Birthing Our Life Dance
Jeremy Denk is a famous classical pianist whose piano talent I fell in love with when I heard him play with the Pittsburgh Symphony, heard an interview with him or read his blog.
When he talks about music or plays music it feels as if he is speaking to my soul. It also feels as if I have access to his soul or essence. When he talks about music he talks about breath in all parts of one’s body; how the music of different composers requires the artist to breath into the music differently. He talks about the speed at which one enters the key; how each finger approaches a particular key - the speed and the pressure. All of this he maintains has to be combined with the emotion which one brings to the relationship with each note and the relationship between notes. When he was learning to play a particular piece a teacher said to him, “Think of the saddest you ever felt but don’t speak it out loud to me or anyone. Play it.”
If one has ever done street mime or been a professional actor one knows that if one can duplicate the nuances of the movement/dance of another person one will always know exactly what the person one is miming or portraying is experiencing emotionally. If one is a consummate professional actor one knows that one has to be open to experiencing the emotion of the character one is playing.
An artist has to, at some point, shut off the chatter in one’s mind and allow the art to emerge. This is true no matter whether the medium is paint on canvas, pottery, marble, iron, or some other material. The same is true with writing poems or fiction. It is equally true of professional athletes.
When one is a professional actor, musician or artist of any medium a teacher such as Jeremy Denk pushes, prods, pulls, encourages, demands or otherwise leads the artist to an appreciation of the hard work of learning the intentional control of the action of each part of one’s body. Once one learns to do that one allows one’s heart to take the lead infusing each movement - each breath - with raw emotion. Only then can one emerge as an artist as opposed to someone who just mechanically performs. When Jeremy Denk, even after years of playing professionally, is learning a new piece of music he begins by playing notes. He experiments with breath, weight and relationships. If he keeps practicing, one day he will sit down to play and the notes will have become music. Of course, what we call talent has to also be available to him.
All of us have different talents which can only be birthed if we are willing to practice being intentional about the weight of one’s touch, one’s breath and the courage of one’s heart. Whether we are child caring, teaching, creating a food dish, dancing, performing athletically, building a house or a machine one has the potential of being an artist. It one is willing to become intimately acquainted with each part of one’s body, including one’s emotions, and practice nurturing the individual relationships one will be able to birth an intimate relationship with one’s instrument whether it be a giant crane, a musical instruments, pruning shears or other garden tools, cooking utensils or the surface upon which one is performing.
The art of living - of dancing our dance - is raw and naked - but that rawness and nakedness has to be coaxed into being over hours, days, weeks and years of practicing all the notes and the relationship between the notes.
Written April 27, 2022
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
Jeremy Denk is a famous classical pianist whose piano talent I fell in love with when I heard him play with the Pittsburgh Symphony, heard an interview with him or read his blog.
When he talks about music or plays music it feels as if he is speaking to my soul. It also feels as if I have access to his soul or essence. When he talks about music he talks about breath in all parts of one’s body; how the music of different composers requires the artist to breath into the music differently. He talks about the speed at which one enters the key; how each finger approaches a particular key - the speed and the pressure. All of this he maintains has to be combined with the emotion which one brings to the relationship with each note and the relationship between notes. When he was learning to play a particular piece a teacher said to him, “Think of the saddest you ever felt but don’t speak it out loud to me or anyone. Play it.”
If one has ever done street mime or been a professional actor one knows that if one can duplicate the nuances of the movement/dance of another person one will always know exactly what the person one is miming or portraying is experiencing emotionally. If one is a consummate professional actor one knows that one has to be open to experiencing the emotion of the character one is playing.
An artist has to, at some point, shut off the chatter in one’s mind and allow the art to emerge. This is true no matter whether the medium is paint on canvas, pottery, marble, iron, or some other material. The same is true with writing poems or fiction. It is equally true of professional athletes.
When one is a professional actor, musician or artist of any medium a teacher such as Jeremy Denk pushes, prods, pulls, encourages, demands or otherwise leads the artist to an appreciation of the hard work of learning the intentional control of the action of each part of one’s body. Once one learns to do that one allows one’s heart to take the lead infusing each movement - each breath - with raw emotion. Only then can one emerge as an artist as opposed to someone who just mechanically performs. When Jeremy Denk, even after years of playing professionally, is learning a new piece of music he begins by playing notes. He experiments with breath, weight and relationships. If he keeps practicing, one day he will sit down to play and the notes will have become music. Of course, what we call talent has to also be available to him.
All of us have different talents which can only be birthed if we are willing to practice being intentional about the weight of one’s touch, one’s breath and the courage of one’s heart. Whether we are child caring, teaching, creating a food dish, dancing, performing athletically, building a house or a machine one has the potential of being an artist. It one is willing to become intimately acquainted with each part of one’s body, including one’s emotions, and practice nurturing the individual relationships one will be able to birth an intimate relationship with one’s instrument whether it be a giant crane, a musical instruments, pruning shears or other garden tools, cooking utensils or the surface upon which one is performing.
The art of living - of dancing our dance - is raw and naked - but that rawness and nakedness has to be coaxed into being over hours, days, weeks and years of practicing all the notes and the relationship between the notes.
Written April 27, 2022
Jimmy F Pickett
coachpickett.org
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