3 texts from 1999: 3 - Art the dictator

Art is the dictator when the dead artist rules.
When the dead artist rules, there can be no question.
There can be no question so one must obey.
The reward of obedience is beauty.
Beauty without obedience is false.
Beauty belongs to the dead artist.
Beauty belongs to the past.
The present is ugly because we are ugly.
The present is ugly because it is the present.
The past was beautiful.
We do not deserve the past.
That is why we are living now.

The living artist seeks self-worth.
He knows the dead artist rules.
So naturally he must rule too.
He rules through his art.
So his art is dead before it is born.
Anything else would be questionable.
Beauty is questionable.
Questions are dangerous.
Answers are dangerous.
Answers imply understanding.
To be understood is to be vulnerable.
It is better to die first.

© Devil’s Advocate

3 texts from 1999: 2 - Not the same piece

When a musician sits and plays a piece of Schubert
it is not the same piece which Schubert wrote.
When he wrote it, it was not an object but a process,
through which he gave feeling to the world;
but with the passage of time it became an object,
the object of manipulation.

Feeling is universal - it belongs to us all.
Schubert speaks for us all,
and if we attribute certain feelings to Schubert
it is because we are afraid to own them ourselves,
preferring to handle them through the filter of history.

Is it possible for a player to play without manipulation?
That depends on his motivation.
His sincerity must match Schubert’s sincerity,
and then maybe Schubert can help him to express himself.

3 texts from 1999: 1 - Music belongs to the listener

If the listener owns the music
then all is changed.
If the listener owns the music
he knows his rights.

But he must also recognise
the rights of every other;
and everyone can accept
what the other knows as true.

He can say “I accept
your truth as true for you
but retain my truth
as true for me…

We agree not to differ
but rather to expand
our understanding of what
the TRUTH may be.

We agree to believe
that the TRUTH is far bigger
than anything
that anyONE can see.”

Art need not be a battleground
where people lose self-worth
but rather a marvellous labyrinth
where souls can meet on earth.

The communicative power of improvisation

A few days ago I received a comment on Youtube from an American pianist, who said he had heard my music years ago. I was curious to know under what circumstances he had come across my improvisations, and wrote to ask. He sent me the following, which I reproduce here, both in gratitude for a personal testimonial (which I value very much) and because it is a tribute to the art of improvisation and its power to communicate.

• "It was about 6 years ago now since i first heard your piano improv music. I quite by accident downloaded some of your piano improvisations. They've been a source of deep inspiration for me. I've probably listened to them hundreds of times over the years. i think i got them from mp3 dot com. Since hearing your stuff i've been inspired to express myself in a way that was totally authentic - i.e. not necessarily needing to conform to a certain style, but not being afraid to use the sounds typical of certain styles. My connection to music has been greatly deepened in part because of my exposure to your playing. Basically, your music helped me realize that music is first an aural tradition - purely a product of heart, soul, and mind - and then that music can be written down. So it greatly inspired and heartened a young man who was overwhelmed by the immensity of the musical field."

Breath of music

The name in the web address of this blog – breath of music – derives from a tiny introit for the choir of Canterbury Cathedral for which I wrote both the text and the music:

In this solemn place

We sing -

To the bare bone

Of this building of stone

We bring

Breath of music

Breath of music

And the word becomes flesh.

Why did I choose this as a title? Because for me it is an apt illustration of where the power of music lies, and it provides a possible path for gaining access to our own expressive powers, closely linked as they are to our physical feelings and sensations. By taking command of our sensations, we can begin to direct our own emotional states, instead of being simply at their mercy. Here we have a clue as to the nature of the present – it can be passive and a victim, or active and a creator.

The passive present is a mere receptacle of effects from the past, and will serve to promote a repetition of what has already been. It is naturally reinforced by a lack of self-confidence, or by any other belief which undermines our primary subjective reality.

The active present is the fruit of our full acceptance of our own subjective reality, as being the true source of existence. This radical acceptance of the subjective element as the permanent foundation of our lives is one of the cornerstones of “quantum” theories of being, which take as their point of departure analogies to the Heisenberg principle, Observer effect, and other aspects aired in discussions on quantum mechanics. Stated simply, our experience of the world and truth is our own, and neither can nor should be equated to that of someone else. So if we cannot separate ourselves from our own subjectivity, because in reality that subjectivity is an integral part of our reality, then we must also cease to downgrade it – which is what our collective cultural heritage has, in effect, encouraged us to do until now.

It is this undermining of our subjective sense of Presence which, more than anything else, causes us to lose the Ariadne’s thread of our existence and wander aimlessly in the Labyrinth, with little more for our sustenance than the hope of avoiding the hidden monster at its centre.

Do we deserve to play well?

• If we think we do not deserve something, it will not matter how hard we try - conviction will be lacking and our desires will fail to materialise. So say the gurus of Quantum Resonance theory, the new wave of the New Age philosophy.

• I believe in my powers of improvisation because for me the act of shaping music in real time is (or can be) arguably the most authentic experience (and I have many others) of my existence as a musician. I have faced all the bugbears which told me that improvisation is by its nature of little worth and doomed to failure as a compositional technique.

• It is an understandable judgement, to conclude that it is not possible, at one sitting and without forethought, to achieve genuine expression to the point of communicating in a valuable way to an audience. We are more or less programmed to think this way, which is why comparatively few people dare to challenge this conception. Hand in hand with this idea comes a more general one, that even interpreting other people's music must be fully planned in advance.

• To face this attitude head-on we need to believe in ourselves, and, just as importantly, to affirm the power of the Present - which is, after all, the only moment in which we can truly act. It is my belief that the true expressive power of music is deeply connected to this sense of the Present, either as an act of interpretation or as an act of spontaneous creation.

• For this reason, I believe that the practice of improvisation, far from being simply the poor relation of composition, can play a vitally important role in musical life, and can actually help us to reconstruct our primary relationship to sound. This is something all of us have, and no amount of negative comparisons with others ("he/she plays better, faster, more expressively," etc.) will rob us of the right to be comfortable with our own creations.

Experiencing our eternal presence

Since I began this weblog three months ago a new one, The Gentle Muse, was born and can be found here. I am reserving this space for the growing community of improvisers who wish to share my insights and enthusiasm for this essential musical activity. In improvising we learn at first hand not only about music but about ourselves as well; these insights can change our lives completely by casting new light on our nature and the way we perceive the world. Here is a video showing how one woman neuroscientist's life was altered for ever by a dramatic personal experience of how the brain works. It speaks to all of us. (For problems with loading or larger screen view here)