Why you might suck, even if it sounds ok

One of the issues I've been grappling with this week is what it takes to be a musician. Granted, it's not exactly a small issue, and I have a sneaking suspicion that other people think about this more often than I do, and have a variety of opinions on the matter. But since Wednesday, when Erin and I commiserated over the "boring-ness" of people here, I feel like I've been surrounded by signs of artistry and inspiration. All of the books I have opened have magically referenced said topic, and have corroborated my opinions on inspiration, emotion, and feeling. Here's some of what I've learned so far:

1) Great musicians are not great because they have technical facility or play in tune. They are great because they are artists, probing into "that almost indescribable realm of human depth." (Mastery of music, 7)

2) Music making can be thought of as mastery of technique, performance, and SELF. If you are on a journey to discover yourself and where you fit in within the world, and you long to communicate such an experience, you will affect people.

3) Artistry is such a loaded term. It's kind of a bullshit way of describing something that words cannot really do justice to. But we all (or many of us) can think of it in our lives. We can think of a time when a piece, a concert, a performer moved us to a place we hadn't been to before. We can think of a book, a painting, a play or movie that changed our perception of time, space, and the present. Artistry is undefinable, yet palpable.

4) Why do music? Why do any art? Because you have to. Not because it's lucrative (hardly), not because it sounds pretty (not always), not because it's what you're good at or it's easy (definitely not). You do art because you have to. On Thursday, on the way back from getting my car's oil changed, I heard an interview with Dolores O'Riordan of the Cranberries, in which she said, "I write songs because I have to. It's a process of getting inside myself-do I need to see a shrink? Maybe. I'll write a song about those issues." Peter Maxwell Davies said, "if nobody remembers my music ten years after my death, it won't matter...I compose because it is an ongoing process of self-refinement." Music making is as much of a process, and even though we don't actively create things in the way a composer does, we should be no less inspired, creative, and thoughtful. And yet, here and now, music making in the incubated environment of college is droll and lifeless, stale, and emotionless- people are filled with sawdust dreams, spewing empty words, with vacant eyes and a static heart of constancy. How can I, an inconsistent person with so many thoughts and feelings, scarred emotions and skin, compete with the hollowness? I don't know, but I try.

5) Bobby McFerrin has a beautiful quote which summarizes what I want from music, from art, from all things:

When I go to a concert, I don't want to leave the hall the same way I entered. I want transcendence. i want something to happen to me in there, so that when I elave the hall, I've been touched in a deep, deep way-by magic, by some holy accident. I'm singing this song, and all of a sudden I hear this voice in the balcony singing along with me. Something happens which makes people feel they have been asked to step outside themselves a little bit, to help create the musical space. That's what I want, and I think that is what everybody wants.

I've felt this so many times at popular music concerts- a moment when the crowd and the artist communicate as one thing, when a song touches everyone in a way they had not predicted, when you feel a deep inexplicable love for the performers, the audience, for the world. This is what I want to communicate. This is what I want to evoke, to create. Art has the power to change you-so why are people just fucking around here? I don't know. But I'll keep searching for it, for transcendence.

Quotes of note:

The light shines in darkness and the darkness has not understood it.

Nothing is better than music. When it takes us out of time, it has done more for us than we have the right to hope for: it has broadened the limits of our sorrowful lives; it has lit up the sweetness of our hours of happiness by effacing the pettinesses that diminish us, bring us back pure and new to what was, what will be and what music has create for us. -nadia boulanger

Music making is constructed of correct notes, correct rhythms, dynamics and articulation. But the mortar is human trust of self and others, belief in self and others, and love of self...if one believes that music is self-expression, then it should follow that one must have aself to express. Before one is able to conduct and evoke artistry...one must spend a considerable amount of time on oneself, on one's inside stuff.

awareness is a necessary condition for the artist in the world. Without awareness, there can be no growth, little honest music, and little love.

...many times, there is something missing in the sound: that something which provides a brilliance of color and accuracy of pitch that is unmistakable if one is listening. What is missing? What is missing to those who really listen is a humanness to the sound. A sound that is born because of the conductor's selflessness and understanding of human love through music.

-james jordan

currently listening to: the department of eagles. soooo good.

Of Love and Hate

These last two days have been rather interesting for me, combining glimpses of the best of humanity, and perhaps, the less savory side of things.

On the more banal daily occurrences, I played in studio class and it was pretty mediocre, by my personal standards, and the entire studio class was full of completely uninspired, emotionally lacking performances, which have since sent me on a quest of sorts to figure out why musicians don't think of themselves as creative artists. It turns out that this is a fabulous, self-reflective journey, and I'm already fascinated after an hour or two of reading and reflecting.

On the tragic side, Marylou Speaker Churchill, famed NEC teacher and former BSO player, passed away from Breast cancer on Tuesday. While we all knew that she was battling cancer for years, what was hardest for me was acknowledging that she was a Christian Scientist, which therefore believes that illness comes from sin, fear, or ignorance, and that one can only eliminate sickness with belief, prayer, and acknowledgement of the sickness. Christian Science has some really beautiful beliefs, about love, that God is in all of us and created us all, and that prayer can only work when backed by true unconditional love for all beings. While I can consciously allow the beautiful side of this religion to ring true with me, it is entirely impossible for me to accept someone's slow demise from cancer "because of sin/ignorance/fear." Cancer is one thing in our culture that we know NOTHING about. We don't know what causes it. We don't really know what cures it. We don't know why things get better and then get worse, and then you might die. Our western medicine is completely baffled by cancer in all beings, not just humans. And cancer is dangerous. So I can see why one might seek spiritual reinforcement for cancer treatment However, to knowingly and willingly refuse any form of treatment for cancer is masochistic. Marylou was diagnosed 6 years ago, at least, which really makes me believe that treatment and eradication could have been possible. I understand that if someone has cancer of the brain, blood, or various organs that rarely recover, they might not want extensive treatment, as those are the most dangerous varieties. But breast cancer? It's so treatable, as far as cancers go, and it pains me to imagine how much suffering she endured for all those years. On the flip side, she was such a radiant, supportive figure to her students, to violinists, to her children, and she truly lived the beautiful, loving part of her faith. But her faith may have killed her, and that's what hurts me the most, rather than her departure from this earth.

On a similarly negative side of things, I was informed that some of the girls in another viola studio were complaining how Carol's studio always wins competitions/orchestral seatings/etc, and here's how the dialogue unfolded, or how I imagine it:

"I heard that Georgina has the swine flu."

"Ooh- I hope she can make the rest of her studio sick before the Harold In Italy competition."

"Yeah, that would show them."

I am so thoroughly repulsed by such hateful, injurious words that it makes me ill to think of them. Who could wish ill upon anyone in such a way? And why would you want other people to get sick just so you might have a better shot at succeeding? I can't get over the hatred, selfishness, and truly repulsive behavior that this is, and it explains so much of the cruelty and suffering of humanity. I could never imagine such a thing, even when I haven't liked people. It's disgusting on a whole new level, that I never thought was possible. And so, I apparently have to play well, and play with love...Because the other team will be playing with hate.

There is a very fitting quote from Marylou that addresses this issue:

"There is a law of this universe which is so simple and so powerful and it literally wipes this fear out of your being, and it is this... 'perfect love casts out fear.' If you are actively engaged in loving your instrument, loving the music, loving the audience, loving the committee, loving your enemies, then there is simply no room for fear of any kind, and you will find yourself playing better than you expected."

Love is the movement. May we all live it.

Dear Rivers Cuomo,

Dear Rivers Cuomo (lead Singer of Weezer and famed wearer of black plastic glasses),

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?????

If this video is any indication of things, then you have FAILED. You stole my heart with your 90's songs like "Only in Dreams," "Buddy Holly," and "Pink Triangle." You made me sensibilities smile with your geeky glasses and ugly sweaters. And then, you forgot to age, and continued writing the same songs, only much much worse, for the last 12 years. Here's the stats:

1) You were born in 1970, so you are 39 right now. And yet, your latest album has references to macking it with girls wearing Abercrombie. Are you a pedophile? Did you notice that you got married in the last years? Or did you miss that point?

2) Here are some of your lastest and greatest (worst) songs in the past few years: "We are all on Drugs," "Beverly Hills" (hate that song!), "Pork and Beans" and now this, this famed collaboration with Kenny G. Yes, Kenny G.

3) What inspired you to do this? Kenny G is a smooth jazz soprano sax player. "Hmm, just what my alternative rock song needs. Some smooth jazz. Oh yeah." Wrong. Fail.

4) Everything you do now is self-serving attention seeking behavior. Weezer snuggies. Working Kenny G and Chamillionaire? You are on "YO Gabba Gabba" in insect costume? Is there anything else weird that you are doing?

So, in closure, I'd just like to say that I'm very disappointed in you, Rivers. I thought I could fancy you forever, but now, you're just old, weird, and writing songs that appeal to the intellect of a 13 year old. Too bad.

Halloween and Deceptions

I had a rather nice Halloween, dressing up as Max from "Where the Wild Things Are." Tail? Check. Ears? Complete. Paper Crown? Yes-mission accomplished. I also helped MJ do her David Bowie makeup, and I actually did ok. Pix to be posted soon. I also went to the graduate soiree, watched the costume contest to be a popularity contest, and then went to a house party? I know- that's very un-Kayleigh-like. To go to a party where a variety of substances are being used and lots of people are crazy and belligerent or euphoric. It was very odd, but much appreciated, especially since there were decent bands playing all night in the basement. And here's the clincher, at least for me. While watching the final band of the evening, I realized that I have an inexplicable attraction to people who dress up as Alex from Clockwork Orange. That's weird-I remember being totally attracted to people who dressed up as Alex in high school. It's so wrong- Alex is a character who is sexually abusive to women, violent, cruel, and possessing an usual affinity for Beethoven and cow's milk. And yet, perhaps I am attracted because the kind of person who wears that costume is not the person who has Alex's personality. The only person who would dress up as Alex is someone who has a retro affinity for Kubrick movies, who has an awareness of overt sexual imagery without it dominating his sensibilities, someone who is not afraid to wear a little guyliner, all white, and a bowler. I found this discovery to be fabulously amusing, because it's ironic to like a character who is so degrading to women. But in the end, Halloween is about being what you're not. It's the quiet people dressing up as everything that they're not, it's the guy going in drag, the gay guy going as a woman, and the geeky boy going as a Little Rascal. It's the day that you can be someone that you're not, someone that you want to be, someone that you hope to never be. And it's the fantasy and masquerade that is the allure.