Turn Notifications Off
Arthur Rubinstein - Chopin Nocturne Op.9 , No. 2 in E Flat
Hello internet pals of music. Today we’re taking a beat with one of the greatest interpretations of Chopin’s Nocturnes, because you can’t always rock n roll your way through life, dude.
Fwd: Greenshield Health Benefits / Final Reminder: Need IKEA Assembly Help? / Fwd: [EXT] Building Inspection. Advice / TV’s Hottest Shows Are Here
The furnace rattles along in the background. I top up my coffee. Rubinstein’s fingers dance along the keys in the background and I become jealous. My fingers don’t dance along my keyboard. They peck, and even then without grace, my right hand like one of those drinky-crows, dip dip dipping away while my left hand pivots on the heel of my palm, ready to cover the left flank. It’s neither graceful or calm.
My fanaticism for music may stem from my inability to physically play an instrument.
SERMONS! is reader-supported. There are both free and paid subscriptions. If you’re wishing to support my work, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber.
Anyway, playing an instrument is a far cry from mastering an instrument, and there aren’t many who could play like Rubinstein, and that’s not just the internet confirming that for me. Even my untrained ear can sense it.
I’m thinking about mastery this morning, and art, and the definition of value. Likely because I’ve been revisiting the cultural critic Dave Hickey’s collection of essays, Air Guitar and in particular the essay Dealing about the decision to open an art gallery in Austin, Texas during the end of the 1960s. In it, he offers his thoughts on the relationship between art and money, and suggests that the value of each is essentially in the risk that both act as avatars for.
Maybe, in that sense NFTs are the wholly appropriate art for our time. When the risk of that investment far outweighs the non-tangible value that great artwork can provide and it’s just no wonder at all when our lives are so rapid that to take in the moments to cultivate the techniques necessary to both produce and truly deeply enjoy creative gesture requires a discipline from indulging in the very sinister ways technology has been manipulated according to the science of our brain’s constant craving for dopamine.
It’s therefore important to pause for breath. Listen to the pacing Rubinstein moves us along with, the ease he employs, every note seeming to hit exactly when it should.
Mastery.
SERMONS! is brought to you by Musik Klub. You can also find Jamie on Twitter and Instagram, if that’s your thing. Like what you’re hearing? Help spread the word!
Musik Klub: “Everythang’s Workin”
flash of anxiety when this subject line showed up in my inbox like "WHO turned my notifications back on?" lol
What would you say on these topics if you had an hour longer to write? There’s more to say I think! :)