Listen! (Part 1)

I would like to dedicate a few entries to the ears. Ever since I've been busy with digging myself into Lajos Szamosi's Path to Free Singing, I am more and more interested in this curious body part, the ears and especially the process of listening. As a musician and as a singer of course you listen differently and you listen more carefully than anyone else. Before I've got to know the Szamosi Approach I was convinced that there are people who have ears for music and there are those who just simply don't have any musical hearing. There is a difference, of course, but there is nothing to do with the body part itself, it has rather a lot to do with how we use our ears, and what we are used to. Moreover, the ability of listening and our ears can be trained, although you have to be aware that the thin line that seperates professionals from amateurs, in the aspect of listening(!!), is actually very much based on your sensbility, if you dare to feel. We are not the same, not in body and certainly not in personality, and each of us have our own farthest limitations, but whether someone becomes a professional musician and/or singer or not, in the end the success will always depend on one's sensibility, sensitivity and body awareness (this last one can be learned and/or natural).

There are different perspectives of listening, and I would never confuse listening with hearing. Hearing is a passive, while listening is active and supposes that the one who listens also pays attention - hearing not necessarily comes with attention paid. 

I think almost all of us know this quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (see above), but I'm pretty sure there are just the few among us who actually able to see with their hearts. Actually most of us doesn't even know or can tell how you can see with your heart. Of course, everyone has their interpretation on it, so let me give you mine.

In my opinion, listening is acceptance. It requires an open mind, an open attitude. If someone is truly listening to the other, their heart is open, just as their mind and accepting all the information (emotional, practical, theoretical, etc) that's been said. If listening is acceptance, than it also brings you to let go of the will to control the current situation, and that can be pretty scary. Most of the self-protecting stances begin with cutting the channels to truly listen and the flow of information coming to us. 

Listening is not only essential for musicians and singers, it is very important to every human being. Relationships (any kind of a relationships) are going wrong whenever people stop listening to eachother. You stop listening, because in the process somewhere you got hurt and in order to avoid more wounds and pain, you close yourself - for the sake of survival, purely by instict. And this is where your insticts can bring you to make a wrong decision and instead of releasing the tension, more tension is created. Such a pity. I'm not saying you have to accept everything you listen to. Eventually you'll make a selection (based on different factors) and you'll keep only the most useful information.

When you are seeing with your heart, you listen. You accept what you hear and you pay attention. Without listening, you can only see the surface and that surface is already within the reach of the Eyes. 

As for me, I'm not interested in the surface, I would like to see and feel the depths, the real beauty of existence. The surface will never satisfy me...

An update and random thoughts

Well, long time no see... I haven't been updating my blog for a while and after being asked recently if I'm planning to continue, here you go. Athough I cannot really promise one guiding thought in this entry.

I would like to begin this entry by giving you a little update about what I was doing in the past months. I think I published my last entry sometime around end of March, and ever since I have several things behind my back. Now, as I look back I have a kind of busy period behind me and now that I don't really have any concert booked to give until next year, I am kind of happy. I can use these months (practically from 2nd week of September until the end of the year) for prepare next year's activities with Scherzi Musici and Bartók Rózsái Énekegyüttes, and begin to prepare some more interesting and challenging stuff (don't worry, I'll keep you posted about these new stuff).

Scherzi Musici got the chance to give two fringe concerts at the Utrecht Early Music Festival and we could perform our ars nova programme, Petrarch, a Medieval Poet, and a week after also a long planned and preparred cooperation with Duo Suoni was presented at the season's opening concert of Lidwina in concert  in Best, which was an evening with Italian Early Baroque compositions. Before all these in August we had a fruitful rehearsal and preparation period with Bartók Rózsái Énekegyüttes in Hungary, and we managed to record all the material for a video trailer of our programme - the trailer still needs to be finished, but once it's ready I will post it anywhere I can. Earlier this year we also had a photo shoot, we have programme description ready, so you can say that the portfolio of Bartók Rózsái Énekegyüttes is almost ready.

And recently I've started taking an improv course in Amsterdam at easylaughs, which has seemingly nothing to do with singing, but it does with performing and letting go of control. I have met wonderful people in the past months and I don't think you'll see many similarly emotional posts, like last 4 or 5 entries of this blog, because aside from these music and performing based developments I also took the time to recover and take a closer look at my contant weight-loss. Now that my weight is stabilized along with my thoughts I feel myself strong enough to get on my two beautiful feet and legs and just walk towards my goals.

My goals to be able to let go as much as possible of the control of my intellect, to develop my voice, broaden my repertory, deepen my current knowledge in singing and in music. And just enjoy life while being morally absolutely correct and unquestionable. Because it doesn't matter what the media and everyone else telling you: morals do matter. I won't give any explanation on that, because it is not necessary. Did you do anything in the past that you still regret? Take care of it/them as soon as possible, so you can leave the weary feeling of regret. Take the responsibility for your deeds in the past and vow that you'd never act the same way as you used to if those deeds give you the feeling of regret. Apologize, if you need it and don't hold on to resentment - regardless a few things in life, the choice is always yours: remember, you have the possibility to choose for the good.

At the yoga studio where I go 2 or 3 times a week at least, there are few packs of inspirational and insight cards. Not like I would ever give credit to those, but I liked this one: "Old ways won't open new doors". If I think about it now, I think I've always known this, but reading it on a piece of paper of hearing it aloud reminds me to the truth behind this simple phrase.

And now I am just happy to be alive and  to have no regrets...