La musique souvent me prend comme une mer!
Hello, readers of Thought for the day, my name is Ki�sh and I'll be your host for the night.
I, too, have a blog here in DLand (though I call it "a journal") where I mostly write about my thoughts on life and about events and other happenings. What can I tell you about myself? Apart from the usual "20-something Gemini bloke who loves music and literature above all" I could, perhaps, add that I don't watch much TV but have a passion for Sex and the city and Desperate housewives, that I love winter and autumn, that my favourite author is Douglas Coupland (what a genius) and that tea with cinnamon cookies, a good conversation and rain seems like the perfect idea of an evening. Gosh, I need to work on the whole "describe yourself" part.
One thing I have in common with the great Dom is that we're both rabid music fans, who listen not only with our ears but our open hearts and thirsty minds and that believe music is essential to life, in the manner of oxygen or water. I recently had the honour of having him as a guest in me own humble diary and he posted the answers to that fun quiz where you answer questions using song titles from a favourite band or artist. I had done it on a previous entry with Bj�rk and Alanis Morissette but for this especial occasion I'll answer it with two of my favourite bands; maybe that will tell you more than anything else I could say...
With Portishead:
Are you male or female: Theme from "To kill a dead man"
Describe yourself: Wandering star
How do some people feel about you: Biscuit
How do you feel about yourself: Mysterons
Describe your current significant other: Sour times
Describe where you want to be: Seven months
Describe what you want to be: Glory box
Describe how you live: Humming
Describe how you love: It's a fire
Share a few words of wisdom: It could be sweet
With Pizzicato Five:
Are you male or female: Me, Japanese boy
Describe yourself: Groovy is my name
How do some people feel about you: Sophisticated catchy
How do you feel about yourself: On the sunny side of the street
Describe your current significant other: Collision and improvisation
Describe where you want to be: Tokyo, mon amour
Describe what you want to be: Superstar
Describe how you live: Darlin' of discotheque
Describe how you love: Ice cream meltin' mellow
Share a few words of wisdom: The world is spinning at 45 RMP
Ah, that is always so much fun and it's entertaining how songs can fit the questions so well.
Back to music, I was thinking about my whole career plan and priorities. Currently, I am working on my way to become a better musician and approach more seriously what I want to do and how. I recently had a wonderful master class with Marlon Saunders and at some point, in the Q&A session, he mentioned that success is not a matter of luck but a matter of hard work. He told us how he recorded his demo and had to struggle with rejections and unwelcoming personnel in record companies, going week after week to try to talk to someone or at least get them to listen to his material. Then one day they needed a new musician and the producer started looking for someone so the girl in the reception said, "Well, why don't you try this guy? He comes here every week" and the rest, as they say, is history. Among the useful tips on songwriting and approach to music I thought that was very true and inspiring.
"A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be."
-Abraham Maslow
Another thing he mentioned is that is very important to listen to lots of music because it opens new areas in your brain, similar to how you must read a lot when you're a writer. I smiled when I heard that because that's something I definitely do. A lot.
What is this beautiful power music holds over me? It may sound like an exaggeration to some but when I hear a good song it's like an infusion of energy, my heart beats a little faster and surely there must be lots of endorphins released on my brain. Music makes me happy and I could say it is the love of my life - always there, always wonderful, always with the right thing to say, always comforting and always magic. Hah, you must be thinking I finally snapped and have gone mental.
I want to be able to provoke that in people, to reach them with my music and make them happy. That no matter how personal or cryptic a song may be, they can find something in there and connect to me not as the guy who performs it but as the person who is talking. How to achieve this connection with the listener? My money is on being completely honest and doing things from the heart and enjoying every single moment of it. I have always thought that if you get into this career to become famous and rich and get all the girls/boys and parties and booze (and the string of hideous clich�s associated with it) you won't go very far. Just like any other one, it is a very demanding career and requires serious study and dedication of your craft; if you don't have the right mindset from the beginning then you're not going to go very far.
Now I have made some choices and I hope they are the right ones. I just ask the gods above to give me a chance to show the world what I am capable of and to give me the strength and the will to do things right and make those dreams come true. Am no different than any other person with shortcomings and doubts and talent and hopes but I wish above all to do what I love the most, to deliver the sounds and words inside of me in the best way possible and to enjoy every minute of it...
"Truly fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a Music conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to understand and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason."
-Albert Camus
On a different level, one of the things I enjoy the most is converting people to fans of good things. Recently, a workmate asked me about Franz Ferdinand and of course I told her a million facts and showed her videos but the best part is that I burned the two albums for her plus a bonus CD with all the b-sides and rare stuff. Hah! Am that kind of fan, when I love something I get everything I can and I particularly enjoy getting all the rare or unreleased stuff. I'm not a big fan of live bootlegs but I love the excitement of getting singles and official mixes but mostly getting the alternate and the acoustic versions. Oh, like that song says, I'm a sucker for anything acoustic.
Since this took a very musical direction, I would like to borrow the song lyrics quiz from my buddy Loopy. Basically, I'll post twelve phrases and you have to guess which song each excerpt is from, without any Google-ing or any other kind of search. Interesting, huh? Am going to make this one easy, all these songs have been singles. Here we go:
01. "Feeling wrong 'cuz the days are too long, counting heartbeats 72 in a minute"
02. "I'll see them rise and fall into the jaws of a pestilent love"
03. "Pain is a warning that something's wrong, I pray to God that it won't be long"
04. "You from New York, you are so relevant, you reduce me to cosmic tears"
05. "His wicked sense of humour suggests exciting sex!"
06. "Found myself a picture that would fit in the folds of my wallet and it stayed pretty good"
07. "Through this new frame of mind a thousand flowers could bloom"
08. "Flamenco, lambada but hip hop is harder, we moonwalk the foxtrot then polka the salsa"
09. "So I picked up a paper, it was more bad news, more hearts being broken or people being used"
10. "All those dirty words (Jusqu'� la fin), they make us look so dumb (En plein soleil)"
11. "Now we end up takin' the long way home, lookin' overdressed, wearin' buckets of stale cologne"
12. "If I could ask God just one question, why aren't you here with me tonight?"
Wanna play? Come on, it's fun! Invite you friends to play, too. You can email the answers to [email protected] and the person with more right ones will win... Um, something. I'll post the correct answers in about a week on my journal.
Anyway, I think this is it.
Writing in this fantastic journal has been very fun! Keep writing so many amazing things and posting fun music mixes for us to download and enjoy, Dom! You really are a buddy I appreciate a lot and a fun and smart guy. Finally, someone who understands the Bj�rk obsession! He he he.
How about a nifty music video to close this entry? Hope you enjoy it! Click play and all, svp.
As for the rest of you, keep on listening to good music, support independent artists and bands, live like there's no tomorrow, accept diversity and respect difference and, maybe, drop by my journal sometime and leave a note (yeah, bloody shameless self-promotion).
Big string quartet hugs! =0)
"Music has been called the speech of the angels; I will go farther and call it the speech of God Himself."
-Charles Kingsley
Posted by kiosh
January 2006
go back | random brainstorm | go forth
Rachel Ray - 2009-05-03
The cold wind was the reason - 2009-03-02
The Collected Wisdom of Angela Chase - 2009-02-15
All's well that ends well. - 2009-01-07
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. - 2008-10-04
