tonight. It was exactly what I needed... to laugh, to ponder, to feel without effort, and with a light-heartedness to being without watering down the suffering.
He spoke about his gladness to be a part of the viewing... that he was happy to witness how his creation interacted with the audience. He liked being present when portions of his work won us over, or when it failed in front of us. It made me think about what is different with performers in that regard, but what could be the same. And maybe it's worth entertaining the idea that it is not just what we gather from onstage, but also what we might observe from outside the whole ordeal.
I dunno.
Here we go, Day 225: https://ia600505.us.archive.org/5/items/Improv32612/20120326172635.mp3
He spoke about his gladness to be a part of the viewing... that he was happy to witness how his creation interacted with the audience. He liked being present when portions of his work won us over, or when it failed in front of us. It made me think about what is different with performers in that regard, but what could be the same. And maybe it's worth entertaining the idea that it is not just what we gather from onstage, but also what we might observe from outside the whole ordeal.
I dunno.
Here we go, Day 225: https://ia600505.us.archive.org/5/items/Improv32612/20120326172635.mp3
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Calibrate.
Sometimes the mind needs to recalibrate itself so that stuff balances out again. Well, I think mine is doing that right now. And it's freaking exhausting. I wish it were as easy as waving my iPhone in a figure 8 pattern. But it's not. And it's frustrating that I can't speed it up, either. It's like waiting for iMovie to convert and process a video. Have you ever done that?? It takes forever. (Man, enough with the Apple references, already.)
Anyway, I was really glad for that massage today. But even after I told two different ladies at the place that I wanted someone who gave really strong massages, I still felt like it wasn't hard enough. I know I'm petite, but these muscles need a pickaxe. It needs to be so intense that I'm completely bruised the next day. Seriously, it's the only way to get out my knots.
But aside from all that, still happy-go-lucky as ever... just mind-flooded with all kinds of good stuff. I'm in there with a bunch of buckets, bailing out what is starting to collect around my ankles, but getting distracted by the squiggly little tadpoles and minnows swimming about them. See, it's hard to scoop out those fun daydreams, because the truth is, I actually like watching them play.
On the improv: got some Antheil for sure, maybe a little Bartok, yes?
Here we go, Day 224: https://ia600307.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv32512/20120325195532.mp3
Anyway, I was really glad for that massage today. But even after I told two different ladies at the place that I wanted someone who gave really strong massages, I still felt like it wasn't hard enough. I know I'm petite, but these muscles need a pickaxe. It needs to be so intense that I'm completely bruised the next day. Seriously, it's the only way to get out my knots.
But aside from all that, still happy-go-lucky as ever... just mind-flooded with all kinds of good stuff. I'm in there with a bunch of buckets, bailing out what is starting to collect around my ankles, but getting distracted by the squiggly little tadpoles and minnows swimming about them. See, it's hard to scoop out those fun daydreams, because the truth is, I actually like watching them play.
On the improv: got some Antheil for sure, maybe a little Bartok, yes?
Here we go, Day 224: https://ia600307.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv32512/20120325195532.mp3
Saturday, March 24, 2012
The men in grey.
Life holds one great but quite commonplace mystery. Though shared by each of us and known to all, it seldom rates a second thought. That mystery, which most of us take for granted and never think twice about, is time.
Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem an eternity or pass in a flash, depending on how we spend it.
Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.
Here we go, Day 223: https://ia600307.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv32412/20120324172202.mp3
Something pretty personal happened in this one... I'm not exactly sure what, but... I can hear it.
Calendars and clocks exist to measure time, but that signifies little because we all know that an hour can seem an eternity or pass in a flash, depending on how we spend it.
Time is life itself, and life resides in the human heart.
Here we go, Day 223: https://ia600307.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv32412/20120324172202.mp3
Something pretty personal happened in this one... I'm not exactly sure what, but... I can hear it.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Arc en ciel.
Never thought of myself as one of those people who is easily distracted, but I certainly think I have become one. I can't seem to hold down a single idea for an extended period of time at all anymore. My thoughts are creamy, and oh so spreadable. They cover way to much ground to ever grab hold of all of them at once. Slippery, too.
Here we go, Day 222: https://ia600300.us.archive.org/11/items/Improv32312/20120323201537.mp3
Here we go, Day 222: https://ia600300.us.archive.org/11/items/Improv32312/20120323201537.mp3
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Transience.
I couldn't do anything today. Everything I improvised felt pretty worthless, and even my classical practice was quite lackadaisical. I'm hoping that with some renewal, I'll be better tomorrow, and at least give myself an opportunity to really experiment with the pedals I borrowed off of my friend. My classical pianist brand is slowly healing... it will always be there, but I've certainly wandered away from the herd.
I think one of the things that bothers me most is transience. I hate that people slip in and out of our lives, and all we have left at the end of the day are ghosts. Yet at the same time I sometimes feel that it is a very romantic way of living, and usually if a person affects us, they've imprinted on us, whether they stay in our lives or not. And when memories are provoked by the smallest, most obscure triggers, we get a pleasant twinkle of time past gifting such loveliness to time present. It's beautiful, really. And maybe what that means is that there is no actual transience after all. And if that's the case, I wonder how many places I am in right now....
Here we go, Day 221: https://ia600806.us.archive.org/2/items/Improv32212/20120322150230.mp3
I think one of the things that bothers me most is transience. I hate that people slip in and out of our lives, and all we have left at the end of the day are ghosts. Yet at the same time I sometimes feel that it is a very romantic way of living, and usually if a person affects us, they've imprinted on us, whether they stay in our lives or not. And when memories are provoked by the smallest, most obscure triggers, we get a pleasant twinkle of time past gifting such loveliness to time present. It's beautiful, really. And maybe what that means is that there is no actual transience after all. And if that's the case, I wonder how many places I am in right now....
Here we go, Day 221: https://ia600806.us.archive.org/2/items/Improv32212/20120322150230.mp3
Double feature.
The intention was to have some time to write tonight, but several oysters and improvs later, here I am, at the cusp of night to morning, with many yawns and few minutes left to slumber.
Here we go, (featuring Blaser on trombone,) Day 220: https://ia600804.us.archive.org/8/items/Improv32112/20120321213736.mp3
and, which I think Sam likes a little better: https://ia600309.us.archive.org/18/items/Imrpov232112/20120321215434.mp3
... and while we're at it, this one from earlier in the day, which gets all moody and pretty cool toward the latter half: https://ia700801.us.archive.org/6/items/Improv332112/20120321153901.mp3
Here we go, (featuring Blaser on trombone,) Day 220: https://ia600804.us.archive.org/8/items/Improv32112/20120321213736.mp3
and, which I think Sam likes a little better: https://ia600309.us.archive.org/18/items/Imrpov232112/20120321215434.mp3
... and while we're at it, this one from earlier in the day, which gets all moody and pretty cool toward the latter half: https://ia700801.us.archive.org/6/items/Improv332112/20120321153901.mp3
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Equinox.
Spent a good portion of the evening trying to produce a cricket sound on command, something I've wanted to be able to do for a long time. Not easy... and annoyed my cat very much in the process. She kept screaming at me to stop whistling. Two birds, one stone. Ha.
So I think Saturday marks the day when I finally became unafraid of improvising. It took 8 months. But the last few days, I've felt so completely liberated at the piano. I'm not sure what made it happen, but I feel really good about it... a different pianist altogether. The improvs have gotten longer and longer, and with no extra effort. And they don't have to be long, but it goes to show that things are free-flowing, and totally unobstructed.
And now, about chords: what was dripping into my brain the other day as I played. The role of one pitch can go with so many chords, and all those chords mean something so different. One note; it's always in that same place, but in the places it might fit, it could be a part of pure joy, grief, melancholy, anger, humor, confusion, contemplation... it might even be the reason that that particular chord conveys that particular meaning. Aww, forget it. The moment of revelation is over... I can't write about chords the way that I mean, and the way that I want to right now. You'll have to imagine what more had passed through my mind at that special instant.
And spring equinox. I love spring, but it has this tendency to make me uneasy. Even though I really, really love it. Weird, but true.
Here we go, Day 219: https://ia600802.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv32012/20120320142106.mp3
So I think Saturday marks the day when I finally became unafraid of improvising. It took 8 months. But the last few days, I've felt so completely liberated at the piano. I'm not sure what made it happen, but I feel really good about it... a different pianist altogether. The improvs have gotten longer and longer, and with no extra effort. And they don't have to be long, but it goes to show that things are free-flowing, and totally unobstructed.
And now, about chords: what was dripping into my brain the other day as I played. The role of one pitch can go with so many chords, and all those chords mean something so different. One note; it's always in that same place, but in the places it might fit, it could be a part of pure joy, grief, melancholy, anger, humor, confusion, contemplation... it might even be the reason that that particular chord conveys that particular meaning. Aww, forget it. The moment of revelation is over... I can't write about chords the way that I mean, and the way that I want to right now. You'll have to imagine what more had passed through my mind at that special instant.
And spring equinox. I love spring, but it has this tendency to make me uneasy. Even though I really, really love it. Weird, but true.
Here we go, Day 219: https://ia600802.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv32012/20120320142106.mp3
Hazards.
Cannot worry now... far too late. As has been the usual case lately.
Lots of memories exploding, though. And haphazard improv-putting.
Here we go, Day 218: https://ia700808.us.archive.org/24/items/Improv31912/20120319152113.mp3
Lots of memories exploding, though. And haphazard improv-putting.
Here we go, Day 218: https://ia700808.us.archive.org/24/items/Improv31912/20120319152113.mp3
Sunday, March 18, 2012
Taxes.
I really, really hate preparing my taxes. It turns me into a little, furious ball of anger. That is why I have put it off until now... 12:04, night before I see my accountant. I have to do Lyra taxes, too. Double bummer. So anyway, I'm going to leave the post where it is... not write too much (even though I had some observations about chords). Except that I hope this trend of letting go in improvs keeps up... even if I'm not happy with everything, I'm happy with the freedom.
Here we go, Day 217: https://ia700807.us.archive.org/23/items/Improv31812/20120318185442.mp3
Here we go, Day 217: https://ia700807.us.archive.org/23/items/Improv31812/20120318185442.mp3
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Practice.
I have a good stiffness in my hands right now... I got to practice for three consecutive hours tonight, and what is even better is that it was focused. I haven't focused that well for that long in... a really long time. There were several years when I felt like three hours was not nearly long enough, and I would get a little worried that I was somehow not fulfilling an obligation. Yeesh. If I only knew then that my most significant musical epiphanies were not realized in a practice room. Anyway, a couple days ago, I felt like I had totally forgotten how to practice. Good to not feel that way today.
I don't know what it was, and I'm not going to ask questions. But today I totally let go in my improv, and it felt so fantastic. I'm not saying it's the best improv ever, or that you're gonna love it. You might even hate it. But it was maybe the first time ever that I didn't give a crap about whether I had made mistakes or worried about how the music should go. Yet it all felt pretty in control. In the moment, it felt physically exhilarating, emotionally expressive, and cathartic. In fact, I didn't know what to do afterward. I thought maybe I would get up or play another piece, but I was under a spell. So I just sat there for a little while, and felt the air.
Here we go, Day 216: https://ia600809.us.archive.org/1/items/Improv31712/20120317193800.mp3
I don't know what it was, and I'm not going to ask questions. But today I totally let go in my improv, and it felt so fantastic. I'm not saying it's the best improv ever, or that you're gonna love it. You might even hate it. But it was maybe the first time ever that I didn't give a crap about whether I had made mistakes or worried about how the music should go. Yet it all felt pretty in control. In the moment, it felt physically exhilarating, emotionally expressive, and cathartic. In fact, I didn't know what to do afterward. I thought maybe I would get up or play another piece, but I was under a spell. So I just sat there for a little while, and felt the air.
Here we go, Day 216: https://ia600809.us.archive.org/1/items/Improv31712/20120317193800.mp3
Ila.
Hmmm... after a week of concerts, I deserve one night off. At least.
Here we go, Day 215: https://ia800301.us.archive.org/31/items/31612/20120316173625.mp3
Here we go, Day 215: https://ia800301.us.archive.org/31/items/31612/20120316173625.mp3
Friday, March 16, 2012
Ides.
Look at the ants. Now there's a successful species. They rely mostly on instinct, and secretions. When they die, their kin come and gather their bodies. They march on, one by one, single file, to their goals. Uniform, unquestioning, dutiful. They maintain their cities, and live on.
I'm a perfect idiot.
That is, if that is what success is measured by. If I were a citizen of a little ant city, it would certainly see no benefit on my part.
Sometimes I scare myself, with the intensity and depth of human emotion. And I also scare myself when I choose to ignore it... and it makes me wonder about the importance of that side of things. And now, juxtapose that with my strength of reason, which is as beautifully and artistically honed at least as much as its alter. I ask of you, Where do you go, when the rights are all right, but maybe wrong? And do you trust your emotional, or your intellectual self? And once you've decided that, what do you do when you realize that those two parts are, in fact, very much one and the same? Now, add time.
Crazy ol' time. Good for nothing. Everything. Wish you would stand still. Wish you would get on with it.
Here we go, Day 214: https://ia600305.us.archive.org/33/items/Improv31512/20120315143403.mp3
I'm a perfect idiot.
That is, if that is what success is measured by. If I were a citizen of a little ant city, it would certainly see no benefit on my part.
Sometimes I scare myself, with the intensity and depth of human emotion. And I also scare myself when I choose to ignore it... and it makes me wonder about the importance of that side of things. And now, juxtapose that with my strength of reason, which is as beautifully and artistically honed at least as much as its alter. I ask of you, Where do you go, when the rights are all right, but maybe wrong? And do you trust your emotional, or your intellectual self? And once you've decided that, what do you do when you realize that those two parts are, in fact, very much one and the same? Now, add time.
Crazy ol' time. Good for nothing. Everything. Wish you would stand still. Wish you would get on with it.
Here we go, Day 214: https://ia600305.us.archive.org/33/items/Improv31512/20120315143403.mp3
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Pi.
Happy Pi Day, everyone.
Circles are, first of all, really neat. But secondly, very bizarre, that they occur naturally.
You, Circle, are weird. You are perfect, all the way around, and it's nearly impossible for a human to recreate you on purpose, yet you are so integral into our way of being. Everything about us is about you. Cycles, all of them, are you. From where we start, is the same place we find ourselves again at the end of things. Like that quote... "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time." (T.S. Eliot... you... Ach, I love you... )
And momentum... we find that little push, and then, Circle, physics propels us around you, and we fall back to our beginning, and that little momentous thrust gives us that ride all over again.
And the way we move... all circles.
Comfort? Circle.
Sorrow? Circle.
Laughter? Circle.
I don't think I need to go on... maybe clarify my examples, but not now... another time.
Circles. Yeah... squares got nothin'. Triangles??? There's some competition. Especially the equilateral triangle. But if you're talking life and being and creation and nature, Circle's got it in the bag.
So, I was gonna put this neat, little rhythmic thing here, but decided at the last minutes to put this decidedly more weird one instead... I dunno... seems to tell a different story... wonky and wandering.
Here we go, Day 213: https://ia600806.us.archive.org/21/items/Improv31412/20120314152713.mp3
Circles are, first of all, really neat. But secondly, very bizarre, that they occur naturally.
You, Circle, are weird. You are perfect, all the way around, and it's nearly impossible for a human to recreate you on purpose, yet you are so integral into our way of being. Everything about us is about you. Cycles, all of them, are you. From where we start, is the same place we find ourselves again at the end of things. Like that quote... "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time." (T.S. Eliot... you... Ach, I love you... )
And momentum... we find that little push, and then, Circle, physics propels us around you, and we fall back to our beginning, and that little momentous thrust gives us that ride all over again.
And the way we move... all circles.
Comfort? Circle.
Sorrow? Circle.
Laughter? Circle.
I don't think I need to go on... maybe clarify my examples, but not now... another time.
Circles. Yeah... squares got nothin'. Triangles??? There's some competition. Especially the equilateral triangle. But if you're talking life and being and creation and nature, Circle's got it in the bag.
So, I was gonna put this neat, little rhythmic thing here, but decided at the last minutes to put this decidedly more weird one instead... I dunno... seems to tell a different story... wonky and wandering.
Here we go, Day 213: https://ia600806.us.archive.org/21/items/Improv31412/20120314152713.mp3
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
The line.
uh oh...
... I think it would behoove me to not start on a tangent of intelligence and depth right now.
Please forgive me. It's just that late.
Here we go, Day 212: https://ia700801.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv31312/20120313152649.mp3
okay, okay... so now that Apple says I need to update my phone, I have to wait until all this is finished to get my improv on here. So what I had wanted to write about earlier today was about my insomnia last night, and the sleep gremlins that stole my rest away from me. And how the only way I was able to combat them was to pull out my journal, and write. And I read about all the things that I did and felt a decade ago... and I reflected on the differences of it all, and the sameness of it all. And I read my last entry, which was, in fact, the very day before I started this whole project. If I transcribed it all here, it would make incredible sense, and stir poignant interest... most words would be insufficient for what has followed in the past months. But my vulnerability stops there. If you know me in real life, you can ask me about it, and I will tell you, and that window is open to you. But if you don't, then there's no reason to know more. That's just where I draw my line. And... good night, then....
... I think it would behoove me to not start on a tangent of intelligence and depth right now.
Please forgive me. It's just that late.
Here we go, Day 212: https://ia700801.us.archive.org/26/items/Improv31312/20120313152649.mp3
okay, okay... so now that Apple says I need to update my phone, I have to wait until all this is finished to get my improv on here. So what I had wanted to write about earlier today was about my insomnia last night, and the sleep gremlins that stole my rest away from me. And how the only way I was able to combat them was to pull out my journal, and write. And I read about all the things that I did and felt a decade ago... and I reflected on the differences of it all, and the sameness of it all. And I read my last entry, which was, in fact, the very day before I started this whole project. If I transcribed it all here, it would make incredible sense, and stir poignant interest... most words would be insufficient for what has followed in the past months. But my vulnerability stops there. If you know me in real life, you can ask me about it, and I will tell you, and that window is open to you. But if you don't, then there's no reason to know more. That's just where I draw my line. And... good night, then....
Monday, March 12, 2012
Clickkkk!
Lots of things clicking lately. I know I've written about this before, but I think it's starting to sink in a little better. You know, the whole classical music versus improvised music thing, and how having one language helps with the other, and principles that appear unique, in fact, dictate universally.
One of the most noticeable changes has been in learning and practicing classical music. I've been trying to play everything like it's improvised, and in so doing, my understanding of the compositional technique is totally different. I think it's probably more along the lines of what was going through the composer's head at the time it was all set to paper. More about motives and gestures, and about what one wants to hear next. The phrasing is definitely all different, too. I'm paying more attention to harmonic shifting in a bigger picture, rather than in the moment. Maybe that's the thing that's happening... more big picture, less raw instinct. But in a good way. In a balanced way.
On the flip side, I've really pared down my improvs lately. It's finally dawned on me, in a practical sense, that my improv will simply not be as complex as the classical stuff that I play. And I need to stop forcing it there. I suppose it was in listening to the construction of some Bjork stuff, of all things, that I realized this. It's music that feels very full, but if I listen for the elements, they're all pretty straight forward and simple. And I think, maybe all along, I've been wanting my improvs to be complex by virtue: every melody, every chord, every color. And so most of it just sounded like a big mess.
Anyway, it takes time for these things to be understood. I'm sure that some day soon, this day, too, will have just been another stepping stone along the way.
Here we go, Day 211: https://ia600802.us.archive.org/32/items/Improv31212/20120312144925.mp3
One of the most noticeable changes has been in learning and practicing classical music. I've been trying to play everything like it's improvised, and in so doing, my understanding of the compositional technique is totally different. I think it's probably more along the lines of what was going through the composer's head at the time it was all set to paper. More about motives and gestures, and about what one wants to hear next. The phrasing is definitely all different, too. I'm paying more attention to harmonic shifting in a bigger picture, rather than in the moment. Maybe that's the thing that's happening... more big picture, less raw instinct. But in a good way. In a balanced way.
On the flip side, I've really pared down my improvs lately. It's finally dawned on me, in a practical sense, that my improv will simply not be as complex as the classical stuff that I play. And I need to stop forcing it there. I suppose it was in listening to the construction of some Bjork stuff, of all things, that I realized this. It's music that feels very full, but if I listen for the elements, they're all pretty straight forward and simple. And I think, maybe all along, I've been wanting my improvs to be complex by virtue: every melody, every chord, every color. And so most of it just sounded like a big mess.
Anyway, it takes time for these things to be understood. I'm sure that some day soon, this day, too, will have just been another stepping stone along the way.
Here we go, Day 211: https://ia600802.us.archive.org/32/items/Improv31212/20120312144925.mp3
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Git 'im, pa!
It's really saying something if it's 11:39pm, on the daylight savings "spring forward" day, and I'm already in my pajamas, and getting into bed.
It's saying, "You's got a illness! Best ye' getchyerself sum shut aye." (Why does "it" have a hillbilly accent?)
Well, I guess even superheros get sick sometimes.
At least it felt like a pretty good improv day.
Here we go, Day 210: hhttps://ia600801.us.archive.org/28/items/Improv31112/20120311204242.mp3
It's saying, "You's got a illness! Best ye' getchyerself sum shut aye." (Why does "it" have a hillbilly accent?)
Well, I guess even superheros get sick sometimes.
At least it felt like a pretty good improv day.
Here we go, Day 210: hhttps://ia600801.us.archive.org/28/items/Improv31112/20120311204242.mp3
We go when we...
Big questions, little questions, mundane and important questions.
Bottom line, which I charged upon my friend this fine evening:
Whether you act or not, there are consequences. And those might be good... they might be bad... they might be... neither. But they will be.
Life will happen, one way or the other. And if you want to be an active participant, then... do.
And if not, then... don't.
Here we go, Day 209: https://ia600808.us.archive.org/3/items/Improv31012/20120309150940.mp3
Bottom line, which I charged upon my friend this fine evening:
Whether you act or not, there are consequences. And those might be good... they might be bad... they might be... neither. But they will be.
Life will happen, one way or the other. And if you want to be an active participant, then... do.
And if not, then... don't.
Here we go, Day 209: https://ia600808.us.archive.org/3/items/Improv31012/20120309150940.mp3
Friday, March 9, 2012
Cycle.
I had to make a midnight run to the grocery store to get eggs for my breakfast tomorrow, and I had a weird compulsion to have cereal for dinner. Hey, what can I say. The body wants what it wants. *nom nom nom nom...*
Other mundane happenings: my daffodils are now dead and gone. I'm kicking butt in each game of Words with Friends. I forgot how to say "remember" in Spanish. (...until now, that is. Useless.) Today, I dismissed some cares that just don't matter in the end. Tomorrow, I am sure I will have new ones. They won't matter either. They're probably going to be the same ones, anyway. And on and on it goes.... Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, wipe forehead, take breath, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, downshift, pe-dal, pe-dal....
Here we go, Day 208: https://ia700800.us.archive.org/19/items/Improv3912/20120309150940.mp3
Other mundane happenings: my daffodils are now dead and gone. I'm kicking butt in each game of Words with Friends. I forgot how to say "remember" in Spanish. (...until now, that is. Useless.) Today, I dismissed some cares that just don't matter in the end. Tomorrow, I am sure I will have new ones. They won't matter either. They're probably going to be the same ones, anyway. And on and on it goes.... Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, wipe forehead, take breath, pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal, downshift, pe-dal, pe-dal....
Here we go, Day 208: https://ia700800.us.archive.org/19/items/Improv3912/20120309150940.mp3
Goblins.
It doesn't seem to matter how many times these thoughts pass through my mind. The bottom line is always the same, and always has been. That does not change.
The number of times I've contemplated a change? Innumerable.
Yesterday, I asked questionable questions. And today, for a split second, art made me feel disgusted. Truly! And it was a very, very strange sensation... how momentary and so fleeting that disgust was, and so powerful! Not toward a piece of art either, but Art: all of it. And how quickly, instantaneously, really, it swung to the polar opposite. I don't even remember what it was that made me feel so disgusted. I know it had something to do with narcissism, and ego... but I don't really remember the full context of it. It scared me how, in that flash of a moment, I would have, could have, thrown, thrust! all of my care for art away, with disdain and a mouthful of spit. I was actually pissed off for a second. I was looking at Cindy Sherman photographs during all of this, and then it was so sudden that a new feeling came over me, and I was in the world where art expresses us so deeply. And for the next 45 minutes or so, I was in cloudy awe over how this woman captured humanness so well. I believed her! That's such a strange thing to say about a photograph. How often do you look at a 2-dimensional portrait, and even consider whether you believe it? And the question is not about trust... it's... I don't even know how to word it. All I know is, I looked at those photographs and completely bought each one. They were charming, hysterical, vulnerable, and honest. Sad and real. Aside from being meticulously well done.
But anyway, I don't know what had come over me. It's the first time I had ever felt so strongly (or at all, for that matter,) against(?) art. And really, literally, only for about one second, before I fell in love with it again. It alarmed me. What goblin was that?
Here we go, Day 207: https://ia700805.us.archive.org/30/items/Improv3812/20120308150427.mp3
The number of times I've contemplated a change? Innumerable.
Yesterday, I asked questionable questions. And today, for a split second, art made me feel disgusted. Truly! And it was a very, very strange sensation... how momentary and so fleeting that disgust was, and so powerful! Not toward a piece of art either, but Art: all of it. And how quickly, instantaneously, really, it swung to the polar opposite. I don't even remember what it was that made me feel so disgusted. I know it had something to do with narcissism, and ego... but I don't really remember the full context of it. It scared me how, in that flash of a moment, I would have, could have, thrown, thrust! all of my care for art away, with disdain and a mouthful of spit. I was actually pissed off for a second. I was looking at Cindy Sherman photographs during all of this, and then it was so sudden that a new feeling came over me, and I was in the world where art expresses us so deeply. And for the next 45 minutes or so, I was in cloudy awe over how this woman captured humanness so well. I believed her! That's such a strange thing to say about a photograph. How often do you look at a 2-dimensional portrait, and even consider whether you believe it? And the question is not about trust... it's... I don't even know how to word it. All I know is, I looked at those photographs and completely bought each one. They were charming, hysterical, vulnerable, and honest. Sad and real. Aside from being meticulously well done.
But anyway, I don't know what had come over me. It's the first time I had ever felt so strongly (or at all, for that matter,) against(?) art. And really, literally, only for about one second, before I fell in love with it again. It alarmed me. What goblin was that?
Here we go, Day 207: https://ia700805.us.archive.org/30/items/Improv3812/20120308150427.mp3
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Questionable questions.
It's a travesty that I have two advanced music degrees from reputable schools, and aside from the occasional 8 measure long counterpoint assignment (my favorite!), and one short blurbish thing for a piano lit class, I've never had to compose a piece. This seems counterintuitive. No?
So now that I want to write some stuff, I am slow and clumsy. And have very little patience for myself. And a big part of my psyche says to spend that time practicing instead of composing. After all, what's the use? (That's the little voice.)
Well, what's the use of any of this? (Is my response.)
*Little voice shrugs shoulders.*
Me: I feel compelled to do it?
LV: Why do you answer that as a question?
Me: I guess I'm not 100% sure.
LV: Well, get sure.
Me: Well, I'm sure that I want to be doing it, and I like it, and I'm sure that the effort and results of it all fulfill me.
LV: Is that enough?
Me: I have no idea. So far, it's been enough.
LV: Is it going to be enough later?
Me: I think so...
LV: Well, congratulations. You're actually happy.
Me: Huh. *furrows brow with concern over all those questionable questions.*
And finding some simplicity, and that this can work that way, too. Maybe better.
Here we go, Day 206: https://ia600303.us.archive.org/13/items/Improv3712/20120307202816.mp3
So now that I want to write some stuff, I am slow and clumsy. And have very little patience for myself. And a big part of my psyche says to spend that time practicing instead of composing. After all, what's the use? (That's the little voice.)
Well, what's the use of any of this? (Is my response.)
*Little voice shrugs shoulders.*
Me: I feel compelled to do it?
LV: Why do you answer that as a question?
Me: I guess I'm not 100% sure.
LV: Well, get sure.
Me: Well, I'm sure that I want to be doing it, and I like it, and I'm sure that the effort and results of it all fulfill me.
LV: Is that enough?
Me: I have no idea. So far, it's been enough.
LV: Is it going to be enough later?
Me: I think so...
LV: Well, congratulations. You're actually happy.
Me: Huh. *furrows brow with concern over all those questionable questions.*
And finding some simplicity, and that this can work that way, too. Maybe better.
Here we go, Day 206: https://ia600303.us.archive.org/13/items/Improv3712/20120307202816.mp3
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Down deep.
I'm not gonna feel bad for not writing a lot tonight. Instead, I'm going to snuggle down deep, and read my new book. :)
Been a while since I've afforded myself that pleasure.
Here we go, Day 205: https://ia700806.us.archive.org/31/items/Improv3612/20120306210535.mp3
Been a while since I've afforded myself that pleasure.
Here we go, Day 205: https://ia700806.us.archive.org/31/items/Improv3612/20120306210535.mp3
Monday, March 5, 2012
Daffodils.
That smell always takes me to the first airs of spring. Front door open after months of cabin fever, the clean, cool air of Minnesota rebirth inhaled into the house for the first time since September. Streams of sunshine, turning every piece of dust into glitter.
I am there again. Practicing at the piano in that warm sun and cool air, when mom walks into the room with a bouquet of bright yellow blooms in a vase, and sets them atop the instrument. I never would have stood for it today, but we fortunately never left a water mark. She has a wide smile on her face. This moment lifts her spirits, too. And I enjoy the next few hours, making music, and breathing in the sweet perfume of the daffodils.
For the rest of my life, daffodils will give me this.
Here we go, Day 204: https://ia600804.us.archive.org/16/items/Improv3512/20120305195333.mp3
I am there again. Practicing at the piano in that warm sun and cool air, when mom walks into the room with a bouquet of bright yellow blooms in a vase, and sets them atop the instrument. I never would have stood for it today, but we fortunately never left a water mark. She has a wide smile on her face. This moment lifts her spirits, too. And I enjoy the next few hours, making music, and breathing in the sweet perfume of the daffodils.
For the rest of my life, daffodils will give me this.
Here we go, Day 204: https://ia600804.us.archive.org/16/items/Improv3512/20120305195333.mp3
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Flamenco.
Tonight was marvelous.
If ever there was an art form that I have no blood connection with, but feel deeply tied to, it's flamenco. And I can't be the only one who feels that way. Cindy's words to me were of exactly that sentiment before I said a thing.
I remember hearing the Islamic call to prayer for the first time in high school. I was totally mesmerized by it, and found it to be one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. And when I started listening to flamenco, it was a remembrance to that sound that really grabbed my attention. Even last night, when Arun played a most touching raga to end an evening of celebration, I was hypnotized. If you look into it, you'll see where all of these art forms connect historically. And why, when you hear gypsy music from totally separate regions, whether it be Turkey or Bulgaria, Hungary or Israel, there are common flavors. This is music born and spread with religion, war, persecution, and expulsion. Maybe that is why its pathos is so strong.
Whether you understand the words or not, the pain and strife is tacit, and there is no escape from the heavy spiritual embrace imposed upon you. You are there; you are involved. Even when there is no singing, no instrument, there is rhythm. And in that rhythm: anxiety, tension, heartache, uncertainty, danger, volatility. All of those things. But passion is the underpinning of the entire form. And you can feel it bubbling and bulging from within that methodically fixed, strongly enforced, rhythmic vault; seething and ready to explode. And you completely expect your surroundings to burst into flames at any moment. The surprise is when they don't, and instead, you catch yourself feeling your heart break. It's not really clear why. But then... there it goes.
Here we go, Day 203: https://ia600803.us.archive.org/19/items/Improv3412/20120304180534.mp3
If ever there was an art form that I have no blood connection with, but feel deeply tied to, it's flamenco. And I can't be the only one who feels that way. Cindy's words to me were of exactly that sentiment before I said a thing.
I remember hearing the Islamic call to prayer for the first time in high school. I was totally mesmerized by it, and found it to be one of the most beautiful things I'd ever heard. And when I started listening to flamenco, it was a remembrance to that sound that really grabbed my attention. Even last night, when Arun played a most touching raga to end an evening of celebration, I was hypnotized. If you look into it, you'll see where all of these art forms connect historically. And why, when you hear gypsy music from totally separate regions, whether it be Turkey or Bulgaria, Hungary or Israel, there are common flavors. This is music born and spread with religion, war, persecution, and expulsion. Maybe that is why its pathos is so strong.
Whether you understand the words or not, the pain and strife is tacit, and there is no escape from the heavy spiritual embrace imposed upon you. You are there; you are involved. Even when there is no singing, no instrument, there is rhythm. And in that rhythm: anxiety, tension, heartache, uncertainty, danger, volatility. All of those things. But passion is the underpinning of the entire form. And you can feel it bubbling and bulging from within that methodically fixed, strongly enforced, rhythmic vault; seething and ready to explode. And you completely expect your surroundings to burst into flames at any moment. The surprise is when they don't, and instead, you catch yourself feeling your heart break. It's not really clear why. But then... there it goes.
Here we go, Day 203: https://ia600803.us.archive.org/19/items/Improv3412/20120304180534.mp3
Subway.
Ughhhh!
It would be sooo counterproductive for me to write anything good right now.
I WANTED to write about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/arts/design/01underbelly.html?pagewanted=all
and show these photos here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/art-unseen-the-underbelly_n_777770.html
and write about how you should watch out... because any day now, I'm going to bust out some footage where I'm wandering around some abandoned subway station, full of awesome art.
... and instead, after such a beautiful day full of rambling existence, and dreaming about how magical the subway could be, I'm just pissed at the MTA. Manohman.
In. Comp. Et. Ent.
Disgruntled is probably the mildest term that comes to mind at the moment.
Here we go, Day 202: https://ia600801.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv3312/20120303210826.mp3
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf. Shosti 5/8.
It would be sooo counterproductive for me to write anything good right now.
I WANTED to write about this: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/01/arts/design/01underbelly.html?pagewanted=all
and show these photos here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/02/art-unseen-the-underbelly_n_777770.html
and write about how you should watch out... because any day now, I'm going to bust out some footage where I'm wandering around some abandoned subway station, full of awesome art.
... and instead, after such a beautiful day full of rambling existence, and dreaming about how magical the subway could be, I'm just pissed at the MTA. Manohman.
In. Comp. Et. Ent.
Disgruntled is probably the mildest term that comes to mind at the moment.
Here we go, Day 202: https://ia600801.us.archive.org/4/items/Improv3312/20120303210826.mp3
Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf. Shosti 5/8.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Hinderto.
So often, when I listen back, and I hear a hesitation, a musical gulp, it's because I got caught up with overthinking. It happens all the time. And it's very annoying. The very thing I'm after, hindered by trying to make it work.
Go away, brains! Go away!
A base of Bartok, two dashes of Shostakovich, a pinch of Herrmann (maybe??), and a smear of Adams.
Here we go, Day 201: https://ia700805.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv3212/20120302211842.mp3
Go away, brains! Go away!
A base of Bartok, two dashes of Shostakovich, a pinch of Herrmann (maybe??), and a smear of Adams.
Here we go, Day 201: https://ia700805.us.archive.org/20/items/Improv3212/20120302211842.mp3
Friday, March 2, 2012
200.
The other night, sitting on a couch at the Tea Lounge, listening to some live music, a thin, little book showed itself to me. Plain black cover. I picked it up, and perused.
Poetry.
At the end of the night, the servers came and cleared the table; everything but the book. I didn't think it was very normal for the Tea Lounge to leave out literature like that for customers to enjoy, so I took it! Thinking back, maybe I should've left it with the employees, but my senses told me that it would only be left in some cardboard box alongside a winter hat and a few broken umbrellas for years and years to come. It disturbs me when books are left unread and unloved. At least with me, it would be cared for.
One poem stuck out to me. It's been sitting on my music stand now since I pulled it out of my bag yesterday.
hiatus
by Dennis Lee
And the unredeemable names
devolve in their
liminal slouch to abyss.
I gather the crumbs of hiatus.
The blank where evil held.
The hole called beholden.
That phantom glyphs resound, that
lacunae be burnished.
That it not be leached from memory: once,
earth meant otherly.
I admit that I had to look up a couple of those words. But I really like this poem. It's become the text for today's improv. (Day 200! I kind of can't believe it.) A lot of the phrases are switched around. And it's clear, now, that if I'm gonna sing anymore, I've got to improve my enunciation. Even I can't understand what I'm singing half the time. Disclaimer: voice cracks and out of tune pitches.
Here we go, Day 200: https://ia600807.us.archive.org/12/items/Improv3112/20120301214507.mp3
Poetry.
At the end of the night, the servers came and cleared the table; everything but the book. I didn't think it was very normal for the Tea Lounge to leave out literature like that for customers to enjoy, so I took it! Thinking back, maybe I should've left it with the employees, but my senses told me that it would only be left in some cardboard box alongside a winter hat and a few broken umbrellas for years and years to come. It disturbs me when books are left unread and unloved. At least with me, it would be cared for.
One poem stuck out to me. It's been sitting on my music stand now since I pulled it out of my bag yesterday.
hiatus
by Dennis Lee
And the unredeemable names
devolve in their
liminal slouch to abyss.
I gather the crumbs of hiatus.
The blank where evil held.
The hole called beholden.
That phantom glyphs resound, that
lacunae be burnished.
That it not be leached from memory: once,
earth meant otherly.
I admit that I had to look up a couple of those words. But I really like this poem. It's become the text for today's improv. (Day 200! I kind of can't believe it.) A lot of the phrases are switched around. And it's clear, now, that if I'm gonna sing anymore, I've got to improve my enunciation. Even I can't understand what I'm singing half the time. Disclaimer: voice cracks and out of tune pitches.
Here we go, Day 200: https://ia600807.us.archive.org/12/items/Improv3112/20120301214507.mp3
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