Korthand

Vooroordeel is 'n nuttige kortskrif vir beginners. Wanneer iemand sê, 'Ek kan nie die klavier speel nie', beteken dit nie: 'Dit is onmoontlik vir my om die klavier te speel.' Wat hulle werklik bedoel, is: 'Ek het nooit die nodige moeite gedoen om te leer hoe om die klavier te speel nie.' Die speel van die klavier is soos om 'n taal te leer. Dit is moeilik. Dit verg konteks. Dit verg koördinasie tussen die hande, die oë, die geheue en die emosies. Rassisme is effektief dieselfde ding. 'Al X mense lyk dieselfde' is kortliks, 'Ek het nog nie geleer om die individue te kan sien nie. Ek het nie genoeg konteks en begrip om buite die wêreld waar ek grootgeword het, te sien nie. '

The Benefits of Melancholy (Tim)

As I write this, I’m listening to the Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”. It’s perfect for an overcast Sunday morning. “Why do I give valuable time to people who don’t care if I live or die?” croons Morrissey, at once sad and ironic. It’s a morbid and amusing mix of self absorbed and self-effacing. It’s certainly melancholy, but is it depressing? Funny how this miserable music is actually making me feel better.

Depression and melancholy are two very different things, and I think recognizing the difference can do us the world of good. Depression is characterized by a loss of interest in life and an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Being told to ‘cheer up’ or ‘snap out of it’ doesn’t help in the least. It is a destructive state in that it harms both the sufferer and his loved ones. Often, clinical intervention is the only option.

By contrast, melancholy is a potentially creative state. It is a state of quiet reflection on the generally tragic nature of life. But where depressive thoughts lead only to a sense of helplessness, melancholy can be constructive, resulting in personal growth and wisdom. It’s okay to sink a little deeper into that black pool of dark thoughts because we may well come out with a little more fortitude and a little more inner strength.

Nowadays, we tend to think that melancholy is only de rigueur for anxious spotty-faced teens with long fringes, but it actually has a long and venerable history. The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes begins with a line that would make Morrissey proud, “’Meaningless! Meaningless!’ Says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!’” This is the author’s conclusion about the futility of human life, “The Race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong...but time and chance happen to them all.” It’s a bit reminiscent of Leonard Cohen, “Everybody knows that the dice are loaded. Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.”

Leonard Cohen

And yet, if you read the whole of Ecclesiastes (or Leonard Cohen for that matter), you’ll see that the author isn’t resigned to depression. He concludes that while life is inscrutable, the best response is not to stay in bed, but go on with your life, to cultivate wisdom and fortitude, and to enjoy what simple pleasures you can.

A big part of this newfound wisdom is the insight that it’s not all about you. You may start off all mopey because you’re the victim of some perceived slight. But, by delving deeper, you may broaden your view a little, and with a little humour, you may come to see how absurd your victim complex is. Perhaps self-absorbed bitterness isn’t the right response in a world full of innocent victims. Sometimes to get to this point, we just need a little melancholy.

So next time you’re feeling a melancholy, it might be a good idea to roll with it. Put on ‘Everybody Hurts’ by REM, or ‘Helpless’ by Neil Young, or anything by Leonard Cohen or The Smiths. Let yourself sink into that melancholy funk for a while and see what wisdom comes up. 

Other posts by Tim Casteling

Old Friends; Equality; Sharper Stones; Free Speech; Advice Free Listening

Contagious Brazil (with Jodie)

My big cousin Jodie was one of my inspirations growing up. Her daughter pointed out to us this morning that she is older, but I am taller. Yes, it is true, we don't always have visual signs of what makes people up. Jodes showed me you could taste everything. She was a machine on the hockey field, involved in charity work, creative in the Art room and when she left school and headed to Brazil she showed how a passion for people can allow you to lean into their languages. I love a story she told of how she had started thinking and dreaming in Portuguese. On landing back home in South Africa, in a panic, she told a blank faced air hostess she had left her jersey on the plane... in Portuguese. After her young host brother had lovingly labelled every object in the home, and patiently spent time with her, she soaked in the words till she was able to have deep meaningful discussions about geopolitics with her host father. Jodie makes me believe bridges to beautiful worlds are possible.

Jodes and I hitting the road

Contagious Brazil 
by Jodie Sacco

Brazil is the most colourful place I have ever been to. The reason I say colourful is because of the people, not necessarily the landscape. Vibrant. Exuberant. It is part of their culture. They have a love for life. They do things to celebrate life in various ways, and Carnival is the perfect example of that. The best part of Brazil for me was a place in the North East which was the birthplace of Carnival. Carnival for the people in Baia lasts for an entire month, not just for a few days on the strip like the Sambadrome in Rio. 

Fans of colour visiting (during Movember) the hospital where my brothers worked

Baia is just an explosion of these colours I referred to. You have a lot of darker skinned people who have descended from the slave trade during the Portuguese rule, but also by virtue of the fact that it is on a beach. Everyone is in the sun all the time. They are just very chilled, laid-back people. Even their Portuguese accent is a lot more laid back. The spirit filters through every part of their daily lives. Through the people of Baia. You have women who wear big white dresses and walk around with fruit baskets. They are vendors with an explosion of colourful fruit. The craziest, most foreign fruit you have ever seen in your life. Everything is an intense magenta, the brightest of yellow bananas. Papaya, Coconuts, Pineapples. A lot of Rastafarians as well. An incredible rhythm of music. A lot of drumming. It seems like there are street festivals wherever you go. The people are super, super, super, laid back. 

That is an example of a really fun city in Brazil, but it is such a contrast to when you travel to the capital. Everyone automatically assumes it is Sao Paulo, which it used to be, but now it is Brasilia. Brasilia is this perfectly planned city that has won city planning awards. It is so modern, and such a stark contrast to the north east coast where Baia and Fortaleza are. But at the same time, it is so colourful. You have all these beautiful stained glass windows, and massive monumental buildings that house Parliament and things like that. The sky always seems super blue. The sand super white. Then there are these people with incredible personalities. It is a contagious country to travel through because their love for life catches on very quickly.

The National Congress of Brazil - Brasilia (Oscar Niemeyer)

The Cobwebs

I have had various stabs at playing the piano. Today is the start of another. When I purged most of what I owned and headed down under for a couple of months, I handed my piano over to a friend. This morning it has returned home. I can definitely not just sit down and play. I am still very much a beginner. When time and other things get in the way, you take a few steps back and cobwebs build.

What I am interested in as I jump back in is how long it will take to get close to where I was after a shorter gap. I bought the keyboard in about October last year. The gap then had been about 13 years. I had only been a beginner pre-gap, having done lessons while teaching at a school in Chichester, England. I tried to push on teaching myself, but put it aside when my studies got overwhelming. Priorities and all that jazz. I really enjoyed getting back into it. There is something quite magical when your fingers seem to detach with a life of their own and the sound starts to have feeling.

We often put aside things we love because of 'more important priorities'. Some call it the Protestant Work Ethic, but it is not just protestants who work hard. There are things that are seen as indulgent and things that are seen as realistic and contributing to the greater good. We can be seduced by success and sucked up into only the things we are good at. When you dive into the indulgence, the guilt soon kicks in. Should I be do something else? Often it isn't even indulgence. Simply sitting still for a bit can be seen as an unproductive use of time. Laziness. 

I don't see time spent on things that don't make anything explicit as indulgence. I am a big believer in looking after your energy levels. It is not about balance. It is about filling your self up with creativity and passion to be able to solve some of the more vexing problems in the world. The idea that we need to 'put aside our childish ways' in order to achieve more important things than play is just plain silly. 

If you brush aside the cobwebs, which of your childish ways would you breathe life back into? 

More than Nice

I know very little about music. I have favourites that come up and I love, but my collection is a mess and I often don’t know the song or band names. I have actually given up on building a collection since the arrival of iTunes, and then Spotify. My approach has just been to ask my friend Stuart for new recommendations every now and then, or to spy on Spotify buddies. I added asking Twitter recently, and the recommendations were great. 

I also don't know much about coffee. I only started drinking it about 18 months ago. Until then, I had only had about 4 cups in my life. All of them had been in social pressure situations where someone had made me a cup, and I felt it would be rude to not drink it. I was a teenager with a half formed back bone. There are people who get as much pleasure from coffee as Stuart gets from music. Actually, I think Stuart gets as much pleasure from coffee as he gets from music. I like it now, but more in the sense that I like music. I like the atmosphere of coffee shops.

The fun side of coffee

There are plenty of things where all the individual flavours blur to the lay tongue. Before putting in a bit of effort, you can kind of get it, but really getting it requires a deep dive. I recently started writing 100 word blog posts, and requesting guest posts of the same length, on the subject of ‘happiness and learning’. I received some criticism that this was an attempt to reduce something as beautifully complicated and personal to 100 words, and demeans our understanding of a complex emotion. More specifically, was this ‘an endorsement of every lament on the shallowness of modern culture in general and social media in particular? (or maybe we can just post memes of lolcats)’.

I don't agree that modern culture is shallow. Steven Pinker talks of the ‘good old days’ delusion where as we get older we remember the past better than it was. Older generations have always looked on new ways of communicating derisively. Socrates didn't write, because he thought the modern invention would turn people into lazy thinkers. Fortunately his student Plato did.

The intention of my 100 word posts isn’t to reduce. Like fine music, coffee, wine, chocolate, food or anything truly complex and interesting, I think you have to try isolate individual flavours first. Once you know what real vanilla smells, looks, and tastes like, you can start to recognise its part in complexity. Subtlety. Hints. Aftertastes. The individual parts can then form elaborate, layered plots full of intriguing characters. If you are a music and coffee philistine like me, you don't get to experience the full story. You just get to look at the cover. You may know it looks, sounds or tastes nice. But nice is a word that drives English teachers nuts for a reason. There is more.

Starting small doesn't mean you can't go deep.

Happiness in Melancholy Music (by Andrew Gladwin)

Guest Post: Andrew Gladwin

Andrew has a deep interest in mentoring and has given a lot of time to the Actuarial Society of South Africa focused on education and continual professional development. Andrew and I were colleagues when I first started work. One of the events where the wiser ones in the crowd got to know the youngsters was an annual quiz. It didn't take long to see that if you had Andrew on your side, you had the music section nailed. When I asked Andrew to write a guest post, it turned out he had a blog I didn't know about called 'Cabin Essence', so if you enjoy this reflection on a couple of his favourite albums, check it out.

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Happiness in Melancholy Music
by Andrew Gladwin

My two favourite records are the Beach Boys classic Pet Sounds and the obscure Paddy McAloon record I Trawl The Megahertz. A quarter of a century and an ocean separate these records, but what links them? And why do they make me happy?

Both records could officially be filed under pop rock, but they are far more genre spanning than that, with dense, intricate arrangements, suing a wide variety of conventional and unconventional musical instruments. They don't conventionally "rock" and they could be described as lush and beautiful. But lyrically, they are not "easy listening."

Both of them could indeed be seen as lyrically reflective, even sad. Pet Sounds starts with the exuberance of Wouldn't It Be Nice, but ends with the downer of Caroline No, and the last five songs are all reflective, restless, and down on love and life. The title track and centrepiece of I Trawl The Megahertz is a twenty-two minute of an all-consuming love gone wrong and almost breaking the narrator. Indeed, the breakdown of love in I Trawl The Megahertz and Caroline No can be seen as far deeper than just passing teenage fancies. These losses are akin to betrayal - just about the harshest act one can do to a living human.

In Caroline No, the betrayal may seem superficial (where did your long hair go, where is the girl I used to know?) but you only have to listen to the song to know that it is a hurt deeply felt. Betrayal is all over I Trawl The Megahertz, especially in the deeply felt lines

Your daddy loves you;I said 'Your daddy loves you very much;He doesn't want to live with us anymore.

Betrayal, sadness, lost love - so you may ask me how can you find happiness in these albums. I would like to suggest three reasons, which are all very much part of the greatness of these records. Firstly, there is the simple beauty and brilliance of the music alluded to above - the power of melody, and in the Beach Boys' case, the loveliness of harmony.

Secondly, there is the joy, relief, catharsis - call it what you want - in the sense that just about all of us have been through the emotional storms suggested by these records. Very few people will live a lifetime without lost love, and indeed, a lost love felt so deeply that it feels like betrayal. Even if we contributed our fair share to the demise of the love, sometimes it just feels better to feel the hurt, anger and betrayal from someone else and say "this is me as well."

And finally, because these are ultimately hopeful records. Caroline No ends with the sound of a train leaving, symbolic of moving on. Change. The change may be difficult, but there is a move on to something new, and hopefully eventually, something better. At the end of I Trawl The Megahertz, the narrator says hopefully

By day and night, fancy electronic dishes are trained on the heavens.They are listening for smudged echoes of the moment of creation.They are listening for the ghost of a chance.They may help us make sense of who we are and where we came fromAnd, as a compassionate side effect, teach us that nothing is ever lost.

Ultimately, the way these records make me feel is hard to describe in words - I've tried to capture a it a bit in the above, but the overall impact is almost ineffable. And - not so coincidentally - Ineffable is the title of a wordless track on I Trawl The Megahertz, a beautiful example of how music can paint brilliant pictures and capture emotions without any words. Both of these records have their fair share of instrumentals which pull at the heartstrings as much as the songs with words. Both have so much more I could say about them. And they both make me happy.

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In writing a blog about several topics in which I admit to being a complete beginner, I am going to have to rely heavily on the people I am writing for who cumulatively know most of what I am likely to learn already. I would love it if some of you found the time to write a guest post on the subject of happiness or learning. The framework I use for thinking about these things is what I call the '5 + 2 points' which includes proper (1) exercise, (2) breathing, (3) diet, (4) relaxation, (5) positive thinking & meditation, (+1) relationships, (+2) flow. Naturally if you would like to write about something that you think I have missed, I would love to include that too. If you are up to doing something more practical, it would be awesome if you did a 100 hour project and I am happy to do the writing based on our chats if that is how you roll. Email me at trevorjohnblack@gmail.com 

The Art of Pain

We learn through pain and turmoil. But if your artists are good enough, that pain and turmoil doesn't have to be a direct experience. Instead of (or as well as) confessing to priests and psychologists, what if we started telling our stories to artists who could tell them for us? Through plays, books, music, paintings, dance, we can see what is going on in other people's lives. If the only stories we hear are the ones experienced by those who know how to tell them, a lot gets hidden. 

The challenge is trust. We tell our stories to close friends or religious leaders, or we pay someone to listen. The expectation is that that is where the story will stay. When we interact with people, we assume they aren't going to post every detail online or in a book. We would definitely be less relaxed if everyone was wearing Google Glass with a live feed. We wouldn't be as honest. I have always wondered about Sports stars having awkward friendships knowing that tell all books are just over the horizon when people retire.

Humans have wonderful imaginations. Fiction can create entire worlds that get to the truth of a matter in this world. We like to think we are unique snowflakes. Instead I think we are unique combinations of very common flavours. We just don't how common some of our struggles are because we keep them to ourselves. Artists should be able to listen to stories and be able to squeeze out the truth juice while leaving the identity pulp behind. In that way they can protect the fragile bits of us that don't want people to know about our deep dark secrets. We may then find that aggregated, our deep dark secrets aren't actually uncommon at all. We can also talk 'in abstract' about art to people without them knowing we are struggling with those issues ourselves. A great example is 'The Humans' by Matt Haig. This beautiful, funny, piece of art captures some of the difficulties likely faced by many and does it with a sense of hope that doesn't trivialise the problems.

Just listening is a difficult art in itself. I tend to like practical solutions. That is what attracted me to the Yoga I do. If you aren't happy, there is a pretty simple checklist of things to do. Are you exercising? Are you eating right? Are you relaxing properly? Are you breathing properly? Are you thinking about things in a positive way? Sometimes though, 'it's not about the nail'. The person talking isn't actually looking for a solution. They are looking for someone who can listen. The artist can just listen, and then reflect back through their work what people are feeling.

Simon, the Mbira Player (by Bruce Du Bourg)

Guest Post: Bruce Du Bourg

Bruce and I became family when he married my sister-in-law Katherine's sister. Scattered around the world, I haven't got to see him that much but do receive his annual update letter which he and Caroline send to friends and family. Their daughter is the proud owner of one of the most infectious smiles ever to have graced the planet. He is a happy guy and has an interesting perspective on things. We both ended up up going down the financial and business route in our studies, overlapping a little in one of the courses. Bruce's guest post looks into and out of that world.

Cheesy grins from Bruce (left) and my brother Dave

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Simon, the Mbira Player 

by Bruce Du Bourg

A young man named Simon plays diligently on his mbira near the parking lot machine of an upmarket shopping centre in Northern Johannesburg. From what I can tell, he's quite skillful, as his fingers dance magically between the rigid wires to generate the musical notes that reverberate inside the belly of the instrument. To me, the only problem is that an mbira is about as musical as the sound made by a rusty tin cup that is being rattle against the bars of a cold prison cell gate. Somehow, Simon does not share the same opinion as me as he watches the numerous other shoppers that scuttle guiltily passed Simon's decidedly empty hat. Every day, Simon works tirelessly at trying to become the best mbira player in the district, while the only members of the public that seem to care are those that drop money into his hat as a donation of pity. While Simon may be incredibly talented, I fear that he may have chosen to play most of his golf from under the lip of fairway bunkers, setting up with leafy trees between him and the target, while his only club is an old fashioned gooseneck putter that his uncle used to chase away snakes.

Mbira Dzavadzimu

My point is that Simon is not likely to make any meaningful connection with his audience and may be better advised to use his straw hat to protect him from the sun's dangerous UV rays than to use it to invite falling money. If you chat to Simon, however, he will tell you that playing the mbira brings him endless joy. In addition, the art has been in his family for generations and he believes that it is his responsibility to carry the mantle to bring pride and honour to his name. A noble cause, indeed.

Surprisingly, this little discussion has very little to do with the plight of mbira players in the greater Johannesburg area, as concerning as the situation may be. Instead, I would like to draw attention to the less obvious parallels between Simon's situation and the challenges that we all face every day. Every time that we act or decide to act, we face the question that Simon should probably be contemplating. We can choose to do the thing that helps us to meet society's usually status and financially driven objectives or we can choose to do the thing that gives us meaning and contributes more fully to our life's overall purpose.

Although this sounds a little bit lofty and theoretical, I'd like to bring it down to a very practical scenario. To illustrate this thought, consider that when you are sitting at your coffee-stained desk in you not-quite-big-enough middle storey office, you have a choice. You can either go downstairs to offer a hug and a friendly ear to Philip, the debtors clerk, who is going through some difficult marital trouble, or you can ride up to the tenth floor to tell Marvin, the executive, how smashing he looks in his new mustard-coloured, fashion-defying, jaundice-alluding suit. I can imagine Marvin throwing back his daily dose of blood pressure medication as he thanks you for your compliment. Marvin doesn't identify the sickly falseness in your voice. To Marvin, your tone is very similar to that used by Trevor in accounts and Benson in human resources, when they stopped by earlier in the day to stake their claim on the next promotion. If your purpose in life is to make a difference to people's lives, do you really want to be the guy chatting to Marvin, just to add some superficial padding to your bank account, while Philip goes through the most difficult time of his life?

This is possibly not the rag to riches mbira story that your heart has been longing for, but Simon may have taught us the lesson that is in exact opposition with our original intuition. Our business school logic may have been running a number of possible multi-disciplinary alternatives to augment Simon's business model. He should first understand the needs of his customer before determining a strategy to address those needs. Maybe he should borrow his cousin Henry's violin and learn to produce a sound that is more pleasing to his prospective upmarket clientele. Better yet, he needs to realise that the music industry is only lucrative for the chosen few. Perhaps he should rather look into making beaded farmyard animals or setting up a suburban barbershop to help people like Marvin take away some the the attention from their borderline offensive fashion sense.

Or, maybe Simon needs to follow a less drastic approach by simply continuing on his current trajectory. In many years' time, when Simon looks back on his life, he will know that he has stayed true to his purpose, and that his actions have remained authentic to his dreams and values. If you're reading this from the comfort of the mustard-coloured suit that Marvin lobbed in your direction, perhaps you need to reflect on whether the chafing that you're feeling is only as a result of your suit's synthetic fibres. This little blog serves merely as a checkpoint to your overall goals in life. No judgement has been passed here, only a suggestion around the disappointment that a life centred around something superficial like money may hold in the final analysis. You may realise that boosting your bank balance does very little to enrich you, in light of the person that you really want to be. Make your own choices with the fullest level of awareness, but please don't look back at yourself in twenty years' time wondering why on earth you ever started playing the violin.

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In writing a blog about several topics in which I admit to being a complete beginner, I am going to have to rely heavily on the people I am writing for who cumulatively know most of what I am likely to learn already. I would love it if some of you found the time to write a guest post on the subject of happiness or learning. The framework I use for thinking about these things is what I call the '5 + 2 points' which includes proper (1) exercise, (2) breathing, (3) diet, (4) relaxation, (5) positive thinking & meditation, (+1) relationships, (+2) flow. Naturally if you would like to write about something that you think I have missed, I would love to include that too. If you are up to doing something more practical, it would be awesome if you did a 100 hour project and I am happy to do the writing based on our chats if that is how you roll. Email me at trevorjohnblack@gmail.com 

Beneath the Surface

Ken Robinson points out that if you ask a classroom full of 5 year olds who can draw, they all put their hands up. If you ask a group of 15 year olds who can draw, perhaps one or two will. At some point we learn what we are good at and we create an identity around that. We direct our activities towards the things where we are technically competent in a way that can be objectively assessed - i.e. we work for marks. School and then university become a filtering process where your identity is sifted out. I worked for 18 months at a school in Chichester which really encouraged music. In fact I ended up taking up piano while I was there and learning my middle c alongside 6 year olds. It really was a wonderful place which actively found a place for the creative side of learning. The music teacher from that school, Alex, shared this article which looks at the role of arts in education - Dance, Art, Music, Writing, Drama. More particularly, it also looks at how the arts can be left aside in education when money is tight and we start to prioritise.

Art from one of my favourite 5 year olds, Justin

Excluding the arts is as dangerous as excluding business skill for those who pursue the arts. The idea that we need to define ourselves and super specialise is a problem. The word 'balance' is often used, but I am trying to think of another one. I don't like balance because it doesn't seem to quite capture that we can be more effective by not neglecting the balancing items. The goal should be to educate you in all the skills that are needed in life. Some of these are tangible, but some come as a side product.

I did a semester of Computer Science at university. I really enjoyed it but it was just a filler course and I can't remember any of the programming that I learnt. What I do remember is that it taught a way of thinking. In writing code, it showed the value of structuring thoughts in a way that is easy to follow in order to find mistakes. It helped take ideas and distill them down to very clear, unambiguous instructions. I can't remember how to code, but that lesson stuck with me. The arts is similar but more pervasive than that. 

As I am relearning the piano, I am being forced to slow right down. I have to build the muscles in my fingers. I have to learn to connect them to what I see on the page. The left and right hand won't coordinate at first and are playing different parts. I have to slowly get to the point where they can do their own thing but fit together. As it comes together, the rhythm starts to appear after hiding as my fingers stumbled. This process seems to train patience and problem solving better than any of the courses I did in Business Science.

It is one thing to learn to identify problems. It is another to learn the process of solving them and that is where the arts come  into their own. The very goal of the arts is to look beneath the surface at the stuff that isn't obvious. It isn't good enough to be technically competent. You can't just learn the words in drama. You have to fight with them, chew them, and feel them until they come to life.

Education should be careful not to filter out the flavour.

Constantly Refining

It is incredibly difficult to express what we mean. I find there are several conversations going on in my head at any time. Even picking which one to agree with, which one to laugh at, and which one to pretend doesn't exist is a challenge. You write something or say something and it feels a little inadequate. You look back on something you wrote in the past and the holes are gaping caverns. In How Proust Can Change Your Life, Alain de Botton talks of how the Person in Conversation and the Person in Writing are different. A book may be a 27th draft as each word is carefully selected and each description gets fine-tuned, replaced, corrected, refined etc. Like a thousand conversations distilled. He also talks of our love for art, music or literature being partly because they express something we can't. Sharing truth with others often isn't about an answer to a question. Perhaps it is just a willingness to give them and ask for the benefit of the doubt as you search for the right words, sounds and colours. Constantly refining.

A Black Guitar

Despite the man partly responsible for my learning where Middle C on a piano is going, 'Oh no......' on hearing of my purchase of a guitar, I am quite chuffed. I know nothing about how to play it, but I am looking forward to the ride. I have written before about fighting through discomfort and have become a bit of a discomfort junkie.

Being able to look back on periods of not having a clue, and plodding along till you do is a great feeling. But of course... I am not doing this for the already sore fingers or to destroy the eardrums of unsuspecting neighbours. I actually want to be able to play.

The push over the line to buy the guitar and get cracking was a combination of last weekend in Paris, some live music at The Half Moon in Putney and a rumbling that has never quite quietened.

We'll see... Exciting times.

Excerpts from Moby Dick

I haven't had a 'Yay Internet!' post in a while, so please indulge me.

But it did strike me as awesome when I saw the link to this video of Orson Welles reading excerpts from Moby Dick.

People seem scared of the music and book industries being destroyed, and that that threatens the existence of songs or stories. I am not convinced. Ever since someone could bang a stick on a rock or tell a juicy tale people have had the urge to create. Industries served a great purpose in getting the content out to people, creating brands and distributing. But now the musicians and authors can take that in their own hands.

Armed with a computer, you can create your own website as a musician or a video clip of you reading your work like below if you are an author, and with all the social networks around now find a group of people who are passionate about your work.

No need to convince a publishing house that you are an author.
No need to find a recording studio prepared to record your music.

People are free to create, and ideas are free to spread.

Exciting times.

The Music Industry

Seth Godin writes a lot about the Music Industry, how it has changed and how it needs to respond.

Here is the transcript of an interesting talk he gave to conference of music industry fundis.

The concern of things being easily replicable is that people won't get adequate reward for their intellectual property. Good musicians don't necessarily get that... and musicians in general have only got rewarded in the last 50/60 years in any dramatic form. The ones who got rewarded were the good marketers, not necessarily the good musicians.

The market has changed. There are still lots of ways to make money. Find them.

A concern with not protecting intellectual property is that the financial incentive to create it is removed.

The points mentioned in the comments of the last post were Movies and Pharmaceuticals.

For movies... you can't replicate cinema's easily. People still go watch movies even though they can rent a DVD cheaper... or wait for it on TV. People are willing to pay for immediacy. As for other ways to make money... I don't know... brainstorm... you can't artificially keep barriers in a digital world.

As for pharaceuticals... yes, I agree, there needs to be some way of providing financial incentives to innovate. The difficulty with health industries is the clear moral quandry. The problem extends past drugs to medical aid, and finding ways of making the medical profession financially attractive.

Stream of Consciousness Argument

I think I really irritated some friends this evening, or rather amused. Well, probably irritated a bit.

Our discussion started with me making the point that I don't think musicians have an intrinsic right to charge exorbitant amounts of money for cheaply/freely replicable music. For me one of the basic principles of capitalism is that you can't claim that anything has an intrinsic value... its value is determined by the market. The musicians don't have an intrinsic right to lots of money for what they make. The reason they have made lots of money in the past was because it was easy to create barriers, and demand could not be cheaply met... demand was high, so prices could be kept up.

The only thing that now keeps prices up is a feeling that it is `wrong' to copy music. We can now make digital copies that are as good as the original for all practical purposes. Is this theft? You had it. I copy it. You still have it. There is now more of it. More people are happy.

BUT... you cry... what about the intellectual property. Surely the musician has the RIGHT to charge me for enjoying the music, even if it costs nothing for me to listen to it.

There are two questions now:

1) Is the musician likely to make more or less money if more people hear their music for free?
2) Should the musician be able to make this choice?

I think the answer to (1) is more. I think there should in theory be some way for (2) to be a price negotiation between the artist and the customer... but realistically, the music costs essentially nothing to replicate anymore.

Essentially free replication makes the price setting mechanism of capitalism difficult without regulation. The concern if I can't make money off replications is that there will be no financial incentive to make quality music any more. Funny, we got around that for pretty much our entire existence till the Beatles and Elvis.

Maybe music will carry on... maybe money doesn't drive music. Maybe, we have intellectual rights to originals... maybe replications are just something we have no control over and should use to raise the price of originals?

The reason I was irritating is that I probably didn't know my key point and the argument kind of flowed. By the end of it we were talking about the environment and whether capitalism is a force for good in improving environmental concerns. To know how we got there, you would have had to jump around our various steps during which I jumped from person to person in who I agreed with and who I didn't.

1) I have a feeling that there should be some way for people to be compensated for intellectual property.
2) Free or almost free copying is here to stay, we need to find some way to still make the system of incentivizing innovation without excessive regulation.
3) Giving intellectual property away for free doesn't always stop you from making money... sometimes it makes you more.