Broadway music is "music at the service of words and plot."
Popular music is "words at the service of melody and tempo."
REAL music is "rhythm, melody, and harmony."
copyright (c) 2015
William Schaeffer
Friday, February 27, 2015
Real Musician
real musician. n. 1. Someone who can play a song that they absolutely hate, detest and dislike; and make that song sound like it is the most beautiful music in the world and has been discovered for the very first time. 2. Someone who gets paid.
copyright (c) 2015
William Schaeffer
Thursday, February 19, 2015
In the box
For most people,
It doesn't matter how logical,
And well thought out your opinions are.
They are not even listening to what you say.
They are just waiting to put you in a box.
copyright(c)2015
William Schaeffer
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Reality Theory
Reality
Theory
By
Bill Schaeffer
Instructions
for perceiving Reality:
1:
Relax
2:
Take a deep breath and hold it.
3:
Close you eyes and count to ten.
4:
Open your eyes.
5:
What do you see?
Alternative
method of perceiving Reality:
1:
Relax
2:
Walk to the front door of your apartment.
3:
Slowly open the door.
4:
What do you see?
*****
Reality
Theory corollary number one:
"There
are no short cuts, only long cuts."
*****
Reality Theory corollary
number two:
"It's
all in your mind."
copyright(c)2010, 2015
William Schaeffer
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Listen
Listen to the audience applause at the end of this recording of "A Hard Rains Gonna Fall" by Bob Dylan. To my ears, there is something different about this applause than the applause you hear today. It sounds youthful to me, like it WAS recorded in the early 1960's by young people. (I was young, but I was alive then). Why is this?
Is it because it is recorded in a hall with only flat smooth surfaces (before wall to wall carpeting was common)?
Is it because the audience are all young people and their smooth taught skin produces a brighter and more crisp clapping sound?
Is it because there are no personal devices, like phones, watches, or tablets that make noise?
And then I have an odd thought. It sounds like everyone who is clapping is really there in that room. They were totally quiet during the singing. No one is talking, wispering, coughing, or shuffling around. They are totally attentive, totally transfixed, and totally present.
And that is the problem today. Nobody is really there at all. They are all texting, or tweeting, or have an instagram, an email, or a phone message. Everyone is trying to be somewhere else in space and time at the same time they are right here, and the result is that they really are no where at all. And you can hear it in the applause. There is a dull tedious boredom that permeates the applause you hear today. A halfhearted affirmation that the performance was noteworthy, but to me the sound contains a hidden longing to hear a REAL performance that has REAL meaning and REAL significance. A hidden longing to have an authentic experience and a genuine life.
Unfortunately those performances only happen occasionally, if at all. We are lucky to witness only a few in our entire life, and we rarely appreciate them fully when they are here.
And those performances will never happen if you are texting with your smart phone, or scrolling through your messages, or taking a selfie of the cool scene that you are a part of. They only happen if you are really there, one hundred percent attentive; quiet and patient and thoughtful and still.
Thank goodness for audio recording technology.
Monday, February 2, 2015
Network of Consciousness
Here's an interesting idea:
Thoughts actually exist in a vast network of consciousness. The nodes of this network correspond to individual brains. The mapping is pretty consistent, but occasionally the network gets disturbed or individual thoughts become shared by several nodes at once.
There is no "reality" as we understand it to be; just a conceptual network of consciousness nodes that is unimaginably large in extant and complexity. This network creates the illusion of reality as the easiest way to "interact" or exchange information.
Perhaps it is even a multi-dimensional structure.
Amit Goswamy is a "radical physicist" that maintains there is no reality only consciousness.
Perhaps, our own minds are point sources of conscious activity, like mini "white holes" that bring the universe into existence in a collective "symphony" of continual effort.
~
copyright(c)2015
William Schaeffer
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)