Serendipity

Using what I was taught in Digital Signal Processing, where the Information content of a signal received, is directly proportional to what is Not expected, I realized and am going to explain why I get stirred more by classical music as compared to commercial music.

Giving a piano players technical point of view, in commercial music it is easy to decipher the bass clef (left hand chords) once you know what scale the piece is played on, and what the treble clef(right hand notes) is.

Now this is applicable obviously to not only pianists, but anybody listening to the music. In layman's terms, in commercial music, subconsciously you sort of know whats coming.The information content is just whats there in the melody, and not in the bass, hence the information content gets reduced to half.The expected part of it stems from those involuntary brain cells which act up sometimes, and what we call instinct.

In classical music, the bass notes are totally unexpected, and they compliment the treble beautifully. Unless you see and hear and play the notes, there’s no way you know what’s supposed to be coming your way.

Whats unexpected and pleasant, catches my attention more than otherwise. Its serendipity. I love what it does to me.

This sudden realization happened while trying to play this piece to myself called Traumerei. Tis lovely.

This is vladimir horowitz's (who i only came to know about through youtube) version of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq7ncjhSqtk

Not so ordinary

Today I accidentally jumped out of my usual energy level and transcended into another level while listening to this young village boy (of grade 5 piano) playing the piano.
I’ve heard a lot of people play, grade 8 students, teachers, performers etc, but have NEVER been as enchanted.

I was sitting at my piano class, trying to finish that theory workbook, feeling silly about it because it was obviously meant for really small kids and yet I made mistakes, when this young boy started practicing his piece ( Fantasia in D minor by Mozart) on the piano. He was utterly depressed because he probably thought that he couldn’t get it right. So while he was fiddling around, his fingers just dwindling on the keys, while waiting for the teacher, grumbling and sulking to himself, I discovered a new found emotion in me. So far I had only read in books how people get mesmerized. It was fantastic , his fingers had magic in them, and he didn’t know it.

My teacher told me later that in her whole musical career she’d only come across 2 such musical people in her life, and one of whom became so arrogant because of praise, that he almost lost his touch. So this poor boy was creating magic with his music, while he was being told that it was all rubbish. Infact he was made to take a walk around the area(birla temple in ballygunge) and come back, to get over his depression and to get some fresh air.

Makes one realize how ordinary we are.