sevenhelz

A week or two ago I rented a car for a few days and saw some friends, all over the place. I did quite a bit of driving, in good and bad conditions, and thought to myself a lot. Driving is an act of power and freedom which I'm sure has been discussed at length in other places. It's also an act of faith, and sometimes it can actually reaffirm my faith in other people. I'll tell you why.
( driving... )
I've known some people who're nervous of driving and the only way I can see of them getting over it is to do it. Otherwise you depend on other people to show you how beautiful Castle Hill is at night, or the back routes that take you over hills and through trees and give you that occasional, tantalising glimpse of the entire town laid out for you.

You know, I'd quite like to live in a world where the arts are considered useful, and not just by people who work in them. I'd like not to have to justify to people *including myself* the usefulness of what I do.

Because I can't be arsed writing this up properly, here's a conversation I had earlier with @jaimelicious on twitter:

me: it's problematic for me that my talents aren't overtly categorisable as innovative. I'm good at interpreting but it's composers who tend to be making from scratch, as it were.

J: think with music, interpretation is innovation. Hearing a familiar piece in a totally different way, or with new subtleties

me: also interpretation is applied to every piece, whether it's something new or old, obscure or well-known. It's complicated. i used to steward for hcmf, recognise value of the completely new, but for me the most interesting stuff is when you apply new ideas to older genres eg hearing new brass band testpieces incorporate 'contemporary' techniques. When you consider the history of brass bands, bringing high-brow music to a wider audience, educating the folk involved, it isn't so different now it's valuable to bring ideas to a wider range of people even if you're not constantly at the forefront of innovation yourself. i think that's always been my conclusion

It was really useful to talk that through, even though I tend to prefer to throw ideas at someone in person, so I know I'm not freaking them out. Eh. I think it says enough for now.