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21:14 - Dec. 08, 2007
on music and freedom
i think i learned violin the hard way. and i think a lot of that was because i started when i was a teenager; when image and ideas mattered more than outer reality. just when the inner critical voice really kicked in, and mine happened to be especially critical... i've had to un-learn all of my perceptions just to get back to the music and it wasn't like an 'ah-ha' moment, it was just easy freedom. i had to forget all about how i look playing, even how i sound, just to find the music again. nothing world-shattering, no big bang, just the music. just freedom. just what i had at the piano when i was a little girl, before i knew how to self-reflect and -judge. freedom. and i've found that music is the best thing for me when i'm lonely. it's a connection i can create with a higher thing than myself, a spiritual experience which fills my heart when it is otherwise empty. and that's why he is so independent emotionally - he has the piano. for me, playing music is something necessary to my being alive. i heard a quote recently about a writer who said that writing - putting words onto paper - was something necessary for survival. and for me it's making music somehow, whether singing, violin, guitar, piano... it's like eating, or drinking or breathing - completely necessary. and i might become a musicologist, or a music theorist, but i know that i will always perform, even if just for myself. perhaps i'll even end up being a baroque violin performer, or an early music vocalist... but i still think the right thing for me to do now is study musicology, specifically early music, and then pursue any performing opportunities which may come next. music is wonderful. really. it's freedom for me still; a world of my own. it isn't about me, or the violin, just music for music's sake. that's how people misunderstand musicians - they see someone moving around on stage, and hear what they believe to be impossible things coming out of an instrument, and latch onto the concept of that therefore elevating the performer, the musician, above themselves. when for the true musician, it has nothing to do with themselves. yes, they've worked hard and yes performing demands a great deal of self-discipline and -understanding, but the performer can't take credit for the music, they're only the instrument. a refined, polished, exceptional one, but an instrument only. but, oh, the wonderful freedom in being an instrument for great music...
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