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Nov. 25th, 2006 06:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
swaas""
0
Prolegomena
The benevolence of the creative impulse
i Sometimes, music leans over and takes us into its confidence.
When we have known this for ourselves, our lives are never quite the same again.
When angels descend from the heavens on chariots of fire and blow trumpets of
gold in our ears, when will they return? The question for the aspirant musician
becomes: how may this happen again?
ii Discipline is how we keep alert for when music might visit once more.
Discipline is how we continue to call on music, through many long & quiet years
when it appears to have deserted us.
iii Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters
to give it voice, and ears. The inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse is
simply and readily available to all, to the degree that we are readily available to the
creative impulse.
iv Discipline is how well we are able to respond when our Friend might call.
What is possible for us, is to prepare a welcome.
v Discipline is also how we do nothing.
vi The lecture is titled Discipline & The Act of Music. Although both the words
discipline and music are nouns, we approach both as verbs. Discipline is not a thing:
it is an intentional activity, a process, an undertaking we commit ourselves to honour.
Music is not a thing: the act of music is the music.
vii Discipline is a way of life; that is, a way of living. Music is a way of living:
are we in time, in tone and in tune with ourselves, and others? Are we in harmony
with ourselves, and others?
viii The act of music is eternal. Music is a quality organised in sound and in time.
The quality is eternal. The forms of organisation are governed by time, place and person.
ix We consider three kinds of time: time's arrow, or sequential time; time's cycle,
of periodicity and recurrence; and a particular kind of time where intention is involved:
we may think of this last kind of time as "creative time".
x In the world of creative time, when a decision is taken, the action has already
taken place. In the world of sequential time, we experience this as the future leaning back
and pulling a succession of events towards the outcome.
xi The distance between the two - the taking of the decision, and the unfolding
sequence of events which lead towards the realisation of that decision - involves all three
kinds of time. Our engagement in this process is maintained by discipline.
xii So, another way of looking at discipline is to say that it confers effectuality
through time. This is experienced subjectively as an expansion of our present moment.
A present moment is a moment of presence.
xiii So, we can say that discipline addresses:
the duration in linear time of our awareness;
our sense of personal presence;
how to expand our present moment in order to address specific
and practical tasks which require extended periods of linear time to unfold;
and that this action takes place within society and community.
source
0
Prolegomena
The benevolence of the creative impulse
i Sometimes, music leans over and takes us into its confidence.
When we have known this for ourselves, our lives are never quite the same again.
When angels descend from the heavens on chariots of fire and blow trumpets of
gold in our ears, when will they return? The question for the aspirant musician
becomes: how may this happen again?
ii Discipline is how we keep alert for when music might visit once more.
Discipline is how we continue to call on music, through many long & quiet years
when it appears to have deserted us.
iii Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters
to give it voice, and ears. The inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse is
simply and readily available to all, to the degree that we are readily available to the
creative impulse.
iv Discipline is how well we are able to respond when our Friend might call.
What is possible for us, is to prepare a welcome.
v Discipline is also how we do nothing.
vi The lecture is titled Discipline & The Act of Music. Although both the words
discipline and music are nouns, we approach both as verbs. Discipline is not a thing:
it is an intentional activity, a process, an undertaking we commit ourselves to honour.
Music is not a thing: the act of music is the music.
vii Discipline is a way of life; that is, a way of living. Music is a way of living:
are we in time, in tone and in tune with ourselves, and others? Are we in harmony
with ourselves, and others?
viii The act of music is eternal. Music is a quality organised in sound and in time.
The quality is eternal. The forms of organisation are governed by time, place and person.
ix We consider three kinds of time: time's arrow, or sequential time; time's cycle,
of periodicity and recurrence; and a particular kind of time where intention is involved:
we may think of this last kind of time as "creative time".
x In the world of creative time, when a decision is taken, the action has already
taken place. In the world of sequential time, we experience this as the future leaning back
and pulling a succession of events towards the outcome.
xi The distance between the two - the taking of the decision, and the unfolding
sequence of events which lead towards the realisation of that decision - involves all three
kinds of time. Our engagement in this process is maintained by discipline.
xii So, another way of looking at discipline is to say that it confers effectuality
through time. This is experienced subjectively as an expansion of our present moment.
A present moment is a moment of presence.
xiii So, we can say that discipline addresses:
the duration in linear time of our awareness;
our sense of personal presence;
how to expand our present moment in order to address specific
and practical tasks which require extended periods of linear time to unfold;
and that this action takes place within society and community.
source
