Critical thinking in music

As a performer, be it instrumentalist or conductor, when playing someone else's music, the presentation of music is not about how the said performer plays, but how the performer translates what the composer has written to the sound produced.  Each composer needs to be approached with a different mindset; a fresh openness to portraying the music according to the emotional instincts of the composer, not the performer.  This is a very meticulous function, but also a spiritual one.

Conducting in particular is essentially based on this.  Lots of people are trained to analyze the forms and harmonies of scores and read the whole page at once, but the conductors job is to understand what the purpose is of every note in the score.  The conductor needs to find out what emotions the composer is evoking, and how to portray those emotions and simultaneously take the music the directions it needs to go.  Complete humility is required to think this hard.

When I perform or write my own music, I keep this in mind as well.  The hardest thing as a jazz drummer is to not be even the slightest bit self-indulgent.  Every member of the jazz combo has to find the point right in between being trying to direct the music by being overly showy and letting the rest of the ensemble carry you somewhere.  This requires a constant and neutral focus on the development of emotions and sounds that are created by the group.  

Critical thinking is one of the core values of musicianship.  Open mindedness about musical ideas must always transcend one's ability to perform the notes on the piece of paper.

Nazi Germany and the Mind of Pope Benedict

Harvard Professor Daniel Jonah Goldhagen notes Pope Benedict's inability to discredit what he he learned from the "formative period of his life."  It was during his adolescence that Benedict joined the Hitler-Jugend.  Nevertheless, like many Hitler Youth who did not fully understand what they were being drawn to, Benedict has denounced anti-Semitism, and personally deals with Jews and members of other faiths with respect.

However, this is essentially useless because Benedict still divinely believes that his realm of thinking is the truth.  His personal respect for other people and opposition to intolerance is the only thing separating him from Nazism.  Benedict has yet to acknowledge pluralism, as opposed to relativism, where there can only be one truth, perceiving members of all other faiths as people who are in need to be saved or converted, whereas the Nazis would have them killed.   

Ironically, Benedict credits this belief, or perhaps mindset, toward Nazism's rejection towards Christianity as well as Christianity slowly diminishing grip on modernity.  This is to say that is Nazism is against Christianity than Christianity must stand for all things divine.  Of course, the Nazi's were against other religions, particularly Judaism, exponentially more than Christianity, yet Judaism cannot even get the same level of recognition from the Pope.

Goldhagen insists that the difference between the Pope and the Nazi's, while quite contrasting, was their actions, not so much their beliefs.  When someone with the mind of Pope Benedict remains an influential political and religious figure, the danger remains of relativism overcoming Benedict's external actions, causing them to return to the methods of the Nazis.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

It is a little late, but here are the lyrics to the song "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" written by Burt Bacharach and sung by Dionne Warwick.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

I've been away so long.  I may go wrong and lose my way.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

I'm going back to find some piece of mind in San Jose.

L.A. is a great big freeway.

Put a hundred down and buy a car.

In a week, maybe two, they'll make you a star.

Weeks turn into years, how quick they pass,

And all the stars that never were

Are parking cars and pumping gas.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

They've got lots of space.  There'll be a place where I can stay.

I was born and raised in San Jose.

I'm going back to find some piece of mind in San Jose

Fame and fortune is a magnet.

It can bring you far away from home.

With a dream in your heart you're never alone.

Dreams turn into dust and blow away.

And there you are without a friend,

You pack your car and ride away.

I've got lots of friends in San Jose.

Do you know the way to San Jose?

Can't wait to get back to San Jose.