There's something inexplicably beautiful about how the piano starts sounding as you move deeper and deeper into the night.
Maybe it's just me. Maybe it's the blue glow of the LED screen on my keyboard, floating like an island of hope in the sea of darkness that surrounds it. Maybe it's just that my insomniac habits are playing tricks in my head again. Heck, it's not even like I'm playing a Chopin piece or something - or even a piece at all, for that matter - just a few broken chords, and highly incorrect renditions of a couple of Grade 2 pieces from my memory...
Nonetheless, it's so beautiful...and somehow brings back some vivid images...of early Bangalore mornings, of my train trip from Berlin to Prague, of the first "night-out" I ever made at home after setting up a killer patch on a newly purchased guitar effects processor, the ringing in my ears post late night music room jam sessions back in IIT, the feeling of diving into the contents of the socks Santa used to fill up on Christmas back when I was a kid, the magical winter evenings of Kolkata and the feeling of snugging into a warm quilt on a chilly night in Darjeeling, only to wake up next morning to the smell of a hot cup of tea and garma-garam parathas, to the sounds of my Dad humming a tune while reading the newspaper, and my Ma sitting in front of him, looking out of the window into the distant hills, sipping tea and then turning her towards me only to exclaim with a mildly pleasant surprise "Uthe gechhe" ("He's woken up")...
I bet no drug, no matter how costly or how potent, can ever give a high like this!
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
On Creative Whiskey, Keyboard Lessons and the so-called "Midlife Crisis"
Every time I saw a 15 or 16 year old kid setting the keyboard (or the guitar, or whatever) on fire in one of those YouTube videos or a chance visit to a music shop, a part of me used to sigh out.
It seemed like they have everything - the Talent, the Training, and the Time to really blossom into a superstar. It felt sad to think that I had neither of these three T-s when I was their age - and I still don't. I still can't figure out chords or notes by the ear, cannot play the guitar good enough, doing grade 2 pieces on keyboards and I am already into the fag end of my 20s. I'll be 30, 32 or maybe even 35 before I reach their level...old man...forget the groupies, the parties, the popularity, the teenage superstardom...
The thought used to make me cringe, leave me sad, frustrated...
...until I realized that thanks to the late start, even when I'm old, I'll have something to look forward to, and something to make life worth living when I hit the 30s and the 40s (and the 50s and the 60s and so on and so forth, hopefully!).
And no, I don't believe creativity whithers away as the years go by - I think it's more like fine whiskey rather than juice - matures and gets better with age...and I better be an equipped man then - all nice and warmed up, rather than having been-there-done-that when I was young and cool and gone all rusty/forgotten everything now when I need t the most...
Crisis? What Crisis?? "Midlife" is going to be a new beginning for me, baby \m/
Loving it!
It seemed like they have everything - the Talent, the Training, and the Time to really blossom into a superstar. It felt sad to think that I had neither of these three T-s when I was their age - and I still don't. I still can't figure out chords or notes by the ear, cannot play the guitar good enough, doing grade 2 pieces on keyboards and I am already into the fag end of my 20s. I'll be 30, 32 or maybe even 35 before I reach their level...old man...forget the groupies, the parties, the popularity, the teenage superstardom...
The thought used to make me cringe, leave me sad, frustrated...
...until I realized that thanks to the late start, even when I'm old, I'll have something to look forward to, and something to make life worth living when I hit the 30s and the 40s (and the 50s and the 60s and so on and so forth, hopefully!).
And no, I don't believe creativity whithers away as the years go by - I think it's more like fine whiskey rather than juice - matures and gets better with age...and I better be an equipped man then - all nice and warmed up, rather than having been-there-done-that when I was young and cool and gone all rusty/forgotten everything now when I need t the most...
Crisis? What Crisis?? "Midlife" is going to be a new beginning for me, baby \m/
Loving it!
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Annual Report 2010
Before I lock-in on the resolutions for 2011, let's have a look out how I performed on the ones made on the eve of 2010 (as was published here):
#1 (Quit Smoking): 7/10
Was able to stay away completely from smoking for about 14 weeks (cumulatively), in 2 major bouts, after my arrival in Mumbai; also, the avg. no. of cigarettes per day came down to ~4 from ~6 during the regular smoking phases (ignoring one-off surges during booze sessions, which had also come down quite a bit). Fair improvement, I'd say, but still leaves much to be desired.
#2,#3,#4 (being Punctual, Proactive and more Organized): 5/10 (average of 3, 8 and 4)
Things improved quite a bit thanks to the nice apartment (with a very inspirational maid - she leaves things so organized that you feel guilty if you leave it otherwise!), the "professional" life and the fact that I was finally earning some money which I could use to pursue activities that I always wanted to (buying a keyboard and taking lessons, for example) and be more proactive. However, a lot of improvement is needed on the punctuality front, and I realized my organizational ability goes for a toss when working under pressure - a critical fault that needs to be addressed. Need to work on these issues.
#5 (Not being a Dog): 8/10
Fairly successful on this front; have reached a point where I'm fairly comfortable with myself and have improved drastically on almost all aspects - be it chewing bones, barking too much or chasing skirts. I'd like to say some stability on the relationship front and the fact that I was earning a decent salary doing a decent job helped. There were a few low-points here and there, but I'm more confident about their non-recursive character than I ever was; and yes, I do need to work on a few aspects, and I will be working on it - but on the whole I'm fairly happy.
#6, #7 (Sleep and Exercise): 4/10 (Average of 3 and 5)
Sub-optimal sleeping patterns continued due to no particularly good excuse, though there was significant improvement over the WIMWI madness; did start off hitting the gym, but faltered due to circumstances which look trivial in retrospect; bought myself a racket after placements as planned, but the tennis training plan didn't hit off primarily due to laziness. Not very happy how these turned out; need to work quite a bit on these aspects.
#8 (Composing 6 songs): 8/10
Composed 3, so I'd say 50% successful on that front. But, more importantly, assembled Studio Leila (and also started taking serious keyboard lessons), so +2 (and +1) for these. Only negative I see here is that I got involved more into the technicalities rather than the creative process, and a lot of time (and effort) was spent "trying things out" and "noodling" - not an entirely bad thing, I'd say, 'cause I discovered quite a few things in a fun way - but not exactly the most efficient way; need to work on that aspect.
#9,#10 (Relaunching Your Ad Here, Blogging more): 5/10
Made some progress - wasn't up to expectations, but wasn't really that significant, so not really too bothered about it.
Overall: 6/10
Verdict:
Not that great, but not as bad as I thought it was, actually! Let's hope 2011 turns out to be much better - I have a feeling it is going to be. It's hard not to, actually, on a YoY basis, given the low base we are working with for CY10.
But still, wish me luck!
#1 (Quit Smoking): 7/10
Was able to stay away completely from smoking for about 14 weeks (cumulatively), in 2 major bouts, after my arrival in Mumbai; also, the avg. no. of cigarettes per day came down to ~4 from ~6 during the regular smoking phases (ignoring one-off surges during booze sessions, which had also come down quite a bit). Fair improvement, I'd say, but still leaves much to be desired.
#2,#3,#4 (being Punctual, Proactive and more Organized): 5/10 (average of 3, 8 and 4)
Things improved quite a bit thanks to the nice apartment (with a very inspirational maid - she leaves things so organized that you feel guilty if you leave it otherwise!), the "professional" life and the fact that I was finally earning some money which I could use to pursue activities that I always wanted to (buying a keyboard and taking lessons, for example) and be more proactive. However, a lot of improvement is needed on the punctuality front, and I realized my organizational ability goes for a toss when working under pressure - a critical fault that needs to be addressed. Need to work on these issues.
#5 (Not being a Dog): 8/10
Fairly successful on this front; have reached a point where I'm fairly comfortable with myself and have improved drastically on almost all aspects - be it chewing bones, barking too much or chasing skirts. I'd like to say some stability on the relationship front and the fact that I was earning a decent salary doing a decent job helped. There were a few low-points here and there, but I'm more confident about their non-recursive character than I ever was; and yes, I do need to work on a few aspects, and I will be working on it - but on the whole I'm fairly happy.
#6, #7 (Sleep and Exercise): 4/10 (Average of 3 and 5)
Sub-optimal sleeping patterns continued due to no particularly good excuse, though there was significant improvement over the WIMWI madness; did start off hitting the gym, but faltered due to circumstances which look trivial in retrospect; bought myself a racket after placements as planned, but the tennis training plan didn't hit off primarily due to laziness. Not very happy how these turned out; need to work quite a bit on these aspects.
#8 (Composing 6 songs): 8/10
Composed 3, so I'd say 50% successful on that front. But, more importantly, assembled Studio Leila (and also started taking serious keyboard lessons), so +2 (and +1) for these. Only negative I see here is that I got involved more into the technicalities rather than the creative process, and a lot of time (and effort) was spent "trying things out" and "noodling" - not an entirely bad thing, I'd say, 'cause I discovered quite a few things in a fun way - but not exactly the most efficient way; need to work on that aspect.
#9,#10 (Relaunching Your Ad Here, Blogging more): 5/10
Made some progress - wasn't up to expectations, but wasn't really that significant, so not really too bothered about it.
Overall: 6/10
Verdict:
Not that great, but not as bad as I thought it was, actually! Let's hope 2011 turns out to be much better - I have a feeling it is going to be. It's hard not to, actually, on a YoY basis, given the low base we are working with for CY10.
But still, wish me luck!
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