Nothing

Hello!

I've got nothing to write about. So here it is.

Nothing is my mental target for playing and everything. To have nothing in my mind is the perfect thing. Thoughts, thoughts, thoughts - I can't do it, I CAN do it, all of that is so distracting.

The thoughts in my mind are the evidence that I am not calm yet, just as much as the feelings in my body. With calmness there will be no awareness of myself as an individual, and no feeling of having a body - no feeling of being aware of what I am doing, just natural movement.

Perfect technique is the perfect way of producing sound, with no limitations or obstacles. This includes both the physical execution as well as the understanding - they both define what the sound needs to be.

It's possible to find calmness.

Luckily!

*******

To think and feel nothing isn't bad, in case it sounds not quite right to you. It just means that the "little you" will stop bothering you for the time you are calm.

You will stop seeing yourself as an individual with a personality and problems and all kinds of things like that, and feel sort of outside yourself, a feeling of being joined up to the outside of you.

When you don't notice the time flying past, when you are happy and forget yourself for a few minutes (or ages or no time at all), when you play something and can't remember what you did afterwards - that's a sign of the same thing.

You've felt it, haven't you?

But sometimes it's hard to get there.

A quick way of explaining it is to say: the common way is selfish, the other, inspired, happy, unusual way is selfless.

But selfish normally means things like hiding chocolate from children to eat later and other sneaky business like that. Here the word is the same, but it means "conscious of self", "attached to your own self", that sort of thing.

Anyway, I have nothing to criticise you for. You are pretty good. You are reading this!

*******

More nothing soon.

Boxes

I'm moving house, you see.

This means I could think of a lot of things to write about cardboard boxes. Also packing tape, bubble wrap, tissue paper and polystyrene packing peanuts.

But that would not. Be very. Interesting.

Unfortunately.

If paper had never been invented, I'd have nothing to move. It's all books and music, here. Oh, also things are stored in my brain but that is quite light.

Unfortunately!

*******

That's it. No more tonight!

More soon if I survive.

Hope you are surviving! Or doing even better than just surviving, why not.

Love, Philip

Foggy Night

It's so foggy tonight.

"Cor blimey, guv, it's a real pea souper and no mistake!"

Translation: "Goodness me, my dear sir, it is awfully foggy I must say".

*******

Everyone was transformed into monsters and creatures from scary films. The monsters were all frightened too because they were seeing scary visions themselves.

*******

Actually, there is a lot of craziness on Monday nights. I don't know why it is, but all the loonies seem to come out then. Can it be that Monday is really a Moonday, like it says in the name? Then we could see why the lunatics all make a special appearance on this lunar day. It certainly doesn't happen on other days.

*******

London fog is not at all the fog of "In the Mists". The mist there is much healthier on the whole, and finds time to move back occasionally, as the sunlight warms it and its water runs clear.

*******

My favourite lunar piece of music is "Rusalka's Song to the Moon" from Rusalka, by Dvořák.

*******

Is it always the same moon that floats overhead? Is it the same face that watches us and sends us to rest?

It could well be. I have seen her many times, shining on me quite kindly. I wonder why I have not gone mad like the others? Perhaps the dreams she sends me are kinder. Or maybe I just remember to turn off my "panic" alarm system. After all, there is no panic really. Not for any of us. Not any more.

Mystery Solution

The answer to the mystery quiz question "What links rainbows and Kentucky Fried Chicken?" is: Corbin, Kentucky, USA is the home of both Harlan Sanders's Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise, and of one of the world's only (according to publicity) natural night-time rainbows. Another place you can find a nocturnal rainbow is Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

The night-time rainbow is also known as a moonbow and appears white to the human eye, because we don't see colours in the dark.

I can't confirm that there is such a thing as a moonbow, or that there are only two examples in the world (? Both located in North America, by some chance). But there you are, there is your answer. Nobody got it, by the way. Lucky there wasn't a prize!

The only connection or link I can see between the two is thinking of the rainbow, seeing its colours, and thinking of the same colours you sometimes see if there is petrol in a puddle on the road. Then it is just a short step away (in organic chemistry) to the infernal amount of grease you get on K. F. Chicken...

There is another rainbow bridge for you, from heavenly shimmer to hellish glistening! Luckily the bridge runs both ways. So when you see a KFC fast food place you can think of the moonbow in Corbin - something that was there a long time before.

Good luck for everything you do today. Please be happy and shine in rainbow colours, thank you!

Bridge

Rainbows.

A rainbow is a bridge between here and somewhere else, but somewhere you can't get to in the normal way.

In Norse mythology it was Bifrost, the bridge between Asgard and Midgard (the land of the Gods and what we call Earth).

Or you could say the rainbow is a phenomenon to do with water droplets and light.

All of them could be true, and each is as beautiful to me as the others. But we're not looking for beauty here, we want to find out what is true (at last).

Even though truth is beautiful in the end.

Even though Lao-Tsu said "Truth is not Beauty. Beauty is not truth."

I think he might have meant that there is more to the truth than we might like. But he might sometimes have agreed that everything is beautiful, as well.

All you need to see anything, beautiful, true, or whatever you would like to see, is some eyes (even one, or a mind's eye). But they have to be open.

*******

Trivia Quiz: can you tell us the link between a) Rainbows and b) Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Send in your solutions or guesses by e-mail or leave them in the blog-comments!
Answer tomorrow.

Magnetism

It is said that the human nose contains a trace amount of magnetite (in its ethmoid bone) - magnetite, the most magnetic of all the minerals on earth.

Magnetite has also been found in bacteria, in bees, and in pigeons, among others.

The substance is involved in magnetoception or magnetoreception, the ability to find direction in a magnetic field. That means that just as pigeons and their friends can find their way around without a compass, so can humans. This is still a controversial issue in biology. Perhaps the biologists are still finding their way on that one. Who nose. Yes, as if by a magnet, I was drawn irresistibly to say that.

Resistance is useless, the aliens will say when they invade. So better not try any resisting! Remember, they said it won't work!

There are a very few things that are literally irresistible. But of the rest, there are many many bad things that can be resisted (like my 'jokes' above) but which it seems convenient not to, just as there are many many good things that we will keep resisting until our last breath, or after it if possible.

Think of all the last breaths that have ever been breathed. Aren't we breathing them now, in some form? If there is air to breathe, we will breathe it. We need it, and the need finds the air, by gasp or by sigh.

We need happiness. And we will find it if it is here, even in the tiniest quantity - just like the air we need to live.

It is just as necessary for life. Without it, we are not completely alive yet.

Happiness means every part of everything working in harmony, the way it was designed to.

Our attraction to happiness is fundamental. It is irresistible.

Why then do we resist so hard?

When we have the built-in sense to find the answers, why do people hang around wasting time doing other things? Most people know the direction to go, but either don't believe their sense or know only too well what it is saying and resist with all their power.

Why?

Who nose.

Because it's easy (like my 'joke'). But it's not easy, is it?

*******

OK let's think of something a bit more lively now.

What is a smile? Why do we have tickling? *Tickle Tickle*!

Hee hee.

Formative

"Brian began playing piano at age 8, creating pieces for his mother, who played classical piano at home and also played violin for a community opera company. At age 10 he recalls listening endlessly to side two of the Beetles ‘Abbey Road’ and a recording of Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto."

I think they mean Beathoven.

Visual Clues

I heard a Beethoven piano sonata today. It was the early one in E Flat - don't ask me what opus number it is...it's somewhere around the fifth sonata.

Early Beethoven is as deceptive as all other music, but to me it seems a litle bit more noticeable, because you look at the music, and it looks like well-developed Haydn or something like that. It looks fairly ordinary in many ways. The page has not melted like it has in other sonatas, for example A Flat major, Op. 110, or B Flat Major, Op. 106.

But there is a leap between the fairly normal appearance and what the notes are indicating - the sounds the notes mean and the meaning of those sounds.

This early sonata looks pretty ordinary if you just look at a page or two out of it. It's all very classical, with no great shocks. That is, if you play it like it looks - and remember, in printed music every note looks the same. There is one type of "sound" for the whole piece, and this is problematic in pre-romantic music because by and large the notation does not vary. It's not like Alkan or Feldman, say, composers who make notation so clear and use it to define the structure of a piece and show what is happening to the material, because in this earlier music mostly the rhythm doesn't change too dramatically (except sometimes with the better composers). So if you are looking at a piece like this then it all looks much the same, and might easily end up being played as if it is all the same.

The key points in this early Beethoven sonata are the moments when the notation does change - when Beethoven moves the material so far that he changes its visual appearance in a very clear way. Those moments point out to us that the same thing is happening in the other, more rhythmically unchanging parts. It is all very deep, directed change: Beethoven means to communicate profound ideas through his art. But when we don't see a visual clue that reminds us there is something extraordinary happening, we might easily assume it is simply ordinary.

The point is that when all music looks more or less the same, one must think instead of how the sounds were intended to move us and each other. Then it becomes clear that none of the sounds can be the same.

Solo

The piano has more repertoire than any other instrument. And pianists can play with other instruments, one, two, three, or more than that. Much of the great repertoire of the other instruments has piano in it too, so we get to share all their best moments. Beethoven and Brahms Violin and Cello Sonatas, Trios, many many many more composers and instruments, but always including piano.

There are some special things with no piano in though. Bach solo Suites and Partitas for violin and cello. (G major Cello Suite my favourite!)

No pianist can play in Beethoven or Schubert String Quartets.

We can only hope that we will get the chance to hear some of these somehow, by meeting the right people.

Pianists get to play in larger groups as well. For example, Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos are not just works for piano with orchestra, they are music for a very large ensemble which includes piano. Sometimes the piano has a very dynamic part to play!

There is plenty of concerto-type music for piano to perform.

So, all of that is stuff pianists can play. Could you even hear all of it in one lifetime? I'm not sure a lifetime is enough to learn to play one piece, sometimes. But you have to do the best you can...

But there is some other special music with no piano in it. Tchaikovsky's best moments are surely in his Symphonies and Operas. Mahler Symphonies! On the piano you have a few Mahler songs you can play, but you will never get anywhere near Symphony No. 9, I am afraid.

I was going to say I know why pianists become conductors.

After all this, I feel like we have more than enough to play as it is.

But if you see a pianist conducting an orchestra, perhaps you now know one of the reasons.

My favourite piece, the Beethoven Violin Concerto - I can never play it! (Although there is a version for piano, which I haven't seen - that's the so-called Piano Concerto No. 6). But I do like hearing it.

Actually, you can't go very wrong in playing Beethoven. All you have to do is play what it says on the page. Nearly nobody knows how difficult it is to do this, because they play what they think it says on the page, not what is actually there, so that causes problems. But basically Beethoven can't go too badly wrong (please let that be true!). However...there are ways of doing it better. There are ways of understanding it better. And if you have done this, then there is only one way to make it come to life: play it! Too bad when it's not for the piano. Hmm, I wonder what will happen about that.

Favourite

Everything is my favourite.

But there is no time to say more than this, yet!

Communication

Today I used one of my famous (to myself) sayings or quotations in conversation. I said something like, "Well, you know, they say the first six languages are the hardest". I don't remember what they do say - it might have been something more like "The first twelve languages are the hardest" but the point is the same...although less hard to bear if I say six. It depends what degree of dramatic effect I am aiming for. Since most people in England have only ever dreamed of hearing one language, let alone speaking more than one, I think that to say "six" is sufficiently incredible to make my quotation funny and rather disquieting (yes, this effect is quite a good one to make sometimes!).

Then on the other hand you have countries in the middle of things where it is common to speak more than one language. Even on this island there are bilingualists - for example Welsh speakers who speak English too. And in other times and in other places it may have been natural for many people to know many languages, for reasons of necessity. But it's always because of necessity, isn't it. To know a language (or some of one) means to be able to understand conversation in that language, or writing, or what-have-you. It is good for vital and urgent verbal communication, and is also good for the possibility of having access to literature. There are always benefits from greater understanding of communication. With knowledge like this you can find out all sorts of secrets. By knowing a bit of French, I once found out a concert was on a different day to the one the musicians were expecting (including me!) - it's really a simple thing, but it is always the first example I think of. It amazes me to see what a powerful, secret thing knowledge of language is.

Are the first six languages you learn the hardest? The first is hard in a way because you have no other language then. But it is so vital that you HAVE to learn it. That is why the first language we learn is so successfully learnt! Studies of children isolated (through chance or cruel neglect) past the age of seven or so show that they never acquire language fully, or that they cannot advance much further than the rudiments of speech they already have. The ability to learn in the intensively open way of a child's first years is lost quite soon.

Whether you can get that back is another question, but here we are talking about the issue of second languages and beyond. For me the main motivating factor is interest. I care what other people are thinking or feeling. I want to know what it is like to be someone else, because that is where all the important information is. I already know what it is that I know. To find more answers I must look elsewhere. That is why I look outside. Probably this accounts for my interest in languages.

The second language is an important step, because that is the one that exposes the possibility of speaking languages other than your native tongue. Until then, there is no language, there is just speaking. Everyone talks the same.

People say they do not have the time for language learning. But I do not have the time NOT to learn languages. I need so desperately to understand what is happening to me in this world that I can't afford to stop learning. It is urgent!

It's hard for me to see how people learn to speak fluently though. Probably they do this, though, by sticking to one or two languages. That must be the answer. And because I am learning many things, it will be longer before something fluent appears. It's the same with piano playing, with everything. To do something little would take only a little time. (Sorry to keep you waiting, so far!)

Knowing more than one language tells you that it is the meaning that is important, not the words, not the surface. It is not people's clothes, but what they do and how they live that tells you about them. A tree could be green one day and spiky with twigs the next, but the whole tree is more than those two pictures.

So many words, but all of them useless for describing important things.

That is why we have music.

Imagine

There is a little girl sitting in a big rocking chair. I am in the room too, sitting at the piano. The girl's singing teacher is perched on a little round stool, the diameter of which is significantly smaller than that of its occupant.

This is many years ago, at least ten.

The girl has just been told who used to own the rocking chair, what his job was and where he used to work. She is saying,"You can close your eyes and fly to London". The teacher says,"What?" - What do you mean, What are you talking about...that's what she says.

That was the end of it. I knew what the girl meant, and we had probably thought the same thing anyway. But the other person didn't know what was going on really.

We have heard the expression "It's just your imagination", which means something came into our mind which is impossible and wrong.

But imagination is not dreaming or sleeping. It is not wrong ideas. It is the image you create before you make something real. Imagine, and then follow the image you made into reality.

A sparkly child in a rocking chair would understand about imagination. But the singing teacher would not. Which part of you will you listen to?

Imagine.

Whale Milk

I am learning about whale milk. Yes, the milk of the whale (order Cetacea).

Where cow's milk contains 4% of fat, whale milk is 50% fat. So it is that baby whales grow by 5 kg per hour!

What I am really trying to learn is how do we know this about the milk? How do you milk a whale?

Roses

Today was the third of November but I smelled roses!

Even in Autumn there are roses in London - I saw some in the Regents Park. I continued walking and looked at the names of the roses. There are various names of different kinds, some named after persons, some fanciful, some to be expected. One was called Jean Merrill. It made me wonder if there is a rose named after John Merrick. Because I was thinking some people need their own flower more than others. It's all very well to say "My xxxxx, she was as beautiful as a rose so I named this variety after her", but what about people who don't remind you of roses? Don't they have more of a need to become beautiful in our eyes?

I didn't know John Merrick so I don't know if he was beautiful on the inside, but I can say that I find nothing ugly about his external appearance. Just being different, that doesn't make anyone ugly. Ugliness, to me, is something somehow against nature or life, something that seems to say no to being in love with being alive. So when I (very occasionally) see some famous modern film actor on the front of a magazine, I just see a mask and many painful hours and dollars of work trying to make the mask less like that person's original face. And though they are supposed to look good I find it quite horrible-looking, I'm afraid.

The feeling that something is wrong with you, on the inside or on the outside, leads to masks. Different kinds, but the purpose is to hide the true inside to conform to what we think is required of us. Of course, surgical procedures are a very extreme (though in many ways very easy) way of changing the outside - that's one way of enhancing a mask, but here I really mean masks in the sense of a kind of personality disguise, a way of being like someone else so as to fit in better.

People change their manner in several ways. There are comedy people, people who solve their feeling of awkwardness by being comic. They are a human joke. But they are not a joke, they are serious people who have a lot more to give than awkwardness. Look at people's behaviour. Are they playing a role but they have forgotten they are acting? Very serious, bookworm, always has an academic point to make, hides in his books, that's another one. Always coming to the rescue, has to be strong for everyone...because he secretly believes he is weak - another, but doesn't need to act strong, because real strength is surely there under the surface. And it's a deeper strength. Also there are other types of shell personality. But what are they hiding?

What is the real personality? What would our true character be like if we hadn't altered it?

Look at someone before they change - look at a child. I know you remember how to be like that anyway. Perhaps you remember what you used to do and how you used to be. Well, the point is not to go back, but to remember when you were calm and yourself and try to touch it from where you are now. It may be impossible, but in some senses it is actually not very difficult, since it is the only natural way to be - everything else is just too painful in the end.

What will people think? They will think you are a little bit peculiar. But compared to them, you will be. So laugh if you feel like it. Sing or dance if you want. Have a change of clothes. Give something nice to someone nice. Help people. Play.

That's why I like it that we say "playing music"! I'm playing all the time, me, I am!

Then when we are like ourselves again, we won't need our name on a rose. No need to add beauty when we are all so beautiful. We will be the ones giving roses to those who need them. People who don't know yet how they really look, inside and outside. People who have not bloomed, or cannot see the colour of their own flower.

Back in the park, I continued going around and remembering all the things I had done there when I came to each place, a fountain, a bench, a tree. And the memories of my people who had been there with me could be seen so clearly. They all had beautiful petals and a lovely scent like the first and last flowers on earth. But not one of them really knew what I could see, then or now. It was so much clearer now to me.

The smell of roses was so rare in Autumn that it stopped me in my tracks and made me go back to taste them again.

I couldn't go back to see my human flowers because they had all gone away, except for the trace that remains.

Actually there were not very many to remember. The number is a very small number.

But there was no-one there now.

Except lunatics coming towards me offering me magazines about God, oh dear! Stop distracting me! Just when I was getting on nicely with nature.

Magazines! About God! Honestly. If there are any gods nearby I would prefer to deal direct rather than looking at illustrations.

Until next time, practise believing me if I say you are beautiful! I cannot prove that I am right, but I can promise that I am telling the truth. PS I am right!

Lots of love!

Recognition

Suddenly everybody remembers who I am! Today all kinds of important people were shouting out "Philip!", "Hey, Phil!", "Great to see you!"

That's fine but a month ago no-one remembered me! Is it that with the coming of the first of November everyone comes out of suspended animation?

Or do they want something?

If they want me to give a concert, that's fine! I wonder if it could be that...

In other news, thanks to people who send in music that they hope I will play. I do not give out a message like the Pope, saying "Philip Howard thanks you for your music, however he looks after piano music as a whole and therefore cannot concern himself with individual cases. Thank you for your interest in Philip Howard's work."

What I do generally say is that I cannot play music that I do not have - so at least if you have sent something there is a slight chance of me playing it. But there is so much to play and my standards keep rising so music needs more and more practice! And I can only play what I could do convincingly. Don't let it stop you, though. Some people get performed by me, e.g. Bartók, Chopin...

See you soon!