My music was always written after I had long been silent in the most literal sense of the word. When I speak of silence, I mean the 'nothingness' out of which God created the world. That is why, ideally, musical silence is sacred. Silence is not simply given to us, but in order that we may draw sustenance from it. This sustenance is no less valuable to me than the air I breathe. There's an expression: to live on air and love. I'd like to rephrase this: if you approach silence with love, music may result. A composer often has to wait a long time for this music. It is this reverent sense of expectation that constitutes the brief silence of which I am so fond.Arvo Pärt
You might or might not know that I'm spending my summer interning as a teacher in the city at a summer school. The experience has been, well, interesting. It's not always positive, but moments like these just inspire me to no end, this idea that maybe I'm making an impact on these kids' lives in return for their much larger contribution to mine.
So today the we learned about oil spills and my class simulated one of their own.
Over the past week, the kids have been learning about resources and have developed the concept that things are made from other things using other things. Today, I had made some simulated oil for our activity and had set it aside for the afternoon, when I noticed that it was missing midway through the morning.
Oh my goodness, I thought prematurely to myself, I don't want to get on to another kid. As much as they might not believe me, I really don't enjoy it.
He was definitely one intelligent guy. So I suppose the next question to ask is what is immortality? What is this state--if we can call it that--we desire so much we are willing to overcome natural selfish tendencies and sacrifice those tendencies for others' sakes? Why do we desire it? What is beauty? If love is the generation and production in the beautiful, what is the beautiful?
I feel like all these questions eventually lead back to the beginning. Sure we may know how many things work (Plato seemed to know what love is, I personally think he's missing something else), but what put them here? Is the natural human gravitation to the (relative) aesthetic the product of millions of years of improbability? Is our obsession with meaning and understanding and love just another twist of a very large math equation?
I've heard this my whole life, and I think it might be from Blaise Paschal (at least, that's what someone I highly respect told me).
I've had to be very cautious when reviewing this statement. At first I liked it very much, but the more and more I thought about it, the more I realized it leaves too much room for doubt. Surely doubt is that good test of all belief; but I think it's a very strong tool of the enemy too. We can get wrapped up in our own questions and lose track of what we should be doing, namely, coming to the full knowledge of God and sharing it with others. Why doubt what we already know (1 Peter 1:3-9)? Plus, Jesus rebuked his disciples' doubts on numerous occasions; I think particularly of Matthew 21:21, where he said that without doubt we could move mountains.
Christianity's not an insurance service. And I get really nervous when people try to simplify it to such terms.
I've just found ol' Blaise to be a bit misleading with his comment. Good logic; tricky consequences.
But not to dwell any longer on this, whether desire and will, and whether preference and volition be precisely the same things or no; yet, I trust it will be allowed by all, that in every act of will there is an act of choice; that in every volition there is a preference, or a prevailing inclination of the soul, whereby the soul, at that instant, is out of a state of perfect indifference, with respect to the direct object of the volition. So that in every act, or going forth of the will, there is some preponderation of the mind or inclination, one way rather than another; and the soul had rather have or do one thing than another, or than not to have or do that thing; and that there, where there is absolutely no preferring or choosing, but a perfect continuing equilibrium, there is no volition.
I've posted this before on my Facebook, but it's just so good, I felt like posting here again. My second favorite part of the video (my first are the last ten seconds of the video) is when the audience begins clapping along with the groove. You see, I feel that if music is being performed, then part of the musician's (or musicians') responsibility is to engage the audience. One time I was playing Brahms's "Hungarian Dance No. 5" on the piano for one of my high school band concerts. Halfway through the audience started clapping along, and it was fantastic! Next thing I knew, people were shushing and giving dirty looks to the clappers, and I found that disappointing. I realize in some situations, such interaction is sort of taboo because it disrupts the art as it was supposed to be presented, and so, though I was disappointed, I wasn't angry about it.
I just feel that music is experienced at its highest when there is not only sending, but receiving, which makes band and orchestra and choir (etc.) so appealing. Some of the most fun I have is sitting at a piano and just improvising with some friends, even if we don't have a structured set of changes. You let the music do the talking. There is conversation happening. And finally, when your audience begins to converse with you; that's powerful stuff.
