Pablo Massa wrote:

>Kevin Sutton wrote of Rubinstein:
>
>>He once said that unless you spent more of your life "living" than
>>practicing, you would never be able to fully communicate through your
>>music, as you would have had no experiences to relate.  (or words to
>>that effect.) I agree with this ...
>
>My dear Kevin, this is simply a cliche, and you know that.  Do you know a
>single person who spend more hours of his life "practicing" than "living"?.

First of all, Pablo, kindly bag the condescending tone.  It's unbecoming
and unprofessional.  And as a matter of fact, I do know bunches of so
called musicians who do nothing but eat sleep and hole up in practice
rooms.

>Everybody "lives", even the lowest narrow minded dolt.  And some of them
>communicated us their lives very well....(art is a sort of miracle after
>all).

Certainly some have.  And dozens more simply spin out accurate notage.

>Cliche again.  There are millions of musicians around the world who "know
>nothing about anything other than their own literature", and certainly are
>great musicians in spite of this (or thanks to this, I would dare to say).

It's hardly cliche, it's more of my own observation.

>Some HIP performers culd be good examples.

Having performed with quite a few hipsters, I think they are amonst the
more literate and informed of performers.  They have at least taken the
time and effort to explore.

>By the other hand I have known a lot of pop musicians (I'm 30), who were
>very interested in balinese, afgan, african and dodecaphonic music, and I
>found them to be a very boring bunch of poor guys, whose music was still
>less interesting than themselves.

Anyone can be boring.  It's more a matter of what you have experienced
than your personality.  If all you have experienced is a practice room,
then that's all you have to communicate.  Period.

Kevin Sutton
Artistic Director and Conductor
The Helios Ensemble