Links
Projects are in development, the weather is improving, and each day presents its own challenges. However, a few quiet moments with the first coffee of the day can put everything into perspective.
Here are some coffee-related links to ponder on this Thursday morning:
1. A man who drinks 25 cups of coffee a day.
2. A look at the dark side of the coffee world.
3. Coffee labor shortages might be on the horizon.
4. Bix Frankonis’ switch from coffee to tea.
Here are some assorted links to get your weekend off to a good start.
10 Motivational Practice Tips: Melanie Spanswick nails it with a list of various things you can do to improve the quality of your practicing, including ideas on process, community, and alignment.
The Uncertainty of What You Should Be Working on Right Now: Leo Babauta’s ideas on how to keep yourself organized are grounded in the Zen tradition, and understand the reality of what it’s like to work in a landscape where everything is always changing. His four ideas:
1. Keep the whole board in mind.
2. Play one stone at a time.
3. Dance with the uncertainty.
4. Leave no trace.
On Making Decisions: Our quality of life depends on making important decisions at certain points in time. Kurt Harden’s advice nails it:
Make the decision. State it out loud and then let it sit overnight. In the morning confirm that decision.
Don’t personalize. Write like a person: I intend to get back to my newsletter really soon and the strong personal tone advocated by CJ Chilvers is what I’ll be aspiring to.
Some thoughts: Timely advice from Rebecca Toh, whose blog has really started to find its stride in the last few months. This idea resonated with me:
Every day adds up to make up a life. Hence the small things we do every day matter.
Finally, a rare but magnificent collaboration between Sviatoslav Richter and Benjamin Britten playing Robert Schumann’s Bilder aus Osten in Aldeburgh (via Anton Nel):
In just under two weeks I’ll be attending and presenting at the Dream Big conference at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Over on the Collaborative Piano Blog I had a chance to ask Laura Loewen and Judy Kehler Siebert a few questions about the festival and its aspirations. This quote in particular is getting me very excited for what will be going on in Winnipeg this February 20-22:
This is the first Canadian collaborative piano conference that we know of, and we feel a responsibility to really honour the art form and set a template for future events. Collaborative pianists so often meet on the sidelines of other conferences or events, and it’s important for us to meet to talk about art and its place in society from our point of view. We believe that we will discover commonalities through our discussions, but we hope we also discover differences that will challenge and expand our ideas of what we can become.
From my examining trip earlier this month, the Covent Garden public market in London, Ontario
Several major projects have come to completion in the last week and I’m absolutely thrilled to be back on the blogging circuit. Expect regular updates here and on the Collaborative Piano Blog.
Some assorted links to start off your week:
On Music - Derren Brown: Derren’s thoughts on the progress of Western music and what was lost through the 19th century are ideas that I hadn’t considered before (via Sovereign Professional):
Bach’s music needs to be unlocked; its emotional content, when discovered, is somehow in and of itself, and uniquely musical. Much of it is deeply confessional. By contrast, Romantic music now seemed to create a broader emotional landscape: that of falling in love, spending a night on a bare mountain, suffering in turmoil or throwing oneself off a parapet. Instead of experiencing those things for ourselves, we are given music that stirs and excites the corresponding emotions within us. Thus the refrains of the Romantics are often more accessible, yielding their power more or less immediately. Those of us who prefer the earlier mode might even say this emotional mode became a mere substitute for experience, and that the unique, private experience of music was diminished.
Useful Laws of the Land: This Collaborative Fund post looks at 8 laws that are applicable to many fields. As a blogger, I learned #4 the hard way, but am still in the process of internalizing #6.
The Pianist’s ABC: Jenna Ristillä’s compendium of 26 items of interest to pianists runs the gamut of things we encounter on a regular basis:
Question, is "pianist" really your profession? Love it. Yes, yes it is. I live in this elitist cultural bubble where my biggest problems are whether Brahms intended the crescendo to begin from the middle or the end of the bar, and am I going to die of poverty and malnutrition this year or the next.
Comments: Rebecca Toh writes about the thrill of getting blog comments, once the mainstay of online discussion, relegated to the margins with the rush to social media, and making a comeback with the return of many of us to blogging.
From the playlists of Detroit/Windsor-based soprano Aimee Clifford, some exceptionally well-aging electronica with Wax’s No. 30003 (B):