A good day, producing and recording a song called Care. It's a song with hardly any melody, two chords and no images, but was fun to play and a good tutorial. It's rather grunge-like, like a Pixies song, and is one of my first to feature lots of real guitars.
For the first time I could see the connections between my painting, piano, guitar and singing, and how I learned (or am learning) each thing. For my painting I have some 'Spells for Artists' which are essentially rules, meditations on how to do things like draw, paint etc. Rules that help focus the mind on the task, and rationally document the best way to do things. The way to improve any activity is to analyse it, work out what is wrong, and how to make every aspect better. This analysis is necessary for fast improvement - it would take years to learn how to do something instinctively and even then, ones routines and procedures would not be as good as they could be. Every one of my 1000 or so paintings has a diary of how I painted it, and it's perhaps that, more than anything, more than any book or class or tutorial, that taught me how to paint.
Yet, I've never done that for piano, or any other skill. Perhaps that's because my keyboard playing ultimately stems from pre-painting days. Perhaps, more importantly, it's because I've not taken piano as seriously as painting as a skill to be mastered. Yet, now I've started to make some documents for singing and guitar playing for the first time. Sometimes, even simple rules can help, simple routines, and even the act of making a list of rules and routines can improve an activity. If something can improve a skill by even 1%, it's worth doing. If a £1000 gadget will improve your skill by 1%, it's worth it. If your aim is mastery, no price is too high - the target is 100% and every 1% along the way must be obtained one way or another.
This made me think that I've not achieved nearly as much as I could in painting! I know I'm far more capable of painting than my efforts so far show; yet, it seems that I don't feel like pushing on. At times I feel that I've mastered what I wanted and so don't need to do more - everything for me must be learning, must be a challenge to be worth doing. As my goals are attained, it becomes less of a challenge, and there is less incentive to do. If I need to inspire myself I need to remind myself that there are no masters; that there are always new skills, that no matter how much you know, there is more to know and that the top of a mountain might feel like a summit, but it is in fact but a tiny peak beneath a vast and unseen new mountain, of perfection in the universe. We are but specks and the best human ever has achieved barely anything great; Beethoven, Leonardo da Vinci, Einstein, these are specks compared to what is potentially possible - it is this vision that can inspire.
The song itself was a learning exercise. Maybe I'll tidy it up and do something with it. Here are the words:
Care
I care
but I don't care
that you don't care
because I care care care care care even if you don't
I care even if you won't
and I don't care
what you think of me
and I don't care
if you ignore me
and I don't care
that you don't care
about the things I care about.
