Genius (Part II)

Genius is when someone does something amazing that you could never ever do in your life. Because their genius is theirs, and yours is yours. Each can only be like itself. When we put them all together we will have found all the missing pieces of the jigsaw again. But your piece can only ever be completed by you - that is why you are you. That is why we need you. That is why you have your own genius to guide you.

It's fruitless to try to reproduce someone else's achievement. It was theirs - any copy would be imperfect. It's pointless to covet someone else's ability - just an excuse for delaying our own development.

But it is fruitful to emulate genius. When you do not know where to look or where to begin, you could always begin by examining the path of someone who arrived to a useful place. Don't you think? I like to read stories from great people. I heard what Paderewski said. I heard what Michael Jackson said. I heard what Marcus Garvey said. All imperfect examples and none of them the same as me, but somehow knowing about them helps me to arrive. Don't you think it's good to know there is somewhere to arrive to?

Let's forget about TV talents and news stories. Real ability is not newsworthy. "I Fought Cancer Battle to Play Harmonica". "Dog With 3 Legs Plays Football for Blackburn Rovers". That's the news. "Man of 60 Realises Goal of Life Without Noticeable Fuss"? You're not going to hear about that one, folks.

Genius can be a painful condition that tears at the raiment of life because the two are always in contradiction. It can be painful and confusing for precocious genius that seems not to know the ways of the world but knows the paths of the stars. But it is never painful itself. It's nice. And if it has been hard getting there, or if it is difficult now you are there, you're not likely to talk about it. Who would know what you mean anyway.

So that kind of story's not getting in the news either.

But we are not concerned with the news. We are concerned with the truth. If all we have done is what we truly were able to, what we truly saw and heard, what we truly believed in and what we always truly were, then: we will have done a good thing. And that thing was not yet genius, but it might become like it...

We will see some further steps you need to take next time.

A frog grew up. A silkworm took to the skies. A rose grew where only darkness once was. Good night my budding geniuses! Sleep well, don't forget your fertiliser!

Values, Goals, and Direction

Think of it like this.

There is a sea. By the sea, there is a beach. By the beach, there is flat land. Next to that, the land starts to rise. Next to that, the land becomes hilly. Then the hills grow higher, until finally there are mountains and sky.

The sea is the starting point. There are fish in there, but they can only see their own world. A flying fish or a dolphin can jump out and briefly see outside its world, but it must return there. They don't belong outside it. Then, on the shore, you find animals that live on land, but spend some of their life in the sea. They can compare and contrast as they like. Then you have the real land animals (and people), who must live on the land, but who can always pop into the sea for a bit any time they need to.

Finally we are on the land. It is flat and regular. You can do what you want, as long as nothing interferes with your plan. If something does come to interrupt you, it will be unexpected because you can't see very far from the flat land. But on the other hand, while you can't protect yourself against big surprises, life on the whole is predictable down there.

Let's look up into the hills next. It is harder to walk there, but you get good exercise. You can see further afield too. If you are looking for something, it is easier to find it this way. Also surprises are known some time in advance of their arrival. Where the hills are high, there are more challenges, but more benefits too. Finally, there are mountains, the most difficult to climb but accessible to anyone who keeps improving from their first steps by the seashore. From the mountain you can see the sky and all the land all around. Weather is coming, maybe even some days away, but you know in advance. And at night you can see the stars.

The horizon is the limit of visibility from where you are now. Apart from special effects, caused by rising hot air and other unusual phenomena, that sometimes allow you to see beyond the horizon a little way, you cannot see further than this limit.

But if you cannot see further than that, how do you know there is anything beyond it? You don't, unless you once moved and now remember something you saw when you were elsewhere. Or a traveller comes by and tells you about something beyond your horizon. You might or might not believe it. It might not even be true, possibly. Nevertheless, there are ways of getting the information that there might be more out there. And of course on a clear day you can see the hills and maybe even the mountains. But would you ever think of going there?

Everything is here, inside your horizon. Everything you wished for and everything you need, either to stay here safely, or to expand the horizon. Yes, there is always something more to learn - something you didn't know ever before in your life! - or destinations to dream about, enjoy hearing about, or start planning to travel to.

Nowadays, travel is a luxury word. But it means to move more or less far away, so there might be any reason for that, not just for a holiday. Indeed, for some people at some times travel might have only happened for very important reasons - or even never at all. And then again, I can imagine a very free world where travel is always possible to anywhere, for any positive reason.

Of course, we are not just talking about physical travel. We are not only talking about a physical horizon. To travel beyond the horizon also means to learn something beyond what you know now. To move in a direction means to become something new.

But why change, why move, why alter the horizon, why learn anything new? Because you always are. Every day something new is coming past your window, in front of your eyes, like a wind bringing news of far away. Is anyone in exactly the same position they were at the beginning of their life? I think most people have had some change. There may be many reasons for that change, but no matter what they were, what caused the change was that you decided to change. You may say you had no choice, or that it was someone else's idea, but you went there, you did it.

Change is always here though people may pretend they don't see it. Choice happens every day though people may pretend they didn't choose.

Every direction leads somewhere, every belief creates a world you choose. Everyone has their own horizon.

Some beliefs restrict (maintain the horizon, or narrow it), some set you free (let you expand the horizon as much or as little as you like). Interestingly, you can change your beliefs if you want to. You are free to stay the same or whatever you want. There are no rules about it. The only reason to change something is if you aren't completely happy with it. Then accept that somehow you chose to be in that situation - even if you say you did not - then choose to be in another situation. That's all.

So what defines your horizon today? What values do you hold that make your world the way it is? Think of some examples. "Always try your best". "Be grateful for what you've got". "The sky's the limit!". "Do your duty". "Think of others before yourself". "You'll never amount to anything". "You can be anything you want". All different beliefs. Maybe they mean nothing to you, maybe something. Somewhere in the world, you will find a person who holds one of these. If you do not hold it yourself, then you can see how that person has decided what his life will be like, directed by various things that happened to them that lead them to make that decision. But to that person, it is real and any other possibility might be ridiculous. Or it might not, possibly.

There is an interesting tool for identifying the values that motivate you. You can try it out, it could be interesting. Here are some tips for using it. Try very hard to keep the number of your selected values below 20 - it will save a lot of trouble later in the test. Pick words that really "speak to you", things you think are important or that jump off the page (screen) at you. It says pick the values that resonate most strongly with you, which isn't a kind of English that I understand very well, but I think that's what it means. Anyway you can try it out.

Your values determine what happens to you now. They set the limit of your horizon. They are your beliefs that create the world you live in, including all the things you like and all the things you don't like. Some people have unhappy lives, and they might want to change to a better one - this is aimed at them. Some people have happy lives and don't need to change much - they are still free to change anything they want, or if they meet someone who needs help then this knowledge might be useful. This is aimed at them too. Or even there are people who are going along just fine, thank you, who don't need to change anything. Well, they don't have to. It's not required! This is purely intended to make things easier for everybody. Yes, all of us!

Look at your values list. Does it suit you? Are you happy with it? Can you see how it got you where you are? What would you like to improve next? I think you have improved already, haven't you? Do you remember when that thing happened that you didn't like? You survived it, didn't you. Isn't that because you learned something? Well, you are welcome to keep going, because...there might be something nice you can do - just around the next corner!

Meanwhile, be nice to people and accept they may be different to you - depending on their own values.

Horizon, what do you want to show me today?

Future Perfect

I'm planning what to do with this website next. As you can see, there is a variety of material here now, some of it old and in need of work, all of it in need of unification and a good trim.

Everything is going according to plan; I have had a lot to work on but it is succeeding. I haven't mentioned anything about it before, because who wants to know about what might happen? Few people would be interested and even fewer would believe it. It seemed to me to be better just to get on with it and tell you later. This may explain a certain lack of information that the more discerning of you may have noticed around the place.

Today I went out for my walk but was tricked by the sun which now disappears much earlier than formerly (and only very recently), so it was a lot darker a lot sooner! I didn't get lost but I certainly had to walk further than I was expecting...

So the sun is getting further away...some may doubt that it shall return, most accept it as obvious. What would our ancestors have thought? And our descendants?

Anyway, the point about this time of year is that the light does appear to disappear, and during that time there is no particular guarantee that it will be back. It gets cold and dark and all the goodness of the earth hides itself away in dark places. But if everything goes according to plan, guided by the Cosmic Gardeners' responsible hands, the light will soon return and shine on new things peeping out of the earth.

It's the same with many things in life. My work is just one case of that.

Everything is always beginning and being made again, but from time to time we can step back and notice that - something really did happen! The year turns interminably but at each resting point we have the chance to take stock of what we have achieved - what harvest we have brought in. If you don't like the harvest, it's time to plan for the next one. What will you change?

We can't escape change, but one thing we can do is direct it. And that is exactly what I am attempting to do. I hope you will be interested to see the results!

Love from Philip

Truth or Lies

I'm absolutely amazed that there are lies in this world!

Yes, it amazes me.

I just would never think of tricking somebody. It never enters my head! Obviously I am too simple.

How do you see it? I think that actually most people are pretty truthful. However it is quite shocking that fakery goes on. I think the reason for that is that the person thinks it is easier than doing something for real. OK, at stage one, they are correct in that belief - yes, they don't have to really do anything, just pretend, then take the money. OK so far. But how about at stage two? A whole lifetime of lying and tricking, when they could have been using their real skills instead? Surely it's harder work to sustain that.

OK maybe I am not very clever because stage one certainly sounds like a good deal...haha

The few (well, more than a few) people who spend their lives defrauding and faking for material gain must be in serious trouble spiritually. They are so lazy that they can't be bothered to lift one of their own fingers to do anything, but instead must give the impression of using fingers they do not really have, in order to administer help that doesn't really help. Now you can certainly say they are using skills in order to do that, but is tricking a skill we should really use?

It's all down to how you feel inside. It's possible to know if you are doing the right thing or not. "Science" and "Logic" may tell us that there is no one right way to behave, they may say it is all down to social codes or the mood of the age, they may finally posit that the need for happiness is important to us, but maybe it is not up to this Science to tell us how to behave. Science means "knowing", but I am asking you to do some "feeling".

All you can do is continue your life but with the application of some discernment. You can check to see how everything feels. Or did you think it does not matter how you feel? You just have to put up with things? Do what people tell you? Well, sometimes it's wise to do so. But when you generally ignore your own feeling, you are not an independent entity. You are a cog. In another wheel.

So listen to see if you feel good or bad. That's all it is. There are many levels of good and bad, including sometimes when one feels like the other. If you are not used to knowing how you feel, it is harder to know which is which. But if you start to think, you may perhaps continue!

The point of it is to discover where you can be applying yourself better. When you have a talent and you can use it, it feels good. If it is frustrated, it feels bad. The good feeling comes from your own genius being allowed to breathe in and out.

This feeling is the best feeling - you have contacted your real self. I think it is worth cultivating this feeling.

It is not possible to feel completely bad, to completely ignore your true self. You can think you are, but even that thought is coming from a true place - it is self-aware, not mindless. But I think it is possible to be more true.

This is what I mean about fakers - do you think they are feeling good or bad? Maybe they felt bad a long time ago and need to amass material wealth to protect themselves. It may all be rationally explicable, however much harm it is doing. Nevertheless it could be better for them, and for us of course.

I think that using your real skills is preferable to non-use of them. It must be. The problems are - not knowing you have them, not trusting that they are real, having been taught not to use them (makes life easier for people who want to dominate you), being scared. The alternatives are - being safe in a very limited way that isn't really safe, having an easy life that isn't really easy because you feel stress all the time, having a stable life with no massive excitements in it. None of these alternatives is particularly enticing.

Talents and skills may be all kinds of things. The definition of a talent is: something that gives a benefit to somebody. Yes, they are to be used, to help other people. Even more stupid! Shouldn't we just help ourselves? Well you can, but it's more lonely. And you may find that the nicer you are to the world, the nicer it is to you. See what happens the next time you kick somebody!

There's really loads of things you can do. And you don't have to do anything major, anything you do is part of learning about your skills. I'm sure you are using them right now, all today, all this week. But I just wanted to say - yes you do have a talent. You are using it all the time no matter how fulfilled you are feeling. And you may continue using it until it flowers.

You know there are key moments in the life of a flower when the scent is at its height and best for harvesting by perfume makers. Could people be like that? Maybe there is something you are working towards. And every minute is adding to the experience that will make that fabulous scent when you are ready. There are no skunks or rubbish tip smells. They only come when you try to stop the flowers blooming. No, it is all roses and violets for you from now on.

Keep working hard! Everyone will benefit, and you too.

When there's a twinge...

Finger and hand muscles are basically very small so you have to be very careful with them. Using them is not the same as using your legs, for example. Or you could think that it is the same, but on a different scale. Running a mile might be enough for one day, but for your fingers running a mile might be a lot less than a mile simce they are rather small compared to leg muscles.

Today I felt a small pain in my right hand so I know I have to stop until it is not there any more. But it is frustrating because I want to play 20 hours! And it feels like if you stop practising then you will not improve. BUT. If you continue injuring yourself then you will get worse, not improve. That's why I'm always angry with people who say they are injured but they still have to practise. Then we know why they are injured. You have to look after yourself better than that.

Well this is an extremely temporary problem, fortunately, because I do stop when I receive the signal to stop. It's called pain and it says Hey, you are doing something wrong here, please rest now. But many of us feel the pain but do not listen to it.

Where are you feeling a pain, and what is it telling you?

Occasionally you have to keep going through pain, and sometimes it is not a true pain, just something new. But mostly we need to listen to this voice.

The Magic of Words

Words have a magic all of their own.

They can tell the truth. But you must test for yourself if it is true, because words can also twist your mind to embrace a lie.

Without words, many things would be different. Would a rose smell as sweet if it had no name? Or even sweeter perhaps?

Today I want to mention the magic of the written word. That is something important to take notice of.

There is one particular thing that written words can do that we sometimes find difficult.

Written words can remember things.

When you write a to-do list, or your list of goals, you are using the magical power of written words to change your reality.

Because the words are helping you remember and helping you direct your energies in a certain way.

They're not just words.

To-Do Lists and Goals Lists are important for this reason.

When you need to remember a goal that you want to achieve ten years from now...you can check the list every day and it will remind you even though you could forget without help. The world gets very busy and things try to deflect you from your preferred course. This is when your list could help.

If you need to remember who you were ten years ago, you can look in your diary. People change - sometimes deliberately - and if you have made any improvement, it is often difficult to see that. So it's good to have something to compare it to, a bit like the height marks on the frame of your kitchen door. When you were six, you were this tall. Now look how much you have grown!

But if you are planning to grow a certain number of inches, or the spiritual equivalent, then you need a similar kind of aid to plan your course. Memory is, of course, the thing that will do this for you. But when you are beginning, as I said, it is sometimes rather hard to remember in the face of a lot of confusion. So that's when making lists comes in useful.

Things you need to do. Things you want to do. Things you have to do. Things you wish you could do? Things you need to learn how to do. Things you have never done. Places to go, people to see, things to do. Things to say. Things to sing. Music to play. Games to play. Games to win. Battles to fight. Enemies to befriend. Friends to take care of. Flowers to grow. Children to meet. Your success is here. Plan it now, by saying one thing: I will do a little more each day, and I will do it a little better each day.

You can make a list if you want!

Saint-Saëns/Godowsky: Le cygne (The Swan)

I have to go out in a minute so here is this morning's present for you. An elegant swan!

Coral

"Coral reefs are the lungs of the ocean"

A nice thing I read today at Jeff Shaw's Okinawa Blog. Which he is not writing anymore. But anyway.

Thanks!

The unaided eye

Chasse-neige (Snowdrift)

Liszt is strange sometimes. He had problems with being considered serious. He wrote so much for the crowd that he must have felt a bit odd. Maybe he felt he was not quite being himself most of the time. Was he a serious composer or just an octave-merchant? Well, you know, Beethoven wrote octaves...but not like that!

Perhaps this is one reason he liked to paraphrase (transcribe) other people's music.

Yet Liszt also wrote more serious-sounding music, such as his earnest and for-posterity Sonata in B minor. Serious composers wrote sonatas, remember!

On the one hand, to me this work sounds like a more cerebral version of the Mephisto Waltz no. 1, with added religious subject matter (also improved with things stolen from Alkan's Quatre Âges sonata). On the other hand, the Faust story (Liszt picked the Lenau version, but he would obviously have known the Goethe one too), no matter how sensational the episode, has serious philosophical undertones - and with Liszt, as a cultured and intelligent man, no matter how much of the music is directed at the gallery, I think there is always some serious purpose not far away from the surface.

Anyway, there is a nice piece at the end of his Transcendental Studies, called Chasse-neige.

These studies are often difficult, and often quite big and "Lisztian". Yet writing studies is a scholarly occupation, like writing sonatas, so Liszt is being serious again as well.

Bearing this in mind, I think it's interesting that he ends with a more introverted piece. It's true, it does get loud, but also it has some of the quietest, lightest writing of the twelve studies.

What I wanted to tell you was this.

Liszt seems to me to go in a serious direction at the end of the Transcendental Studies. This serious snow-music reminds me of something else - the lonely figure at the end of Schubert's Winterreise, left out of the village like the old organ-grinder, in the end perhaps being erased by the white snowy landscape.

I find it amusing to note that while Schubert does it his way, Liszt's idea has us not so much erased by frozen blank finality - more like completely buried in the avalanche!

It was rather a dramatic snow-storm, after all.

But we shouldn't judge Liszt by our own standards, or anyone else's. Times were different then.

All the same, I rather like this piece.

It's really transcendental, too. To play it at its best would not sound particularly obviously difficult. But someone good enough to do that would be quite shockingly good!

I don't think I've ever heard it played exactly as I imagine it...but Mr. Arrau is good.

Still Going

You can see: the left wing is a bit damaged. Two-spot markings. Nice yellowy colour. Proboscis - curly bit at the mouth end with which butterflies drink nectar out of plants.

Our friend is still going well in the safety of its home-made butterfly house. It can't fly well so I try to keep it out of trouble for the moment. It sleeps at night and wakes up in the day. It likes warmth from about 25°C, but becomes immobile if the temperature drops below 20 or so. It can still move if necessary in a cold temperature - I know this because when I first found it inside the fridge it could flutter and display its defensive "eye" markings on its wings. Anything with big eyes like that - you'd better keep away! It worked on me the first time.

I'm feeding it on a solution of honey and sugar in water. It is fed this on a chopstick. Since today I have a bit of tissue on the end which can soak up the solution. It would be nice to give it something to drink out of (like a flower) so it can use its proboscis properly.

Ideally this butterfly will get better and start flying properly, then the weather will get warm so I can release it into a lovely garden somewhere near. I try to give it some quality of life but it is designed to live outside, even if it is more dangerous out there.

I will see how it is looking.

A Colourful Visitor

I was looking in the fridge for the butter.

I looked for a while but I couldn't see it.

Then I moved some potatoes at the bottom of the fridge.

And I found something buttery.

But it wasn't butter.

It was a BUTTERFLY!

That's not normally found in a fridge, is it.

So I have taken it out on a piece of paper.

I let it warm up in the room.

Then I started to think about releasing it.

One of its wings seems not to be working very well, so it was a bit hard to release. When it got warm it started walking across the table towards the light. I'm sure that's a healthy sign but I knew there was a long drop coming up if it fell off the table. I tried letting it out of the window, thinking it might be happier outside even if it was damaged. But the wind was too strong! It's very windy lately.

Then I left it on my doorstep for a while. I thought it might fly away or go to a butterfly-friendly place. I looked again after a while and it was still there! I think it was too cold outside.

So now it is living with me.

I left it some lettuce at first, but it seems that's what the caterpillars eat. Butterflies eat nectar. Or they drink it. They have a long tube that sucks it out of flowers.

So I have been trying to feed the butterfly. It has been given water with honey in it, on the end of a chopstick. I think it got stuck a bit but it's OK now. Honey is rather sticky as Pooh will tell you...

I hope it will get stronger!

Let's see what happens.

See Vees ("CV"s)

It's quite common for me to get emails from people keen to trumpet to the world on the subject of their forthcoming engagements and general wonderfulness. This is fine inasmuch as I'm delighted if they are doing well, etc., whoever they may be, but I do find the biographies slightly aggravating.

All publicity is naturally one-sided, and if it is relevant it can only refer to the event at hand (things must be excluded). We understand that, while professional qualifications and accolades may be mentioned, criminal convictions and misdemeanours might not. Good reviews to quote could be "The greatest I have ever heard", rather than "Have you considered the trombone?"

That's fine, and we know how to read CVs to detect what they are really concealing. You know that "Sublime." (New York Times) suggests one thing, while "Sublime." (Detroit Arc-Welders Monthly) doesn't necessarily imply the same. "Great!" (Maxim Vengerov) is a single syllable taken from many which could indicate Mr. Vengerov thinks you are indeed great, or something quite different - "Great! Doughnuts!"

Did you know that you are just as good even if no-one ever praises you? Most people like to hear good things about themselves, some people often don't hear anything good, but I think the one person you should be able to rely on is yourself. That doesn't mean it's just you against them all (Every man for himself, or "Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle"), but that you know if you've done your best or not, you know what you need to improve, and that any failure is not because you are a failure, but because you have not succeeded completely YET! I hope you think that way, and if not, you can start now.

It's good to have good "quotes" or reviews. (It doesn't mean anything, but it is a sign of something and at least shows that someone recommends you). It's rather sad to have good reviews from puny sources. ("It was as if Brahms sat down at the piano himself" - Salt Lake City Catering Gazette).

All in all, I'm in favour of truthfulness in CVs. "Studied with X" should mean exactly that - not the same thing as "had some lessons with X" or perhaps "watched X's DVD training course twice".

I think what aggravates me the most is the matter of prizes. You know, I've won a couple of prizes. I mention them in programme biographies and things. That's because it's true and relevant. It doesn't mean I'm good! Who knows, it may mean the opposite! I admit, of course, that I will generally want to show my best (or least worst) side in publicity materials - this is fine. But it's very lazy and a bit dishonest to, er, rephrase things in your favour. Have you heard of this?

"Won the Tchaikovsky Competition Prize" (He won the 100th Prize but it's true, it was A prize though perhaps not THE prize?)

"Was awarded the first prize" (Yes, last place is normally awarded first. Different to being awarded First Prize...)

And so on and on. Anyway, you get the idea. Watch out for this measly rewording of the truth!

I guess people want recognition, don't they. Well here are my tips (time to get tough!)

1. If you want to be recognised, WORK HARD and TRY YOUR ABSOLUTE BEST then something may happen.

2. If you wish you could win a prize then WIN SOMETHING. Come on! Winning is the only way to win, look in the dictionary!

3. Please, it doesn't matter what you won or didn't win. Just show the things you care about, as only you can, and you should do fine.

4. Tell the truth! It's OK to make a nice story out of it, as long as it's still the truth. After all, it's the story of your adventure!

If somebody tried hard and got 5th place, I like to hear about it! But as for exaggerations and vaguenesses like "top prizes" and the (fictional) examples above, I don't like to hear about it. The end.

Ah well, anyway, in life everybody wins my prize. What I have cleverly not mentioned is that there are several categories, hee hee...

How to Cook Chicken

OK here's a cookery tip for you.

Chicken (if you eat it) is one of the most difficult things to cook because it easily gets into an upsettingly dry, tough, squeaky condition which nobody wants but many people don't know how to avoid.

Here is the secret.

OK assuming you have cut it into small pieces, and you are frying it in a frying pan, all you have to do is: leave it. Yes, you read me correctly. Do nothing!

The side of the chicken pieces that is in contact with the pan is the side that is cooking. Turning it over now will make it cook faster (two hot sides). If you have other ingredients to add, and often there are lots of things to add and not enough time, then you don't want the chicken to be cooked before you start the other bits. No you don't, because the chicken will be over-cooked then. So just leave it in its initial position. THEN, when everything is cooked right, and the plates are ready, etc, then and only then should you turn it over. This way, it will be ready when you want to eat it and not before.

Remember that hot food continues to cook while it's on the plate. So stop cooking the chicken just before it looks ready. This means, if you cut a piece or split one with the cooking implement, it should be, well, not exactly pink in the middle, but certainly not quite white yet ("cooked chicken colour"). Yes, stop BEFORE it is ready. Stop when it is NEARLY ready.

So when it is on the plate in front of your guest or customer (or you) it will be the right colour inside. Because it is hot, and is still cooking itself as you watch!

Does that make sense?

To summarise:
1. in the pan, leave the top side of the chicken raw until you are ready to go.
2. turn it over to complete the cooking but stop just before it is cooked all the way through.

Now please tell me it worked.

Appearances

I was just remembering something.

When I was at the R.A.M., we used to have to go to early evening student concerts once a week. Attendance was compulsory, and we had to sign in so someone could decide whether we'd get a good mark or not.

I used to go to the concerts but I thought it was so stupid to make them compulsory that I fairly often didn't sign in. While many people tried to sneakily sign the names of their friends who were too busy sleeping to attend the concert, I was coming to listen but doing the opposite.

I just thought it was more important to hear the concert than to get a mark for hearing the concert. Maybe I am a bit silly.

I graduated, though. I must have got a good mark for something....!

Chain of Command

Godowsky was a genius. A self-taught genius - the only kind there is, of course.

He learned how to do anything at all on the piano, and invented some new things too. If you want to have a lesson with Godowsky, try playing any of his music. It has lots of fingerings and helpful comments written in, so it's very instructive as playing music by a great pianist always is. Of particular note are his Studies on the Etudes of Chopin, which, since they are more difficult than Chopin's originals, raise the standard of piano playing in a rather helpful way.

Heinrich Neuhaus was Godowsky's student. There was a great teacher for you. And he was a great player too, though he spent most of his time teaching. You can learn a lot from his book The Art of Piano Playing. What he says seems obvious though, so you have to keep coming back to the book over many years to appreciate its value.

Then Neuhaus had a student called Sviatoslav Richter. He was good too!

Each of these people had their own talent, but it was helped by meeting one of the others. Destiny somehow allows people to look after each other.

Godowsky set off one day to find out how to play the piano, and look what happened!

Richter wasn't really a teacher but look what he did for us. If you can't learn from any of that, there's a problem somewhere!

Thanks very much to those three men, then. Thank you!

Film or Digital

In photography there is a popular question at the moment: film or digital? Actually it's not really a new question. The first digital camera was tested in 1975. It weighed 3.6 kg, and its cassette tape-recorded image had a resolution of 0.01 megapixels and took 23 seconds to capture its first image. That was a test, of course, but the first publicly available digial cameras came onto the market in the late 1980s. They were expensive!

In contrast, photographic film was first being produced 100 years before that. So you can see that, though there are many millions of digital cameras available today, digital imaging is a much younger science. (On the other hand, things are moving faster these days)

Film is good (or it would not have existed as the professional standard for 130 years) but you can't see what it looks like until it's developed. Digital cameras let you see the picture immediately. That means you know what you've got. It's very helpful, and you can see why they are popular.

I could talk about ease of use for a while (I'm sure the internet is full of that kind of discussion if you want to read about it). Obviously digital is really convenient and makes pictures easy and fun to take. That's presumably why it's popular!

There is, however, the question of how the medium responds. Digital is improving all the time but for me, at the moment, it doesn't have the same feel as film. There are several reasons for this. I don't know enough about the details to explain them properly, so let's just say how I feel.

It seems to me that when the image gets over-exposed, film and digital behave differently. Over-exposed means some or all of the image is so bright that the film or sensor can't hold any detail and it burns out to white. This is not necessarily bad if you want it to look like that in some way - but it looks to me that film and digital behave differently.

Here are two pictures. The first one is an old picture from last year. It's quite pleasant but there are some big holes in the sky where it has exceeded the latitude of the camera's sensor (i.e. the difference between the brightest and darkest parts of the scene was too great to include all of it, and detail was lost in highlights or shadows). Those are the big white blobs. I didn't notice when I took it because I didn't know what it meant. Now I know and I know I didn't want it to look like that! Here it is:



(click to enlarge)

The point about that image is that I want you to notice the way it burns out in the sky. Now compare with a picture taken on film:




(click to enlarge)

Perhaps you can see the sky also burns out in this picture (also not intentional!). But it looks to me like it burns out more gracefully. I know that in the middle of the burn it is white...but somehow it gives the impression of being yellow. Whereas in the first picture it seems to go straight to white.

As far as burnt-out highlights go, I prefer the more gentle way of film.

I picked these pictures because they illustrate the point about burnt-out highlights. My best work you will have to wait for - it doesn't exist yet!

PS If you go to the cinema, then you are seeing "films" (movies, in U.S.) that were shot on film. Presumably they do that because it looks better. Don't worry though, I'm sure digital will catch up.

On the other hand, I released my CD on CDs not on vinyl...

What Lurks Outside

Before history began, so we are told, dangers outside were rife. The vicious Sabre-toothed Tiger (ancestor of door-to-door insurance salesmen and cold-callers) provided continuous threats to existence. Fires, floods, and epidemics cast their nets of peril far and wide.

Today we have caves, of a sort, to keep us safe. In cities they keep us a bit too safe sometimes - personally I prefer the idea of being somewhere nice in the outside to the idea of being insulated in a little rabbit coop. Though I do live in a house! It's highly convenient, I admit!

So to get away from it all, I only had to step outside and look for some fresh air.

Now that has changed!

Anti-smoking laws and so on mean it's getting pretty bad to be outside anywhere near people, especially in London! So much cigarette smoke everywhere! And staying inside isn't necessarily better since the smoke all blows back in through the doors!

Having to go outside to smoke is probably not too annoying in the summer. I wonder how people will feel in the winter?

From 1st July 2007 in England you are not allowed to smoke in public places such as bars and restaurants. A vicar is not allowed to smoke in his (or her) study if people visit regularly! Fines are of the order of £50 (€70, $100) or £2,500 if a business allows it! I was quite pleased to hear that smoking is going to be less popular, because it is not particularly popular with me. It's already very expensive so I'm not sure it's good to take all that money from people in fines. It's not necessarily good to prohibit things, but smoking is different to drinking, where after all, the drink stays in its glass and we are not affected by "passive drinking".

I think this is all supposed to stop people from smoking, perhaps in the hope that health might improve. Governments used to make a lot of money from tobacco taxes etc but they are realising that, like the slave trade, there is less and less mileage in it.

It's a nuisance now that the outside is full of cigarette smoke. It might be better to get it out in the open though.

I don't really care if there is a law against it (though I was rather pleased when I heard)...I mainly care that people will stop doing something that they don't really enjoy. If smoking is a good thing, smoke on! I'm sure there are worse things...but I feel like this one is fairly nasty. What about a nice breath of air?

Aaah....

Fear

The things you fear are like shadows in the half of the room that you don't want to see. Your half is not in shadow, because you have chosen to look at it. But what's in the other half?

There is a monster under the bed, and one in the wardrobe too. Dark things come out at night and we clothe them in our own fear.

But in the daylight we can see what is there.

The things we fear are everywhere because we don't want to look at them. So when there is darkness - under the bed, in the wardrobe, or somewhere else we are not sure about - our fears appear. Whenever you sense some unknown thing coming towards you (in space or in time), you shape it into the thing you are afraid of.

The only question is, what is really there?

I think the answer has to be, there is something there. Or, there appears to be something there. What though? It's our choice whether we look closely or not.

Let's think of a situation. General fears around this area (where I am now) are: being robbed, being attacked somehow, losing things, or fear of a general disaster (of whatever type is popular in the media at the moment). Let's take fear of non-specific attack or robbery. OK, so you are afraid of that happening. When it is dark you are more afraid. That may be reasonable because there are fewer people around in the dark. However, that's rather the product of the fear of the dark that we talked about before. If it's dark then you put something there. If you can't see what is there, you imagine what could be there.

As uncertainty increases, this hypothetical person we are talking about gets more afraid. He creates more threats as his knowledge decreases. We can see that fear of attack gets worse when we have less information: if it's dark; if the place is unfamiliar; if we are alone.

However! We can do better than that!

Let's forget about the BlockbusterAttackMode way out. This approach says that the more prepared I am for attack, the less I will be affected by it. Look at these people, they learn a million-and-one-ways of defending themselves, nine-and-a-half exotic martial arts, carry six guns, a knife, and a flamethrower. And that's just for looking out of the window! Are they less afraid? No, and I think they are becoming a bit of a threat themselves actually. Yes, they did get more prepared, that's sort of taking a step, but they did not solve the problem.

The only problem was the original fear, fear created by the darkness we mentioned at the beginning. Then we were talking about a real darkness (the one under the bed, for example), but it's really the same thing if it is physical or a kind of mental darkness which comes from the unknown.

So given that we are afraid of something, we can see the following. First, we are creating more threats wherever we are unsure about something. We talked of a fear of attack but it can really be anything. There are plenty of uncertainties so there are plenty of fears to choose from!

Have you noticed that now? Whenever there is uncertainty, you turn it into a threat. Yes, I agree, the accident could happen now, your job could disappear this week, that heart attack you've been expecting could have happened five minutes ago. But does it make sense to be on panic alert all the time? OK, statistically there is probably a chance of these things happening. Probably each of them happened to somebody in the world yesterday. But you are not a supercomputer. The human mind is very powerful (or capable of being) but you are not helping matters by using that power to imagine how badly things could go wrong. Getting a scratch that goes septic and you die - chances are 2,987,453 to one. A chance. Yes, every second. Even twice a second! All the same...I don't want to upset your reasoning process, but it may not be your day for misfortune. Sorry, it must just be bad luck, I guess.

First of all, you are seeing your fears when you cannot see clearly. You can solve that by: recognising what you are afraid of, and trying to be objective (learning to see other sides of a situation, not just the one you are used to seeing). Low Grade Panic Alert is rather a vague state so it helps to identify what the perceived threat is. What are you afraid of? Write it down. Ok I think it is slightly less frightening already. Slightly is a good start. Then by learning to "see through other eyes" you can see where you went wrong before. Illusion is the product of isolation. "I'm afraid of..." is already wrong because it starts with "I". You think you are separate and you have your own problems. But you must be connected to someone else in some way. You have seen another person before, right? Right, so you are not really alone. Then who is this "I"? It is the fearing part. The part that does not fear is called "We" or "Us". Learn about it.

Finding ways to attack a problem will never solve it. Because you are afraid of attack, you are always attacking. Don't fight, invite! Your hostility makes hostility outside you. If you welcome the world and its chances of...failure or...success, then you are shining a bit of light on your fear and you will have more chance of seeing what is really there.

What is really there? A few naughty people doing naughty things. But not all the time. They want things the easy way and can't be bothered to put much effort in. And accidents do happen, but not to everbody and not every day, and when they do we have to stop and think how we got into that situation and maybe learn how to avoid it next time. Health problems do occur but not every minute. A system under stress has to release the stress somehow, and the results can seem unpleasant. But symptoms that come out are the product of something called health. If you are worried about your health then you must know why you are worried. Is it something you are doing wrong? If it is then you can change it. Your body is the only one you have and looking after it will help you a lot. Your life is your life and can change this world for the better. Our world is our world, too, though we are supposed to look after it rather than drain it of goodness. These are all good things. The bad things exist but they are not everywhere. They may not even be bad! They are probably just "things" until you decide they are going to be bad.

We should be afraid. There is a lot to be afraid of. But it is not meant to freeze us in our steps before we have started the race. We are not meant to stop climbing before the first peak has come into view. Fear is allied with caution, respect, care, and guides experiment. Each of those ensures the harvest comes in safe next year. They may mean the ship gets into port safe and sound. The eggs all get back from market in one piece. But where do the plans come from? What makes experiment? Total caution would have zero result. Now I have a message for you. You are not the victim of a dice game, neither coldly and without intent, nor maliciously twisting the threads of your fate. You are not the victim. You have the power to imagine danger for a very good reason - because of the power to imagine. Why do you have that power? To stop? To shut the shop and sink the ship, to shatter and fail and founder and grind to a halt? Or to see in your mind's eye what lies behind the hill, what lives on the other side of the world, what breathes where there is no air and swims without water?

What crawls in the morning, stands upright at noon, and crawls again at evening? The answer is man, from baby to adult to old age, but we should rather ask: What asks riddles? Who invents the impossible? The answer is the mind of man but what that really means is something we are still learning. Don't expect to read about it in the newspaper. With these things, it's better to try and find out for yourself. Believe me.

Now you are brave again!

You only got to be brave by admitting that fear exists. Well done. Now do more!

The Language of Music

It's hard to explain impossible things to you.

But the reason one person writes to another is that there is something he needs to tell that person, something which he thinks the other person doesn't know. The only problem is that when a fact is an unknown fact, it is hard to understand. In fact it may be impossible to understand - it will take a lot of problems and hard work to finally see what it was. Sometimes, indeed, you can't just tell someone the answer they need, because they won't understand without actually discovering the answer for themselves. That's why we have symbols like mazes and spirals. Labyrinths were popular in ancient art. Popularity comes when something resonates with many people, no matter what the intention behind it. In this case, the Labyrinth is a journey you must follow until it is solved - there is not normally a short way through.

The Labyrinth is a part of the ear, too.

When we hear music we can identify patterns. Without them, it would probably be noise. But as long as we can fit the sound to a pattern we feel there is some sense behind it. We keep creating possible patterns to fit to the stimulus, trying to find a match for one or more templates that we have stored, or creating a new one based on the incoming material. So although I said we try to find a fit, really we are creating the pattern that we hear. The sound is what it is, but the pattern is our own. Listen to noise and see how soon you start to hear words. They may not be there as such, but we are looking (listening) for them.

So we may find there is sense at the first hearing of a piece of music. That depends on what experience we have. Whatever the case, we will try and we will find something. But you might end up saying, no, I just couldn't make anything of it. Like the ladies in the Wigmore Hall who laughed at the 'wrong notes' in a Webern piece - which was written in 1899! I was there, you can believe me.

There are "dissonant" cases where the music is too different from the listener's internal templates and antagonism results. Of course, the dissonance is not necessarily a question of some dissonance in the music's harmonic idiom - I was referring to the dissonance between what they are hearing and what they might expect to make sense, or what they have heard before and got used to. But on the whole the music one hears is mostly more or less familiar - you tend to recognise it as music, and more particularly as "our music". Statistically we are more likely to hear music we already recognise, of course - because statistically we will stay in more or less the same place.

Recognition comes then, somewhat or a lot. You can tell there is a loud bit coming up because it starts getting louder. It started quiet so you know it will be quiet for a bit. Or after learning a bit more, you know that if it is quiet, it might stay quiet or might SUDDENLY get loud. You start to learn what the options might be. And if you know a bit about music you might here where the harmony is going. You might recognise the sort of "subject" the composer is thinking of. Of course there is not a subject, it is music not words, but there are associations and special patterns we notice. It might be something clear like the sound of a bird (the cuckoo in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony) or something ambiguous like the sound of water or wind in a Schubert song. It might be a topic like "military" (Chopin Polonaise) or "exotic" (Debussy Pagodas) or "academic" (Handelian fugue in Mozart or Beethoven). Whatever it is, you learn, and then finally you understand. It can take repeated hearings to get there though - although most do not try after the first attempt. And sometimes there is no attempt! (What are the chances of success there I wonder?)

All of these insights come with practise and understanding. Some come with learning and knowledge.

They say that a child's mind is a clear mind. They say a child will see the obvious when everyone else convinces themselves otherwise or trips themselves up in tangles of thought and blind guesses. That's why there is the famous story of The Emperor's New Clothes. Maybe it's funny, I don't know. I'm sure no-one believes it could ever really happen. But that's the shock you get when you realise it's happening all the time. Look at what people are doing around you now. A little or a lot, helping or un-helping, but they are certainly taking a lot of different approaches to the maze of their life. Certainly the mazes are different, but can all the people be right? The child says: I thought you had to get to the centre. (Does that mean it is easier than it seemed?)

Yes, you try to hear some sense in the sound coming in. But we are in luck, because the person who created it all - the composer - put sense in at the beginning. So we are in with a fighting chance!

I am convinced that we can understand music purely by paying attention to what the composer has put in it. That's the approach I took when I wrote about Evryali, and it's how I try to understand music on a daily basis. The significance of this is that it doesn't matter how much you know before you get started. Knowledge came down to us because other people noticed things; that means we can notice them too. But it will take a long time if we try to understand the knowledge AS WELL as the music. That's two jobs, you see. Fortunately I have tried to understand the music, afflicted with only a slight knowledge of the technical processes involved. (That's not a joke, I really don't know much!). That's why I'm here today to tell you where to look.

The first time I noticed something important about music was in a Mozart symphony last year. It wasn't a good performance (maybe that's why I noticed it). The symphony was called "The Jupiter", but I don't think that matters because I don't like the "I know it all" approach to music: Ah, The Jupiter, yes, of course. Beethoven's second Razumovsky Quartet, yes. Opus 106, a masterpiece. It does annoy me rather, you see this is talking about music without mentioning the music. Perhaps it is not talking about the music? I know it's helpful to use labels so we can know what is being discussed, but these are the names on the filing cabinet. They are the names on the files. They are not the contents of the files. Inside are lovely golden sounds without names. Songs without words that sing in my heart.

I forget exactly what it was in that Mozart symphony. I think it was a movement in the harmony. I realised he was doing something really funny, moving somewhere no-one could have predicted. I wondered why no-one was laughing. I think it was because they were hearing "A Mozart symphony" - the one in their heads, perhaps. You don't need Sherlock Holmes to tell you that the best Mozart symphony comes from Mozart, not from us. By some twist of fate, that was actually what I was hearing. Yes, no incompetence on the part of the conductor or players prevented me from hearing what the composer had put into the music. It was all there, and it always is in any piece or performance.

Music is highly cultural, you know. There is a lot to learn about. But as it happens you don't particularly need to learn any of it. If you are responsible and care about the music and why it exists then I think it won't hurt to try learning a bit. But you have to listen first.

I listened, and I am now telling you this:

A master composer knows his job and tries to get better at it.

The best composers didn't stop when they had had enough, or when they thought they were good enough. They continued changing.

In these cases, the golden secret inside centre of the music was what led the creator - it was what they were trying to communicate! In the other cases, the composer got tired and his forms started writing themselves, though there could still be flashes of inspiration. It could never dry up completely (some music leads me to doubt this but it is true)

The secret was called ecstasy. Did the composer want to be a composer, or could he not stop being a composer? "Ecstasy" is a word that means being outside yourself. What is outside? Whatever we don't already know. Other people. Other places. Other ideas. Mistakes. Answers. Genius.

Whatever you think about music, I think we all have to agree there is some kind of vision involved in it. Someone wants to communicate something, and that is their vision. It can be predictable, clichéed, or previously impossible - a surprising thing of brilliance and power. With skill, the vision becomes clearer.

That vision is present in every part of the work, and through the opposition between the parts we can appreciate what it is. (The word for an arrangement of parts is composition)

You won't at first know what a piece of music is saying. It's important to remember that it isn't saying anything. As long as you can say it in words, you are not there. You can talk about it but you have to live it to see it.

With repeated slow careful exposure to music you can learn to feel what it really is. Your mind is not understanding it, your heart is not feeling it, but these senses may be involved.

Remember what I am telling you: it is real. Music is real. There is a real reason for it. It is not something in a book or on a CD, it is something outside you, coming in. Also remember that if you were lost in a labyrinth, you might forget your journey. The outside might seem dark and unfriendly. Think then of what it's like to find the way through the maze. Find the end, and you see you were the one who had gone outside. Really the music is inside. People who don't listen are stuck outside. When we hear it truly, we are all joined up again. Or starting to be.

Primo Levi was in a prison camp. Then he sent us a message through his books so that the world would change. James Clavell was in a prison camp. He did the same. He did a good thing too, because he loved the people who imprisoned him. That is how he was set free. Any others who still hated them were still prisoners, weren't they? And Ronald Searle was in the same camp. He had to carefully hide his drawings while he was there. He sent us messages too.

There is a well-known analogy that life is like a bird flying through a lighted hall. It is light for a moment, then it is dark again. That's silly, because although I can see what it means, I think they are looking at it from the wrong side. Think what the other birds are thinking. Wot is that bird doing stuck inside that dark hall when we are all out here?

I spoke of prisoners because when we are stuck or lost, what we need most is a way out. Sometimes it is all we can do just to survive. There isn't much sign of life outside the prison. But one day a message comes.

To understand the message is all we need to do.

It is not obvious. But it is there. If you can love it, then you are hearing it.

This is the language of music.

For the Sake of Completeness

Why do we have to have the complete everything?

CDs are generally not recital programmes or intelligent compilations but instead the complete Mozart Sonatas or the complete Chopin Etudes.

In concert it's frequently the case that we have to listen to a complete set of pieces e.g. Chopin's Preludes, Ballades, Scherzos, and so on.

In the hands of a great master, this is fine.

At other times, it is a bit tedious and gives the feeling that the performer is being overstretched and would be better off concentrating on the particular pieces that speak to their heart most strongly.