Floating in between

Concentration, wrap yourself around with sound and the music, and your nerves will go away.

The key is taking joy in finding what happens between the notes.  That is music.

Sometimes this also means finding the audience who will let you do so.  We are not here to educate, justify, or defend our art.

The following video is something I found by chance, it reminds me of this floating feeling.  I've almost forgotten about this idea until I heard this.  How exciting and refreshing to hear a group who's name I didn't know before!

Baroque-ry

It's so fun to discover new details in a piece of music!  

The composer weaves some secret into a composition, like one of those paintings with a certain detail only visible upon close examination and knowledge.  You discover, all of a sudden, that there's a little flower which previously went unnoticed in a myriad of swirls and curls.

Here's some impressive baroque-ry, photo courtesy of Patrick Damiaens who took this picture in Schloss Augustusburg:

Here's his site for more inspiration: Patrick Damiaens

Floating

While practicing CPE Bach's solo sonata, I tackled the jagged lines of the melodies by playing extremely slowly and discovering its rhythm along the way.  If you're not fit, this is really painful, and if you ARE fit, it takes a whole lot of concentration.  I dread either situation.  

BUT, if you can somehow "get on the ride", it then feels like a wonderful floating experience.  Floating between sounds, between colors, in and out of landscapes and enjoying every moment of it.  

With the flute you literally feel the air under you, like flying.  Sometimes I think wouldn't it be nice to perform in public in such a slow manner, but perhaps it would only make sense to the person playing, because it is such an inner experience, like meditation.

Practicing slow increases the deepness in sound and overall perception of the music.  

The Taste of Time

Question of the day:  Do we declare something as art only because of its age?  

Times are changing, tastes are changing.

Ancient Fantasies

I stumbled upon this recording by accident....my style of "research" is mindless wanderings on the internet:

Flash-friendly link for Apple mobiles click here.

It totally evokes for me childhood imaginations of ancient Europe, of idyllic fantasy-landscapes, a place so out of this world and so enticing to stay on, because you simply cannot stop admiring its wonder.  It is not just beautiful, it touches the deepest part of you. 

What Rameau felt in this moment?!

A Children's Tale

While reading aloud a children's story called Ferdinand (1936), I started to notice the illustrations that accompanied it.  Taking place in Spain, the black and white drawings reminded me very much of my own childhood books. 

The stark Spanish landscape with its southern European-looking houses - the drawings weren't complicated, but there were just enough lines for you to imagine the scenery yourself and go beyond what's shown, what's told.  Not to mention, black and white is so powerful, it forces you to imagine!

Isn't this like music-making?  We musicians hint and show, the audience feels and imagines.