I keep forgetting I was recently tagged by Ashish. I am rarely tagged, my blog is more like a journal of sorts and hides in the backwaters of the blogging world with an occasional random reader, so I am not too aware of tagging protocol.
I suppose it calls for me to list six of the weirdest things about me. That's a tough one! Only six? That is oh-so limiting! Here's an attempt then:
1. I firmly believe approximate is good enough and I routinely ignore the devil that lies in details.
2. I can wiggle my ears.
3. I am delicious mosquito food.
4. I can sing songs backwards.
5. I'd rather eat my hat (if I owned one) than go to a party of any kind.
6. My brain doesn't work sometimes...like when I got entangled with a blind man's stick instead of anticipating the range of his long stick and skirting around it. I suppose I thought the stick would sense me and the blind man would go around. Well that's what happened...his stick found me!
And I suppose now I am supposed to tag 6 (?) people and tell them they've been tagged? Ok, so I think I'll tag Ranjini, Jyotsna, Ratna, Richa, Smita and Sruthi. Forgive me ladies!
Pragya
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Sunday, July 29, 2007
How Is It Possible?
I sat at the piano keyboard this morning practicing the notes of Raag Bilawal, the first raag that my Indian classical teacher taught me since I started the lessons two weeks ago. I practiced the notes on the piano keyboard and the violin, making every attempt to make it sound pleasing to the ear. But there was only so much of it I could do. I wanted to see if I could try some things on my own.
The song from Shor - इक प्यार का नगमा है - was playing in my head so I decided to try and see if I could figure out how to play it on the piano and I could!! And I still don't understand how I was able to, with such ease and with no prior knowledge. I am amazed and in a strange state of excitement. Child's play to many but it's like learning to walk, or read, or write, for me! I see how excited my daughter gets when she can read a difficult word or spell it unassisted. My level of excitement is comparable. I couldn't have imagined being able to do something like this a couple of weeks ago!
Last week I was able to piece together all the notes to the Do-Re-Mi song from Sound of Music
Although it is easier there, it is more like filling in the blanks.
Makes me wonder what's next and if my teachers can lend some direction to my unstructured experimentation.
Just the other day I was conversing with a friend and telling him how lonely this state is. I don't have anyone around me who can share my excitement or be proud of my achievements (such as they are). Most people my age will wonder at what would seem to be a madness of sorts because they will see it as a futile exercise with no results waiting at the end of the journey. But it isn't a results-oriented exercise for me, it is simply fulfilling and satisfying in a way that nothing else has ever been. But one can't explain that to anyone or hope to meet someone who understands what I am talking about.
Then again, why worry about that? Most of our quests are lonely ones.
The song from Shor - इक प्यार का नगमा है - was playing in my head so I decided to try and see if I could figure out how to play it on the piano and I could!! And I still don't understand how I was able to, with such ease and with no prior knowledge. I am amazed and in a strange state of excitement. Child's play to many but it's like learning to walk, or read, or write, for me! I see how excited my daughter gets when she can read a difficult word or spell it unassisted. My level of excitement is comparable. I couldn't have imagined being able to do something like this a couple of weeks ago!
Last week I was able to piece together all the notes to the Do-Re-Mi song from Sound of Music
Although it is easier there, it is more like filling in the blanks.
Makes me wonder what's next and if my teachers can lend some direction to my unstructured experimentation.
Just the other day I was conversing with a friend and telling him how lonely this state is. I don't have anyone around me who can share my excitement or be proud of my achievements (such as they are). Most people my age will wonder at what would seem to be a madness of sorts because they will see it as a futile exercise with no results waiting at the end of the journey. But it isn't a results-oriented exercise for me, it is simply fulfilling and satisfying in a way that nothing else has ever been. But one can't explain that to anyone or hope to meet someone who understands what I am talking about.
Then again, why worry about that? Most of our quests are lonely ones.
Monday, July 23, 2007
Humming Bourrée
The title of this post has nothing to do with what I am going to write here today. I am just humming bourrée because it is an irresistible tune. I thought it was Jethro Tull's and what a surprise...it was originally Bach's.
Must keep slashing at the musical cobwebs.
Speaking of Bach...it has been a year since I read this passage in Daniel Mason's book Piano Tuner.
The piece began low, in the bass strings, and as it increased in complexity, soprano voices entered, and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard, I am like the puppets moving on their stage in Mandalay. More confident now, he played and the song slowed, and when at last he finished he had almost forgotten that others were watching.
….And so he began again, now D major, now D minor, and forward through each scale, moving up, each tune a variation on its beginnings, structure giving rise to possibilities. He played into the remoter scales, as his old master had called them, and Edgar thought how fitting a name this was for a piece played into the night of the jungle.
That book had moved me beyond words and so had this passage within the book. My knowledge of music was even more rudimentary a year ago than it is now; if one can imagine such a lack of knowledge possible. But this passage where the protagonist is playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in the jungles of Burma was appealing for some strange reasons.
Soon after reading this book I remember investing in an iPod and the first thing I downloaded to it was Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Since then I have listened to it with some regularity and have even been humming some of it (even though this work is often criticized for being a technical masterpiece with zero hummability). But humming it doesn't mean one understands what is going on.
A year ago the only thing I knew about music was the Indian solfege. I didn't understand the configuration of the keys of the piano keyboard and had no idea what anyone meant when they said C major or D major and so on. It was dark and impenetrable terrain. Now there appears to be a tiny clearing in the woods. I know about scales and octaves and major and minor scales, I can attempt them on the piano keyboard and the violin and the Well-Tempered Clavier is as clear as clear can be! I usually let it stream into my ears through the iPod and never know which one's playing and today, for the first time I noticed it started with C Major moved on to C Sharp Major then C Sharp Minor and I could predict that the next one would be D Major!! I was beyond thrilled at the realization! I stumbled a bit when where the D sharp major was supposed to be next but the title said "E flat major" but the stumble wasn't long-lived as soon as I remembered that D sharp and E flat were one and the same.
Now I know what Daniel Mason was referring to in the passage above when he said, "...and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard..."
Now I wonder why I didn't start exploring music sooner...maybe there is a time for everything. Even though all conventional wisdom suggests five is the right age to start exploring music.
When I read Daniel Mason's book any interest in music was still over a year away. But now that I usually have a violin in my hand at least for a half hour every evening, all my bookstore adventures lead me to books on the violin.
The first such book I read was Eugene Drucker's - The Savior. Eugene Drucker is a violinist of renown but The Savior is his debut novel and an amazing one at that. One feels no compassion or sympathy for the protagonist here. His every action, leading up to the primary events of the novel, and as shown through reflective recollections, are laced with deep-seated cowardice in the face of evil. One wonders if he will ever act with conviction. But he is also an accomplished violinist, one who is conscripted for service within a concentration camp to be a part of a cold-blooded experiment...something akin to a predator playing with the prey before administering the lethal blow. As any retelling of the holocaust the inhumanity leaves one stunned and speechless, but the novel takes this one step further by showing how even something like music could be perverted.
Drucker uses the following Shakespearean lines from Richard II, Act 5, Scene 5 as an epigraph to set the tone for his work:
How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Saying anymore about the novel would make this a spoiler, so I won't.
But the reflections and associations that the novel sparked in me left me staggered with the realization that if one had music in ones life then one would need very little else to get by. There would be no moments of indescribable loneliness, no depression, no desire to seek any other forms of distraction. We would move onward from "Aum" and strive for every fractional representation of that one sound and its various combinations and representations as notes swirled and came together, rich with meaning.
Must keep slashing at the musical cobwebs.
Speaking of Bach...it has been a year since I read this passage in Daniel Mason's book Piano Tuner.
The piece began low, in the bass strings, and as it increased in complexity, soprano voices entered, and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard, I am like the puppets moving on their stage in Mandalay. More confident now, he played and the song slowed, and when at last he finished he had almost forgotten that others were watching.
….And so he began again, now D major, now D minor, and forward through each scale, moving up, each tune a variation on its beginnings, structure giving rise to possibilities. He played into the remoter scales, as his old master had called them, and Edgar thought how fitting a name this was for a piece played into the night of the jungle.
That book had moved me beyond words and so had this passage within the book. My knowledge of music was even more rudimentary a year ago than it is now; if one can imagine such a lack of knowledge possible. But this passage where the protagonist is playing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in the jungles of Burma was appealing for some strange reasons.
Soon after reading this book I remember investing in an iPod and the first thing I downloaded to it was Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Since then I have listened to it with some regularity and have even been humming some of it (even though this work is often criticized for being a technical masterpiece with zero hummability). But humming it doesn't mean one understands what is going on.
A year ago the only thing I knew about music was the Indian solfege. I didn't understand the configuration of the keys of the piano keyboard and had no idea what anyone meant when they said C major or D major and so on. It was dark and impenetrable terrain. Now there appears to be a tiny clearing in the woods. I know about scales and octaves and major and minor scales, I can attempt them on the piano keyboard and the violin and the Well-Tempered Clavier is as clear as clear can be! I usually let it stream into my ears through the iPod and never know which one's playing and today, for the first time I noticed it started with C Major moved on to C Sharp Major then C Sharp Minor and I could predict that the next one would be D Major!! I was beyond thrilled at the realization! I stumbled a bit when where the D sharp major was supposed to be next but the title said "E flat major" but the stumble wasn't long-lived as soon as I remembered that D sharp and E flat were one and the same.
Now I know what Daniel Mason was referring to in the passage above when he said, "...and Edgar felt his whole body move toward the right and remain there, a journey across the keyboard..."
Now I wonder why I didn't start exploring music sooner...maybe there is a time for everything. Even though all conventional wisdom suggests five is the right age to start exploring music.
When I read Daniel Mason's book any interest in music was still over a year away. But now that I usually have a violin in my hand at least for a half hour every evening, all my bookstore adventures lead me to books on the violin.
The first such book I read was Eugene Drucker's - The Savior. Eugene Drucker is a violinist of renown but The Savior is his debut novel and an amazing one at that. One feels no compassion or sympathy for the protagonist here. His every action, leading up to the primary events of the novel, and as shown through reflective recollections, are laced with deep-seated cowardice in the face of evil. One wonders if he will ever act with conviction. But he is also an accomplished violinist, one who is conscripted for service within a concentration camp to be a part of a cold-blooded experiment...something akin to a predator playing with the prey before administering the lethal blow. As any retelling of the holocaust the inhumanity leaves one stunned and speechless, but the novel takes this one step further by showing how even something like music could be perverted.
Drucker uses the following Shakespearean lines from Richard II, Act 5, Scene 5 as an epigraph to set the tone for his work:
How sour sweet music is
When time is broke and no proportion kept!
So is it in the music of men's lives.
Saying anymore about the novel would make this a spoiler, so I won't.
But the reflections and associations that the novel sparked in me left me staggered with the realization that if one had music in ones life then one would need very little else to get by. There would be no moments of indescribable loneliness, no depression, no desire to seek any other forms of distraction. We would move onward from "Aum" and strive for every fractional representation of that one sound and its various combinations and representations as notes swirled and came together, rich with meaning.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
The Sound of Creaking Bones in C Minor
Today was my eighth violin lesson. A session that made me forget all my woes from the previous week – the brutal relentlessness of work pressures, the maniacal working habits with results or resolutions nowhere in sight and a rather severe allergic reaction to stress. My fellow student wasn’t with me, summer vacations and grandparental pampering having proven too tempting; the temptation outweighing any interest in producing music.
So I was soldiering on alone.
When I chose this title for the piece it was a random decision, reflecting a certain fascination with the alliterative element. Little did I know it was more appropriate than I imagined; for if bones were to creak as a sad old person sawed away at a violin then it is quite plausible someone could be inspired to compose a musical tribute to this brave soul written in a minor scale!
Funereal music, sadness, depression, wistfulness are all emotional elements for which the minor scale in various keys is the scale of choice: just sharing another little tidbit to further underscore my musical illiteracy and my complete fascination with the things I am learning that I never knew before. I can’t resist documenting my sense of awe even as I picture anyone who stops by to read what I’ve written rolling their wise eyes and saying, “Oh brother, what a nitwit!”
I wasn’t very comfortable at my last violin lesson. The first eight lessons had gone well as I learnt:
The names of each string
How to hold the violin
How to bow
How to tune a violin
How to play a scale
How to play – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play – Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
These are the things that the teacher taught me and my daughter. I did some playing around with the instrument myself and I was able to figure out how to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb and got up to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star…how I wonder what you are. My excitement knew no bounds when I realized I had just completed the song without being taught how to.
I have been trying to supplement my classroom learning with readings and practice sessions of my own where I regularly try to go beyond what I have been taught (I wonder why I never thought of doing this during my student days with things like Physics or Chemistry or Sanskrit for that matter!!)
So, getting back to the last class, I mentioned being uncomfortable. It was as if I had hit a solid wall, an insurmountable mental block. I had taught myself the rudiments of reading music. So when the teacher asked me to open up to the song “Lightly Row” in Anoushka’s Suzuki Violin Book 1 and he started explaining what the ‘#’ sign on a staff meant I thought I would do well with it.
‘#’ means that the key it appears on is played sharp. I could read the staff and tell that the C and F notes were to be played sharp, however I had no idea what string and what finger placement on the violin produced C Sharp! I kept asking my teacher but I felt as if I wasn't clearly stating my concerns, as if he just couldn’t understand my question. I was more than distressed.
I kept practicing at home, starting with the G major scale and then repeating the finger placements on each string. I mistakenly believed that the G that was actually an octave higher was perhaps G Sharp… I had no one to correct me, quite the musical moron.
But these doubts vanished in today’s class and were replaced by ecstasy mingled with fright. I now know that while the piano can get a sharp or flat note by striking an adjacent black key, the violin achieves that effect by playing a natural note higher or lower; by sliding the finger slightly higher or lower than the natural note - altering the pitch very slightly. The ecstasy then, is about understanding the concept, the fright and utter stupefaction comes from contemplating the enormity of this insight. If a piece of music calls for a C sharp how will I ever know where the sharp is and how it’s supposed to sound until I can get the C natural finger position worked out?? The teacher assures me that it will come with ease soon. I say to myself, “Yeah right!”
I learnt how to play the scale in two octaves. I had learnt how to do this on my own but the thing I had been doing now had a name. He also had me practice the G major, D major and C major scales.
I don’t have the words to describe the thrill of learning just a tiny little bit more at each class. The thrill remains even as I realize how roughly cobbled together each new bit of musical learning is in my brain; how it’s coming together - but not seamlessly. Each fresh insight seems brilliant in itself like points of light flashing without any recognizable pattern. I wonder if things will ever really come together for me or if I’ll ever develop any kind of musical intuition but if I don’t it won’t be for lack of trying.
Perhaps it will come with a relaxed stance, a stance that isn’t reminiscent of rigor-mortis-violin-in-hand-warmed-over. My teacher commented on my tense face, pursed lips, a claw like grip on the bow and a short range of motion in the last class. He wanted to know why I was so tense! Is there any way for old bones to not be tense while thinking through the notes that need to be played and where each finger needs to be? It might be a little like walking and chewing gum at the same time and many of us have trouble with that little bit of coordination!
But in today’s class I was complimented on a marked improvement in my stance, my bowing and the development of some ease. Perhaps there’s hope for my creaking bones yet. If the slight improvements and minor adjustments in fingering, bowing and intuitive leaps continue unchecked perhaps the next piece will be about the Gleeful Gliding of the Bow in G Major.
So I was soldiering on alone.
When I chose this title for the piece it was a random decision, reflecting a certain fascination with the alliterative element. Little did I know it was more appropriate than I imagined; for if bones were to creak as a sad old person sawed away at a violin then it is quite plausible someone could be inspired to compose a musical tribute to this brave soul written in a minor scale!
Funereal music, sadness, depression, wistfulness are all emotional elements for which the minor scale in various keys is the scale of choice: just sharing another little tidbit to further underscore my musical illiteracy and my complete fascination with the things I am learning that I never knew before. I can’t resist documenting my sense of awe even as I picture anyone who stops by to read what I’ve written rolling their wise eyes and saying, “Oh brother, what a nitwit!”
I wasn’t very comfortable at my last violin lesson. The first eight lessons had gone well as I learnt:
The names of each string
How to hold the violin
How to bow
How to tune a violin
How to play a scale
How to play – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb
How to play – Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
These are the things that the teacher taught me and my daughter. I did some playing around with the instrument myself and I was able to figure out how to play the rest of – Mary Had a Little Lamb and got up to Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star…how I wonder what you are. My excitement knew no bounds when I realized I had just completed the song without being taught how to.
I have been trying to supplement my classroom learning with readings and practice sessions of my own where I regularly try to go beyond what I have been taught (I wonder why I never thought of doing this during my student days with things like Physics or Chemistry or Sanskrit for that matter!!)
So, getting back to the last class, I mentioned being uncomfortable. It was as if I had hit a solid wall, an insurmountable mental block. I had taught myself the rudiments of reading music. So when the teacher asked me to open up to the song “Lightly Row” in Anoushka’s Suzuki Violin Book 1 and he started explaining what the ‘#’ sign on a staff meant I thought I would do well with it.
‘#’ means that the key it appears on is played sharp. I could read the staff and tell that the C and F notes were to be played sharp, however I had no idea what string and what finger placement on the violin produced C Sharp! I kept asking my teacher but I felt as if I wasn't clearly stating my concerns, as if he just couldn’t understand my question. I was more than distressed.
I kept practicing at home, starting with the G major scale and then repeating the finger placements on each string. I mistakenly believed that the G that was actually an octave higher was perhaps G Sharp… I had no one to correct me, quite the musical moron.
But these doubts vanished in today’s class and were replaced by ecstasy mingled with fright. I now know that while the piano can get a sharp or flat note by striking an adjacent black key, the violin achieves that effect by playing a natural note higher or lower; by sliding the finger slightly higher or lower than the natural note - altering the pitch very slightly. The ecstasy then, is about understanding the concept, the fright and utter stupefaction comes from contemplating the enormity of this insight. If a piece of music calls for a C sharp how will I ever know where the sharp is and how it’s supposed to sound until I can get the C natural finger position worked out?? The teacher assures me that it will come with ease soon. I say to myself, “Yeah right!”
I learnt how to play the scale in two octaves. I had learnt how to do this on my own but the thing I had been doing now had a name. He also had me practice the G major, D major and C major scales.
I don’t have the words to describe the thrill of learning just a tiny little bit more at each class. The thrill remains even as I realize how roughly cobbled together each new bit of musical learning is in my brain; how it’s coming together - but not seamlessly. Each fresh insight seems brilliant in itself like points of light flashing without any recognizable pattern. I wonder if things will ever really come together for me or if I’ll ever develop any kind of musical intuition but if I don’t it won’t be for lack of trying.
Perhaps it will come with a relaxed stance, a stance that isn’t reminiscent of rigor-mortis-violin-in-hand-warmed-over. My teacher commented on my tense face, pursed lips, a claw like grip on the bow and a short range of motion in the last class. He wanted to know why I was so tense! Is there any way for old bones to not be tense while thinking through the notes that need to be played and where each finger needs to be? It might be a little like walking and chewing gum at the same time and many of us have trouble with that little bit of coordination!
But in today’s class I was complimented on a marked improvement in my stance, my bowing and the development of some ease. Perhaps there’s hope for my creaking bones yet. If the slight improvements and minor adjustments in fingering, bowing and intuitive leaps continue unchecked perhaps the next piece will be about the Gleeful Gliding of the Bow in G Major.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Coming Up for Air
Last week I worked like a maniac. I have never spent so many hours on the job. I was working round the clock and every milestone I thought I achieved ended up being a mirage, an illusion. The powers that be changed their minds constantly and the work I was doing appeared to possess a built in obsolescence. I didn’t see how I would ever get ahead and I was seriously questioning my decisions and the choices that have led me here.
Reading this, one might notice the past tense. My near and dear ones, those who are sympathetic to me or have missed me while I had my head buried in the sand would be relieved at the use of the past tense in this writing. But it’s the optimist in me that has chosen to relate it in this manner.
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I am trying hard to believe it won’t be more of the same. I am hoping a prickly sensation won’t spread underneath my skin at the sound of a word like “scenario”. I have to tell myself it is just work, nothing more, nothing less and it shouldn’t under any circumstances suck the joy out of life…like a dementor!
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