Towards A Theory of Piano Learning

This topic is so all-embracing as almost to defy reduction by categorical analysis; as well as equally hard to distinguish from the bigger picture of aesthetics /theory of performance piano and musicianship in general. Even if one were to succeed in defining such a theory satisfactorily, it would be as dry bones compared to the living breathing emotional reality of successful performance. Thus we may say that ultimately the goal of learning to perform music is to unify the separate aspects of performance (emotional /aesthetic /physical) into a compelling unity of expression designed to enhance its reception by listeners, and – as a bproduct – to enhance the self-awareness, self-confidence and psycho-somatic integration of the performer.

The difficulty in attempting an analysis by category is that the emotional /the aesthetic / the physical cannot be considered in isolation from each other. Nevertheless, as a shorthand we can consider issues within these topic areas:

Physical

• Dexterity: velocity /finger control /gestural expressivity
• Dynamic balance
• Energy
• Fitness (maintaining muscular health)
• Musical sensitivity (restraint)
• Rhythmic poise

Mental – subdividing into Æsthetic

• Awareness of cultural /historical context and style
• Conscious detachment /overview /pacing
• Literate fluency
• Memory development & recognition
• Musical sensitivity
• Rhythmic poise (ability to keep in time with others)

– and Emotional

• Emotional depth
• Experience /maturity
• Conscious engagement: intention /attitude /focus

• Memory (releasing emotional blocks)
• Musical sensitivity & responsiveness
• Psychological acuity
• Rhythmic poise (there is a direct correlation between positive ego development and rhythmic self-confidence**)

The next question in relation to a theory of learning is teleological. If there  is an endpoint, what is it? How far is an individual student interested in and capable of developing?
    When people come to me I form a view fairly early on (based on my experience and intuition) about what musical style is likely to engage them as they reach ‘years if discretion’ and also how important this is likely to be to them, and then endeavour to place them on a trajectory that is scaled to these perceptions. At it’s most basic this might be the ability to play 12 bar Blues, at its most extreme to enter music college with a view to a career. The requirements for each end of the spectrum are different only in degree, yet all need to be grounded in developing a love of making music and the physical skills to do it to a level in a way that feels natural and satisfying to the individual.
    I have a saying that ‘all music needs to work for a youngster in the playground’ (in terms of earning the kudos of their peers) for that is what keeps motivation keenest. The significant factor here is that the dynamics of the playground at St Johns CofE Primary in Tisbury function very differently to those of Wells Cathedral School. Yet the principle is the same, I believe.
    It is all too tragically easy for love to be squeezed out of the picture by the demands of developing technical excellence, and the whole ’scientific education’ mindset has a disastrous bias towards assessing the quantification of musical performance (technique /accuracy) ahead of its qualification (emotional depth). Only those who have true greatness of soul overcome the mean-ness (averageness) of professional music training, by refusing to surrender their focus of love and motivation. [The same is true in medical training and almost anywherelse using the Western scientific model of education.]
    ** I saw a fascinating examples of this process at work when I taught at the Junior Royal College of Music. I would notice that by the age of 17 (our top year) some of the most highly-educated boys had become almost completely divorced from their own sense of body rhythm, under the pressure (& very possibly, inclination) to prioritise intellectual learning above emotional integration. This phenomenon was far rarer in less educated boys, and almost entirely absent in girls.
    [There are other very interesting gender differences I have observed in the 20 years I've spent piano teaching: notably the way in which emotional issues arising from instinctive engagement with dexterity & tool use in boys/men is almost entirely absent in girls/women. In simple terms: I've encountered boys crying and men becoming angry when encountering handicaps, which I've never seen in the supposedly emotional gender!]
   
Because of the immense complexity of the issues to be mastered and the individual’s own unique psycho-somatic (dis/)advantages there can be no single pathway to developing the desired skill level since no two individuals have exactly the same needs. Some will have difficulty reading music, but none with dexterity. Some vice versa. Some will be challenged by a range of possible physical deficits, the most common being a dyslexic reversal of left-right &/or high-low, weakness of fingers, finger address, etc, and thus be frustrated from realising the mental vision they have of the music – while others posses intuitive gestural memory, excellent auditory responses, perfect pitch, and the necessary intellectual capacity to handle a high level of complexity.

Early stage learning involves A) music-reading, B) physical coordination, & C) a sense of metre – yet it is impossible to predict the way/s in which beginners will or should acquire them, as learning has to be led by what the pupil finds easiest with the other elements receiving remedial attention to keep them in balance.

For me the virtuous circle of the learning experience is to engender 1) rapid progress, by small graduated steps, which creates 2) a sense of achievement, leading to 3) enthusiasm; which then return as 1) accelerated progress, etcetera.

Broadly speaking I see the key stages as follows
1. G1 basic musical competence
2. G5 modest amateur achievement
3. G8 high amateur attainment
—
4. Music degree - professional musical competence
5. Public debut recital or acceptance into recording/performance scene
6. Solo work
7. Acclaimed mastery
    Most people I teach won't get beyond KS2, a few to KS3. In my present position if I can deliver them to KS4 then I've done my work.

For further reflexions on the learning process see http://msteer.co.uk/edu/1ndexEdu.htm

Why I w/couldn't teach a friend

Dear L
    Here's a slightly more serious answer about why I find it very hard to teach adults piano.
   Their learning process is totally different to kids. Kids know they don’t know and have no issues around being told. Adults think they know (or feel inadequate if they know they don’t know) and have big issues around being told!
    If you can find a kid’s blue touch paper and set it alight s/he will go like a rocket, regardless of how much else they have on. That simply doesn’t happen with adults, and you have to smile sweetly when they tell you they haven’t been able to practise, but the reality is that they're not sufficiently engaged to prioritise the activity.
    I also think it would be a mistake to teach someone I know socially, as it might well contaminate both relationships. I recently turned down a 'Dad' I’m very friendly with recently for that reason. There are also fascinating differences in male /female learning patterns which make the former a lot harder to teach as their brains are hard-wired to tool use (seriously!) and they have tremendous ego issues around dexterity, which women simply don’t have.
    Also a teacher needs that small bit of leverage that being a stranger provides, which is lost when you’re mates and the pupil can take the piss without fear of retribution.

There’s a further thing I've discovered and that is I've not succeeded in teaching non-literate musicians. My attempts have been fascinating encounters in which I've learnt a tremendous amount about the raw structures of memory within the brain; and how, in the absence of literature, strophe is the natural form of memory storage and retrieval. But my mind doesn’t work that way, and you need a teacher who is immersed in the world of intuitive music-making, because the last thing you wants is to get hung up on trying to read dots when all you want to do is play.

Great fun with you guys on Friday night; and I don’t want to spoil a good friendship.

Brhadaranyaka Upanishad - Book 4. Chapter 3

This extraordinary passage follows on from the previous post. The word Brhadaranyaka means literally Œdeep forest; by which one is to understand that it embodies an esoteric wisdom appropriate to those who have differentiated themselves from the common herd, but also as an Upanishad, or
song of praise, that it should turn meditatively in the mind, mindful of the great Mind by whom it was inspired.

7] What is the self, Yajñavalkya?
Among all the senses there is an inner consciousness which consists of intelligent understanding, like a light within the heart: this is the self. A constant presence, this consciousness, which ultimately transcends death, moves freely between the two worlds in sleep, transcending our physical constraints by appearing to contain both the power of thought and movement.

8] At birth this consciousness is formed within temporal reality. At death it relinquishes it. 
9] This consciousness has two states: that of this world and that of the other world. Yet there is also an intermediate state, the twilight world of sleep. From it we see the other two, this world in which we live now, and the other world that is beyond it. Entering the intermediate /dream state we see into the other world and encounter both positive and negative messages.When you fall asleep, you carry with you all the matter of your waking experience. (But within dream) it is actually your own self which creates and destroys whatever appears. And here the light of your own consciousness is your guide.


10] There are no chariots, no distances, no roads; yet within there appear chariots, distances and roads. There are no joys, no pleasures, no delights (yet you experience them nonetheless). There are no baths, no lotus-pools, no rivers; yet you find baths, lotus-pools and rivers - for your self is the creator.

11] On this there are these verses:
In sleep you sift and blend physical sensations: 
and conscious in the world of dreams you see all. 
Like a lonely crane on a long flight you absorb 
this pure energy and so return to your body transformed.

12] Having placed protection around your earthly nest (your sleeping body) 
you are free to soar to the realm of the immortals. 
Wherever you choose to go you are that high-flying bird 
searching for transcendence and transformation.

13] In dream you visit both heavens and hells with the powers of a god – 
amazing the manifold forms of which you’re creator. 
You take your pleasure with partners, laugh – 
or else encounter nightmares: everything appears real. 

People you know may appear in this world at your pleasure: but you they never see.

14] They say you should not waken a deep sleeper - for someone whose spirit doesn’t reunite with hir body can become deranged. Some claim there’s no difference between sleep and waking – for one sees similar things whether awake or asleep – yet everything you see in sleep is created by your own imagination.

Worthy sir, continue! said King Janaka. I will give you a thousand cows for guiding me toward liberation.

15] Serene in sleep, you follow your bliss and encounter many experiences, both good and bad, yet before returning to your body you will have encountered truth (whether you recognise it or not). Here whatever you see does not imprison your soul, for this state is free from all attachments. 17] Awake, you [also] follow your bliss and encounter many experiences, both good and bad, before returning to your dreamworld. 18] So as a great fish swimming freely hither and thither between the banks in sleep your consciousness swims freely between the other world and everyday life.

19] Eventually, as an eagle tired after a high flight folds its wings and swoops back down onto its nest, so too this inner self hastens back to your sleeping form, desiring nothing further and forgetting what it has seen. 
20] A 1000 times smaller than the arteries (hita) of the heart are the meridians down which the body’s energies run – [which we call] white, blue, yellow, green, and red.
Now when it seems you’re about to be killed, or captured, or chased by an elephant or that you fall into a pit this is only the ignorant mind reliving waking fears – but when, like a god or king, you experience wholeness then that is the highest state of being. 21] This is a person’s deepest place, beyond desire, free from evil, free from fear.Just as someone making love to their partner is oblivious of everything else, so in this inner embrace of self and soul humans experience the fullest wisdom of which they're capable. Here all wishes are fulfilled for one is preoccupied with the transcendent self alone, and thus having no material desire no sorrow follows as a consequence.

22] Here the father is no longer a father, mother no longer a mother, ecstasy no longer ecstasy, the Vedas no longer Vedas. There a thief is no longer a thief, an abortionist no longer an abortionist, an outcast no longer an outcast, a mendicant no longer a mendicant, an ascetic no longer an ascetic. Each one now attracts good not misfortune, for all are beyond heart-sadness.

23] Tho in this state your eyes cannot see, yet in your inner vision there is no distinction between seer & sight since both are part of one integrated being. For there is nothing else, nor can anyonelse see what you see.

25] Tho in this state your cannot taste, yet in your inner world there is no distinction between taster & what is tasted, since both are part of one integrated being. There is noonelse to taste anything.

27] Tho in this state you cannot hear or speak, yet in your inner world there is no distinction between what is heard & what is spoken, since both are integrated. Noonelse can know what has been uttered.

28] Tho in this state you cannot think or touch, yet in your inner world there is no distinction between thinker & thought, or toucher & what is touched, since both are one integrated being. Noonelse’s senses or understanding is involved.

30] Similarly, encountering wisdom within oneself is an indivisible experience. 31] When someonelse is present you can compare your comprehension of what you’ve experienced. 32] But in great ocean of dreams you become one unified being, without duality: this is the world of Brahman (universe /universal consciousness). This is at once the highest path, the highest attainment, the highest reward and greatest satisfaction a human being can know. It is this bliss from which all other activities borrow: yet in those, people declare themselves thrilled by the merest fraction of what can be encountered within.

The Great Symphony

This is a sequence of dream and interpretation posted on https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/The_Dream_Catcher/. It began with my dream.

The earliest written music is being rehearsed in a large gothic church or cathedral. It’s very light with lots of sunlight casting patterns & colours of the windows on the floor. The piece is, or begins with, the chords G Em G A. I am in an organ loft while it is played by an orchestra in the nave below. I have a score but it is indecipherable. However having heard it rehearsed I figure the chords. The conductor stops the orchestra to complain that theyre not nearly loud enough so I pull out all the stops (which are arranged in a very strange way in little groups all around the organ cabinet) & join in with full organ when they start again. I play a wrong note in the pedal but luckily the conductor is too busy correcting the orchestra to bother with me.

It felt very exhilarating to combine successfully at full blast since organs are normally a played solo (I am, or was, and organist) even if I made a slight slip. Why is the conductor (the facilitator) remote? Evidently not integrated, tho he has the ability to ‘orchestrate’ the whole thing.

Guy Huntington replied to a further comment:

I am an energy soul who inhabits a body and not a body that has a soul.  There is a difference.  If we are souls who inhabit bodies than we exist at other energy vibrations at the same time as we lower them to occupy our bodies. This is a very different perspective from folks who think their body is the main vehicle and that they have a soul that is freed after death.

I am also being taught that we carefully construct our personalities before we incarnate.  We effectively wear “belief suits” that filter our reality and “creates” our version of reality.  These suits effectively make us forget who we really are.  Somewhat ironically, we then spend each incarnation struggling to recall who we are.  That’s the point of the earth plane we live on. It’s like a gigantic test lab for ourselves to learn about choices we make.

Dreams play a big role in this.  They continually let us know who we are i.e. the spiritually “bigger” us.  From my perspective, we come from our dreams.  We occupy many different universes simultaneously.  Our ideas, creativity and modelling probable realities all occur in our dream state.  

Regarding music, Paul Mccartney woke up one day with the song “Yesterday” all composed in his mind.  He had to create the words BUT the music was all there.  In my perspective, he choose a set of beliefs to create his personality where he was more “in tune” with himself!  He would let music creativity flow through him from the other vibrational levels to his physical self. 

My take is that many people have very “narrow” or “tight” or “restricted” belief filters that effectively block out most connections with their greater self. They then are left to sort of wander around the dreamscape trying to make sense of it.  These folks interpret their reality from their physical bodies point of view.  AND, it is a a TRUE REALITY for them since that’s what their belief filters produce.

So, from my perspective, music, creativity et al comes from our dreams.  There we play, create, test out realities, etc. What we recall from our dreams is limited by the “belief suits” each of us is wearing.  

To which I responded

Guy¹s comment is one of the most concise, coherent and meaning-full summaries of ultra-consciousness I've read. I've lived my life as what (for want of a better description) might be called an intellectual visionary, a person of faith who is also an intense rationalist. I¹m a scorpio: my blessing/curse that I always have to know why.

After nearly 30 years studying my dreams I am convinced they are Œthe missing manual¹ supplied at birth, but cast aside during the acquisition of conceptual skills. If we can master what Marie-Louise von Franz calls 'the puzzling Chinese nonsense' we can learn to return to the perceptual language of our birth, and throu reenter mystical union with all-that-is.

As a meditative exercise recently I made my own version of the Tao. And #28 is a  relevant paragraph.

Wood grows as a natural resource:
when cut it can be transformed into objects, tools, paper.
The intelligent see the underlying unity of all matter and make use of its many forms, without attributing uniqueness to any one manifestation.
When we accept nature on its own terms the great circle is complete.

But that isn't what made me write this response. It is that despite intense skepticism I am driven increasingly by cumulative events & my own half-memories to accept the truth of the cardinal principle Guy articulates. If we have come to feel clearly that the universe is not a morally neutral space (by which I mean to say it is zoophilic, it nurtures animate life) and that there is both a unifying principle and evidence of a creative dynamic which manifests in twin channels, evolution and love, then to me it makes complete sense that the Consciousness which it embodies would also have provided a means to decode our relationship with our existential environment. 

But I also believe that this Power is Œ'dumb'. It exists as a molten stratum of Mind, like our unconscious, which lacks the power of differentiation and articulation, and can only manifest in the material world throu animate lifeforms. And thus like we humans can only truly come to know itself by the reflexion others feed back to it ­ be that by affirmation or indifference. It is in this sense that we are co-creators of the universe: for if we feed back affirmation (what used to be called worship) we give rise to positive energy ­ as-it-were solar radiation ­ in our environment; whereas if we feed back indifference or hostility we are diminishing that very Power which could alleviate the very isolation we assert. (Isn't it interesting that self-absorption is actually like the energy of a dark hole preventing the emission of light?)

In a work-in-progress about Dreaming and Consciousness I've written this: 

The Inner Otherness is Œthat of God within¹, the radioactive core within the psyche over which the Ego can never claim ownership. It is also the Œ'not-I' at our deepest point wherein lies our intuitional link to all that is beyond rational understanding.
Also to be observed within this sphere are the subconscious roots of the Ego, which is commonly call the Soul, described by Jung as the (true) Self. Much that is problematic in a person¹s conscious life has its origins in unacknowledged disharmony between these components of the deep unconscious.
The Mundaka Unpanishad (c.1000BC) depicts the relationship between these elements of our bicameral consciousness as being like two birds sitting on the same branch, one attracted to bright objects in its surroundings, the other content to express itself throu song. Thus we have an image of the  characteristic that separates homo sapiens from all but its closest genetic relatives: the competing demands of inner & outer-directed perception. Many writers see life¹s big issue as being the encounter each of us faces (or avoids) between the ego /I and the inner otherness, the 'not-I' from which alone can flow an authentic and harmonious balance between them.

I agree with Guy, the ego comes with the body: it¹s the Œintel inside¹ that
coordinates and manages the vehicle in which the true I (what Jung called
the Self) reposes for its earthly transit. Hence the number of dreams about
motion in the many forms of conveyance we know today. The more one
penetrates the symbolic language of dream the more one has a sense of
soul-experience not being limited to a single lifetime or a single
consciousness.  

Id like to conclude this far-too-long email with an extraordinary passage
from Book 4. Chapter 3 of the Brhadaranyaka Upanishad c.4500BC. The word
Brhadaranyaka means literally Œdeep forest¹; by which one is to understand
that it embodies an esoteric wisdom appropriate to those who have
differentiated themselves from the common herd, but also as an Upanishad, or
song of praise, that it should turn meditatively in the mind, mindful of the
great Mind by whom it was inspired.

Giving and receiving Gifts

It's a strange thing to find oneself with the power to create beauty yet be unable to get it to land in the outside world - as each of you may know - when so much rubbish lands so easily.

I seem to have found the power to help others make things happen (which feels an awful lot better than making nothing happen) yet I can't translate this into working for my core reality - which at nearly 70 you'd think I should be able to. In all my many setbacks I've always taken the wily route of the survivor and used my belief in my ultimate victory /vindication as a source of energy. This, whatever it is, is very much bound up with my sense of calling (/dharma) & that 'inner otherness' where ideas arise, which in turn is part of the experience for which there is no alternative to the word God.

I feel a duty (/dharma) to deliver this 'thing' in my lifetime; indeed I feel giving this gift to an indifferent world to be the purpose of my life, and it has therefore always been incomprehensible to me that there should be so many barriers. But what doesn't kill us makes wilier.

When I was young the inability to communicate my vision made me angry and when this energy didn't work it resulted in deep depression. In describing my life as a crescendo of happiness, the main component of  this change is figuring out what happens under the bonnet & seeing how to wire up different bits of experience to produce the results that you want. Learning how others learn (AKA teaching) & acquiring the bizarre mixture of soft skills necessary for running Cherubim have shown me how to articulate what people want but can't articulate for themselves. This is perhaps the real meaning of service.

From all this I see that most people don't understand what is in their own best interests - and that even what is ultimately good for them must be patiently spoonfed. Which can all be intensely frustrating since even the slightest hint of impatience produces a negative reaction & takes you back to square -1, unraveling everything woven to date. Yet it all feeds back into the best advice I know: don't get mad get even. If you fail, learn the deep lesson/s and then you'll be ready when the cycle comes round again.

I really did think that the BBC choral carol competition had my name on it - but the result proved yet again that people can't see what they can't see. I feel there are deep karmic issues here for me, which I've been working throu my entire life. When I was 13 and contemplating suicide because of my total inability to communicate my inner (musical) world I had a strong sense that I'd already done that once, and that the only consequence was that I d been sent back to try again - and that if I did the same thing wd happen again, yet at the same time I was shown that at the end of my life people would accept from me what they cdnt hear then. And that is broadly proving true.

All karma means is (right) action. Each positive (truthful) action we take eventually builds up into a wave of energy within us that is ultimately unstoppable (alas the opposite is also true, which is why we have to be constantly alert). This business of grounding my inner vision/audition in the outer world is my last uncompleted life assignment. Why it shdv been so hard Heaven alone knows - but When I've completed it I shall be free to drift off to where  I shall be able to understand the reasons (if there are any)!

There are many verses from the Psalms that have stayed with me but one has always fortified me on the sometimes stony path "yea I had almost said even as they, but then I should have condemned a generation of thy children." At the time I was nowhere near such prospects but I took it as an encouragement that my struggles were about overcoming things that were of significance to more than just me - if I could do it Id open a door that would make it easier for others.

I feel I've already composed a lot of the music I'll be remembered for, and that when it comes out it'll have an uplifting power which will help to define a new era and lead this rotten age to wither away - but /& that it may be the very blindness which grips this generation that blocks my path. It is hard to stay open-hearted when the gift you offer is ignored but (as outlined above) that is the game, if you butt out of your only chance of winning your prize.

There is no other choice but love. I used to think the universe a hostile environment but I've realised that all it does is mirror back our own face/s. Presently we've constructed the most hideously greedy face which our environment is faithfully mirroring back - yet I've come to see that evolution is love in action,& vice versa. So I know that change is possible. What my music /life is is just a tiny contribution to that process. I have to leave the timing of its entry to the great conductor.

These are thoughts from the wee small hours, caused in part (if not entirely) by wind arising (or descending) from a delicious raw red cabbage and nut salad. I hope they may be useful to others experiencing the same things.

Authenticity and the use of Folksong

In the last couple of days I've been remastering a recording I made 10 years ago of my settings of 12 of Rilke’s Sonnets to Orpheus; and this has given rise to certain thoughts in relation to the significance of using ‘folksong’ – by which I mean stylistic allusions to a ‘ready-made’ /identifiable idiom which is distinct from a composer’s/my own. (These thoughts are largely restricted to an English cultural perspective, because that is the only one I have intimate knowledge of.) I’m interested in pondering it because I’m trying to reach the nub of an issue that really intrigues me. I have a hunch that (use of) folksong is a kind of nexus between the ‘private property’ of personal musical idiom and ‘collective ownership’ of the vernacular idioms of mass market music.

I see the classic use of folksong by Vaughan Williams et al as representing an Arts & Crafts dream where Æsthetic Socialism meant an engagement with the proletariat by those of privileged education, from/by which the middle-class composer acquired an 'authenticity by association.’ But VW especially – his associates to a lesser extent – represented the privileged Edwardian upper-middle-class where there was little competition for personal space and thus there is an argument to be made that they used folksong-like material as a bridge for the public to enter their personal space. (A Marxist critic might say that it was their way of colonising a ‘public’ space; but I don't think that does justice to VW's breadth of vision.)

For composers who entered music during the interwar years not only was the ‘marketplace’ considerably more crowded but Modernism had swept away most of the patrician assumptions of the preWW1 generation, and thus altho someone like Britten played the folksong game to brilliant effect in works like Noye's Fludde, other less astute musical politicians such as Rawsthorne felt it compromised rather than enhanced their authenticity as modernists. After WW2 one gets the explosion of serialism championed by Glock and led notably by Birtwistle. True to his modernist roots he uses little actual folksong but instead grounds his soundworld in a self-referential mythic imagery of feeling-archetypes.

I was never attracted to the post-Darmstadt modernism in which I grew up, and for me the search for authenticity came throu the English Choral Tradition. Altho I don’t have a useful singing-voice I am much more engaged by the parameters/epistemology/limitations created by the human voice and the scale it imposes than I am by instrumental mechanism which, while it liberates the imagination, also tends towards a gigantism or inflation, in the Jungian sense, and ultimately to the potentially-ungroundedness of synthetic music, which much engaged me prior to 1990.
   
In Sonnets to Orpheus I do not use folksong, but I do use q a lot of musical material which is designed to evoke ‘ready-made’ feeling/s-references (which, in terms of musigue concrète would be called non-musical sound sources) that are intended to have psychic resonance for an audience - just as Rilke does with his quicksilver vocabulary of allusive images. As my own musical imagination works more in sound images or word-sense images than as a linear narrative (which is why I’m not much drawn to composing abstract music) – when composing I know when my psyche is fully grounded within my material because I can feel clear mental images throu music /sound. That, for me, like dreams of which I’m intensely aware, counts as communion with my inner otherness – what Quakers would call ’that of God within’ – and is its own reward for the travails of composition.

This is why I feel radio is almost my natural medium. After all on radio any sound has to convey exactly what you want otherwise it fails entirely. My most fully-achieved, and final, radio composition Notes From Janàček’s Diary  is full of ready-made sound images, and I would’ve hoped to continue developing those ideas, but it was not to be for all sorts of reasons.

Having thought about this subject a lot recently, I would say that folksong and ready-mades are part of a process of searching for authenticity, a composer locating within hirself the ‘private property’ of personal truth that has the communicative power of the vernacular, ie evokes the broad outlines or ‘over-simplicities’ of popular music.

Obviously all music worthy the name is about that process. But there is something about folksong which has that quality of presence that is Orpheus for as long as the music lasts. It is music that speaks from the unus mundus, the timeless inner world of the eternally present, a place of indivisible wholeness of the soul – music that appears unmediated by intellect and communicates without artifice uniting all in a common experience. I don’t see folksong as needing to be anonymous: any popular song that enters the truly-public domain (EG, football chants, hymns songstrels such as Lennon & McCartney) counts; notwithstanding ‘private

The myth of Orpheus is central to all music – the idea that  there is actually only one voice who speaks throu each and every songsmith-composer, making whomever the gods choose to be their mouthpiece 'for as long as the music lasts' in its given context. Thus ‘Orpheus' is the impulse within any lyric musician who opens himself to bring forth song from the heart alone.

A further question (which is part of it, but I must stop wasting time by thinking about now) is what is meant by ‘vertu’ or the energy /innergy of authenticity. Perhaps in the sense found in the Tao.

Eliane Radigue - Kyema

Listening to this was a truly transformative experience. I had known vaguely of Eliane Radigue, but had totally forgotten her name. For some reasons I was impelled to google her this morning, while writing to another musician about the relationship between personal musical authenticity and the use of folksong. There is within Kyema an epic archetypal experience which I can recognise despite it being quite at odds with the aesthetic I have evolved in the 25 years since I was working with acousmatics myself.
Discovering Eliane Radigue's work is very much the beginning of a new journey for me.

Tao Te Ching 81

True words may not always be beautiful:
Beautiful words may not always be true.

Those who do good often prefer not to discuss it:
Those who prefer words usually have little to show for it.

Those who have figured out the Tao are rarely learnèd:
The learnèd often miss the bigger picture.

The enlightened don't worry about financial security.
   The more they help others: the richer they grow.
   The more they give: the more they're given.

The universal principle of cosmic energy flow always acts beneficially and never harmfully.
The deeds of one who follows this path should always be cooperative rather than competitive.

Finis. SGD.

Tao Te Ching 80

In a small country with few people it hardly matters how many weapons they have because they're not likely to use them on each other.

If there was concerted opposition to military systems and arms manufacturers there would be less refugees.

Instead of traveling all over the world by road and sea …
Instead of flaunting massive military muscle …
> Why not adopt a simpler lifestyle –
   enjoy your time on earth,
      admire your neighbours' frugality,
         and exist contentedly in your own community,
            making the best of available resources.

Establish good relations at local and national level …
   Enjoy the expansion in friendliness this opens up …
      Respect each others' right to exist.
          Don't imagine anywherelse is better than where you are now.

Tao Te Ching 79

At the end of a bitter dispute there will be ill-feeling.

Is there an alternative?

The enlightened may well be in the right,
but they would be well advised not to demand everything they're entitled to.¶

Let those who possess innergy* demonstrate their magnanimity:
Let those who possess none demonstrate their mean-mindedness.

In the great cosmic scheme of things…
   those who restrict the flow of energy will find ever greater restriction;
   while those who speed it onward will find every greater innergy.

*spiritual energy

¶ In China loan contracts were written on wood or clay tablets which were then broken in two, with each party retain half. To enforce or discharge a debt both halves had to be produced together before  cancelation or enforcement.

Tao Te Ching 78

Nothing in the world has less substance than water.
Yet nothing is better at wearing away adamantine rock.
   Nor can anything replace it.

People see this
   yet are incapable of learning this lesson
      or putting it into practice.

The enlightened person is …
… a whistle-blower who sees corruption and is outcast as a result of refusing to be drawn into it.
   S/he is the moral compass of the nation.
… someone who works selflessly to alleviate the effects of government action on the dispossessed.
   S/he is one of a beacon for the world.

Truth often lies within a lie:
   Lies are often masked by truth.

Tao Te Ching 77

The Tao is like the bow of heaven.
   When drawn, its top is bent down, its bottom bent up,
   and what was slack is tightened –
   creating the power where previously there was none.

The principles of cosmic energy flow
take resources from the strong to give to the weak.

Human ideas of energy flow take
   from those who have nothing
   to give to those who have most.

Who is qualified to offer the world spiritual riches?
   Only someone who understands Tao.

S/he alone can act without illusion,
   achieve objectives without demanding credit,
      and requires noone's permission.

Tao Te Ching 76

Alive, the body is soft and mobile:
Dead, it becomes hard and static.

All nature is fertile and flexible when alive,
becoming dry and rigid in death.

Whatever is dry and rigid brings tends toward death:
Whatever is fertile and flexible springs with life.

Thus, an inflexible army cannot win.
A large hardwood will be harvested.
A dominant personality doesn't always come out on top,
and may find a gentler more adaptable person prefered.

Tao Te Ching 75

If the people are starving
   it's because their rulers
      are stealing their food [throu taxes].

If the people are revolting
   it's because their rulers
      are making their lives impossible.

If the people are dying
   it's because their rulers
      are sacrificing them for their own ambitions.

      If the people's lives are unendurable
   then they who choose to die
are nobler than they who cling to life.

Tao Te Ching 74

The ineffectiveness of capital punishment is demonstrated by the fact that people still commit crimes.

Does such a law entitle me to execute criminals myself?

There exists but one master executioner for everyone.

If we presume to take hir place then we're like an unskilled person usurping the tools of a master carpenter – certain to end up with a self-inflicted injury.

Tao Te Ching 73

The foolhardy get themselves killed:
   the courageous survive.
[In time of war] who can say which is more useful?
   Yet on one, the Powers That Be pass judgment.
Not even philosophers can explain that.

Tao
… never strives, yet outperforms all opposition.
… never speaks, yet always responds eloquently.
… is not summoned, yet always present.
… goes at its own pace, yet organises everything perfectly.
Its net is vast and loosely woven yet nothing slips throu it.

Tao Te Ching 72

If people become habituated to violence –
   far worse awaits them.

Do not condemn the poor:
Do not despise their efforts.
   If a ruler acknowledges them
   they will eat out of hir hand.

In this spirit,
   as the wise gain insight
      so they should learn humility.
   With growing self-respect
      should come modesty.
Every experience should teach discrimination.

Tao Te Ching 71

Not to know is OK –
   to imagine you do is the problem.
Unless you recognise your shortcomings
   you cannot correct them.

Enlightened folk do not have shortcomings
… so long as they are aware of them.
That is why enlightened folk don't have shortcomings.

Tao Te Ching 70

My ideas are easy to follow, and easy to practise.
The world can't follow, and doesn't practise.
   My ideas are grounded in reality:
   My deeds based on clear principles.
The world can't see this, and therefore can't see my message.

Those who do are few – we are a rare species indeed.
Within our plain dress we conceal jade.

Tao Te Ching 69

In deploying military forces pay heed to the dictum:
   Better a guest than a host.
Play the responsive role:
   for retreat can serve better than advance.

March in formation formlessly.
   Raise arms harmlessly.
      Fight enemies without enmity.
         Maintain defences undefensively.
Yet never underestimate your opponent or you will lose everything.

When evenly matched forces meet,
the more humane side will win.