*Digging through dust bins of the past; recent inspiration and thoughts have made me think of a few articles from previous Phonograph Journals at McGill. This particular one is taken from the March issue, 2010. *
The Phonograph, A McGill University Schulich School of Music Journal Publication
March 2010, Feature Article
A Synthetic Nature; Re-examining the Fundamental Role of Experience in Creation
By Helen Kashap
Alone: Isolated in a small sterile cubicle with a behemoth black instrument and a tiny window facing in, I sit and procrastinate, buried deep in a labyrinth of thought. Repeating note after note, gesture after gesture, I begin to daydream about the ocean, the gigantic wave and its salt-crusted upper lip. The cascade of wind that wreaks havoc with the water gods and the silent cries of the slippery sea creatures as they float up and down the tumultuous ocean shore, crashing and banging against jagged wet rocks.
I imagine sitting on top of a tall chiseled cliff in bare feet, staring directly down at the terrifying, inconceivably beautiful body of water. I stop, meditate for a second on the pulse of mnemonic time, and listen freely to the crush of the waves. This is how the ocean sounds when it speaks… soft, massive, and eternal. How strange to be consciously and actively absorbing the overwhelming sound of nature as it exists in the present moment. Is it not in every-day life that we hear the irregular rhythm of the rain, the displaced downbeats in the screech of the traffic, the atonality of the ambulance siren against that of the police? Have we not been entirely numbed to the organic sounds of a city’s breath? These musical anomalies that we so carefully isolate, craft, and study are but the ubiquitous realities of our quotidian affairs and daily existence…
I’m instantly thrown back into the present moment and the emptiness of my practice room. Here I sit, disillusioned by my own ears, trying so readily to re-create the sound of that massive body of water; the ocean in Scriabin’s second piano sonata. It slowly occurs to me that our life experiences are not so disconnected from our music making, and that perhaps my experience at the ocean years ago brings me closer to my ultimate goal of crafting impressions as an artist does, eloquently describing the waves like the poet to bring the ocean to the concert hall. Perhaps the absorption of real life sound and the required regurgitation of its perception serve a deeper relevance and require greater attention than do my repeated gestures and laborious hours spent deconstructing the speed of attack, the depth of weight in the production of the sound, and the follow through of the arm at the piano.
I stop to think.
In a musical society that is so obsessed with competition, perfection, and unfaltering work ethic, it is difficult to convince anybody, including myself, that the experience of life – the authentic and genuine interaction with humanity, culture, and nature – all of those things which don’t involve the instrument or a metronome – are essential to our work as musicians. These often undervalued components of life are paramount in the creation of beautiful music and are absolutely integral to both the depth and dimension of one’s creative work. How can one begin to capture the essence of rhapsodic wind without ever having consciously felt it? Or conjure the dark mysticism of a full moon in the early hours of the morning without ever having truly seen it? The attempt to create a realistic musical world out of a synthetic or imagined experience can only render a somewhat less genuine and sincere musical conception.
Argue and disagree with me if you will, but at some point in the future, I hope you will finally leave your piano bench or set down your violin without feeling like a terribly guilty and lethargic student. Engage in the world and its surroundings. Enjoy the smell of winter and its frigid, cutting air; experience the gravity and momentum that grips your body as you slide down a glossy winter hill. Absorb all of the raw sensual pleasures and the aesthetic of nature as it passes by, and save it, store it, as you will desperately need these inspirations someday soon in your creative process. It is really true that some things just simply cannot be learnt in a practice room.
