My Theories on Music; Gifts & Talents;
Poetry & Writing. All else creative

It is arguable whether musical talent or any form of creative expression is something one is born with, or something somebody develops, like if they started learning a musical instrument when they were three years old or something. I'm not sure...

7:30pm, 10/11/99 Personally, for me, when it comes to expressing music, i just don't do much... I mean, I play what the music says, and people rave about how musical I am... I just put my fingers to the piano keys, press down, and they say "what a nice tone!" (pity that doesn't happen with the cello, my prefered instrument, but hey!). I mean, it's virtually a conscious effort for me to play dull music! I know this sounds very arrogant and vain etc etc etc, but this is my page so I'll express what I want! (that sounds just plain bitchy!). Of course, I have to put some effort in, but then, it's no more than any average concentration, I don't think.

7:30pm, 10/11/99 Okay, just to undermine my own vanity a little; I sometimes doubt that many people who are accredited to being musical are actually musical! I mean, you look at all the outstanding music people around you: they are all very smart, starting learning when they were about 4 years old, and they practise two hours a day (especially because of the latter, this does not refer to me! =). So is this supposed musical "gift" a "talent" - as in something you have practised, like a skill - or a "gift" as in something you were born with. (I won't get into that one quite yet). I mean, I shall concede that in most cases, some little spark must exist within the person, but I do not think enough is accredited to hard work and early preperation; it's all attributed to "gift".

7:30pm, 11/11/99 Music is a great emotional relief! You feel stressed, or frustrated and you take it out on your instrument! If you sing, sing loud! If you play the piano (ie, like me), bang away at some big chordal Romantic piece, like a Rachmaninoff or something! And if you play a stringed instrument like the cello (ie also like me), go flying away on some big double-stopped concerto or something; Elgar's Cello Concerto and Saint-Saens's Concerto are good for that sort of thing! It's a lot better than strangling someone or throwing a school chair through a window - I've had the urge to try that before.... managed to survive the day, get home, and bang away at the piano! great stress relief!

9:20pm, 12/11/99 I can't think of anything to say.... we were given a task in English to write a creative writing about the formal... .hmmm..., now it is almost impossible to write on demand as it is - anything worth reading that is - but on such a much-drained topic as the formal, this makes it supremely dreary! We've all thought and talked about the formal too much to get any spark of writing passion.... I decided, along wtih my rather psychotic mood these days, to write a very horrible and condemning account of the formal (ie, exactly the opposite of what I thought! :)... I'll give you an account of it later, if you're in the mind to read it! It's very funny, even if I say so myself (hey, Dorothy was laughing when she read it, so I have some proof in what I say!..... hehe.... I bet Mrs Malcolm will be pissed out of her brains at me, but at this moment, I don't care! I'm in a very bad, grumpy, miserable, depressed, mood as you can see! hehe *evil laugh*).

11:20pm, 19/11/99 I'm going to take the risk of boring you more than you already are by writing this very cliche and overused/misunderstood expression that music speaks to you. I don't mean this in the cliche sense... but there has to be some communication between you and the music on the page or through the stereo before you can fully express it in return. Everyone will concede that they cannot make music out of every note they read... certain scores just make no sense to some musicians and a lot of sense to others. It's what makes musical expression so personal.... I'm drained; more on this another time

3:00pm, 10/12/99 Just an observation for you: Is it the adaptation or the original story that makes a successful movie adaptation? I mean, i'm not going to be dumb and say that one or the other has no affect on the success of a movie adaptation, but it does help when you already have a much loved story - eg, Gone with the Wind (the book + Clark Gable), Henry V (good old Shakespeare +Olivier or Branagh)... etc etc