it's not particularly relevant to this post, but the other day, my boss said "the only way to truly be one with another person is to have your boundaries clearly defined". I'd been meaning to share that with you for a week or so.
"Perfect is the enemy of good." Heard it from a cool coworker in passing years ago. It stayed in my head, quietly, until just the other day when I uttered it among some friends. Glad it gets around!
Your quote from Eugene is why I stopped drawing years ago. :/
If it's been years, have you let go of the need to be perfect to give it another go? I have a lot of friends who have started tapping back into their artsy side now that we're in our 30s and don't expect masterpieces of ourselves and I'm finding it be good for the soul whether or not its a glory to the eye ;)
It does have two interpretations - the negative "You suck, you'll never be perfect so stop trying", and the positive chide to stop searching for perfection because there is no such thing. The first jump though is the negative.. perhaps it's the way it's phrased?
Musicians struggle with this all of the time, with every note. We live in the digital, recorded age. We hear so much perfection over the radio and cd player that we forget a live performance can never be like that, and that IS the beauty of live performance. It will never be perfect and to expect such perfection is to court disappointment. We still strive for it though and we still kick ourselves when we don't reach it. Truth is, even if we did "reach perfection" we would still find some flaw or error that "ruined" the performance.
Ooo, you made me immediately think of some lines from an Ani Difranco song I love:
except all the radios agree with all the t.v.'s and the magazines agree with all the radios and i keep hearing that same damn song everywhere i go maybe i should put a bucket over my head and a marshmallow in each ear and stumble around for another dumb numb week for another hum drum hit song to appear
People used to make records As in a record of an event the event of people playing music in a room now everything is cross-marketing it's about sunglasses and shoes or guns and drugs you choose
... do you guys ever get recordings of the work you're doing? I'd be interested.
There are a few CDs out there of the orchestra, and there are some unreleased recordings of us as well. Assuming you meant the orchestra and not OMA. If you meant my teaching gig, there's a video of my little group doing that. Let me know if you want the url. :)
There's a Japanese word which I am surely doing some violence to, for the indispensable imperfection which is necessary for a work of craft to be utterly beautiful. The somewhat asymmetric, organic, unflinchingly hand-made has superiority lost to the utterly "perfect."
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Your quote from Eugene is why I stopped drawing years ago. :/
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If it's been years, have you let go of the need to be perfect to give it another go? I have a lot of friends who have started tapping back into their artsy side now that we're in our 30s and don't expect masterpieces of ourselves and I'm finding it be good for the soul whether or not its a glory to the eye ;)
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Musicians struggle with this all of the time, with every note. We live in the digital, recorded age. We hear so much perfection over the radio and cd player that we forget a live performance can never be like that, and that IS the beauty of live performance. It will never be perfect and to expect such perfection is to court disappointment. We still strive for it though and we still kick ourselves when we don't reach it. Truth is, even if we did "reach perfection" we would still find some flaw or error that "ruined" the performance.
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except all the radios agree with all the t.v.'s
and the magazines agree with all the radios
and i keep hearing that same damn song
everywhere i go
maybe i should put a bucket over my head
and a marshmallow in each ear
and stumble around for another dumb numb week
for another hum drum hit song to appear
People used to make records
As in a record of an event
the event of people
playing music in a room
now everything is cross-marketing
it's about sunglasses and shoes
or guns and drugs
you choose
... do you guys ever get recordings of the work you're doing? I'd be interested.
Reply
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It's was actually only about a year ago that I accepted my imperfections would always be there and have the courage to admit them to others.
Life has been much better since.
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The somewhat asymmetric, organic, unflinchingly hand-made has superiority lost to the utterly "perfect."
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