Tuesday 9 October 2007

Various things are gently coming together here. Concerts for the coming season are taking shape (not starting till January though), and my study is gradually changing shape. It's long overdue that I put the piles of stuff that surround me into more sensible and tidier places, and that I finally lose the dodgy shelves bought for a tenner in MFI in 1985, which list alarmingly when you get close. So a general re-organisation has started which will no doubt take several weeks: this week I've got rid of a bureau, and next weekend it will be my spare harmonium, which I've never actually played, as my trusty Estey is too good.  Soon to be decimated is my collection of melodicas ...

This morning the following phrase, from a lecture given by Patrick Macdonald to the Society of Teachers of Alexander Technique in 1963, grabbed me and didn't let go for a while: "the terrible urge to do, that overcomes all reason, and nullifies sensory awareness". He was talking about habitual physical movement and tension, but the phrase could equally well apply to certain kinds of habitual music-making. By the end of my lesson with Evelyn this morning, I had a list of ideas in my head on the subject of 'stop playing, and listen', which for once I remembered to actually type up into a coherent form.