Kento Khromatic
“Losing my mind”.
In response to the blog post the photo above is from, “Salary VS Enjoyment”:
Hugh Macleod, a cartoonist who made his success through edgy comics on the back of business cards wrote an article once called “The Sex and Cash Theory” (Ch. 17 in “Ignoring Everybody), where he argued that it’s better to keep your day job and differentiate between artistic work that’s for money and for creative purposes, and to not necessarily mix up the two. He argues that this duality is never transcended by the artist and that additionally success comes from understanding the reality of living in this duality.
Professions that appear like “winner” professions can often have a lot of “losers” who thought that their profession would give them “sex” (creative fulfillment) all the time but only turned “sex” into “cash”. Maybe an affirmation of this duality is the best way to push up into the winner category, which might even mean doing “loser” jobs to help create the space and inspiration for “winner” work.
igitur07: “Funny, when praising the pianists as a proof of god[’s] existence, there is the omission of the real genius: Bach.”
Me: “Isn’t a composition like this actualized through the union between the work of the composer and performer, though? What I find miraculous is that a dead composer and a living performer can communicate in unity.”
the desire to connect
I’m starting to see that I see the world in terms of interpersonal relationships and much of my intellectual and artistic interests stem from my desire to connect to myself or others. Out of these, music is the one that is most like another person, so it’s my best friend.
(This description does get a little close to theology.)
there’s something really down-to-earth beautiful about this. A guy says at the end: “My favorite song is the one I’m singing!”
“Nine Japanese videogame musicians took part in a roundtable discussion..about their opinions of music in Western videogames.
“.. Despite the huge budgets for music in many American games, however, the Japanese developers weren’t entirely uncritical of the result. “A lot of it does a gorgeous job at creating atmosphere, but what you never see is really unforgettable melodies — like you see in Kouda’s Monster Hunter, for example,” said Mitsuyoshi. Sano concurred, saying, “That’s what makes Monster Hunter so great. There’s real warmth to the music, where I think the Hollywood orchestral sound has this image of being pretty dry in my mind.”
And while the participants expressed good-natured envy at the amount of money their American counterparts had to work with, Nakamura pointed out that having a big bankroll doesn’t necessarily add up to much. “They’re great technological achievements and they’re made with big budgets, but that isn’t what it takes to produce good music,” he said.”
When reading these articles and other comments by Japanese composers and observations about their works, it becomes really obvious to me that my music philosophy is part of the modern Japanese school of musical thought. I am part of a greater movement.
The east may be collectivist, but maybe collectivism spawns creativity. You need security and community instead of humongous budgets to create a sense of artistic priority.
Jazz and crying babies. I like the atmosphere of rustling and people talking in the background, it’s somehow comforting; it makes me feel less alone in the world than the silent listening during Classical performances, and the obligatory silence between movements.
The drummer was one of the funnier drummers I’ve played with; his solos seemed to reflect his sense of humor. It was a great match with this song; you can’t take yourself too seriously while at the same time not being half-assed when playing a tune like this!
…
That is why a mountain trip is supposed by the Chinese to have a cathartic effect, cleansing one’s breast of a lot of fooling ambitions and unnecessary worries.”
