This man PIOTR ANDERSZEWSKI, is one of my favorite pianists. That is why I posted his interview regarding performance anxiety.
Performance angst has literally murdered many a great performance of great music. A pianist performing a recital is a vessel through which music is channelled... being alone on a huge stage can be indescribable. One walks out and sits before a huge instrument... the piano. Your voice is released through your fingers, body language and silences.
The possibility that you may make a mistake, miss a "Que" when a certain Harmonic leading tone will transpose you to the next musical passage... I for one hate the fearful drama.
Years ago I thrived on it. Performing was like a drug. I needed the approval of applause, adoration, simply being one with my ego? In later years I discovered that I had a "musical past" being a pianist. Could I perform up to the glorious moments of my past? The doubt, questions and fears gradually begin seeping into moments of my then current performances.
Up until I turned 55 years of age... then I began to realize one thing: I had an audience of young people. Young musicians that expected perfection and confidence from the moment I set foot on that stage. The responsibility became over whelming at times. I spent a fortune on hypnosis. I guess it helped, but I still had these ghosts that whisper: YOU WILL FAIL, haunting my mind and body, most all my very nerve endings.
20 years ago they started giving drugs for such anxiety. Enderil? I cannot recall the name of the drug. I think it was used as a beta blocker. Ages ago I took one before a recital only to feel "OUT OF IT"
OMG, I would have been better off if I had toked a joint! There is one drug that does help: XANEX.
I know it is addictive? Well, so it milk, Advil, Alcohol and a few other things that are approved to be fine for the entire human race. Taking a very tiny bite of Zanex has helped me with many performances within the past 10 years. It has also kept me from killing some people I know... NO YOU DO NOT TAKE IT EVERYDAY... only when performing or ready to KILL.
I can imagine what a surgeon must feel every time a body is laid on the operating table and it comes down to LIFE OR DEATH? Those men and women have hands made of gold and minds that can let go of so many mistakes as well as the most successful moments.
I know that there are times when I am cooking... (again the use of the hands, like musicians, surgeons, painters... writers...) and I fail to make something perfect. Usually my hands, heart and mind signal me screaming: DON'T SERVE THAT!
I can stop and RE-MAKE the plate. Re cook the steak... but when one is on a stage NO YOU FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT. Like being naked in front of the entire universe! Fine, if you are one of those people that won the DNA LOTTO you will look so great no one will care what you sound like...!
In all reality we all do this with our lives. We try to live it, but there are times we fake it and eventually the damn thing works.
I love Piotr's piano playing and his music touches me in places I must go at times. He is a most honest man! Hope I am.
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Sunday, January 27, 2013
past blogs
I have taken the time to re read some of my past blogs. One of my favorites: Friday, Jan. 30, 2009.
The Ensemble. Those years were magic beyond belief for me and my music.
The Ensemble. Those years were magic beyond belief for me and my music.
update on my veggie garden...
Today was sunshine and roses. Tonight will be just like the old song: Moonlight and Roses.
Had a long, long walk today. Lots of gorgeous bodies laying beside the lake and on the lake. Tons of people eating ice cream and cold drinks. I sat on a bench eating my sandwich... sipping coffee and thanked the universe for all the many times I have taken off my clothes, jumped into cold lakes, streams and most of all I was always so excited for sunshine. The endless times I simply went from sunshine into night and sometimes forgot morning! (I usually had a serious headache in the mornings after??!!)
All things considered life is fantastic. I am very happy to be 66 and enjoying good health. I have finally come to peace with the past and hope to find peace with the future. A kind word and Smile do wonders for my soul. Today walking along the beach so many foreigners would smile and say "HI" as they walked by. I smiled back and thought of all the kind things people have ever given me. Most of all understanding and smiles.
Must water the garden! FULL MOON TONIGHT. I will be up all night. The full moon is like a powerful stimulant that feeds my spirit. It pulls me out of any bad mood or depression I may be living in. LUNA.
I am the Man That Fell In Love With The Moon...
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
Feeling much better
Ah, I think I am restored somewhat to my normal (what in hell normal is?) self. I have been in a horrible FUNK. Depressed... then happy... anxious about nothing and then exhausted. I hate it when my brain chemicals drop head first into the basement of despair.
I am a "sensitive". That can be a difficult blessing or a dreadful curse. I learned 60 years ago how to draw a circle of invisible light energy around my body that would protect me from outside emotions. Emotions are pure energy and every emotion is felt because of a chemical reaction to some kind of action. Emotions have vibrations and color. They can guide us or destroy us. Music, art, poetry, literature, dance, drama have all played a very important part in saving me from my self. WHY?
When I was a little boy music became my "voice". I learned how to use it and it's force has forever been the blessed olive branch between my mind and heart. I can sit with a musical score and marvel at it's code of dots, horizontal and vertical lines, spaces and mathematics that give birth to sound, color and emotion. I relate music completely with nature. Nature is pure music to my mind, heart and spirit.
Even as I am composing this blog post I am listening to Debussy.
The past few days my body and mind and heart have been out of tune. I have simply not been tuning the instrument! I allowed far too many outside vibrations to set of a dissonance I could not understand.
I could not stand the sound of it inside my sacred space. The dissonance was screaming negative sounds that have no meaning except separation, anger, fear and the most dreadful thing in the world to my way of thinking: helplessness.
I could not sleep last night. I chased my damn pillow around the bed 100 times. I strangled myself with my sheets, I rolled on my right side, I rolled to my left side. I tried laying on my back, stomach and finally got out of bed, walked up the stairs to the upper level of the house.
Opened the door into the garden. The firmament was breath taking! The milky way a highway paved with diamonds. The Southern Cross gleamed like a sacred icon from the most sacred cathedral in the universe... a melody started faintly playing inside my brain... a little melody I learned as boy in one of my piano method books! I started laughing and then I felt tears on my cheeks. Tears are jewels. I know for a fact that when I am distressed IF I get in the truck and start driving and then crying I feel fantastic. They seem to release all kinds of unsay able things. Tears are rivers of RELEASE.
I walked around the garden in my bare feet absorbing the dew on the grass, inhaling the scent of early morning light. Magic. It worked... a healing beyond explanation. I'm good today. OMG, I may do something creative and fun before tomorrow!
I am a "sensitive". That can be a difficult blessing or a dreadful curse. I learned 60 years ago how to draw a circle of invisible light energy around my body that would protect me from outside emotions. Emotions are pure energy and every emotion is felt because of a chemical reaction to some kind of action. Emotions have vibrations and color. They can guide us or destroy us. Music, art, poetry, literature, dance, drama have all played a very important part in saving me from my self. WHY?
When I was a little boy music became my "voice". I learned how to use it and it's force has forever been the blessed olive branch between my mind and heart. I can sit with a musical score and marvel at it's code of dots, horizontal and vertical lines, spaces and mathematics that give birth to sound, color and emotion. I relate music completely with nature. Nature is pure music to my mind, heart and spirit.
Even as I am composing this blog post I am listening to Debussy.
The past few days my body and mind and heart have been out of tune. I have simply not been tuning the instrument! I allowed far too many outside vibrations to set of a dissonance I could not understand.
I could not stand the sound of it inside my sacred space. The dissonance was screaming negative sounds that have no meaning except separation, anger, fear and the most dreadful thing in the world to my way of thinking: helplessness.
I could not sleep last night. I chased my damn pillow around the bed 100 times. I strangled myself with my sheets, I rolled on my right side, I rolled to my left side. I tried laying on my back, stomach and finally got out of bed, walked up the stairs to the upper level of the house.
Opened the door into the garden. The firmament was breath taking! The milky way a highway paved with diamonds. The Southern Cross gleamed like a sacred icon from the most sacred cathedral in the universe... a melody started faintly playing inside my brain... a little melody I learned as boy in one of my piano method books! I started laughing and then I felt tears on my cheeks. Tears are jewels. I know for a fact that when I am distressed IF I get in the truck and start driving and then crying I feel fantastic. They seem to release all kinds of unsay able things. Tears are rivers of RELEASE.
I walked around the garden in my bare feet absorbing the dew on the grass, inhaling the scent of early morning light. Magic. It worked... a healing beyond explanation. I'm good today. OMG, I may do something creative and fun before tomorrow!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
My distress... My angst?
I am living with a situation some people have lived with and some have not a clue what I will be writing about.
When and IF? one's body, the physical body lives beyond it's DNA at times the mind can out live the body? NO... One cannot live without the other. I am living with a 95 year old woman that only wants to go home? She is completely helpless.. She has not any recall of her immediate family, friends or life the past 90 years.
I am watching her only living son go through hell... he cares for her beyond anything I would ever do for my parents without the help and need of some care giver. I do not, and mind you, I do not mean I do not LOVE MY PARENTS BEYOND WORDS... I simply would and could not do what he is doing. I do not change underpants very well... I do not put on make up, I do not dress and take care of women. My sisters can and would. I cannot. His anger and frustration drives me into distraction. At times I say things and then I listen to how rotten I am? I will try to help beyond making meals and doing laundry etc. only to be told I am not nice? Dementia/ the other disease he will not speak a word about It is a word that he will not accept help with or discuss... It lives within the world I am living and breathing within.
One thing: I dumped so many things regarding religion 1000 years ago... I believe in KARA MA. Most of the people that are in my life are because of something I did in a past lifetime or I will do in this life time do to balance help some of the ?????? guilt? Karmic justice? what ever.
I learned 30 some odd years ago that the people I meet up with during my lifetime are for a reason. I know that some are what I refer to as STAR SEED CHILDREN of MINE. They are very precious spirits I knew and still KNOW from many other lifetimes and the thing that startles my spirit: they KNOW ME. I KNOW THEM. I will never be able to live without them. I have 3 precious beings STAR SEED PERSONS... THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE... and they will take care of me when I fall apart... god willing I do not loose my damn mind!
When I was 14 years old my piano teachers had known me in another lifetime. I fell in love with mystic love affairs that were from past lifetimes... I met people that guided me into places from all over the planet to near by places where I grew up because of one thing: they simply did not know they were taking me into places and situations I had to experience in this life time. I learned years later THEY knew somethings I never could have imagined at the time, in the 60's???
During the years I studied piano with a very old teacher he always said: YOU ARE A VERY OLD SOUL INSIDE A NEW BODY? WTF? I would ponder on this when I was 16 years old... I read "The Prophet" by Gilbran... This little book has kept me alive for more lifetimes than I will ever be able to explaine. I would and cannot ever go anywhere one earth without it. The book. I composed a piece of music for the man and his words. Go to my youtube side at the bottom of this blog... you can hear what I think of the man and his words and art. I kind of knew what he was talking about... then years later I honestly knew. Children COME THRU YOU THEY ARE NOT OF YOU... parents must learn and know this fact. how right is that?
My Grandmothers were not a mistake in my life. They knew things my mother only now knows. They knew how to care and love. THEY DID NOT JUDGE because they knew how to live without hate and angst toward any one. I grew and learned how to hate men with priesthoods, politics, ego and most of fears fear in and of itself. WOMEN have always know the TRUTH. They have always known Forgiveness, and they they have known love beyond the stars.
No matter how one may blame their parents, mother, father, for all of their situations.............. they, the parents, really did the best they could and most of all SO DID YOU and ME! If one can survive their parents they have over come GUILT, FEAR AND MOST OF ALL ANGER. Fathers and some mothers can become bigotted and hateful for no other reason than fear and anger. Kiss the day goodbye. The gift was ours to borrow. We did what we had to do... will write a fun blog in a few days. Death seems to be hanging over my life right now... guess that is why I love 6' Under. Kiss today goodbye.
When and IF? one's body, the physical body lives beyond it's DNA at times the mind can out live the body? NO... One cannot live without the other. I am living with a 95 year old woman that only wants to go home? She is completely helpless.. She has not any recall of her immediate family, friends or life the past 90 years.
I am watching her only living son go through hell... he cares for her beyond anything I would ever do for my parents without the help and need of some care giver. I do not, and mind you, I do not mean I do not LOVE MY PARENTS BEYOND WORDS... I simply would and could not do what he is doing. I do not change underpants very well... I do not put on make up, I do not dress and take care of women. My sisters can and would. I cannot. His anger and frustration drives me into distraction. At times I say things and then I listen to how rotten I am? I will try to help beyond making meals and doing laundry etc. only to be told I am not nice? Dementia/ the other disease he will not speak a word about It is a word that he will not accept help with or discuss... It lives within the world I am living and breathing within.
One thing: I dumped so many things regarding religion 1000 years ago... I believe in KARA MA. Most of the people that are in my life are because of something I did in a past lifetime or I will do in this life time do to balance help some of the ?????? guilt? Karmic justice? what ever.
I learned 30 some odd years ago that the people I meet up with during my lifetime are for a reason. I know that some are what I refer to as STAR SEED CHILDREN of MINE. They are very precious spirits I knew and still KNOW from many other lifetimes and the thing that startles my spirit: they KNOW ME. I KNOW THEM. I will never be able to live without them. I have 3 precious beings STAR SEED PERSONS... THEY KNOW WHO THEY ARE... and they will take care of me when I fall apart... god willing I do not loose my damn mind!
When I was 14 years old my piano teachers had known me in another lifetime. I fell in love with mystic love affairs that were from past lifetimes... I met people that guided me into places from all over the planet to near by places where I grew up because of one thing: they simply did not know they were taking me into places and situations I had to experience in this life time. I learned years later THEY knew somethings I never could have imagined at the time, in the 60's???
During the years I studied piano with a very old teacher he always said: YOU ARE A VERY OLD SOUL INSIDE A NEW BODY? WTF? I would ponder on this when I was 16 years old... I read "The Prophet" by Gilbran... This little book has kept me alive for more lifetimes than I will ever be able to explaine. I would and cannot ever go anywhere one earth without it. The book. I composed a piece of music for the man and his words. Go to my youtube side at the bottom of this blog... you can hear what I think of the man and his words and art. I kind of knew what he was talking about... then years later I honestly knew. Children COME THRU YOU THEY ARE NOT OF YOU... parents must learn and know this fact. how right is that?
My Grandmothers were not a mistake in my life. They knew things my mother only now knows. They knew how to care and love. THEY DID NOT JUDGE because they knew how to live without hate and angst toward any one. I grew and learned how to hate men with priesthoods, politics, ego and most of fears fear in and of itself. WOMEN have always know the TRUTH. They have always known Forgiveness, and they they have known love beyond the stars.
No matter how one may blame their parents, mother, father, for all of their situations.............. they, the parents, really did the best they could and most of all SO DID YOU and ME! If one can survive their parents they have over come GUILT, FEAR AND MOST OF ALL ANGER. Fathers and some mothers can become bigotted and hateful for no other reason than fear and anger. Kiss the day goodbye. The gift was ours to borrow. We did what we had to do... will write a fun blog in a few days. Death seems to be hanging over my life right now... guess that is why I love 6' Under. Kiss today goodbye.
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
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