Saturday 28 June 2014

Change coming from adversity

It is said that every time a friend reported enthusiastically, 'I have just been promoted' Jung would say, 'I am very sorry to hear that: but if we all stick together we will get through it'. If a friend arrived depressed saying 'I have just been fired. ‘Jung would say, 'Let's open a bottle of wine, this is wonderful news, something good will happen now.' - Robert Bly 'Iron John'

 

Apart from this being classic reframing it actually goes much deeper into the myths of change coming from adversity. What do we learn from things going well? I would say very little if anything, life keeps plodding down a rutted road into a ditch, then wham! Something comes and lays waste to your dream and you wake up.

The ability to look and learn from the event is what makes us adapt. It is the moment in the music when something goes into the unplanned that real musical and spiritual brilliance happens; true improvisation.

As a society we are heading, I would say sleep walking into such a place. We have been told the problems are someone else's, it is the immigration, it is the fuel crisis, it is the global warming, it is Islamists etc. BUT have we changed our habits and life styles or are we thinking that we are right are we just playing the same tune over and over again?

We consume three times what we should in the West and that is the real problem, if a political party said this it would make them unelectable so they carry on saying we need to grow and consume more, like eating more is a way to deal with obesity.

Fracking is their answer to energy problems but this will lead to a catastrophe both economically and ecologically because they are both linked. Economists have in the Cartesian view separated ecology and economy as if there is no way that environment has anything to do with making money but what worth is the money when you have poisoned the water table and the air is spoiled and global warming is making the environment unsuitable for us to live.

Time for a new tune based on listening to the other players on the stage and maybe the answer is when opportunity comes dressed as the devil; frightening, shocking but unstoppable.

 

 

Vic

 


 

 

 

Friday 27 June 2014

Poverty and Music

“Do not waste your time on social questions. What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.”
Shaw

One of my drivers when I was younger was lack of money. It made me creative and focused and although I did not know this at the time because that was life I can see now that the people who have it all do not have the passion and the commitment to take the knocks. Also they may not have anything to say, a little like a Phil Collins song about how difficult it is making ends meet.
The idea that riches cause a problem is something that you need to consider not necessarily for you because you probably would not be aiming to be a jobbing musician if you had the cash already; but for the people that you might meet in your work either as clients or punters. There are many people out there who have more than enough money for all of us put together.
Finding a keenness that drives people to practise and sweat over their art is rather difficult and if they cannot find out, because it took me a while and I was looking, then some help may be required.

With lots of money that ‘drive’ diminishes and I see that in pupils they are not hungry enough, if they were they would be blinding players, it is a shame but looking at the poor then they have something to be angry and passionate.

Vic


Wednesday 25 June 2014

The change in education is coming through the internet and it could mean the end of school education as we know it.

With the growth of online education sites such as Khan Academy and many university courses which come under the banner of MOOC’s (Massive Open Online Courses) the nature of education is changing where some schools in the USA are using these as the curriculum and the teachers are fewer in number but use the backup from the internet to check and assess the work of the pupils.
If you think this is a problem for individual teachers imagine what this could mean for the institutions of teaching such as the independent schools and universities.
The answer is to be aware of this and use the technology to your advantage, because no one knows where this is going. Use this as an opportunity you will be better off than just sitting back as if nothing is happening which is exactly what I see in the schools as I travel around.

Vic



www.bluescampuk.co.uk