mainly a music anecdote but there's an opinion at the end there
STORYTIME
One time when I was in cegep* I had the harpsichord and organ professor as a chamber music instructor. I didn't know it at the time but this lady was like, the matriarch of a music dynasty, inasmuch as there is such a thing in Montreal. Anyway she was just as eccentric as you might expect someone to be when they've made a career out of playing early/baroque music, a mix of very disciplined work ethic and a sort of... amorphous creative process. Like, rehearsals/lessons started and ended strictly on time, but the rehearsals themselves seemed to drift vaguely from informal discussion of music performance practice in the 18th century, to career anecdotes, to actual playing + practical advice. Oh also - I definitely remember her looking dishevelled and regularly wearing clothes that could comfortably be described as 'bag lady-adjacent.'
Ok so one day this lady tells us an anecdote. Recently, she says, she was driving and she turned on the radio, and it was set to a classical music station. The piece playing was something for organ that she knew well, but she didn't immediately recognize the specific recording. That surprised her and she kept listening intently because, she says, the more she heard, the more she thought to herself, "this is... good. No, it's really good! Who is this?"
Dunno if anyone sees this next part coming - I definitely didn't at the time. When the radio announcer came back on, she says, it turned out that the recording was... by her! She hadn't recognized it because she'd never actually listened to it! But, she says, she was glad that she agreed with her own performance choices.
I've thought about this anecdote regularly since. I have yet to read an entire piece of my own writing without recognizing it, but I have had the experience of reading something I'd written quickly and hadn't thought about in a long time, and ok, maybe one day I'll acquire the ability to describe my own work with the kind of unabashed admiration expressed by that professor, but that hasn't happened yet. HOWEVER, every once in a while I'm like "oh, this is, huh. Not embarrassing... at all" and I feel like it was anecdotes like that one that made me feel like that was a legitimate reaction.
Happy belated Valentine's Day everybody! Go forth and declare your artwork awesome.
*that's a thing between high school and university in Quebec. Typically a cegep student will be somewhere between 17 and 20 years old. The letters stand for "Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel."
One time when I was in cegep* I had the harpsichord and organ professor as a chamber music instructor. I didn't know it at the time but this lady was like, the matriarch of a music dynasty, inasmuch as there is such a thing in Montreal. Anyway she was just as eccentric as you might expect someone to be when they've made a career out of playing early/baroque music, a mix of very disciplined work ethic and a sort of... amorphous creative process. Like, rehearsals/lessons started and ended strictly on time, but the rehearsals themselves seemed to drift vaguely from informal discussion of music performance practice in the 18th century, to career anecdotes, to actual playing + practical advice. Oh also - I definitely remember her looking dishevelled and regularly wearing clothes that could comfortably be described as 'bag lady-adjacent.'
Ok so one day this lady tells us an anecdote. Recently, she says, she was driving and she turned on the radio, and it was set to a classical music station. The piece playing was something for organ that she knew well, but she didn't immediately recognize the specific recording. That surprised her and she kept listening intently because, she says, the more she heard, the more she thought to herself, "this is... good. No, it's really good! Who is this?"
Dunno if anyone sees this next part coming - I definitely didn't at the time. When the radio announcer came back on, she says, it turned out that the recording was... by her! She hadn't recognized it because she'd never actually listened to it! But, she says, she was glad that she agreed with her own performance choices.
I've thought about this anecdote regularly since. I have yet to read an entire piece of my own writing without recognizing it, but I have had the experience of reading something I'd written quickly and hadn't thought about in a long time, and ok, maybe one day I'll acquire the ability to describe my own work with the kind of unabashed admiration expressed by that professor, but that hasn't happened yet. HOWEVER, every once in a while I'm like "oh, this is, huh. Not embarrassing... at all" and I feel like it was anecdotes like that one that made me feel like that was a legitimate reaction.
Happy belated Valentine's Day everybody! Go forth and declare your artwork awesome.
*that's a thing between high school and university in Quebec. Typically a cegep student will be somewhere between 17 and 20 years old. The letters stand for "Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel."
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
