Nijinsky went mad

I didn't know that until today, when I watched The Diaries of Vaslav Nijinsky.

He also told his wife that she was the first woman he slept with - this was very very not true. He wrote in his diaries about chasing after coquettes on the streets of Paris, visiting prostitutes and having a 5 year affair with Diaghilev. But he also wrote that he loved his wife, sensually and spiritually. I wonder what their relationship was like? Was she really the calculating realist who drove him to madness?

He lived for another 30 years after he was committed to an asylum when he was only 30 or so. What was that part of his life like?

Being yourself

I realised the other night what the phrase "just being yourself" actually means. This phrase used to frustrate me - as though I could be anyone else but myself! And when you're nervous before an interview or date, the last thing you want someone to say is "just be yourself". It doesn't seem very helpful or encouraging at a time when you're feeling vulnerable and unsure of yourself. Maybe you don't even like yourself much at that moment, or you don't really think you're that special. How can just being yourself possibly help?

The important part of that phrase is actually not "yourself", it's "be". It's not about who you are, it's how you are. The meaning resides in the concept of being. It is about turning off the external viewpoint, shutting down the critical observer's voice and just being.

So many times I catch myself looking over my shoulder, looking at myself, thinking "Why did I just say that? That sounds so stupid. Am I speaking too loudly? What are people thinking? Maybe I should have worn that other skirt today..." and so on.

It is only when I turn off this self-consciousness, and simply be me, looking out at the world with interest and wonder, and not looking back at myself in some kind of narcisistic self-feedback loop - it is only then that I am truly being myself.

Why Genres are Crap

9 days ago, at about 4:30 in the afternoon, my thesis topic suddenly and irrevocably changed. I was planning to write something about improvisation in renaissance or baroque keyboard music, but was struggling to find a reason to research and write about that. As a joke I said maybe I should write a thesis entitled "Why Genres are Crap", and my excellent and insightful supervisor (yes, I know you're reading this!) suggested that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all.

So for the last few days I've been thinking about the idea of genre in music, and the seemingly great rift between classical and popular music. At this point I have no idea how I am going to tackle this gigantic topic, and what will be my specific argument, but I am really interested in questions like:
Is genre useful or restrictive?
Does it mean that people focus more on the type of music rather than the artistry or merit or value or any of those things that make music beautiful?
Do we concentrate on the style at the expense of the substance?
Why do people listen to the music that they listen to?

Basically, I think that the division between 'popular' and 'art' (classical) music is pretty ridiculous. Musicians are constantly put in little genre pigeon-holes: classical, early music, country, pop, hip-hop, fusion... even 'cross-genre' is almost a genre in itself.

Obviously I have to come up with some swanky, uber-intelligent argument at some stage, but in the meantime I'm going to ramble and see what happens.

Stay tuned for some slightly more coherent and incisive... stuff...

In the meantime, I am glad that there are other people that are thinking along the same lines, though :)

Solitude

I have been musing about solitude lately. In February this year I moved to Eltham to live by myself in a little studio amongst the trees. This was a big change for me, after having lived for nearly 10 years in the inner city. All of a sudden I didn't have a milk bar on the corner, a gelati shop up the road and a tram stop at my doorstep. Now I have to get in my car in order to go anywhere.

I am glad to finally have enough space for my harpsichord, and that there are no neighbours who can be disturbed by my practicing. I have tried to block out time for practice and the other work I have to do for my course. My wonderful harpsichord teacher has encouraged me to spend time being, and dreaming, and meditating, as well as putting in the hours at the keyboard. I am aware that time for contemplation and space for creativity are important for artists.

It has been interesting to observe, though, how much I have questioned myself for spending time alone. It is a concept that is not often celebrated in 21st century Australia. Sometimes I feel that I am being measured by the quality of my social life, and I start to worry that I am being too hermit-like.

I do love to socialise, and this weekend is full of dinners, coffees, catch-ups and the like. When I am at work I am constantly with people. So why do I get all angsty after spending one day in my own company? I have plently to do, I am by no means bored or unfulfilled, and I am mostly enjoying spending time with my instrument, learning and playing music.

I think that perhaps I get worried that society will not accept me if I decide sometimes to shun it. That if I spend a Saturday night at home, I will never go out again. This, of course, is a completely irrational belief, but humans are full of irrational beliefs, aren't we?

In the midst of my solitude on Tuesday afternoon, after I had had my harpsichord lesson, and in a little break in my practicing, I read this post at Click Opera, and the last two lines brought a smile to my face.

There's no shame in being introverted. People who love quietness love life.

A Question of Talent

I gave a presentation about myself in one of my Masters seminars last week. Our task this semester (our first in the course) was to talk about ourselves, our background, and our convictions related to music. I talked about my history as a musician, and the turning points, and moments of realisation that I have had. Here is one paragraph:

For most of my uni years I was farily heavily involved in student politics. I was a member of one of the socialist groups on campus, and was waving the red flag with abandon. I was fascinated to talk to people about the world, and why it is the way it is. I had never really questioned that before. The fact that humans created the society that we live in – and that therefore we have the potential to change it – was such an eye opener for me. I was also interested in ideas of equality and elitism. The idea that everyone is equal, no matter who they are or what their background, was quite different from what my experience in music, where, it seemed to me, there was a great division between those who were ‘good’ and those who weren’t. I started to become very wary of words like ‘genius’ or ‘talent’, as they suggested some sort of inborn ability that others lacked. Is musical ability a product of nature or nurture? In my own socialist utopia, everyone had the chance to play music and make art.

I still don't really know how I feel about the idea of talent, genius, inborn ability, or whatever you care to call it. But how else do you explain the way some people seem to be really good at stuff while others aren't? Is it subtle differences in background and education? Do some people have more determination than others? How do we explain Mozart's achievements at age 5? Do we all have the capacity to be Mozarts? Or are some of us doomed to perpetual mediocrity?

Some new research by Anders Ericsson and others suggests that

the trait we commonly call talent is highly overrated. Or, put another way, expert performers — whether in memory or surgery, ballet or computer programming — are nearly always made, not born. And yes, practice does make perfect. These may be the sort of clichés that parents are fond of whispering to their children. But these particular clichés just happen to be true.

They argue that whether someone enjoys an activity or not is a huge factor in whether that person will become good at it or not:

Most people naturally don't like to do things they aren't "good" at. So they often give up, telling themselves they simply don't possess the talent for math or skiing or the violin. But what they really lack is the desire to be good and to undertake the deliberate practice that would make them better.

All this seems very logical, and supports the theory that I wrote about here. Maybe there is hope after all!

(Thanks to kottke.org for the link)

Bungled Headline Fury

Jason Kottke and Paul Bausch have noticed some trends in media headlines lately. Personally I like how no-one makes a smiple mistake anymore - no, in the Australian media it is always a bungle:

"Traffic chief slams taxi fare bungle"
"Fiji election official admit bungle over numbers voting"
"Immigration bungle let murder suspect out: ALP"
"Body bungle warnings ignored"
"Mum on warning mission after pharmacy bungle"

This word has been particularly effective in the media surrounding the "body bungle" of Australian soldier Jake Kovko, and lots of people have been furious to boot:

"Widow's fury over Kovco bungle"
"Mother's fury at bungle"

Cold & Grey

I conceived my first poem last night, on the way home.
I didn't write it down.
Now I can't remember it.

My car still doesn't have a heater.
This morning I wore a jumper,
a jacket,
a scarf,
a coat,
and gloves.
And I put a hot water bottle on my lap
to keep me warm.

Today is grey.
Bleak. Cold.

I have lost sight of the good
fun
things
in life.

And can only see grey sameness.

Last night's train journey

I am sitting on the train with the beginnings of a headache. To the west, behind the clouds the sky is pale blue with deep magenta slashes through it. The reflections of the city lights in the train windows are superimposed on the last remnants of the sunset.

The train is starting to fill with passengers, eager to get home to dinner and the evening's television programs. They read books, newspapers, office documents. Each is sitting in their own bubble of personal space, their own island of discontent.

The season is changing. There is a chill in the air now, at night. Brown leaves are starting to appear on the ground, but strangely the trees are still outwardly verdant.

We are out of the city loop now - out of the noisy, cuving, concrete tunnels. The train sways on its journey along the tracks, stopping at all the little inner city stations: West Richmond, North Richmond, Collingwood, Victoria Park. It is too late for the express trains now - the fast bustling trains ferrying anxious commuters to and from their tall office blocks in the CBD. No, this is a lazy train, taking its time as it winds its way to the leafy north-eastern suburbs.

I miss living in the inner city. I miss being able to jump on and off trams, and walking home once the trams had stopped running at midnight. I miss the convenience of short distances and milk bars on corners.

This train journey is a new thing in my life - a different type of time. It is an in-between time, a time that is not nothing, but is not really something either.

What do people do on trains? Do they do different things from normal? Do they think different thoughts? Would the man sitting opposite me really read The Amulet of Samarkand if he were somewhere else? Would the man on the other side of the carriage read MX if he were at home? Would I be writing this if I were not on the train?

Believing the Impossible

Sometimes I wonder whether we restrict ourselves unnecessarily by curtailing our imagination and beliefs. We might believe that humans are innately selfish, that synchronicity is impossible, or that we can't lose weight. Looking at the world as it seems right now, those beliefs could appear completely reasonable. But does this mean they are true? If you believe that you can't draw because you had a bad experience back in primary school, is this a true belief? I believed for a long time that I couldn't improvise, but this year I began taking improvisation lessons, and when I suspend my skepticism I find that it's really not as impossible as I had previously thought.

There are plenty of examples of individuals who have achieved things others had thought impossible - because they 'believed in themselves'. We don't even need to search very far to find people who have achieved goals they previously thought were impossible - because they changed their beliefs about themselves. But what if we could achieve things as a society that we never thought possible, like not killing each other in wars, for example? Would we ever be able to change our ideas about human nature to such an extent that we could achieve world peace?

"Don't be ridiculous!" "Humans have been fighting with each other since the dawn of time, why would we stop now?" I can already hear the incredulity in the air. OK, so humans have been killing each other for millennia - is that a good reason to assume that we cannot overcome that as a society? Just because something "has always been that way" is not a good reason to believe that it must be that way. What if we let ourselves believe, just for a second, that the world could be different? What if we opened the door to that possibility, just a little? What if a lot of people in the world did that? I'm not saying that we would have armies laying down their guns, but I think it is worth thinking about the possibility that things could be very different.

Brenda Coulter has written about suspending disbelief when reading fiction, and included a wonderful quote from Alice in Wonderland:

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."

"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

--Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.

What if we too practiced believing impossible things?

The Flat Parts of Life's Rollercoaster

I have been working through Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way and this morning I decided to flip back through my morning pages. I found this entry that I had written back in September last year. It is still something that I haven't been able to solve yet.

Saturday, 24 September 2005.

Sometimes I don't seem to know what is real and what is not. I spent a lot of today wishing for something else rather than being in the experience of today. I think that us humans tend to want all the good times - those times when we feel most alive and energised - without any of the ordinary times. Really, it's not the bad times - the real low lows - that are the worst for me; it is the blah ordinary times - the days with no highlights or lowlights, with no contrast, the days that are bathed in a murky grey, the days that seem to have no purpose to them. Those are the days when I only feel half alive, when I feel that I am going through the motions, but not actually being there at all. What makes these days like that? Are they predestined to be that way? Is it something in the way we wake up? Does it have something to do with our expectations for the day? I know that I feel lost if I don't have a clear purpose, but I also know that I need to take time out. How do I do that without it going bad?

Bigger things than humans

Yesterday, as my plane taxied into Sydney Airport, I was struck by how small humans are compared to some of the things we have created. Everything in the airport fits together - the planes, the runways, the terminal building - and then there are these bizarre-looking little figures running around in the midst of it all. They looked incongruous, out of place, and incredibly fragile compared to the huge world of architecture and machinery. Will we one day construct a structure that is so huge and complicated that we will lose control of it? Some would say that we already have. The stockmarket is one example that springs to mind. It was conceived and created by humans, but does anyone really understand how it works? No one can control it with any certainty, and it has the power to cause great human suffering in the form of recessions and depressions. Will the monster break out of control one day?