Diana,
I thought your post was insightful and very well
written. As one who values both music and language I
can recognize many of your points. However, I have a
few comments.
DIANA:
It's okay to use your brain while editing and
re-writing, but when you're doing the actual
work, creating words that have never existed
before in this particular order, it's way
too easy to over-intellectualize.
While over-intellectualization can cause one to become
stuck (e.g. writer's block, etc), I think it is just
as detrimental to under-emphasize the participation
that the brain does and should play. Keith, when he
sits to play does not reach into a void to pull out
his improvisational masterpieces. Rather he reaches
into years of experience and experimentation, using
as groundwork his classical training in jazz piano.
As a piano student myself, I realize that
improvisation, by definition, develops spontaneously,
yet only on the basis of what I know. I know where a
minor 7th chord will or will not fit. Consequently, I
use or avoid the minor 7th. Likewise with any other
musical interval. This leaves me still with an
endless array of possibilities which is what we call
improvisation. And though the possibilities are
endless, I cannot grasp even one without a
prerequisite knowledge.
Granted, without any previous training, a child can
sit at a piano and bang on the keys. He won't be
playing Chopin; but this does not mean that Quality
does not exist. However, when you speak of Keith
Jarrett, I assume that the "skill and dexterity" which
he possesses become manifest in an *aesthetic*
Quality. This is built on his training.
DIANA:
If you're a wordsmith, then use words to express
something from your heart. Fill pages and
pages. THEN go back and look at what you've done.
This seems to suggest a divorce of the heart from the
mind. Rather than their subsequent use in phases, I
would like to suggest a simultaneous reliance of the
two upon each other. So when Keith plays, he is using
his knowledge in combination with his current emotions
(heart) and building from that point on. When you
write you don't forget everything you ever learned in
high school english comp. And your subject concerns
that which you know, or perhaps experience. Yet you
use that along with your heart in order to produce
Quality. It is like the analogy to a pair of
scissors. One blade really doesn't do much with out
the other.
I think the failure of some to recognize this comes
from endless repetition until certain ideas and
behaviours are ingrained in our lives. Another
analogy: When I am involved with the physical act of
writing, with a pen or pencil, I don't stop to think
of the spelling of each and every word. I also don't
pause to think of the pencil strokes which are
necessary in order to create the letters. Right now,
I don't have to think about which keys I must push
to type what I desire to say. I think and my hands
respond. So... endless repetition (or practice) will
ingrain patterns into the *sub-conscience* which, I
think is what we have previously left out. The
sub-conscience is often mistaken for the heart.
I could be wrong.
Regardless, Diana, I enjoyed your thoughts. They
certainly brought productivity to my afternoon.
Justin
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