More Inspiring Words

(courtesy of Page)

Responding to your latest blog (the dictionary one)...

jettison: to throw off (something) as an obstacle or burden; discard
i don't know why, but i'm really loving this word, this concept, these days.

also,
arcane: known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric

The Expensive Guitar Ensemble

I started writing a piece a while ago about music theory but never ended up finishing it because I couldn’t make a conclusive point. I was feeling frustrated that my music teachers in the past had focused so heavily on learning theory, causing my understanding of music to be unnecessarily technical and leaving me with an empty feeling when I sat down to practice. I learned rhythm, chord progression, phrasing, and composition – but I felt as though I never developed my emotional understanding of music, or maybe I never let myself express it because I was too focused on “getting it”.

It occurred to me recently that we live in a very scientific society. Combined with the high importance we place on being consumers, we have managed to take a soulful emotional thing like music and turn it into a concrete item the individual can purchase, process, and add to the list of things s/he has accomplished. This thought hit me on the first day of my beginning guitar class when I looked around and noticed a few of my fellow classmates holding guitars that must have cost them several hundred dollars a piece. I wondered: is a scraggly D-chord really going to sound that much better on an expensive guitar? Are we really music lovers or just music consumers?

There is an odd rewiring that has happened in our brains – and I will admit I have been guilty of it too – when our creative motivation becomes a competition. Among high school students, it is a competition to fill one’s free time with activities, leadership roles, and other things to beef up a college application. For young adults, the situation is similar in the increasingly competitive market for jobs – the key is to make one’s self look interesting on paper in order to get an interview. In a strange turn of events, the true heart and soul of the individual is now concentrated into a short list of “extracurricular interests” at the bottom of one’s resume.

While the technical aspects of any creative discipline cannot be ignored, we should move away from equating these with full “understanding”. The intangible aspects of music and art are among the few things that remain un-consumable and keep us in our place.

Let's Play the Dictionary Game

I have been thinking about how single words can inspire days and years of creative thought. The academic type can write a whole dissertation or even a series of thick books on single phrases from ancient texts. The greatest songwriters and poets do the same, transforming a simple concept into a work of art. Its pretty amazing how much significance a small thing like a word can have.

Lately there have been a handful of words that keep popping up in my peripheral thoughts (and in my peripheral vision), but I haven’t quite been able to understand their greater significance. In an attempt to organize the rambling internal prose that these words have set off, I am providing definitions along with a short idea of their possible metaphoric meaning. The definitions all come from my roommate’s Webster II New College Dictionary.

Ricochet: To rebound from a surface

I think, scientifically, a collision between two moving particles (or one moving particle and a stable surface) also causes the particles to slow down a bit in addition to changing directions. I like picturing a person wandering or floating along, focusing on something in the distance coming closer (a career? an event?), bumping into that thing full-force, and heading off in another direction as a result. The person takes a deep breath, turns to face the new path, and heads on their way a bit slower than last time, with another out-of-focus thing in the distance – maybe close or maybe far away.

Pace: The rate of movement or progress; to set or regulate the rate of speed

For years I couldn’t get exercise from going running. I would start out too fast, get tired quickly, and walk home after going only a half-mile or so. When a friend suggested I run as slowly as I possibly could, I realized I could run quite far – I learned the meaning of pacing myself. Now I am able to pick a distance before I run and set a pace that will carry me through it. When we all finished college, its like we flew out of the house in new sneaks and bolted for the running path. Thankfully, I think my short “run” was followed by an even shorter “walk home” and I’m more cognizant of my pacing these days.

Muse: 1. To consider or meditate at length, 2. A guiding spirit; a source of inspiration

No metaphor here, really. I was just thinking that most of the people or things I would consider my “muses” are actually just people I disagree with or things that frustrate me. But I always thought a Muse was supposed to be a happy, romantic thing.

Thinking about words is fun. Anyone else have any faves?