Music
« The lightness of being and of doing expresses itself with humorous traits. Self-mockery and humor have a character of forgiveness which is only possible with emptiness. As a clemency towards oneself, it relativizes all weights on things. Yet, not a thing is taken for granted, the microbe, the leaf, the ant, the sound, or the atom demands one’s full attention with true spontaneity and without aim. With passion, the play strips off one’s self-identification with a purpose, there’s freedom in one’s inquiry into life itself. An inquiry without angst, without direction, without personal goal in mind, without self-centeredness. It’s not that the burden has disappeared, but the bearing of the burden has become seamless. When each action has its own end, without any expectation or demand, one’s truly responsible for one’s action through its enduring. This enduring without reaction becomes a leisure, with endless time to observe, to learn, to see reality revealing itself. Each action is truly new and creative, there’s no hindering caused by the heavy baggage of the past. In society, where the past dominates, one might play a piece of music perfectly with regard to the technicality of the composition, but there’s no creation in that; one’s just a very skilled recording machine that reproduces the technique of a piece. The composition when considered as a fixed knowledge or a standard doesn’t give any freedom and when there’s no freedom, there’s no joy of music and the obsession with technicality and originality becomes torture. But, the joy is essential, and being empty, it’s the ground of creation and when it’s there, the technique can be overcome with the creativeness of passion and the ingenuity of understanding. In that creation, in that passion is the cessation of all seeking and asking, and one’s only playing for the sake of music. When the joy of music is the joy of living, when the self is no more, there’s only the music of life with its unique beauty. Such joy can’t be bought, no amount of training, sacrifice, prayer, or money can bring about this delight. If there’s any ambition, music becomes second-hand, what comes out are reproduced sounds, vain and plain, always a mere and inferior copy of something dead. The urge for the repetition of an experience, however beautiful it was, is always under the shadow of sorrow, with the constant fear that one’s ideals are never attainable. In that, the attraction for sorrow or power is always shallow because there’s no earnestness, no love. »
Excerpt from Wisdom of a grain of sand.
Music is something entirely personal to me. When listening to a piece, if one listens carefully one can hear the composer and the life behind the composition. I’m averse to practice in a conventional sense, i.e. repeating endlessly the same patterns without joy like a machine. I don’t like to put a price or a target for playing music, meaning I don’t play music for anyone. I like the piano very much, and most of the time I play alone, sometimes maybe with my partner or just a friend listening. I stopped recording a while ago. And, every time I play, it’s just improvisation and I don’t know which note I’m going to play next. But, in the flow of the moment, there’s this music that guides you, and that’s passion. You don’t know what’s coming but it still guides you somehow, your fingers on both hands become dancers in a way. Choppy or graceful, it doesn’t matter, you are the music of the moment. Even technicality can be overcome at this point. You don’t need to reproduce what you’ve just played.
I had a plan beginning of 2024 to compose a piano concerto and a symphony because it’s a lot of fun to make instruments work harmoniously together in an ensemble. I have to make a temporary halt right now but it will be resumed, as long as I’m still alive. For the near future, I’ll be making music for a game and maybe a piano sonata.
I like this piece very much:
Sviatoslav Richter plays Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No.5.
A recording from 2017: Painter’s dream