Profits anyone?

The authorities occasionally try to crack down on our right to party. Sex and drugs and rock and roll frighten our leaders. These attempts tellingly stopped when they realised that the club culture was turning into a giant industry which attracted profits for the exchequer. Tom Hodgkinson  

Money makes the world go round into a hole in the ground, follow the paper trail of the money makers and you can see why bankers, CEO’s, lawyers and the like get well paid while nurses, teachers are badly paid. Anything that makes money gets money and anything that does not gets naught.

Musicians fall into this trap and it is worsened by the artist poverty mind-set which says I am not worth much, I do this for fun. Just because you enjoy doing something does not mean that you should not be paid for it but you have to learn how to create value in the minds of those paying for it.

A couple weeks ago I had a pupil complain about the price of the exam fee for grade 6 and I took him to task over it especially as he may become a professional musician in the future. It was a classic case of a young person opening his mouth and the attitudes of his parents coming out.

The attitude of the government of any country is by its very nature protective, of themselves that is as they are the ruling classes; change would mean that they might not stay as they ones in charge. But as the above quote says there is a trade off when it comes to the money, remember the role of the artist is to challenge and present ideas for something different.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

Your mind is full of weeds they too can enrich your path to enlightenment. Shunryu Suzuki

The idea of the problem, the error, the weakness being the very thing that can define your way that can inspire you I find comforting. In an age where we are constantly being told that perfection is the only way I like the idea of the weeds of your personality, consciousness can enrich you and take you forward.

When someone asked Johnny Cash how they got the train like rhythms in their songs he said, ‘That is all we can do’. That might be all that we need, the idea that lack or a technical problem in your playing might be the way forward; I am sure that Django would like to have had four fingers but it defined the player and maybe defined the man.

 

Vic

 

 

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

The road to excess leads to a palace of wisdom - William Blake

Blake was one of this land’s great visionaries and revolutionaries, his mystical paintings and poetry and his above quote is full of ambiguity and intrigue.

The artist often is blamed for excess and profanity either because of life style and life choices of excess in drugs, drink and a life of anarchistic expression. Even the amount one has to practice to become skilled at an instrument is excessive and beyond the capability of ‘ordinary folk’.

A number of years ago my life lead me into an interest in Ayurveda which is the traditional health and wellbeing system of India and in one of the ideas of keeping healthy is based on food and balancing what you eat matched to your body energy. However one thing that was said that every now and again you should shake your body up by not following the routine and doing something VERY different break the rules and then go back and into balance again.  

In times of shaking up that is where we discover ourselves; we learn to be brave, we learn to see the things we missed, and we learn to draw from the deep wells of ourselves.

Where else would our music come from?

 

Vic

 

 www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

 

 

People who are too busy.

Most of the world's troubles seem to come from people who are too busy. If only politicians and scientists were lazier how much happier we would be. - Evelyn Waugh


Politicians have to prove why they are needed by changing things like the education syllabus and the NHS. These changes cost millions and for no real benefit because if they worked they would only make one change but this is not the case it is a constant happening.
The belief in religion is now the belief in science and to question it is a modern heresy but nothing in the philosophy and thinking of man has taken us to the edge of destruction in the way that science has.
The philosophy of economic growth needs to change; perhaps we need other markers like happiness and wellbeing. Here is the point that all artists know, happiness comes from expressing what is within not by acquiring stuff. Unfortunately that does not fit well on a balance sheet or a flow chart and as the society is ruled by the markers of the accountant we carry on in the same old way with the politicians being busy changing things and the scientists finding new ways of making us busy often paid by big business because at the end of the day he who pays the piper calls the tune.
All truths start as a blasphemy.

Vic

Business training from music

Music is the perfect way of exploring team building and creative ideas that are either contained within parameters such as in blues or not, as in jazz or simplistic as in pop music or complex as in classical music.

 

For ideas to flourish in business we need to be able to explore these areas to innovate but also to be able to see how structure can be applied to the ideas as we do in musical genres for them to be contained and be functional. Also music projects emotional values and this is an aspect that business has toyed with but often failed to accomplish such as ‘the caring bank....’

 

Great music has emotional resonance and it lasts for decades speaking to different generations because it is still relevant emotionally. Music is inherent because it is language and therefore it is a metaphor for many things such as creative thinking, generating ideas and team work.

Putting a band together is an exercise in social engineering and much can be learnt by the business world from the world of music in how to blend egos and creative temperaments.

 

 

Vic

 

I have to entertain the children

This is a quote from a mother about her own children; I have to entertain the children. It made me reflect on my parents and the idea that they had to entertain me was ridiculous, they expected me to entertain myself which I did and that became a lifelong skill and I can honestly say that I have never had a day in my life where I was bored. A skill was imparted by my parents by them not doing any entertaining!

The laid back Taoists of ancient China had a philosophy of letting the world turn and then all one does is ride the wave, if you need to, and if you don’t need to you just watch the wave!

I have made a career out of the opening quote and for that I am grateful but I believe it reflects a strange aspect in society that we have to be doing something and it is going to get a lot worse because the next generation of children will be parented by the children who need entertaining, where the hell are we going? What about people learning to be their own bosses following their own intuition?

Society has made everyone believe that they know nothing; a mass of people who need guidance. We are in a very strange place and that will develop very clearly that we are becoming mindless sheep. Maybe a glimmer of hope is that people are getting more connected and therefore there is a rise of a counterculture that might present an answer.

With music we have the chance to make something happen like in the days of Punk or the days of Skiffle where you did it for yourself there were no experts you just made it up as you went along rather like improvising. The test for improvising is simple, does it sound good?

So entertain yourself and listen to yourself and ask does it sound good and do I feel good? Oh and let the children play...

Vic



.www.bluescampuk.co.uk

 

The point about life is about living not working; we did not have children to make money for the ruling classes.

The reality is that many of us do have children for the above reason, ok not intentionally but if we consider the check list mentality that goes on in our culture where the young are literally going through their version of the bucket-list of life. The car, the house, the children, the holidays, the pets, the new job, we are doing this because it is the checklist given to us by the media passed through what our friends are doing; the living in London, the moving out of London etc.
As I get older the only thing that becomes clear to me is I realise how much I really do not know. When I was younger I knew it all and as each year went by the less I knew until now I am completely stupid BUT I have also in that time have become to realise that no one else knows anything either and all the points put across are flawed including the advice given to us by the experts
I my life time butter has been bad and now it is good, margarine was good and now it is bad, wine was good, bad, good and now bad, tea and coffee likewise fluctuate. So with that experience I ask myself who is paying for the research and who is getting the money for our fears?
In the past music and health treatments were free and you could heal yourself by eating the herbs that were outside your door.  Now we are told this is rubbish and we are encouraged to take drugs that cost lots of money only to discover later that A, they do not work. B they are more dangerous to either us or the environment than the good they do or C they are making someone who happens to be part of the ruling elite either here or in Washington lots of money, or all three of the above.
I suggest that we do what the troubadours did in times past become the channels of information through our music and bring our music to the people in such a way that avoids the big companies, that establishes the small i.e. you and your friends, and all things that you do you do for yourself and those around you disregarding the tick box culture propagated by the media
Be true to yourself, you are your best judge.

Vic

www.bluescampuk.co.uk