|
eruanto
Guest
|
 |
« Reply #105 on: 12:07:11, 31-05-2007 » |
|
Thank you all so much. This is all very useful. I think I'll have to read your replies every day.
I think the problem lies not in the fact that I'm not interested in other people, but that in some region of my head lies the assumption that people won't be interested in me. This probably comes from secondary school, where i spent most of my time in the music department, which (though substantial and dare i say it pretty famous) was very much an exclusive club. As discussed in other threads on here, this situation is not the best way to getting to know people - they don't understand your passion; they don't talk to you; you think they're not interested in you, so you don't talk to them. teufelskreis.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
trained-pianist
|
|
« Reply #106 on: 12:29:50, 31-05-2007 » |
|
Music departments can be lonely places some times. However, I know so many young men between 25 - 40 years old who love music very much (passionately). They like different kind of music. I have people who love jazz, experimental music, Romantic music etc.
It took me 8 years to make sense of the place. I was very depressed for seven and a half years.
Now I know that it takes a long time to find your connections.
May be musicians are lonely because if one is wants to succeed one has to be completely focused on his own work or goals.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 14:36:10, 31-05-2007 by trained-pianist »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Tony Watson
Guest
|
|
« Reply #107 on: 14:14:51, 31-05-2007 » |
|
Eruanto, I think I know what you mean when you say that having a strong interest in music at school does not lead to making many friends there. There were very few with musical interests similar to mine when I was at school. And yet I would say that all my best friends now have come about through a shared interest in music, and when I go out the talk is always about music to some extent.
Interesting change of avatar, by the way! Does it have any significance?
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 17:29:48, 31-05-2007 by Tony Watson »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
eruanto
Guest
|
|
« Reply #108 on: 15:25:54, 01-06-2007 » |
|
Interesting change of avatar, by the way! Does it have any significance? not really! Only that his expression there perhaps represents my current attitude to exams and such like. Now then, off to the nervous room... oo hang on, are we talking about the same picture? When i logged on tonight i had a GAP-sponsored little red riding hood there (not my choice). |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 22:45:02, 01-06-2007 by eruanto »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
marbleflugel
|
|
« Reply #109 on: 04:18:48, 02-06-2007 » |
|
I'm a bit late on this one Eruanto but may I add my 2d worth? I went into HE briefly at 24 and at 33, and I found that quite a bit of the gregariousness was -and it may have been fine in being so- a form of high octane group therapy hiding a lot of insecurity. The contacts I had with people were episodic and subdued and that was fine too. Inevitably I had a bit of a thing for one of the female teaching staff, first time round, not least because as a practicioner they represented what lay beyond the impecunious cocoon of 'student life'. I think FE should be far more vocational and your recital proves that you are ready to engage with bookers and music clubs and whomsoever as an enthusiastic professional, and i think you could enjoy that. i profoundly hope you do ,and i hope to hear you sometime. All the best with the exam-I'd suggest you treat it as a gig with a bit of probona conversation about your methods. You know what youre doing (in a spirit of benign enquiry)   |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'...A celebrity is someone who didn't get the attention they needed as an adult'
Arnold Brown
|
|
|
|
Mary Chambers
|
|
« Reply #110 on: 08:45:25, 03-07-2007 » |
|
No real challenges, no real upsets, but I feel miserable  . Reasons to be happy, please? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #111 on: 08:54:14, 03-07-2007 » |
|
The music, Mary? That's not meant to be flippant. Sorry to hear that - hope things improve as the day wears on. I think this October-like July weather has a lot to answer for.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
trained-pianist
|
|
« Reply #112 on: 09:00:23, 03-07-2007 » |
|
Music is a good antidote for everything. My friend who is a composer and could not compose all his life because he had to earn living is enjoying his late years and so far wrote his best music after his retirenement.
My mother is 77 in September. She feels fool of life. She is greatful that she can see the world and all different shades of it.
She got married three years ago to a wonderful man. He is younger and they don't speek the same language. They are good company to each other. They go for walks in forest in Germany. My mother is learning new language, new customs and after many years of being single after divorcing my father she is finally happy I think. She tells me that she is happy.
I am more pessimistic a lot of the time than she is. She is really full of life and she enjoys it. Her husband doesn't like to travel and my mother says: People come here to look and I live here already.
They live in Trier and there are a lot of archeological discoveries there lately.
My mother thinks she even doesn't need reasons for being happy, she just is. She is greatful for this chance in life. She is not in Russia where people of her generation are written off like old unneeded luggage.
If my mother after all can still enjoy her life so can we all.
Sorry for mistakes, but I am rushing because the violinist is coming at 10.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #113 on: 09:09:40, 03-07-2007 » |
|
I'm sorry to hear this, Mary.
Perhaps the best thing to do is to find a way of dispelling it altogether, rather than acknowledging its domination: plan a big new project, attack something you've intended to do for ages, have a cleaning/decorating/baking splurge, visit somewhere close you've always meant to go to, start a new thread...just don't give in to it.
Ron XXXXX
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
George Garnett
|
|
« Reply #114 on: 09:17:48, 03-07-2007 » |
|
It's funny stuff this happiness business. I find it helpful to remind myself from time to time that it's not compulsory (not being happy isn't actually a crime), nor is it a right (we can't demand it from anybody and then complain or be outraged if it isn't supplied), nor is it the sort of thing you can reason yourself into (you can't usually reason yourself into things you didn't reason yourself out of in the first place), nor is it the sort of thing you can pursue like some sort of prey, or the sort of thing that will only appear when you have arranged for all the conditions to be just right. It's more like the sort of thing that you catch fleetingly in peripheral vision when you're not actually looking for it or seeking it out - but you do have to be open and receptive to the possibility that it might be there, waiting in among the apparently mundane and everyday, when you are doing something else. It's a bit like badgers in that respect.
|
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 09:24:37, 03-07-2007 by George Garnett »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #115 on: 09:24:06, 03-07-2007 » |
|
Mary, I find the source of a lot of my happinesses is in looking forward to things, or having things to look forward to. Often the looking forward is better than the actual thing. Why not plan something nice for yourself? A really nice lunch in town. A splurge on something you've always wanted. A holiday.  |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Ron Dough
|
|
« Reply #116 on: 09:29:22, 03-07-2007 » |
|
Often the looking forward is better than the actual thing. And certainly better than looking backwards. (As Orpheus discovered.) |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
thompson1780
|
 |
« Reply #117 on: 09:36:51, 03-07-2007 » |
|
Mary,
I get that sometimes - just feeling glim without knowing why. The bit that bothers me is not knowing a cause.... In the end I just stop doing what I'm doing and sit quietly for a bit. A bit of musing tends to do the trick.
Hope the corners of your mouth find their levity shortly
Tommo
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
|
|
|
|
George Garnett
|
|
« Reply #118 on: 09:37:38, 03-07-2007 » |
|
Oh, and it probably sounds silly, but one little trick I find helpful (except in severe depression which is another country altogether) is to make yourself act about two or three per cent happier than you actually are. Not dramatically happier, just a little bit. The 'inside' you can often then catch up with the 'acting' you. Sometimes . And then, when that has consolidated, you do just a little bit more. What never seems to work (it's a variant on the "the conditions have to be perfect before I can be happy"' trap) is to feel you have to wait for the happiness to come first before you can act on it. (Actually I'm far better at dishing out this advice than acting on it myself but I do think there is something in it.) |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 19:03:33, 03-07-2007 by George Garnett »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
trained-pianist
|
|
« Reply #119 on: 09:43:17, 03-07-2007 » |
|
Who knows why one feels certain way in different days with not much visible changes around.
It is just life and our chemistry I suppose.
I like what people here (martle, Ron Dough and George, Tommo) wrote.
Melancholy is always with me and doesn't go very far.
If I concentrate on disagreeable things it is here right away.
Like martle I try to look forward to something. There are no small things in life even if I do think that in my age there is nothing to look forward to. But life proves me wrong every time and there are many surprises (good and bad).
My life is complete waist (from one point of view). I had no children to leave to the world, I am not great teacher (in fact I doubt I am a good teacher and still have to work hard to qualify for kind of ok teacher). I still don't understand people much, I still make tones of mistakes (more than my fair share) and still I am still here trying.
Will you try Mary to live with the feeling and go through with it like most of us here?
Will you try to look forward to something (whatever small it could be)?
I try to help as many people as possible. This is dangerous strategy too because people don't really appreciate it or notice it. Students come and go, instumentalists too come and go, but at least I make a project out of it.
Lately I even strarted to plan more in terms of playing certain pieces or some other things.
TP recently went through difficult patch with age. He turn 60 and it was difficult. But we are trying to hang in in there, working, reading, learning.
I see that people in their seventies still improve, learn new skills. I have a student who is 66 (just retired). He always wanted to play piano and he plays hymns (protestant as it happens) and scales. He tells me he will learn pieces later too.
I often felt like you and in my case so many times I was ready to give up. I don't know what keeps me going. I think Mary has so much more reasong than me, so much poise that I want and she is inspiring for me with all her experiences that I did not have, her knowledge and her inner beauty that I can feel in her posts.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
