Category: Excerpt

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”

– Van Gogh

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

“A good learner is one who is inquisitive and consciously committed to developing their own awareness, through their study and ever deepening experience of music.”

“Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think.”

“Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler”

“I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.”

– Albert Einstein

“So here I am, in the middle way…trying to use words, and every attempt is a wholy new start, and a different kind of failure because one has only learnt to get the better of words for the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which one is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate, with shabby equipment always deteriorating in the general mess of imprecision of feeling, undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer by strength and submission, has already been discovered once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope to emulate – but there is no competition -There is only the fight to recover what has been lost and found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions that seem unpropitious but perhaps neither gain nor loss. For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”

– T.S. Eliot, ‘Four Quartets’

“Anybody can play weird, that’s easy.

What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

Making the complicated simple– awesomely simple-that’s creativity.”

– Charles Mingus, 1972

“… I am a man first, an artist second. As a man, my first obligation is to the welfare of my fellow men. I will endeavor to meet this obligation through music – the means which God has given me since it transcends language, politics and national boundaries. My contribution to world peace may be small, but at least I will have given all I can to an ideal I hold sacred.”

– Pablo Casals

“Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves.”

– Thomas Merton

“Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all; if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.

As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea… In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.”

– Thomas Merton

“We all feel the riddle of the earth without anyone to point it out. The mystery of life is the plainest part of it.”

– G.K. Chesterton

“One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it.

There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance.”

– G.K. Chesterton

1) Practice, Practice, Practice;

2) Experiment, Research, Always Search;

3) Trumpeters don’t like studying scales. If you ask a violinist to play you scales in major, minor, diminished he’ll play them for you in the blink of an eye. Try asking a trumpeter and you’ll see. Study the scales.

4) Always practice what is worst for you, it is useless to always play what is good for you;

5) On the day you don’t study, hundreds of trumpet players are studying at that moment, and they are the ones who steal your place when you do the competitions;

6) Stamp, Schlossberg, Clarke, Caruso, Arban. Practice Caruso, create your own daily routine;

7) The study of the trumpet has equal dignity with all other disciplines; a doctor practices, a lawyer practices, an engineer practices…study and practice make the difference. We can all always improve. Don’t stop searching.

Giorgio Baggiani post 11/12/23

– Pierre Thibaud Facebook Memorial Group 

“The whole movement of life is learning. There is never a time in which there is no learning. Every action is a movement of learning and every relationship is learning. The accumulation of knowledge, which is called learning and to which we are so accustomed, is necessary to a limited extent, but that limitation prevents us from comprehending ourselves. Knowledge is measurable, more or less, but in learning there is no measure. This is really very important to understand, especially if you are to grasp the full meaning of a religious life.

Knowledge is memory and if you have observed the actual, the now is not memory. In observation memory has no place. The actual is what is actually happening. The second later is measurable and this is the way of memory.

To observe the movement of an insect needs attention – that is if you are interested in observing the insect or whatever interests you. This attention again is not measurable. It is the responsibility of the educator to understand the whole nature and structure of memory, to observe this limitation and to help the student to see this. We learn from books or from a teacher who has a great deal of information about a subject and our brains are filled with this information. This information is about things, about nature, about everything outside of us and when we want to learn about ourselves we turn to books that tell about ourselves. So this process goes on endlessly and gradually we become second-hand human beings. This is an observable fact throughout the world and this is our modern education.

So we must be very clear in the understanding of the word leisure – a time, a period, when the mind is not occupied with anything whatsoever. It is the time of observation. It is only the unoccupied mind which can observe. A free observation is the movement of learning. This frees the mind from being mechanical.

It is the absolute responsibility of the teacher to cultivate the flowering of goodness in leisure. For this reason the schools exist.

It is the responsibility of the teacher to create a new generation to change the social structure from its total preoccupation with earning a livelihood. Then teaching becomes a holy act.

Education is not merely the teaching of various academic subjects, but the cultivation of total responsibility in the student.

One does not realize as an educator that one is bringing into being a new generation. Most schools are only concerned with imparting knowledge. They are not at all concerned with the transformation of man and his daily life, and you – the educator in these schools – need to have this deep concern and the care of this total responsibility. Seeing the truth of it will bring about naturally this love and total responsibility.

You have to ponder it, observe it daily in your life, in your relations with your wife, your friends, your students. And in your relationship with the students you will talk about this from your heart, not pursue mere verbal clarity. The feeling for this reality is the greatest gift that man can have and once it is burning in you, you will find the right word, right action and correct behaviour.

When you consider the student you will see that he comes to you totally unprepared for all this. He comes to you frightened, nervous, anxious to please or on the defensive, conditioned by his parents and the society in which he has lived his few years. You have to see his background, you have to be concerned with what he actually is and not impose on him your own opinions, conclusions and judgements. In considering what he is it will reveal what you are, and so you will find the student is you.

Can you do this? Not because you all agree to do it after discussing and coming to a conclusion, but rather see with an inward eye the extraordinary gravity of this: see for yourself. Then what you say will have significance. Then you become a centre of light not lit by another. As you are all of humanity – which is an actuality, not a verbal statement – you are utterly responsible for the future of man. Please do not consider this as a burden. If you do, that burden is a bundle of words without any reality. It is an illusion. This responsibility has its own gaiety, its own humour, its own movement without the weight of thought.”

– J. Krishnamurti

“All of these amazing personalities in the music I embraced and really tried to understand the music and the feeling behind the rhythm of it all.

Because everybody has their own rhythm. 

And when you can execute your own rhythm inside the harmony, with the melody, then all of a sudden you’re starting to say something, and not saying something somebody else said.  You’re saying it on your own because you’re feeling it.

Creating music within the music. 

You have all these spring boards along the way that happened in your development and in your personal history as an improviser and a storyteller. When you’re playing with some beautiful storytellers, that influence stays with you. It goes beyond a technical approach on your instrument.

You have your technique together.  You have to get around your horn.  You have to play in all 12 and you have to deal at all tempos.  But then to be expressive within that is another element of storytelling. 

That’s what jazz it all about; the blues, trying to tell your story within whatever the music is.

…really developing inside the music you’re playing. 

The music is one thing.  Now, how to create music within that music, for the moment, and have its own life; not just playing the tune.

Your sound is your approach.

And the more you can develop within the different approaches of improvising, the more you’re going to be able to say something in the music.

To be a stylist without style inside the feeling, the spirit of the music, the rhythm spirit, the harmonic and melodic spirit.

Miles Davis set the pace.  And today in 2022, he is still sett’n the pace about telling a story and being yourself; and technique is about expression.

When it’s not about flying around your horn and trying to “Go for House”, which a lot of folks do… that’s easy… To say something and to play a ballad, to really be expressive in the music… Man, Miles Davis changed the world, man… You listen to him today on any of his recordings and you feel what you’re listening to.

You have to be sincere and really get deep into the feeling of the music, not just the notes. It’s how you play those notes.”

– Joe Lovano

“If you understand the cause of conflict as some fixed or one-sided idea, you can find meaning in various practices without being caught by any of them.

If you do not realize this point you will be easily caught by some particular way, and you will say, “This is excellence! This is perfect practice. This is our way. The rest of the ways are not perfect. This is the best way.” This is a big mistake.

There is no particular way in true practice. You should find your own way, and you should know what kind of practice you have right now. Knowing both the advantages and disadvantages of some special practice, you can practice that special way without danger.

But, if you have a one-sided attitude, you will ignore the disadvantage of the practice, emphasizing only its good part. Eventually you will discover the worst side of the practice, and become discouraged when it is too late.

This is silly.

So as long as you continue your practice, you are quite safe, but as it is very difficult to continue, you must find some way to encourage yourself. As it is hard to encourage yourself without becoming involved in some poor kind of practice, to continue our pure practice by yourself may be rather difficult. This is why we have a teacher.

With your teacher you will correct your practice. Of course you will have a very hard time with him, but even so, you will always be safe from wrong practice.

Most Musicians have had a difficult time with their teachers. When they talk about the difficulties, you may think that without this kind of hardship you cannot practice music. But this is not true.

Whether you have difficulties in your practice or not, as long as you continue it, you have pure practice in its true sense. Even when you are not aware of it, you have it.

So, do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own development. Whether or not you are aware of it, you have your own true development within your practice.”

– Shunryu Suzuki

“(Practice) does not have to be hard labor. Just allow your body and mind to rest…Don’t struggle.

Practice in a way that does not tire you out, but gives your body, emotions, and consciousness a chance to rest.”

– Thich Nhat Hanh

“Let me put it in this way, “I don’t have it, if you don’t have it”.  Because, I have it, only to the extent that I can give it away; “that I can give it up, and to all others.”

But, in order that people may master these disciplines, (and this is the responsibility of the older generations) it must be understood that working on the disciplines, is fun! And this is the task of all good teachers. 

All good, really gifted and great teachers are people who never have to resort in their classes to artificial methods of imposing discipline.  They need no proctors, they need no punishments, they need no bribes, because the good teacher is the person who makes the work of learning the discipline so completely fascinating, that the student is embroiled.  The reason being, that learning a discipline is not a matter of forcing yourself.  

And here the English language leaves a little bit to be desired.  We have a paucity of words for effort, for application, for concentration… that we can talk about when we’re talking with children, “You must apply yourself!”

Now, it’s perfectly true, nothing in the way of a skill will be achieved without practice.  But, if practice is strained, still nothing will be achieved by it, except resentment.  Many a child learns to hate the violin or the piano because it was drummed into him, “This is what you got to do! You got to apply yourself to it!”, …driving it home. 

But, on the other hand, if there is a way of fascinating a child with the discipline of any musical instrument or what have you, then they can apply themselves day after day, after day, after day, and be fascinated with the discipline. 

So, this is the skill of the teacher…through skillful means to get the student to love the art because, (remember this principle), if your student does not learn to love the discipline, he will never be any good at what you’re teaching him.

Now, you may know that certain kinds of scholars do work that most of us would think very tedious.  Let’s suppose I take a field about which I know a few smatterings, which is the study of Chinese.  Chinese scholarship is very difficult.  You have an enormous amount of characters to study and you have to look up things in dictionaries and consult volumes of this, and volumes of that.  But the true scholar is a person who just loves doing that!  He’ll spend a whole afternoon going after one character through all sorts of things, sifting this reference and that reference, and he will be having more fun than someone at a bowling alley, doing just that! 

And from the standpoint of an external observer, who has no particular interest in this, they’ll say, “Oh how hard he’s working!”  

You know, in my private life, I must confess to you, I’ve had a terrible time with this because I love my work and people who had absolutely no comprehension or interest in what I’m doing would wonder, “how do I keep up the pace?”  “how can I possibly do this, that and the other?”  I love it! 

But then there are other people who say, “You never do a lick of work in your life!  You’re playing all the time! Just goofing off!  It’s too easy for you because you love it!”  But that’s the only way to get it done, and done well!  

Because if you have something that is, say a good marriage; a good marriage is not the result of forcing yourself into that marriage.  Are you seriously supposing that if you say to your husband or wife, “Darling do you really love me?” And the partner answers, “I’m trying my best to do so.”…?  This is simply not a satisfactory marriage. We are not going to get beautiful work by mere effort, “against the grain.”

When you could tell, a cook instantly, by tasting one mouthful of a dish whether it was cooked “out of a sense of duty” or cooked “out of love”.

Now, a person who cooks out of true love will of course encounter days on which it is difficult.  But somehow, the overall love of the art will manage to get him through those days when it’s difficult.  And so with marriage, and so with the Mastery of any other art.  

But, it is on the end of the older people.  It is up to the teachers and the parents to present the disciplines of life as something that; not just that, “you ought to know”, but as something that it is beautiful to understand!”

– Alan Watts

THE ORGANIZATION OF THOUGHT

Educational and Scientific

BY A. N. WHITEHEAD, Sc.D., F.R.S.

There is only one subject-matter for education, and that is Life in all its manifestations.

The mind is never passive; it is a perpetual activity, delicate, receptive, responsive to stimulus. You cannot ‘postpone its life until you have sharpened it’.

Whatever interest attaches to your subject-matter, must be evoked here and now; whatever powers you are strengthening in the pupil, must be exercised here and now; whatever possibilities of mental life your teaching should impart, must be exhibited here and now. That is the golden rule of education, and a very difficult rule to follow.

All practical teachers know that education is a patient process of the mastery of details, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day. There is no royal road to learning through an airy path of brilliant generalizations.

We now return to my previous point, that theoretical ideas should always find important applications within the pupil’s curriculum. This is not an easy doctrine to apply, but a very hard one. It contains within itself the problem of keeping knowledge alive, of preventing it from becoming inert, which is the central problem of all education.

The best procedure will depend on several factors, none of which can be neglected, namely, the genius of the teacher, the intellectual type of the pupils, their prospects in life, the opportunities offered by the immediate surroundings of the school, and allied factors of this sort. It is for this reason that the uniform external examination is so deadly.

Choose some important applications of your theoretical subject; and study them concurrently with the systematic theoretical exposition. Keep the theoretical exposition short and simple, but let it be strict and rigid; so far as it goes. It should not be too long for it easily to be known with thoroughness and accuracy. The consequences of a plethora of half-digested theoretical knowledge are deplorable. Also the theory should not be muddled up with the practice. The child should have no doubt when it is proving and when it is utilizing.  My point is that what is proved should be utilized, and that what is utilized should—so far as is practicable—be proved. I am far from asserting that proof and utilization are the same thing.

I would only remark that the understanding which we want is an understanding of an insistent present. The only use of a knowledge of the past is to equip us for the present. No more deadly harm can be done to young minds than by depreciation of the present. The present contains all that there is.  It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future. At the same time it must be observed that an age is no less past if it existed two hundred years ago than if it existed two thousand; years ago.