It’s a cold, cloudy, drizzly, grey day and I feel quite uninspired.



My teacher used to complain on days like this, and with his rough, heavily Russian-accented English, he would proclaim that days like this were not meant for producing “any inspired or beautiful music”, but were meant for being alone, thinking and ruminating. I used to tease him, saying with all the fresh idealism of youth, “Oh Alexander, come on! It doesn’t matter what the weather is like, we can still create something beautiful from the inside! Come on, let’s get to work!” I used to love this kind of weather - especially while I lived in New York, where the grey dreariness was a part of the very character of the city. I felt like it made me tougher, grittier, and it energized me into thinking that my work as a musician was so noble because I was trying to create beauty in the middle of such adversity as rain and dark clouds!

And now? Now I’m sitting here, completely affected by the weather, nursing a cup of hot tea, and feeling melancholic and uninspired. Hmm.

Schmutzie just wrote a charming and amusing post about “getting older”, that got me thinking about all of this. Perhaps this current natural acceptance and intake of what is around me is a sign of age, and my previous determined need to prove myself, despite the surroundings, was a hallmark of my brash youth. A few days ago, a friend of mine and fellow pianist, D, celebrated a birthday, and as I sent him his birthday e-card, I mentioned in it that he should “revel” in his youth. Although he’s a few years younger than me, part of the reason why we have been friends for so long is because of his maturity, and his impressive ability to perceive subtle issues in ways that I never could have at his age. But as I sent the card to him, I felt a strange twinge - like the twinge I felt the first time someone called me “ma’am” instead of “miss”. I suddenly felt that those few years between our ages was an enormous gulf, and I felt an unbelievable urge to protect him from all the challenges and difficulties I knew were lying ahead of him. But most of all, I was worried that he would push himself in all of the wrong ways, in the impulsive driven manner of youth, when perhaps the most important thing was for him to learn to let go, to naturally accept things as they come, to take the time to be enriched in all ways by everything that is around us. In other words, all the things my teacher was probably trying to teach me through his sensitive comments about things as innocuous as the weather.

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In other news, I am doing some score shopping today for an interesting performance I have coming up, which I hope to post about later this week. I am also now on StumbleUpon, and have created a Bloglog community for this blog, and would love it if you would join/friend me there.