putting it out there
Okay. I've been percolating a bit on the topic of playing music, and rereading the comments I received on my post about resistance to ambition resulting in resistance to playing. Here is what I have come to: In order to keep myself feeling at least somewhat anchored with regard to my musicianship, I need to incorporate a daily practice. Applying myself and keeping the discipline to play something every day will retrain my thoughts back from "It's lost, it's gone, I screwed it up, I let it go," etc.
However. I have to make this approachable, easy, and as fun as possible, since regimented and compulsory practice might only make my spirit rebel. The last thing I need is a new reason to resist playing. In fact, I've told myself a couple of times over the course of the AW that I need to play every day, but I haven't. I think have to accept that I set the time bar too demandingly high. So first of all, I'm going to start with fifteen minutes a day, and keep to that as long as I need to - maybe forever. Maybe fifteen minutes a day is enough. (Of course, I can play longer any time I want to.) Secondly, I can choose whatever instrument calls to me each day, even if that means neglecting one or two indefinitely. As long as I'm making a little music evey day, which will be a huge improvement over the last several years, it's enough. And third, I can play whatever I want. I can improvise, play a commercial jingle by ear, get out my old classical piano music books, play scales, bang on strings and grunt, whatever. Anything goes.
I envy Kara her daily lumps. What could provide more tangible evidence of accomplishment than a lump of lovingly manipulated clay? What a great metaphor - making something out of nothing, manifesting the form of spirit from a lump of earth. Part of me is tempted to try recording what I do each day to approximate this tangibility, but music and recordings are really two different things. I appreciate recordings as art forms and I very much enjoy making them, but to me music is raw, real, live, imperfect, and only to be truly, fully experienced in the spine-chill of the present moment. Awake and alive. I know that that experience is more what I need to get back to, rather than trying to skip ahead to capturing (or contriving) something that's not yet there.
This calls to mind one of my favorite musical experinces ever: Some friends of ours have a cabin in the woods. And somehow, among other fascinating junk, the still-strung sounding board of a demolished grand piano ended up on the property, leaning against a shed. Discovering it one afternoon, I began to hit the tuneless strings with a stick. The sound was riveting, encompassing, like the seemingly eternal ring echoing through a struck metal tank full of water - loud and pervasive, ringing madly at too many different frequencies at once. Disorienting. When I hit it hard, my body was completely absorbed in the volume. Hit the high stings, and it was haunting and eerie. Pound the lower ones, and oceanic power and darkness bellowed forth. The sound just rang and rang, so every stroke just added a layer on top of everything else that was still sounding slowly out.
What an experience. I have no idea how long I crouched there; I was completely engaged in the sound and the sensation--unearthly. I forgot that anyone might be listening. I think because on some level I was just pounding on a noisy piece of junk with a couple of sticks, I was totally free of the constraints of having to make music. And the music I ended up making was some of the most inspired of my career.
I'd love to sneak back through that door again. There must be a way to find that level of freedom, and to set it loose on, for instance, the piano sounding board that happens to be inside my structurally sound and functional piano. Play. Consider the possibilities fifteen minutes a day could open to me...
infinite.
However. I have to make this approachable, easy, and as fun as possible, since regimented and compulsory practice might only make my spirit rebel. The last thing I need is a new reason to resist playing. In fact, I've told myself a couple of times over the course of the AW that I need to play every day, but I haven't. I think have to accept that I set the time bar too demandingly high. So first of all, I'm going to start with fifteen minutes a day, and keep to that as long as I need to - maybe forever. Maybe fifteen minutes a day is enough. (Of course, I can play longer any time I want to.) Secondly, I can choose whatever instrument calls to me each day, even if that means neglecting one or two indefinitely. As long as I'm making a little music evey day, which will be a huge improvement over the last several years, it's enough. And third, I can play whatever I want. I can improvise, play a commercial jingle by ear, get out my old classical piano music books, play scales, bang on strings and grunt, whatever. Anything goes.
I envy Kara her daily lumps. What could provide more tangible evidence of accomplishment than a lump of lovingly manipulated clay? What a great metaphor - making something out of nothing, manifesting the form of spirit from a lump of earth. Part of me is tempted to try recording what I do each day to approximate this tangibility, but music and recordings are really two different things. I appreciate recordings as art forms and I very much enjoy making them, but to me music is raw, real, live, imperfect, and only to be truly, fully experienced in the spine-chill of the present moment. Awake and alive. I know that that experience is more what I need to get back to, rather than trying to skip ahead to capturing (or contriving) something that's not yet there.
This calls to mind one of my favorite musical experinces ever: Some friends of ours have a cabin in the woods. And somehow, among other fascinating junk, the still-strung sounding board of a demolished grand piano ended up on the property, leaning against a shed. Discovering it one afternoon, I began to hit the tuneless strings with a stick. The sound was riveting, encompassing, like the seemingly eternal ring echoing through a struck metal tank full of water - loud and pervasive, ringing madly at too many different frequencies at once. Disorienting. When I hit it hard, my body was completely absorbed in the volume. Hit the high stings, and it was haunting and eerie. Pound the lower ones, and oceanic power and darkness bellowed forth. The sound just rang and rang, so every stroke just added a layer on top of everything else that was still sounding slowly out.
What an experience. I have no idea how long I crouched there; I was completely engaged in the sound and the sensation--unearthly. I forgot that anyone might be listening. I think because on some level I was just pounding on a noisy piece of junk with a couple of sticks, I was totally free of the constraints of having to make music. And the music I ended up making was some of the most inspired of my career.
I'd love to sneak back through that door again. There must be a way to find that level of freedom, and to set it loose on, for instance, the piano sounding board that happens to be inside my structurally sound and functional piano. Play. Consider the possibilities fifteen minutes a day could open to me...
infinite.
posted by eliza | 7:14 AM
6 Comments:
Beautiful insight - I didn't get the impression the AW was "career" focussed but then, I would have immediately discarded such ideas because I don't want to make money at poetry (and doing so is quite hard).
I think the most important thing is to focus on the things you want/need to focus on, and to enjoy them, not to worry about where you're going with them "some day" but rather where you're going with them now.
I hope you find the balance point and are able to enjoy your art. And perhaps some of that creative energy is going to other areas of your life, homemaking, working on yourself...there are so many things that are creative even if we often don't recognize that at the time, after all.
i think this is wonderful. i've used the 15 minute a day thing to kickstart me before. just remember not to pressure yourself to do more if you don't want to. and maybe after a week of keeping it up you could get yourself some music related treat to make practicing more fun?
Eliza, thanks for the mention. I'm very delighted you've decided to do this. Seems like you are very clear about it and I'm excited for you. Maybe you might want to write down on a calender the instrument you played - or give yourself a sticker. I write the titles of my lumps or some description of them onto a calender - but it is almost as thrilling to see the calender days fill up as it is to experience the spontaneous play of the process. I have no doubt you will find some days of playful musical fun.
I loved the story about the the piano - thanks for sharing it.
I just loved the image of you bashing away on the innards of the Grand Piano. I always think of that as a Concert Harp - and I bet you wouldn't have allowed yourself that freedom faced with the harp! And just this week I saw (and heard) my almost-nine-year-old nephew do his "five minutes before school" with his violin, and thought how wonderful - before his day starts, he gives his art a few minutes, and thought I'd like to do that too. five or fifteen - it's a great idea. Thank you.
Great photo!
Play. Let's reflect for a moment on the meaning of that word. It's supposed to be fun, free, joyful...with no strings attached, deadlines, ambitions. Why do we (I) so often make it the opposite?
I've said this before, but I really relate to your thoughts on playing music, the hows, the whys, the wheres and with whoms. I often have that "I've lost it - I gave it up - I screwed up - It's gone" conversation in my head.
I LOVE that story about the junked piano. And I love this idea of a musical practice. May I steal it?
"As long as I'm making a little music evey day... " - that is a huge triumph. Something observed methodically every day becomes part of our fiber. Music already is part of your fiber. That's why you can recall with complete visceral clarity experiences like the one with the piano sounding board. You are reconnecting to a part of you that is intact; it's just been slumbering.
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