AnyaNova Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 So I am both a pianist and a not too indecent poet (I at least, am above "journal entries," and, "moon, june, eat a balloon" style rhymes). I started questioning this when I made a great breakthrough in my piano--turns out, if instead of tilting your head forward and hanging your neck a bit to be closer to the keys, you sit up with really good posture, arch your back a little, and bring your head back, your tone is so much more responsive and alive, and you can actually really feel the keys spring back against you, which really increases your sensitivity and ability to shape a phrase--and I started linking back a little to the sadness of the relationship's dissolution while playing the Chopin Nocturne in Bb Minor (op. 9 number 1?) if memory serves. And I've had a poem I've wanted to write (but know that I need more time and objectivity before I can truly write it well), but right now my main concern is in the music. Do you think that I am at a point where I can use the experience to propel musical expression, or would I be in danger of reawakening old feelings? And if you think it is too soon, when would you think it would be safe to?
Phantomu Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 only you can really know that. If you are questioning it then maybe you are not. Whenever you feel better I think you will know. That's cool you play piano! I do too, but not extremely well or anything. It's just a fun hobby for me and it's a beautiful instrument 1
strive Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 You should watch this. It's an excerpt from a speech given my Neil Gaiman. Basically when things are ****, Make Good Art. 3 Words I Wish I'd Heard When My Boyfriend Cheated On Me 1
strive Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 (edited) [Edit] Sorry double post Edited November 28, 2013 by strive
Grumpybutfun Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 Anya: Expression through art has been the catalyst for some of the most romantic pieces of music, paintings and poetry in the history of humankind. I think that utilizing your gift may open a vein of feeling, but it also can give you an outlet for that same vein too to heal. Intention and purpose will have much to do with how you process your expression, and connecting with your art is always a positive outlet for pain and joy. Good luck, Grumps 1
Author AnyaNova Posted November 28, 2013 Author Posted November 28, 2013 only you can really know that. If you are questioning it then maybe you are not. Whenever you feel better I think you will know. That's cool you play piano! I do too, but not extremely well or anything. It's just a fun hobby for me and it's a beautiful instrument I am questioning, but after having done so (used the emotional material thusly), I'm not sitting here in a hazy mist of tears wishing he'd come back to me. But then again, I guess what I would be concerned about is the repeated exposure. I could see it going two ways, a) The way of emotional material for piano music is, that eventually, you get sort of bored of the material and need "something else" to propel to the same levels (not that you are necessarily consciously thinking about said event while playing, because you need to be concentrating on the playing, its kind of something you tap into before you start, if that makes sense, and then let your unconscious handle while you play). So perhaps if there is any residual pain it will cause me to get "bored" of it and it will disappear completely. or b) The repeated exposure causes me to unconsciously begin hoping again, and then I have to come here and go through all of it again. Again. I'd rather not. He put me through enough. I don't need to go on that particular merry go round again! So tough to decide if it is a risk worth taking yet. The material was working well and I was really shaping the phrases with even more subtlety and depth. But-- Well, we all know the but.
Author AnyaNova Posted November 28, 2013 Author Posted November 28, 2013 You should watch this. It's an excerpt from a speech given my Neil Gaiman. Basically when things are ****, Make Good Art. 3 Words I Wish I'd Heard When My Boyfriend Cheated On Me When I'm back on my own computer (staying at a friend's house tonight, and am on his laptop) that is so getting shared on facebook! Thank you for this. I officially love this. 1
Author AnyaNova Posted November 28, 2013 Author Posted November 28, 2013 Anya: Expression through art has been the catalyst for some of the most romantic pieces of music, paintings and poetry in the history of humankind. I think that utilizing your gift may open a vein of feeling, but it also can give you an outlet for that same vein too to heal. Intention and purpose will have much to do with how you process your expression, and connecting with your art is always a positive outlet for pain and joy. Good luck, Grumps I think this is a good way of looking at it. Perhaps what the solution and trick is, is to ensure that I maintain good self-monitoring. I have long since learned the lesson with the music I listen to, that I have to be really careful. It can be healing to play some sad songs, but eventually, it crosses the line into prolonging and intensifying the feelings, instead of healing them. It essentially for me, can become self torture. I know when I am about to, or have crossed that line. So, perhaps I just need to be sure that I don't cross that line. I'm sure that I'll know if I have crossed it, and then I can learn how to tiptoe up to it and not cross over it. And I guess it seems to me, to, that putting that experience into my art makes it mean something, instead of just being a stupid senseless end to something that (granted, though it would have taken work because cognitively we were complete opposites) could have been really great between us. It is odd now. It is like perceiving that there is emotional content in music without actually feeling that emotional content. I can look objectively at the situation and see that it was sad that it ended when we could be so darn great together, but I also look at it and don't particularly want it back anymore. The plate is un-reconstructible. It is a pile of powder on the floor that can never be put together. The sandwich was shot to smithereens that can't be reassembled into anything worthwhile. So I can perceive that it is sad. But I don't particularly feel sadness anymore (unless I project myself back into the time when I did). Anyway, I think as long as I am careful, putting this experience into something meaningful could rectify some of the senseless idiocy of my whole situation. 1
theothersully Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 Talking pianos a moment, I used to date a pianist before I met my ex wife. She went to Julliard, played at Carnegie Hall, Tanglewood, etc... Sometimes people would whisper and point on the subway... classical music types. I'm hoping you aren't her! lol But I do know the best work, be it art or science, comes from passion or deep emotion. I say go for it. Deal with the fallout later.
Grumpybutfun Posted November 28, 2013 Posted November 28, 2013 (edited) I think this is a good way of looking at it. Perhaps what the solution and trick is, is to ensure that I maintain good self-monitoring. I have long since learned the lesson with the music I listen to, that I have to be really careful. It can be healing to play some sad songs, but eventually, it crosses the line into prolonging and intensifying the feelings, instead of healing them. It essentially for me, can become self torture. I know when I am about to, or have crossed that line. So, perhaps I just need to be sure that I don't cross that line. I'm sure that I'll know if I have crossed it, and then I can learn how to tiptoe up to it and not cross over it. And I guess it seems to me, to, that putting that experience into my art makes it mean something, instead of just being a stupid senseless end to something that (granted, though it would have taken work because cognitively we were complete opposites) could have been really great between us. It is odd now. It is like perceiving that there is emotional content in music without actually feeling that emotional content. I can look objectively at the situation and see that it was sad that it ended when we could be so darn great together, but I also look at it and don't particularly want it back anymore. The plate is un-reconstructible. It is a pile of powder on the floor that can never be put together. The sandwich was shot to smithereens that can't be reassembled into anything worthwhile. So I can perceive that it is sad. But I don't particularly feel sadness anymore (unless I project myself back into the time when I did). Anyway, I think as long as I am careful, putting this experience into something meaningful could rectify some of the senseless idiocy of my whole situation. Anya: This reminds me of William Wordsworth's work Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Great poem. To me it is about taking each experience and seeing it through nature, or art, or life. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born DayIs lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. Edited November 28, 2013 by Grumpybutfun 1
Author AnyaNova Posted November 28, 2013 Author Posted November 28, 2013 (edited) Anya: This reminds me of William Wordsworth's work Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. Great poem. To me it is about taking each experience and seeing it through nature, or art, or life. And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forebode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born DayIs lovely yet; The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. Interesting. I think a similar point (perhaps, though, not the main one, which is different) can be drawn from Naomi Shihab Nye's "Arabic" Arabic The man with laughing eyes stopped smiling to say, “Until you speak Arabic, you will not understand pain.” Something to do with the back of the head, an Arab carries sorrow in the back of the head, that only language cracks, the thrum of stones weeping, grating hinge on an old metal gate. “Once you know,” he whispered, “you can enter the room whenever you need to. Music you heard from a distance, the slapped drum of a stranger’s wedding, well up inside your skin, inside rain, a thousand pulsing tongues. You are changed.” Outside, the snow has finally stopped. In a land where snow rarely falls, we had felt our days grow white and still. I thought pain had no tongue. Or every tongue at once, supreme translator, sieve. I admit my shame. To live on the brink of Arabic, tugging its rich threads without understanding how to weave the rug…I have no gift. The sound, but not the sense. I kept looking over his shoulder for someone else to talk to, recalling my dying friend who only scrawled I can’t write. What good would any grammar have been to her then? I touched his arm, held it hard, which sometimes you don’t do in the Middle East, and said, I’ll work on it, feeling sad for his good strict heart, but later in the slick street hailed a taxi by shouting Pain! and it stopped in every language and opened its doors. --Naomi Shihab Nye Edited November 28, 2013 by AnyaNova C and P editing oddities 2
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