Tuesday 21 November 2006

As it's been no music day today, I've been reading about music instead of listening to it or playing any.

This from an interview with Fred Frith at www.fredfrith.com/words.htm

Music is a social process, a collaborative process, it's always a collaborative process, you can't make it without collaborating, even as a soloist there's a process that goes on before you arrive at a solo performance that is collaborative on some level.

So if you ignore that you're denying an important part of who you are. It's not an accident that painters are painters because they're alone with their work, and musicians are musicians because they are not. Everything I've done is dependent on other people.

And that's how you move forward. And the art of choosing which people you work with is probably the most important. It's like saying, you know, a musician who can do anything probably will [everybody's laughter]. And similarly, choosing to work with 'anybody' means that you probably won't ever discover who you are. As you always choose your partners, you can put yourself in a position of challenging yourself.

And this from Douglas Adams - a lazy remark perhaps, but with some truth in it.

Mozart tells us what it's like to be human, Beethoven tells us what it's like to be Beethoven and Bach tells us what it's like to be the universe.