When I was a student, we had an audition training with a timpanist. He patiently listened to our bassoon Mozarts and excerpts, thought about what to say and finally told us:

“I imagine the time of Mozart. Horses and buggies, no radio, no television, no devices. Silence. Listening takes space. At that time people had time – almost nobody had a clock.
So why do you play so fast then? We are so accustomed to rushing that we kill the music. Faster and faster. Our ears get trained to intoxicating speed. But what’s the cost of it?”

 

Actually, I had never thought of this.
Everything we do or experience gets sorted in our world.
Where does this sit?
Where does that fit to what I am used to?
Where is this located in correlation to what I already know?

Do we hear such a wild instrument like a bassoon in a real full color live-event for the very first time in the stinky darkness of the 18th century with no internet and no H&M?
Or do we hear – an play! – an audition piece for the gazillionst time. That would be music that even creeps up in our dreams. Which in other words is ubiquitios and sometimes – do I dare to say it – is even pestering.

 

Context is everything.
This reminds me on what I learned from a dear friend who is a physician. She told me traditional medicine focuses on what the cell is doing. Sounds reasonable. But in fact, this is very limiting and leads to problems in understanding. Functional medicine on the other hand also studies the space between the cells, the so called extracellular space.
So, where does this sit?

My little students played a lovely duet, quite nicely for being small kids. In one occasion with a jury of other instrumentalists they were told that still a lot of work needs to be done. Intonation, technique, performance – all needs improvement.

 

The same players played the same duet in a concert with a couple bassoon teachers attending. They were praising the kids for their quick fingers and good skills. They told them to be quite good players already and to just keep going, all is great.

So next time you are amazed about something, look around.
Ask yourself:

Where does that sit?
Compared to – what?

Much love,
Anselma

p.s. Need the perfect Warm-Up Exercises? Well here they are!! My gift for all lovely bassoon fans like me. HERE is the version for little advanced and HERE for advanced players. Enjoy!

Sometimes we make wrong deductions.
We might think, well, the Mona Lisa in the Louvre of Paris is such a famous artwork for its exquisit craftsmanship. The composition is immensely unique.

It does not only depict a stunning woman with a whimsical smile, it is said to be painted in the golden ratio of divine proportions. The foreground, middleground and background are perfectly balanced.

The colours of the painting are soothing to the eye. The image provoces the sensation of elegance and finest artistry. It is made in the sfumato technique to create a 3D illusion on a 2D canvas and gives the viewer the impression of looking into a window of perfection.

 

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What are young entrepreneurs at Stanford University – striving to build world spanning mega tech corporations – taught at their first course?
What are they told to be the basis of ALL success in the world?

Are they led to impress people with their nitty-gritty high-end business know-how?
Are they taught to dominate the market with the latest AI strategic tech marketing?
Are they told to search for the cheapest producer in China and further support slave labor?

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The greatest things in life are not things.
We all know that.
They can not be bought, not even be stolen.
They come to us when we don’t expect them.
And when we want to catch and conserve them, they shy away from us.

In Donizettis L’elisir d’amore, Nemorino wants to win the love of Adina, who ignores him, by purchasing a love potion. Nice try. At the end, they a couple. But not because of this drink (which turned out to be a bottle of regular red wine anyways).

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Recently, in an illustrated art book I came across a beautiful painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema named “Pandora’s Box” depicting a lovely redheaded woman with flowers in her hair. She holds a greyish jar in her hands, watching it intently. The jar looks to be from dark marble, on its lid a sphinx is guarding the content.

The story told by Hesiod reads that Prometheus, who stole the fire from Mount Olympus to bring it to the humans of Earth had a brother, Epimetheus. Interestingly enough, the two brothers do have telling names, describing the ways we can move through the world. Prometheus means foresight, where as Epimetheus means hindsight.

They embody our tendencies of planning ahead and following a vision on the one hand and concluding and reflecting how things worked out on the other. Both are necessary, both are invaluable to human life.

 

In the story, Epimetheus was given a pithos, a greek jar made of clay, that contained all the things, humans don’t want to experience: death, sickness, troubles of all sorts and – take note – hope.

Out of curiosity, Pandora, Epimetheus wife, one day inspected the jar and opened the lid. Though she hastily tried to close it again, all the evil inside could escape and since that time, humans of Earth are plagued, having to cope with their existance all the time.

When it turned out that humanity would almost perish being confronted with all this evil, she let out hope as well to help them carry on.
It turned out, that hope was stronger than all the evils together. It would always prevail.

 

What an astounding story. It speaks about our ability to recover, to carry on, to triumph over misfortune and hardship. We can turn around almost we are determined to change into something useful and of value. Or, to use a Buddhist expression, we are able to turn poison into medicine.

I also like that the much-quoted box is actually a round pot of clay. Not rectangular, not an Ikea-style cardbaord box. So many things in reality are quite different upon close inspection than we might think. There is always stuff to examine, to ponder, to verify, very epimethian – so to speak.

So where do you need more hope to win over something uncomfortable or hindering?
Where did some evil weaken a part of your precious soul – waiting to be transformed into something of value, enriching your life again?

And don’t forget, next time you see a box:
Leave it alone, don’t touch it OR
open it twice immediately!

Much love,
Anselma

Back in the day, Adam was strolling around in the Garden of Eden. He just had been created and now stood on his feet, not quite knowing what to do with himself (ok, that’s my idea of it, I admit).

God was quite happy with him, but he thought, well, something is missing here! What could that be? He called Adam and said: “Hey Adam, I think you need a job. So go out and do something useful. Tend the garden. Make it beautiful and lush, prune the trees, collect dry grass and make sure the flowers have enough water.”

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The holiday season is approaching and we all
– have a chance to freak out in the pre-Christmas rush or
– to make the conscious choice to savor the yearly chaos and imperfections.

Imagine a time where your home is beautifully decorated with candles, sparkling lights and festive red ribbons, pillows and mistletoes. On the table there are nuts, fresh oranges and some fir branches, fruity and fragrant.

You planned some stuff, some things are working out, others (lots of!) just aren’t.
Still, you feel content, you lean back and take a long and calm look at things.

You probably notice something interesting.
It’s not about outer things. It’s not about what’s apparent.
It’s about kindness and the ability to say yes to life.

 

Here are some ideas how we bring some inner glow to all the sparkle, the presents, opulent meals, lucky (and sometimes clumsy) moments in the splendid gatherings with friends and family:

Full attention
Listen with your heart. This does not work when your mobile lies on the table. Electronic devices do not belong to any kind of face to face social interaction or party. Leave this stuff in the drawer. No technology, that’s important! It divides your attention.

Approval
Notice all the good things people tell you and confirm how much they are doing right. Life is difficult. We all give our best. Praise all the constructive ideas and personal accomplishments. It makes a difference!

Admiration
Say what you love. Nice dress, you look great! What a beautiful cake – how much effort it took you to make it for us! I like what you just said – you are so strong-willed!
– We are used to thinking these things but we are not used to say them out loud.

Greatfulness
Nothing is granted. We are all borrowing.
The cosy home, the furniture – we are lending what is given to us. The amazing people in our life – we are invited to enjoy their company, nothing more. Even our body ist just a loan. Some day we will have to give it back.

Have a wonderful December,
with so much love,
Anselma

p.s. Need some Christmas Tunes? For TWO and for THREE players, in beautiful arrangements. You are welcome! Thanks for choosing to play out of original sheet music books like ours, not from xerox-copies that destroy the publishing world and the livelihood of composers.

Problems are part of life. We don’t like them. We avoid them. We run from them.
We want a life without them.
But still, they are there. And as soon as we solve one, a new one is on the horizon.

Music is such a magnificent playground to learn about life for every hindrance you can think of sooner or later will march into your practicing room. You will be tired, frustrated, exhausted, impatient, angry on the composer / conductor / yourself / god (pick one or all of them!), disctracted, lost and hopeless. Old friends on your path as a musician. Stop giggling!?

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Living means being with people.
A beautiful social setting equals life quality.

We tend to forget that.
We think, it’s about things. Or goods. Or to-do lists.
No. It’s about people.

Pondering this I understand that we do have to found our life in some very simple, but universal basics.

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Today I have a little story for you. A true story.
Once there was a woman named Anselma, who was a very regular person, wife and friend.
She loved music.
And she loved people.

She did not like that in our society there was strife, disagreement and a destructive competition. She experienced that all of these were non-existent when people came together to make beautiful art, to play music together.
All the differences in personal attitudes seemed to be of no interest when humans gave their best to create audible harmony on the highest level.

So she dedicated her life to exactly this wondrous thing: music. On the highest level that was possible for her.

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