My day gig is teaching, so I am off this week. All I really had to do yesterday was shovel snow. That is it. This was done by about eleven o’clock in the morning. Did I come in and compose a sonata? Did I practice an extra hour on my guitar? Did I work on the final two mixes on my current musical project? Did I get around to writing this article before 8:55 PM last night? Nope. [Read more →]
Like most boys, at the age of twelve I was focused on not being focused. I loved everything from baseball to science fiction to TV to day-dreaming. But I did know I wanted to be a musician, mostly because my dad was. When I heard the “Sunrise” section of Daphis et Chloe, though, I knew this feeling ran deeper than a mere desire to imitate my hero. The conclusion had been reached: I needed to compose. Maybe just as much, I wanted to be a conductor. I wanted to play the great piano that was a symphony orchestra — to raise God’s voice out of virtuosic, human keys with my hands. [Read more →]
I had been looking forward to seeing David Russell in concert for a long time. In my opinion, he is the finest living classical guitarist. He was to perform at the First Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. It’s a pretty big room. It seats about five-hundred and there were people standing in the back, too. People suck up sound, you know. I leaned over to a fellow guitarist and said, “Do you see any microphones?” He furrowed his brow and shook his head. We were worried. We were halfway back in the crowd. This was terrible. Then, David Russell trotted out pleasantly to lively applause and took his seat. He checked his tuning, but the turning of the buttons had the secondary effect of serving as a volume dial for his audience: the crowd slowly went as silent as a snowy pine-forest. [Read more →]
I’m late on this. I admit it. But after having seen Toy Story 3 with my kids the other night, I need to weigh in. If you are even more behind than I am, I must warn you — some semi-spoilers are coming . . .
I’m not a movie critic, but I do write fiction. From that perspective, I think that films for kids might be losing their way — that is, if they follow the Toy Story 3 model. The people at Pixar are brilliant. I’ve been a fan for a long time and I very much liked Toy Story 3, but I don’t think the movie is quite right, in terms of its storytelling, for kids — definitely not for my kids, who I’m hoping are not completely different from everyone else’s children. [Read more →]
I recently remembered a magic spell I once knew. Here’s how it happened:
A few months ago, I had my metaphorical butt kicked by a twelve-year-old. Part of my lifelong musical journey is that I have been studying classical guitar for the past five years. My teacher is kind enough to hold “salons” for her students several times per year, at which we can perform solo pieces for each other — mostly adults. Many self-conscious jokes are cracked before performances (mostly by me), many excuses are made from the stage (mostly by me) and many right hands shake nervously over the strings (mine, especially), derailing passages that sounded so great just the day before in everyone’s practice rooms. [Read more →]
My sons have been making construction paper turkeys in school with multicolored feathers that are labeled with the things for which they are thankful. So, here’s my one-feathered construction paper turkey: I’m thankful for artistic failure. Of course, if you have read any of my stuff before this, you will know that (1) “failure” is going to be qualified and that (2) I blame no one but myself for this failure. [Read more →]
Beethoven’s hair was crazy for a reason. I don’t think it had anything to do with styling, though. My own humble speculation is that it was not a conscious decision at all. Beethoven’s hair was messed up because he didn’t care that it was. It was messed up because he wanted to write music and because primping would eat up time he could better spend with quills and keys; therefore, the master’s external manifestation of artistic weirdness falls into a category I call “true bohemian weirdness.” [Read more →]
Some people want to be the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop that is the artistic world. They want to put down the works of others; they want to convince people there is only one way to see things or they want to throw out the rules. Many want, above all, to show as many people as possible that they can do everything better than anyone else. Like many, I hate that, but I do get it. And I feel the tug, from time to time. [Read more →]
For anyone who has read a few of my pieces, I know it sometimes seems like I am on a mission to downplay the arts — to take artists down a peg and to reduce the glitter factor in the perception of the world’s audience. That’s because I am. The drama is supposed to be in the work, not in the lifestyle and in the peripherals of the performance. All that stuff is tabloid bull, not artistic expression. [Read more →]
Here are some things that are not art forms: pitching, cooking, teaching, engineering, fishing, farming, parenting, managing, coaching, conversation, seduction, karate, carpentry, nursing, disk-jockeying, editing, belching, annoying people, grooming dogs, bar-tending, Scrabble, boxing, cobbling and surgery. Have I offended anyone? If so, why? [Read more →]
Recently, I got an email that I thought my “Artistic Unknowns” readers might want to see. The writer identified himself only as “None of Your Business”. Anyway, here it is:
Dear Chris,
You are one of those music guys, so I thought you might be interested in my problem: A while ago, I found out that Elton John is gay. Now this might not be a big deal to you artsy types, but it had a profound effect on me. [Read more →]
Ted Williams said that “hitting [a baseball] is fifty percent above the shoulders.” Yeah, see, there’s the problem. You can be physically athletic and still never excel because of what goes on in your thinkosphere as the pitcher winds up, or as the pass comes to you, or as you approach a hurdle. This is why even physically talented artistic kids can have trouble with sports, but it is also why they can become fans who reap deeper rewards than most. [Read more →]
Complaining about the cruel, insensitive world is a norm for creative artists. So is blaming that world for their own obscurity. The thing is, about 98.34% of artists who complain about their plight have no right to. If you want to whine about why you didn’t “make it” and be free of my judgment (and who doesn’t?), you will need to meet certain standards. Otherwise, stop flapping your artsy-fartsy gums and get back to creating. [Read more →]
I spend a lot of time trying to hide something, but I might as well come clean here. I have these slightly creepy, longish fingernails on my right hand. You can uncurl the top lip a little. It’s not like I am lounging on a gilded, wing-backed settee in a robe and grinning while scratching the top of a sleepy Persian cat’s head with three inches of talon. They’re just a little beyond the ends of my fingers. I play the classical guitar and the nails are how you get good sound on nylon strings. Still, it looks weird from the uninformed perspective. In the end, my nail issue sums up an awkward situation for the unknown artist in our society. [Read more →]
