Social media

If you gaze into the social media long enough it will not gaze back.

There is noone on facebook to talk to. Or put it that way - there are a lot of people to talk to - that is of course if you qualify square profile images under names as people - but noone will hear you. You know that - yet you still occasionally put your heart and soul in it.

Twitter is no better.  The life of a post lasts a second. Every retweet is a reincarnation - which also lasts a second. Nobody will go back and read through what you said. It is quantity over quality. Very easy to overuse exclamation marks on twitter, it is. And you have to count your words, and even your letters. It is almost like going back 10 years and SMS texting on your Nokia 3310. (Apropos, I still own and use a Nokia).

Embrace the emptiness.

Greenwich Early Music Festival

It is that time of the year when winter is coming and heating is a central subject in casual conversations - but on the plus side, Greenwich Early Music Festival and Exhibition was in town once more, between 13-15th of November.

Fear not, reader! I am not going to bore you with Google-able details.

As a Trinity Laban student I was stewarding at some point during the festival. Looking back I think I had incredible luck shift-wise. It is not everyday that one gets paid for having fun. And it was pretty much all fun, apart from the slightly aimless handing-leaflets-to-disinterested-people-outside part.  And perhaps the bright-orange prom-queen steward banner thing was a bit over the top. People kept asking me how to get to Greenwich Observatory and the nearest Tube station. Unfortunately people would just not get interested by the traditionally looking leaflets!

They had no idea what they were missing:

Rows of recorders, herds of harpsichords, stacks of baroque bows, herds of harps, flocks of viols and flights of fiddles, the occasional hurdy-gurdy, and many more oddly-shaped and deliciously old-fashioned instruments occupied the Painted Hall and the vault-ceiling-ed St. Mary's Undercroft - which, I realised after walking in close proximity almost day for two and a half years - are actually connected with each other via a long underground tunnel.

Needless to say I attempted to play every single harpsichord in the exhibition at least once.

Somebody once said that the sound of the harpsichord reminds them of  a couple of skeletons making love on a tin roof. Undoubtedly amusing and endearing comparison - however, to me (as both a harpsichord-enthusiast and synesthaesiac) the harpsichord sounds like sunset rays over a golden treasure, with a hint of ginger ale and chocolate orange.

Oh no, look at the time.

Now, to diminish the suffering and to make this a bit less of an aimless post, while yours faithfully is trying to silence her harpsichord withdrawal symptoms with listening  (full on, obviously, to show a good metal-fan heritage) to recordings of Rameau, played by Gilbert Rowland, a renowned UK harpsichordist whom she had the pleasure to meet at the festival, you can have a look at some photos from a previous edition of the Festival:

See you there next year. =3

You know what?

You know what?

(Of course you don't.)

I would be seriously concerned if I thought my dreams would never come true.

(But, I know they will. They always do.)

If.

I don't want this to be too easy; but I don't want it to be too hard. Nevermind.

Возможно, вы имели в виду: 
.
?

Nevermind.


Google Trans(too)late.
I am the son of the criminally shy.

Listening to The Smiths again, instead of Avro Part (or Brahms...?).
If I only knew...

But I didn't.

Privacy

I have been thinking today. I don't know why - it might be because of the looming double deadline on Thursday and the complementary anxiety that comes with it, because of a phone call with my mom in which we talked about putting stuff online, or because I realised (while casually stalking him) that a friend of mine whom I haven't seen for a long time has removed his facebook account; or because I saw another friend who just always makes me think a lot and about all sorts of things. It might be all of those things at once and many others too.

I do realise that I am mostly doing this because I am procrastinating writing my Portfolio essay... which I was planning to write in order to procrastinate writing the program notes for my recital on Thursday. Don't get me wrong - I am very excited about writing these program notes, and about the recital in general, but that doesn't mean that I don't feel like hiding under a blanket and pretending to be a little penguin, awaiting less stressful times. Anyway, this is connected to the Portfolio assignment; therefore, to continue the ornitological metaphor, I am not chickening down but am actually killing two birds with one (flint)stone.

Just to say, I am against animal violence (as well as pretty much any other kind of violence).

So, I have been thinking about privacy, and sharing things online but also about what we tell to people. The general idea is, if something is worth sharing, it gets shared. But is that really really so?  Let's take for example, those 'eureka' moments.While it is true that sometimes when I am practicing a piece and I receive this brilliant idea about what a passage means/how to play it the small part of myself that is the extrovert/Sagittarius/show-off feels a gush of desire to share it with the whole world; my hand impulsively reaches for my phone to go on facebook. (One thing that could be said about facebook is: 'never before so much stuff that is not important has been shown to so many people who don't care about it' - I believe there is an almost identical demotivator about blogging somewhere.) And then a voice in my head says, 'Stop, what do you think you are doing? Wait until you see where this leads and if it really makes sence.'
Or for example, when I am having such a good time that I don't feel like writing about how I am having a good time even when there is a lot to say about how good the time is and why is it good exactly.
Or secrets. There are of course secrets and secrets; I am talking about the ones that are beyond gossip and take a part in one's heart/mind/being.

Using those examples and some others, I was able to derive the following formula: if it is important, I keep it private. If I am not keeping it private, it means it is not that important.
I also realised that with some important things I don't even dare to separate them as thoughts from the entangled mess of a feeling, because sharing them even with myself would make them shrivel and die.

I believe I am not (too) different from other human beings, at least from the ones I like and am able to interact with, and I suspect it is probably how it works for most.
I am afraid I lost my train of thought here, at least a few of the coaches got redirected. My point was the internet is full of semi-important things that both the reader and the writer only half-cares about. Crazy, isn't it.

Now let's do some work... after I have dinner, because dinner is good, and when hungry, I pose immediate danger for myself and the others around me.

Bach-and-breakfast

One of the New Year resolutions this year, in addition to finding a job and sorting out what I want to do with my life, was to keep this blog and regularly write lots of smart things in it.
In view of that, I thought I'd share with you a little bit of musiciany nonsense.

My inner self: Gifs are tacky! Gifs are bad!!! 

Me: I'm not listening! *covers ears and starts humming*