Saturday, June 30, 2012

HIATUS? PERHAPS: Music-life...Life-music...


       So, it’s six degrees of everything in my life these days.  I’ve met and begun to work on my record with an incredible pianist named Mike Garson. Yesterday, at the end of our conversation (and without knowing anything about my blog) he spontaneously said he was going to send me his own recently recorded tribute to Rachmaninoff as a possible interlude for the record...which reconnected me to blogging and the desire to write about my journey as an artist.  It is strange to post this and see the last date of entry, reflecting how time passes like a wisp while you are deep in it.  I will fill you in posthumously, lest these six months go unmentioned, so much has happened in regards to my musical journey.  For now, back to Mike Garson and present day...
         Talking with him about music, has thus far, meant talking about life.  Music-life.  Life-music.  I can just hear him say, and me agree, that we are the music and the music is us.  There is no separation of the two.  Yep, that’s the scary part!  But also, it’s the experience I am wanting more than ever to expand on, to know when it’s said and done I moved more completely to that state of being, that authenticity.
         We also talked about the reality that to find a truth you often must go through a thousand lies.  I want to stay centered and true.  Be me.  Sing me.  Allow myself to be revealed, rather than forcing an idea of who I am or want to be.  Because let’s face it, I certainly could list a few people I’d like to be, and therein lies the trouble.  I am not them, and the lies of that comparison would kill my dream.  These are the looming clouds of thoughts I sometimes find myself under that lead me to doubt and disturbance.  They are the lies my own shadow tells me.  A thousand shadows to get to the light.
        This brings me to ponder layers of sound.  Now, more than ever there can be layer upon layer of sound.  When does one stop?  When is it done?   Beware, I say to myself, of falsely believing a sound is there to elevate the song.  Rather pause and ask, am I craving it or creating it to hide me...so that I can only be partially seen under a veil of sound.
        The question of whether I actually know myself, let alone what I’d like to say, has been riding shotgun in my life these last couple days.  And by that I actually mean, that that question is being held to my head by my own deceitful fears like a loaded gun.
        In talking with Mike last night, I have been drawn out of that rabbit hole and into a new realm.  Amazing what a difference it can make when someone you instinctively feel you can trust tells you it’s ok to say “I don’t know!”
        What’s funny, is that it actually isn’t as if I don’t understand that...it’s just, well, like a broken record in my head...sometimes you just need someone to shift the needle to stop the skipping.
        Do I know myself?  That’s the beauty of the journey!  We both agreed, it can also be a scary part of the process, the art; whatever you want to call it.  It’s what being an artist demands.  Sometimes it feels like walking through hell, like darkness, or actually, like being invisible to myself.  Others are talking, listening, having an experience of me but I am in a self-built house of mirrors and cannot see!
        I spent today in my favorite place...the place that feels like poetry.  All my thoughts had an antique, comfortable song to them.  I spoke with friends who like to use words too.  I was reminded how much I love words, poems, films, songs, ideas, painting...ah yes, painting...
        To close I’ll share this, on my birthday I was excited to see the documentary on Gerhard Richter.  To see the process he goes through in creating a painting, hoping to feed my own coffers of reference and inspiration.  He begins.  A blank canvas.  Colors in bold patches set the tone.  Slowly sliding his glass over the colors, with consideration but without expectation.  Again more color, more sliding the glass creating new lines and images.  Pausing.  Getting a sense for it, for where the piece is headed.  More of the same.  And then...stop...he is stuck.  Frustrated actually.  The piece is not indicating it’s finished but he has no inclination of which way to go.  He steps away for a day or so.  He returns.  White!  The entire piece is then covered over with white!  All those colors glimmering under white.  It’s beautiful, perfect and complete!
        I sat in the theater, in awe, anxiously on the edge of my seat.  How could he do that?!  Realizing the trust he must have in himself, no, not in himself, in the art!
        May I endeavor to allow my songs to be white if they so choose!





Listened to whilst writing (amongst others)
Rachmaninoff's...
Concerto No. 2 in C Minor for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 18: II. Adagio Sostenuto



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