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?

Always Keep Going

Always Keep Going! It's my translation of "Never Give Up". Never Give Up includes the phrase "Give Up" so I don't want to sow that seed in your mind, you see.

If you want to achieve a target, Do It Every Day. Just do something towards the target every day. You can do something more often than that if you want, even then it still counts as Something Every Day.

Never mind how on earth you will get to where you want - it may be impossibly far away - but you are not aiming to be there tomorrow. If you can do it in one day then you don't need any help from me!

Today your job is to get to tomorrow, and to improve by one day's worth of improvement.

Do it every day, fix what is here now, and you will arrive one day.

If it takes 300 days then next year you will look and realise you arrived. If 900 days then in three years you will suddenly be there. Nobody remembers the time it took - you may recall it if it made an impression on you - because we don't live in the past. Similarly we don't live in the future. Actually not really in the present either, because where or when is that? The present is...now no it's gone! Never mind about time and what it is. Life must be a process of living. You are alive now, in the now, and that's the time to act. Do it now. If you know something useful will happen in three hours then you can save it until then. That's called planning. But for general work, the time is now. Why wait?

There are many important points about this, but the main one is Always Keep Going. If you miss a day, then the victory will be another day away. But if you never missed a day then you will have arrived in the minimum time. That means the fastest possible in the whole world.

It is so simple. But the results are amazing!

Be patient. If you can be, then one day you will be one of only a few left in the race. The others who didn't give up.

See you there I hope!

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

Your Important Advice

Look - you can say this too:


"I can do anything, and whatever I can't do, I can learn".


Don't you think it is true?

Presence

The past is gone, the future is yet to come, and all around us is the present. So they say. But who can say that they see what is here and now and live truly in this moment?

We don't have any other moment to live in...only this moment. Not that moment then; it's gone. This one...now!

As soon as I said it it had gone. So in a way you have to be living very slightly in the future: just enough that the moment doesn't slip past without you.

But what are you seeing?

Always something else - I wish things were different, if only this were bigger/smaller/thinner/fatter/yellower/faster/slower/hotter/colder, maybe this time next year I'll be..., at school they said I was the best/worst/good/bad/would go far/would never amount to much, I wonder what...

You have the capacity to think of far off things, places, and people. And also the ability to see the present. Can you see it?

Are you looking for something different? This is what you've got now. It's yours, for you, by you, for you to live in. You can change it if you don't like it, but don't miss it because that's your life at this moment.

You could spend your whole life wishing to be just a few centimetres less tall, but at the end of it...what did you live?

It's HERE and NOW. The present. Like a Christmas present. It's the present, a present, for you, to make something with.

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!

L'elisir d'amore

I was once again the lucky recipient of a ticket for a General Rehearsal performance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. The opera was L'elisir d'amore by Gaetano Donizetti (first performed 1832). Direction was by Laurent Pelly, orchestra directed by Bruno Campanella. Cast included Giuseppe Filianoti (Nemorino), Diana Damrau as a sprightly Adina, Anthony Michaels-Moore (Belcore), Simone Alaimo (Dulcamara), and Eri Nakamura in the role of Gianetta, thanks to the Jette Parker Young Artist Scheme.

Although this was an all-the-way-through performance before an audience, it was technically a rehearsal so some things might go differently when the run proper begins. They always announce "some singers may mark their roles" but I haven't really noticed any of that in the two I have attended. All I can really say along those lines is that I sometimes get the feeling there will be a very small percentage increase in smooth running between the final reh and the official performances. It's hardly noticeable, and the roles are performed as they should be, the result of a lot of study and rehearsing.

Today I would like to draw a little attention to Simone Alaimo who really characterised his part and produced a lot of believable specific moments for the character; moments like these add up to give to the audience an experience you live through rather than one you experience. Of course this is what would be called a "character" part which naturally gets a lot of the attention because there is more "character" to notice, yet for example Anthony Michaels-Moore as Sergeant Belcore was perfectly able to produce everything necessary to that role, the only difference being that, as he did his duty so well, he sought not to overshadow the action and hence there was less to notice. But you may have noticed that I noticed there was less to notice, so, yes, there was a lot going on there too. But this is not really a review of the performance, especially it being a rehearsal. (And anyway I don't like to review performances because I generally have so much to complain about and it's not really fair)

As for Donizetti, I could see a lot of ability and talent. But ultimately the music is simply musical, doing a job and making sound of the right type at the right moments, rather than fulfilling the real purpose of music, which is principally to teach us more about music and hence (perhaps) about everything. You can compare it with the Verdi I saw recently and see the difference. In fact I have almost no comments to make about the composing, mainly because there wasn't much there.

But the man wrote 75 operas in 12 years! This total includes the now not very romantic-sounding Emilia di Liverpool, which I'd be (somewhat) interested to know about.

Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti. The only one not to have gourmet items named after him is Donizetti (Tournedos Rossini, and the Bellini, a cocktail of Champagne (or Prosecco) and peach). Why is this - did he not achieve the same greatness? [actually there is an asteroid named after him: 9912 Donizetti - but I don't believe it is a gourmet asteroid]

I have yet to hear Bellini in performance, just as there are millions of other things I've never heard, mostly by choice but often because I've had a lot of other things to learn about that seemed more important for me. Oh yes, actually I've never heard a Rossini opera performed either! So can I really make a comparison? No, I cannot.

Yes, you're right, of course I can! Rossini is the best, Bellini is the classic, and Donizetti is the "sports model". Is this true? I do not know. But I will eventually find out. I would particularly like to hear how Donizetti sounds on a more serious subject. Not that that is necessarily of greater import, as his genius may have been for comedy, but I'd like to know about it all the same.

What makes comedy funny? A combination of bad things happening in life from time to time and an innate human sense that appreciates absurdity. So, following on from reason (1), it's often a little bit of seriousness in a comedy that gives you the measure of it. In L'elisir that could be anything - although if it was there it was ignored by the production I saw - but it could most obviously be the aria Una furtiva lagrima (you can hear it performed by Caruso here). But this song is not so serious as it appears to people who, like me, have previously heard it on its own and assumed it was something sad. The tear in question comes from the eye of Adina, and it tells Nemorino that actually she does like him! So that's not so bad.

I wished for a little bit more than just light entertainment from this production. One can argue that as a comedy, it must be light. But one can argue (as I am) that the business of comedy is serious, and should be taken seriously! Once you're on stage, there are no great or small roles, just the role you are playing now. The greatest one you will ever play at this moment. And that's why it demands everything you can give.

What role are you playing now? Have you given everything to the part? Have you had gourmet items named after you? Well, that's not really a test of true value. But the point is, now is the time for now. You are on the stage. Who knows the comparative value of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, but in all truth, they are all different. Donizetti did his job and so may you!

75 operas in 12 years, eh?

And the people laughed at this one, you know. He knew they would. It was his job.

I, in a very modest manner, shall walk about with bowed head; I’ll have rave reviews…I can become immortal…My mind is vast, my genius swift...And at composing, a thunderbolt am I.

He wrote that when he was 14. And we're still talking about him.

Bravo.

Integrity

Integrity means: doing what you believe is right, and sticking to it.

You should always do the right thing, but you don't always have to tell everybody what you think - sometimes being quiet is the best thing to do. "The tallest tree is the first one to fall".

It's really OK to do the thing you are interested in.

It's really OK!

Yes you can do it!

You can always pretend you are normal, if you would like to.

It will be our little secret!

New Life

I'm afraid the butterfly is not alive now. Unfortunately before it was released into the outside world. But then it couldn't fly so we don't know what would have happened to it out there...

But look what has appeared on the tree next to the butterfly's place! A new shoot! So life is always appearing, even when you think it is disappearing.

Real People

It's hard to imagine old black-and-white people as real colour people. All the old people - Busoni, Liszt, Rachmaninov, Alkan, Chopin and company - they were all colour people.

And then it's hard to hear old recordings as real performances ("colour"). I hear Rachmaninov tearing away at 300 mph in his 3rd Concerto and wonder what he really sounded like.

I'm sure we can get closer to imagining what it was all really like.

They were people, like all the people you see today. Not monochrome prints.

Something must be done to invite them to step out of the page...

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...

The Hobbit (Film)...?

I was just thinking about what I thought was Peter Jackson's upcoming film adaptation of Tolkien's story "The Hobbit". I was going to begin: "So they're making a film of The Hobbit". But they aren't! They are nearly making a film of The Hobbit. The original plan was to make it then go on to film the three episodes of The Lord of the Rings all at the same time. But that was a long time ago. It seems there are problems about a number of things, particularly who owns the production rights, who owns the distribution rights (not the same people, I think, unfortunately), and a law suit which has apparently offended New Line Cinema and made them vow never to use Peter Jackson for anything ever again...so I hear, at least. I don't know what is true, but it seems there is some trouble with this project getting off the ground.

So is it still worth writing my thoughts about the music for this film? Of course! Let's go!

Now, The Hobbit is a good story. It's a very good read. I always feel with Tolkien that it is somehow offensive to "right-thinking literary people" because it is a little bit naïve and doesn't subject its literary form to any radical exploration or expansion. Yes, it's not Finnegans Wake. Well those imagined opinions undoubtedly have some truth to them, but you could also say that since Tolkien goes back to the sources he knew so well - the Sagas, Eddas, poems and prose of Northern Europe which are our surviving mythological and legendary heritage - and since he tries to make a real story like stories used to be told, maybe that is a radical thing to do, in a way. But it's true that it's not avant-garde. It's rather conservative in that it wants some things to remain a certain way. Certainly in The Lord of the Rings the peaceful way of life of the Hobbits living in the Shire is threatened by the "development" and "progress" that comes out of the land of Mordor. It may mean several things but one is certainly that rural life is threatened with extinction by the Industrial Revolution. Plus there is world war, too - I'm sure people have looked into all this in plenty of detail.

So anyway, it's not a great work of modernist fiction, but I will include it as an important work of modern fiction because whatever is good or bad about the writing, the idea and its world have found many ears eager to hear more. It's a good story, like The Three Musketeers or a James Bond novel. I mean it's a GOOD story - I'm praising it, not belittling it!

All of which is not to complain about the book, but to examine why I feel I should be slightly embarrassed to be discussing it in public. Well, I'm not. It's a proper story, so there. Ha!

The Hobbit is fun because you can read it in a day (if you have all day). There are plenty of excitements, some spooky bits, some magic and comedy too. And plenty of escapism if you enjoy reading about home comforts. The Hobbit, it seems, is a homely creature who enjoys his bit of supper. Often more than once!

I was thinking about the music for this projected film. I imagined it would be in the mode of The Lord of the Rings, which I feel is an extremely strong score (from Howard Shore). Its use of Leitmotiv (a theme for each character or thing, so you can see how they are interacting in the story, associated most with Wagner - very appropriate for a legendary story about a ring) provides a great way to unify all three films, almost as good a unifying factor as Peter Jackson's brain, which must be enormous to have made all three films at the same time!

On the other hand, once you have your motifs worked out, not much has to change. Because Wagner operas are mythological, they are supposed to be beyond the scope and compass of mortal time, so time gets stretched out. There is climax, or course (see Isoldens Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde) but time is a bit flattened out. So maybe leit-motifs prevent a more natural flow of musical events? Maybe, maybe not. Anyway they definitely made the right choice for those three films.

But the embarrassing moments for me are: the "Happy Shire" music, intended to be antic and comically endearing, but rather annoying for me, and the songs.

A big song in a film (or "movie", as they are called) is normally a signal for you to go out and buy the record (or "CD" as they are called). Yes, it is a marketing opportunity, almost a moment of "branded content" - entertainment that is actually selling you something. But if the song has a dramatic purpose, that's different. If not...why is it in a film? Do they stop the story to say "buy Simpson's Shock-Absorbers"? Yes they do. It's called product placement. However, that doesn't happen all the time.

But it's the little songs I'm worrying about here. Why do they go wrong? In fact, musical examples of "real music" in films go rather badly - look at Mr. Holland's Opus! The Piano! Dear me. Supposedly examples of great music and would be fine on the soundtrack but not when you take the same level of musical discourse but expose it on a completely different level.

I'm talking about songs because there are quite a lot in The Hobbit.

Far over the misty mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere the break of day,
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

has potential (could still be ruined though) but

Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
That's what Bilbo Baggins hates -
Smash the bottles and burn the corks!
...So, carefully! Carefully with the plates!

could go badly wrong. You see, musical music (as used in an opera by someone who is intending the music to carry important meaning) has a great emotional and expressive range which includes comedy as well as more serious thoughts. But "background music" (which film music is not when it is one of the characters in the story but which it easily can be) doesn't have much range. It can illustrate or echo what is happening on-screen, but it needs more wide possibilities of expression, obviously, to express more things. Bad examples go like "Aha there is something nasty happening me better make loud noise bang bang!", but in a good example you hear an added level of story. Maybe it would be more dramatic with quiet music. Or no music. And so on.

So the score needs to be thoughtful, but it should think on a different level when the music gets exposed and we are asked to listen to it as "real music" in the story.

You have to think carefully, though, because a film score mostly can't have quite the same depth as music on its own in a concert, because film + music is the totality of the offering, each playing its part which should add up to 100%. But that's about good partnerships. When person X is doing something important, person Y should try to help...perhaps even by doing nothing.

Style is difficult for songs in a film because one assumes the audience has a very limited imagination of what songs should sound like. Songs are...well, anything from pop music, or "a folk song". What is a folk song? Why it's Irish of course!

Yes why does it always have to be Irish? Come on, you've got more choices than that! Or could it perhaps be because most films are aimed at the USA? Where there are a lot of people who think of Ireland as "home"? Or the home before this home? Could be.

Yes there are perhaps limited references to work with when you want to engage with the audience, but I still think you should give it a try. People are more intelligent than you might think. Still, they have to sell the picture. I understand.

If The Hobbit has embarrassing aspects, then they may extend to the film version too...and that may include the songs. Let's wait and see.

But Tolkien wasn't embarrassed, and neither are the fans of the stories. You have to get into the world to learn how to show people what it looks like. Being intelligent about it doesn't mean it has to sound "clever". It just will take people there, that's all.

I'm sure it will TURN OUT FINE!

History

I went to see the DINOSAURS. They live at the Natural History Museum. I had never seen any before which is why it was quite exciting.

I had read about dinosaurs before, especially a long time ago, so it was nice to see my old friends Iguanodon and Triceratops again. Disappointing to see no Tyrannosaurus skeleton. You could really say One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (a film the racist undertones of which are not condoned by this establishment).

The other disappointment was the Blue Whale - the world's largest mammal, but here presented as a feeble plastic model. It is life size, so you can appreciate the dimensions. You can imagine the real thing of course, but I don't really like to be told what to imagine. I think that defeats the object of imagining.

Dinosaurs are really an alien thing. Nothing much like them here now - unless you look closely and think of evolution. So the skeletons are worth seeing. Also the fossils of strange and varied megafauna. And the petrified tree stump.

But as for the animals which exist on Earth today, I don't really have much interest in seeing models and so on. They exist! But these models are not really real. I suppose it's supposed to give you an impression or appreciation of the real thing. I think it may do that, but it is rather a poor substitute.

I don't know if I am not using them correctly, but the museums in Kensington are not as good as I was expecting. They are good buildings, though. And enough good things in them to justify having a look. For a good museum I'd go to the British Museum in Russell Square/Bloomsbury. There's plenty to see there. But no dinosaurs!

Over Here

By chance I was just reading the stories of some Chinese immigrants to Liverpool. This is interesting to me for lots of reasons, particularly because I come from near Liverpool.

Still lots of people are emigrating from lots of different countries to lots of other countries. East London is still welcoming immigrants, like it has done for a long time, though you don't hear much Yiddish round there any more.

The thing is, even if you have lived in the same place all your life, you have got there from somewhere. Even if you think there is nothing before we are born, it is still somewhere else, somewhere not here, not now. So that's worth thinking about. Welcome!

The stories I read are nearer the bottom of the page which you can find here. It seems people had to work very hard.

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!

Do It Immediately!

I wish that every time I think of something I want to write about here, it could somehow get written straight from my brain. But I don't think the Internet is that advanced yet.

I very much think that every time something comes into your mind it's for a good reason so that's the time to go and attend to it. If itis something useful, that is.

Saving it for later often means it gets forgotten about!

However, computers do get turned off from time to time (at least once a day, for example) and if that is the same time that I'm having an idea, then...it explains why there hasn't been much to read lately!

So that's something to work on, too. I wonder what I can do?

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.

New Year's Message

Happy New Year~!

In many parts of the world people are vowing not to eat chocolate and things like that.

As you know, it's often quite soon that they start eating it again.

There may be other things people want to stop (or start) doing, some small, some complicated.

Whatever it may be, they can only do one thing at a time. You can do the same. If you want to change something, just try it one step at a time. Then when you have done the first thing on your list, you will know you have got somewhere. Then you can move on to the next thing.

It's good to have a day that stands for the end of the past and the beginning of the present. Not the future, because we are not all there yet. But living in the present is a good skill to learn! Not wishing about the past, not wishing now could be different. Just living it.

If you find you have started to eat chocolate again (or whatever it was), here is a tip for you. You do not have to wait another year to start again. Some cultures have their New Year on a different date, not necessarily January 1st. So remember that because here is a secret: you can start again any day you want to.

Now is a good time.

My Dream Has Come True

All week I have been reading the weather forecast. In the temperature column I was watching the number "24" (Centigrade)...to see if it would, as usual, turn into "4" when the day arrived (or "-4"!).

Before I went to sleep last night, I had only one wish. It was a simple wish. Please let it be sunny tomorrow - was my wish. Yes, readers, that was the only thing I wanted in my whole life, as of last night! Maybe it is a sign that I have become simple-minded. Shouldn't I have been wishing for a million pounds? A fast car? A swimming pool?

So - my dream came true! And, even better than that, I have just checked the weather page and it says it is TWENTY-FIVE DEGREES! So I got at least one degree more than I was offered!

So now everything has come true, what do I ask for from life? What do you give the man who has everytthing? I don't know, I'm quite happy!

Right, now I'm going back outside. See you out there!

Inspiring

Over the years, lots of people have stolen ideas from me! I don't mind; it is probably not really stealing, exactly, anyway.

I once had a special idea in a piece. It was only about another week before someone else had suddenly had the same idea. Then they later passed on this interest to a friend and soon there was a whole 'school' based on my idea!

I don't regard it as my idea, though. I don't own ideas. Even if I am the first to do something, I don't feel like I create anything. It just comes to me. I have to find it, I am the fisherman. I have to focus it. But that is just my brain working. But the brain is quite a limited wrinkly little organ without the magic special ingredient called...inspiration!

Inspiration is often spoken of, rather lightly or jokingly I feel. An estate agent told me I would appreciate living near the park because it would inspire me to create music. I found that a little bit far-fetched, since it came from an estate agent - someone whose main job is to take my money as quickly as he can, not to advise me on matters of the soul.

But it seems he was right after all. Today I went in the park to find out what kind of piano piece I am writing (for Michael Finnissy's sixtieth birthday) and it was very good to be somewhere more natural to do it. I'm sure there is a special reason for that. Anyway, it helped me to get my idea.

There have been other ideas before. Some of those, people "borrowed"! Sometimes it was a theft, sometimes an influence, sometimes a tribute. Really it is fine.

I suppose I should not be too harsh about this. I was inspired by certain things once - or shall we say, I admired them, and then copied them a little bit for a while, until one day I didn't need to copy anything any more. Maybe it is the same thing at work when I find something a little...familiar...about someone else's work. I suppose that is true. Why they picked me I do not know!

The thing is, if somebody genuinely stole something I came up with, it would be a little bit annoying, but it would not be a hopeless situation. Because I can get another idea. I know where to find inspiration - though I could still forget how, I suppose - and I can go there to find something else useful. But it might seem easier for someone to just borrow what is already existing. It probably is! But it shows a lack of confidence in themselves. Also it is a little bit mean or ungenerous. They are trying to get the maximum result for the minimum effort. If they believed in themselves more, they could contribute a lot! But I suppose they think they have to "fight their own corner", form their own style, make their own money, etc etc.

Well, I could say to them - hey! It's not your money, ideas, style, etc. It is OURS! We should be sharing it! If we like your idea though, we will be nice to you! So you don't have to worry that there will be no reward!

The word "inspiration" comes from Latin. It means to breathe in. I'm not sure why; I didn't invent the word. But it could be worth finding out what it means.

I guess some people already know there is no such thing.

But you and me, we know something different, don't we? My little friends!

Mister Men

Something strange is happening to the Mr. Men!

The Mr. Men is a series of children's books written in the 1970s by Roger Hargreaves, and published first in England. Roger died in 1988 so after that his son Adam carried on writing the books. He still does, but the whole Mr. Men "brand" was sold for a lot of money - so much that if you spent all the money on Mr. Men books and laid them out end to end, they would stretch round the earth five times! (They cost £2 each and I hope I worked that out right!)

Actually, they are worth more than that. They are very good.

I have two that were printed in the 1970s (because I was produced in the 1970s!): Mr. Sneeze and Mr. Funny. At that time, here were the other books you could get:


And, on the front, this is the kind of thing you would see:



Today, the only difference on the front covers is that the signature by Roger Hargreaves doesn't slope anymore. It is upright:

That's ok. Which do you prefer? (PS Mr. Silly looks funny, eh?)

The other changes are not so OK, in my opinion. First of all, look at what has happened to the back cover line-up of Mr. Men. They have all changed! Look at Mr. Funny and compare him with his picture above:



This is not the same Mr. Man! I don't think the colours came out right here, but one major difference is that his gloves aren't the right colour! Mr. Funny's body is green and his gloves are yellow. In the new picture his body and his gloves are green. Hmm, not good I think. Then look at the eyes. This is the most disturbing change. What is wrong with the eyes? Look at them! They are completely different now, and have no character! The bold lines of the original have been replaced by this hideous cosmetic surgery nightmare operation look. Maybe someone thinks he looks more human? Well, these days, perhaps that is true - when so many people in the public eye do have this weird plastic surgery/botox injection eye-look. Is that what it is? Has Mr. Funny had botox??? I don't believe it! He would never do that! This is the man who cheered up all the animals in the zoo when they had colds! But now they would have us believe that he is a fading star of the 70s, clinging on too long to his share of the spotlight and sinking ever deeper into a whirlpool of alcoholism like many before him (Krusty the Clown?)

Hmm. The Mr. Funny inside the books is the same one as before. Perhaps this back-cover image is some look-alike or impersonator they used for publicity material. Obviously Mr. Funny, like Saddam Hussein, is a person of such importance that he has many doubles for use in public work. I understand.

Having suggested that the insides of the books have not changed, I am afraid this is not true in the case of Mr. Dizzy. What on earth has happened to the images? They look like they have been scanned in by dogs. Or hamsters! (They find it harder to operate the mouse. Which wasn't supposed to be a joke. But I suppose you could see it as one if you want). Just look at Mr. Dizzy's edges:


Dear me. That's what it looks like in the book, I am afraid. Not good!

So you see, I am not completely happy with the state of the Mr. Men books today. But I can tell you: if you want to read them, they are all still with us, even if there is something strange on the back, even if there are a few odd things about them today. The insides are the same (except Mr. Dizzy and I haven't checked all of the books so I can't promise everyone else has escaped this treatment).

They come highly recommended (by me). They have been translated into 20 languages, so you should be seeing some near you! In fact, you are reading this in English so I would recommend you look for the English ones. They are the first and best!

Let me know what you think.

Thievery

I've been reading about Stradivarius violins.

They are famous for their sound, but I suppose they are more famous for their value. Of course they have a musical value as great instruments, but because of this they also have a monetary value.

There are up to about 700 Strads around in the world today.

First I read about one of the instruments David Oistrakh (1908-1974) played. He had others but this one is referred to as the "Oistrakh". It was made in 1671.

What did I read next? "Stolen in 1996 and still missing".

Yes, it was stolen and has not come to light.

Read on.

Le Maurien (1714) - stolen in 2002, still missing
Lipinski (1715) - missing since 1962
Colossus (1716) - stolen in 1998, still missing
Davidov-Morini (1727) - stolen in 1995, still missing
Herkules (1732) - this belonged to Ysaÿe, was stolen in 1908 and is still missing
The Ames (1734) and Lamoureux (1735) are still missing

Some thieves know how to steal but do not know how to look after what they steal. Sometimes things go wrong. Other types of accidents can happen too.

Can you believe that very valuable objects can be sold to private collectors, regardless of where they came from, and can be kept hidden?

That's another possibility.

I'm sorry to say that all kinds of things go on in the world, and some of them are not nice.

I'm not just talking about "owners" of stolen property. There are other kinds of illegal hobbies, I would imagine.

There are people alive today who are not nice people. We do not know them, I'm glad to say.

Some people are selfish. And some people are very selfish indeed.

How silly to take things for yourself. Does a fish try to keep its own private water, does an eagle breathe only its own private air? No, they are each free to travel where they can. They share it with many others.

Everything we have on this earth is for us. Not mine, not yours. We can't keep it, we can't just do what we like with it, we don't own it, we have to take care of it all. But it is for us. All of us! Together.

So when you take something and hide it for yourself, you are taking it from...yourself.

It was yours anyway! But you took it and concealed it. And then you couldn't share it with anyone, and that was no fun.

A bit sad.

But we don't have to be sad if we share!

You see? The violins can come out of their cupboards, and be heard. And then we can all hear them, and they will be ours again. Because a human made them. A human just like us. He made them from wood, which was living just like we are now. All part of our world, all knitted together like old clothes. Our world.

Not "me" and "them".

We, us!

So long?

Look at this - ten days since the last information on this page!

Anyone would think there was some kind of a problem!

But there isn't.

I have been rather busy, though.

My dear nice little friends, it is painful to be away from you for so long. I wish I could write every day. When I do, you will know I am quite healthy. Because creative output shows that all is well. We can be even happier when my work-list of compositions needs scientists from NASA to catalogue it. Oh yes, and when I have 11 children (didn't Bach do that too?)

Are you being creative today? It doesn't have to be an oil painting. But you can do something. Create, not destroy - mend or fix something! Give to someone! Give something they really like, would be even better!

More soon - in the blink of an eye. Hopefully the blink won't be too long!