Monday, September 26, 2011

I am a master of shoe lace tying.

Human beings are sophisticated and confused creatures.

Here in New Zealand, the confused part comes to the fore in our attitudes towards the so called 'creative arts'. Take facility in music for example. It's commonly understood that participation in music requires something mysterious called 'natural talent' and unless one has this 'gift' then well, its just not worth the trouble. But the acquisition of this facility, to play music, is misunderstood.

My belief is that we are inherently sophisticated enough to be exceptional musicians, all of us.

Acquiring the skills to operate an instrument is not too dissimilar to learning how to tie ones shoe laces - an exceptionally sophisticated act if one stops to think about it... I, like you dear reader, am a master of shoe lace tying. I have done it every day, numerous times, since I was a young child. I come from a family of master shoe lace tiers. Both my parents, my grandparents... this tradition goes back many generations in my family, and I witnessed the act many times every day. It is such a common and ordinary thing that it seems a bit ridiculous to apply words like talent and genius to the act of tying shoe laces. With master musicians I bet it's quite a similar picture. And I would suggest that it is society, not the musician, who feels the need to use these labels.

My bone of contention is that our use of the words 'mastery' and 'genius' are too selective, and that the range of activities we are willing to call 'creative' are too narrow. We are all 'masters' of the things we take for granted because of our inherent brilliance (through repetition) in their execution - writing txt messages, driving forklifts, reading braille, tying shoe laces, preparing food... its a long list.

Of course, making music is NOT as common place as say making a good cup of coffee, and so it seems a special thing, but that is more a reflection of an impoverished culture than our innate ability to do this or that.. Of course there are individuals that will outshine others in every field, but why should that mean that others can no longer participate? I meet too many people who would love to be involved in making music and feel they can't because of some perceived lack, and this is a state of confusion i lament greatly.

12 comments:

  1. Chris, this is a spot-on observation. Mastery of any skill is a matter of putting the hours in. It's less mysterious than the possession of some inherent genius quality.
    Of course, you've gotta be interested enough in whatever thing you want to practice, to put the hours in. So it has to feel satisfying enough to start, and to keep going.

    My current definition of genius is someone who does what they do (whatever the thing is that they alone can do, in the particular way they can do it) to the utmost, fearlessly... Someone who goes further, but with the same shoes on, as it were.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Chris,

    I really like this post as it sums up how I have been thinking in the last couple of years. I think most people have a skewed idea of what talent really is. Like you say, anyone who puts the hours in can become a master of a skill. But there *are* a few lucky individuals who seem to be able to pick things up FASTER than anyone else putting the same amount of time in. That means they can get further in a shorter space of time and gives them the illusion of being naturally gifted... Perhaps they are? That's my interpretation of talent. People who can 'get it' faster than others who are trying just as hard.

    At the end of the day we all have to choose one (or a few) skills to really hone in on if we want to be successful. Not many people want to be a 'Jack of all trades and master of none' as they say. It is indeed surprising how many people wish they could be musicians but 'don't have time' to put in the hours... Some of them become my students, and even though I only give them 15 minutes a day for homework, most still cannot keep up. But we all have 15 minutes spare in a day right? We make sure we have 15 minutes to do our hair and get ready, so surely we can put some time into something else too? The rub here is that after a week has gone by, no one could care less what you looked like then - But if you had studied instead you would have done nearly two hours in total and would be that much better.

    Just my 2c.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like your idea that playtime needs to be well esteemed, as a coffee break is, to really begin to find music as though it is of culture. A percussionist may wonder if espresso machines are inpart noise pollution, eroding the spaces which would perhaps suite music; crayons, and creative colors other than chrome? Down the road here in Dunedin there is a new cafe attached to a market shop which sells coffee in plungers, ambience ensues no doubt . . . but seriously, because words like impoverished and culture are not to be taken lightly in the same sentence, I think you have uncovered an area, as it were, which requires some thought.

    My thoughts are that there is a period of history, in war I think mostly, but also in accounting for the true cost of war, where a part of humanity is forced to think that work, and only more work, will abate the great suffering upon us, caught in this spell we continue to busy ourselves with ever more utilitarian tasks, when the soot has finally lifted, a great preceding tapestry, and network of thought is left unrecognizable, it is the collage of play. Finding ourselves now in tumultuous crowds of unprecedented urgency, of democratic need, and passion with us, how this defining moment is measured is not by the ease with which we breath, but by the breaths which respect and enhance our freedom. Knowing where:


    The isle is full of noises,
    Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
    (Shakespeare, The Tempest 3.2.148-156)


    That which has neither utility nor truth nor likeness, nor yet in its effects, is harmful, can best be judged by the criterion of the charm (χάρις) that is in it, and by the pleasure it affords. Such pleasure, entailing as it does no appreciable good or ill, is play – παιδιά." (Laws)


    Hutia te rito o te harakeke. Kei hea te komako e ko?
    Rere ki uta rere ki tai.

    If you were to pluck out the centre of the flax bush, where would the bell bird sing?
    It will fly inland, it will fly to the sea.


    Further on this lament for play I find Johannes Huizinga, who, with a frightful clarity given the unfolding circumstance in surrounding Europe in 1938-39 when it was written, surmounted this all in 'Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture'. Perhaps one of the most significant philosophical treaties of the 20th C? It is a book which determines that the instinct to play permeates throughout many aspects of culture, music is but one modus operandi of the sphere of play, albeit a rapturous and enchanting one, but for Huzinga the forces of play have a function and are found throughout the walks of life; in law, war, philosophy, poetry and knowledge.

    I am left thinking that perhaps in this confusion you speak of, a latent potential exists to this day in people's ability to define music, or play, as perceived by a culture, for a culture, which has ceased to realize that a need to make music is a need to play, which (unlike certain other motivations I won't mention) is genuinely about people, about people, about people. . . .


    Ki mau nei ki ahau. He aha te ea nut ki tenei ao?
    Maku e ki atu. He tangata he tangata, he tangata.

    If you were to ask me " What is the most important thing in the world?"
    I would reply, its people, people, people.

    ReplyDelete
  4. @Rose - someone who goes further, but with the same shoes on. I like that a lot. Perseverance. Another misconception I encounter a lot is that if you don't start learning music when you are young, you've missed the boat. I love telling 30 and 40 somethings that if they start now and keep it going, in 20 or 30 years they'll be damned good! Exciting new research coming out too regarding our wonderful malleable brains..

    ReplyDelete
  5. @Nic - thanks for your comments! Yes. I think a part of what is impoverished in our culture is the myriad distractions that fill our lives (related I think to the creepy way consumerism plays on our fears/desires), often preventing us from developing a line of research/play/enquiry, that interests us, over an extended period.

    ReplyDelete
  6. @Sean - mate there's a lot there to digest. I've been meaning to check out Homo Ludens for a while - thanks for the reminder!

    ReplyDelete
  7. cool.
    although some people are tone deaf, they should stick to drums. some people have bad rhythm...

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Chris
    This is really similar to stuff I'm looking at relating to public art making.

    From the intro of a book called 'Engaging Art':

    For most of the 19th century the piano was the archetypal cultural hearth of the USA, and a family sing or an informal after dinner performance after dinner was a staple of domesticity. Music like most of the arts (like sewing and preserving food) was considered an everyday skill. Then came the entertainment industry. Participation became Appreciation (at the press of a button). But the 21st century includes technologies that encourage active as well as passive engagement so things are potentially swinging back.

    Just keep reminding people that the 'mystery of art' and the 'art genius', like many other 20th century modernist ideas, are blind to humanity and as such are on the way out (in my opinion). Art as life is far more common in human history.

    thanks for the post : )
    Lily

    ReplyDelete
  9. sorry the arts 'were as everyday as' sewing. The book lists the ability to sing or play music, drawing, writing and recitation of poetry as everyday tasks. People enjoyed drawing pictures to remember things before there were cameras.

    ReplyDelete
  10. @Lily - I hope you are right about the swing back. I'm working in that direction for sure. Thanks for your feedback.

    ReplyDelete
  11. homo ludens is very beneficial, not just for encouraging children to learn through play, or for people of different cultures to play nice, or to know how to get down and play with a dog, but with the whole business, to play with the wind, sail a boat and the wind too is homo ludens. So it is then much more like a metamorphosis, which reminds me of a pictorial version of "The Metamorphosis of Pictor" by Herman Hesse that I saw once. At once our protagonist Pictor is first found in a hood, by page two a tree, by page three the only known is that the ongoing relationship is non-linear . . .

    ReplyDelete