Franz Schubert, AI, and Eartha Kitt

Years ago during my Bachelor studies, my teacher gave me a glimpse of the painful, poetic tragedy of Franz Schubert’s life. He was homeless, never found public recognition as a composer, never found romantic companionship, and died of syphilis at the age of thirty-one. He is, if I was forced to choose, my favourite ‘classical’ composer. I don’t know any other music that is more personal, human, simple, or compassionate, than his. He is – I think it’s undeniable – the greatest songwriter who ever lived. If you listen to the most famous, most intimate, American jazz songs of the twentieth century, I think you can trace the influences in them, even if only at a subconscious level, back to him. There is no showmanship in his music, it’s just a simple, open and honest reflection of what it’s like to be human. It’s common knowledge that when he writes in a major key (the happy one) it feels much more devastating than when he writes in minor. This phenomenon cannot be observed as often and with so much clarity in music by any other composer. 

The success of the internet and social media in creating more human connection is at this point, at the very least, questionable. Connection is not to be confused with engagement, and we are certainly engaging with these technologies, but I still believe that a stranger smiling at you in the street is infinitely more affecting than a love heart on your post, for everyone. I think what is unquestionable is that many of the sites and applications we engage with are increasingly desensitising human emotion; whether this is deliberate or not doesn’t actually matter. What’s frustrating is that we could all decide to look away and it would end tomorrow. Concerns about overuse of the internet and social media used to be disregarded as moral panic, and what’s noteworthy now is that AI has barely got going and this time the panic already seems justified.   

It sounds idealistic and a bit cringe, but I think leaning more into artistic expression, of the past and present, is the only way to preserve and protect our humanity. I can’t see any other options at this point other than to be more human, more expressive, more open, more emotionally communicative. I think it’s partly my job as a teacher and performer, although it isn’t in the description of either, to help other people to speak with their own individual creative voice. Two nights ago I watched a documentary about the famous singer Eartha Kitt, and I just sat there, confronted by her uncompromising aliveness; as a person she was absolutely magnetic. Living this fully doesn’t save you, and the documentary puts an emphasis on the fact that she, like Schubert, never found secure romantic love, despite expressing her desire for it. She was, as we say now, ‘a lot’. The documentary seems to gently allude to the question of what happens to a human being over time without emotional intimacy. 

In the early 1980’s (which, let’s acknowledge, was in many ways a very long time ago), this question could be asked in a casual, laissez-faire context, with one spotlight on an attractive and extremely gifted individual struggling with her own inner-demons. Now, with the wealth of digital, algorithmic shit heading our way, and the effect it’s had so far on our societal behaviours, it’s slightly more sobering. In this world, reading, writing, singing, playing an instrument, dancing, and general forms of creativity that have always fostered human connection, instead of seeming like just a pastime, feel more like ways of pushing back.    

December, 2025

The singing will never be done

Packing up my things in Brussels, ready to re-locate to Glasgow, I realised how seamlessly one life dips and falls into another; one journey’s end is just another beginning. In this sense, nothing in life is final. In the Spring sunshine I wanted to grab in vein at everything around me; all of it suddenly becoming a precious part of my most recent experiences. But it will all still go on here; people will hurry from one place to another, converse with each other; sitting on benches in the park, in the sun.

In the last line of his famous poem written in 1919, Siegfried Sassoon wrote, ‘the singing will never be done’, and although he’s perhaps referring to the idea of a warmth between humans that knows no end, I reflected on how this line might relate to the unending nature of learning. In the case of music, the profession tends to attract people with a great depth of curiosity, since the amount that a person is able to learn about music – historical influences, genre, folkloric traditions, how to perform, how to improvise, to name just a few – is seemingly infinite. Highly experienced and well-renowned musicians talk of how music is a quest that takes a lifetime. When I teach, or when I’m practising alone, I often encounter the impatience that comes from a desire to play the music well and accurately now. Students ask me, ‘how often do you think I need to practise in order to play this?’ or, ‘how long is this piece going to take me?’. 

The podcast ‘openARTed’, hosted by Monika Lozinskienė and helpful to anyone working in the creative industries, features an episode with Fali Pavri, pianist and Head of Keyboard at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, in which he says, ‘if the process is a burden, then I don’t think it [playing an instrument] is worth doing, because in the end we spend 90% of our time on the process, and perhaps 10% on the final result which is a performance’. This statement is true regardless of whether I’m a professional musician or whether I’ve been learning to play for a month. However, students – understandably – can become disenchanted with practising. After a few months, it seems monotonous and uneventful, and something that once seemed so enticing loses its shine. My theory for this is that they haven’t been shown how to practise; that anything in music can be interesting: harmonic and rhythmic structure, phrasing, sound, the interplay between harmony and narrative, strong and clear emotional communication or intentional ambiguity, again to name just a few. We’re all aware that we’re living in a world of instant gratification, but depending on how we construct our expectations and approach to learning a skill, subject or an instrument, there’s so much more to enjoy than just the results. 

I’ve been lucky enough to take Alexander Technique lessons semi-regularly for the past four years, and my teacher once said to me, ‘you’re living in the present whether you like it or not, so you might as well accept it’. There’s a wisdom about this statement that goes beyond the idea of heightening our awareness; of ourselves and of what surrounds us. It’s a strong argument for accepting that learning has everything to do with the process, so we might as well make it’s winding path our main source of enjoyment, and try to focus less on whether we’ve reached the end yet or not; there is no end. ‘The singing will never be done’.   

March, 2025

Shared Silence

One of the best experiences I’ve ever had performing on stage was in Scotland. I played a solo recital which included a piece by Chopin. After the final chord, there was a seven or eight second silence in a room of two-hundred people that felt like an hour. Silence, of this kind, is impossible to create deliberately or to predict, and to attempt to rationalise it is unnecessary; the inadequacy of words is actually the point. We’ve all experienced it at least once, not always during a performance; in other situations too. I don’t need to describe it; you remember it. 

However, there are some contexts in which I think it occurs more often, and ‘during a concert’ is one of them. ‘Church services’ are another, and during theatre shows (that wasn’t an attempt to connect those two things together – that was you). What I’m trying to say is, it’s rare, and special. This kind of silence is perhaps the greatest gift an audience can give to a performer, but it simultaneously had nothing to do with me, because there was nothing that I knowingly did, or could have done, to encourage it. Instead, it was something that we all experienced together, and that’s what I would like to shine a light on; a shared silence that has the capacity to connect people. When Víkingur Ólafsson came to Brussels to play Bach’s Goldberg Variations, I bought a ticket to hear him at Bozar. For the duration of the music, the confusing, difficult, crazy world in which we live was somewhere else; far outside of the auditorium, and we were all connected by the mutual, unspoken recognition of its absence. 

One of the best things about being a musician is that some situations and challenges demand you to be completely present; aware of your senses, and in those moments, life feels electric. And yet, when a random combination of circumstances and timing combine to create a moment that’s unexpectedly and genuinely profound, which can happen in live performance, I believe that anyone in the audience can experience this feeling too. This is why live performance is still necessary, and urgent, and it should be an obligation of the classical music industry to de-stigmatise live classical music. It would leave open the possibility that many more people, of different ages and backgrounds, might collectively share something meaningful.     

September, 2024

Alexander’s Ragtime Band

I have an obsession at the moment with James Baldwin. I’m drawn to his writing; to his novels, but also to the music in his voice, and to his strength as a person. There’s a video recording of him and the American poet and writer Nikki Giovanni from 1971 – here. They’re discussing racial justice, gender roles, and the importance of black artists in America. There’s a moment where James Baldwin is talking about the responsibility that all artists have to their own authenticity; to tell their own story. He then references Ray Charles, and the fact that Ray Charles has taken dusty, outdated music from America’s past and re-created it through the lens of his own experiences of living in America. 

At this point, Nikki Giovanni puts her hand to her face, laughs, and says ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band… it’s so fantastic’. 

‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ was a song written by Irving Berlin and first performed in 1911; when speaking up for black voices in America was in many cases either dangerous or impossible. The song is a march, and although it makes no reference to the enforced segregation of black and white society, it’s easy to play an imaginary roll of film in your head that documents day-to-day examples of racial oppression in the early twentieth-century.   

In 1959, Ray Charles recorded this. 

I think a lot of artworks – music, literature, dance, painting – that pull us in, that are infectious, universal, and which interest or captivate us, often seem to have a similar ingredient in them that’s hard to fully describe with words, but they have a history that’s inseparable from their creation. In other words, there’s a truth in them that, whether it appeals to you or not, is undeniable. It’s the same sometimes when we’re speaking to someone. They tell us something, and their words seem to come from a place that’s unbreakable and resolute but simultaneously somehow light and playful, and it takes us a moment to re-focus our attention. 

The point I’m trying to make is that authenticity is so powerful; to put it into our creativity, into our work and into our daily lives is to communicate something that will be heard and understood without you having to say it. It is one of the greatest weapons we have against those who influence our content consumption and our actions, and who would find it convenient and desirable if we could all be categorised in more or less the same way. 

Art is so essential, because in the end, what it gives us cannot really ever be quantified. What it gives us can perhaps be described as ‘inner-beauty’, and that is something that no one can sell us or give to us directly; it comes as a by-product of interacting with each other, and of engaging in creativity. 

September, 2024

Encouragement 

Here’s a cool thing; imagine if passion and enthusiasm were a part of the criteria on which we were graded in mainstream education? What difference could that make, instantly, to how we view education, and to how we see ourselves? This really hit me recently; my nephew, who is seven, sang a song in a talent competition. Big up to him for getting on stage, alone, at seven, in front of at least one-hundred people, alone, at se… Anyway, when I found out about it, it was on the phone with my sister. She passed the phone to him so I could say hello and, like a reflex, I was ready to say, ‘How did it go!?’, but I caught myself and thought, ‘you don’t say how did it go to a seven-year-old you psycho’, so I said, ‘did you enjoy it!?’. 

He had a great time, and video evidence proved that he had absolutely owned it. But later on, long after we had all finished talking to eachother, I was thinking, ‘at what point in life does that first question become not just fair but also expected?’. There’s a famous quote by Michelangelo (born ‘Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni’ – I mean, wow, no pressure…), ‘Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it’. There’s another meaning behind these words that reaches much further than the process of carving religious themed sculptures out of marble. It could be the motto for an entirely new system of education, where the environment – instead of being one of stress, panic and doubt – is one of assurance in someone’s potential, so long as they remain patient, passionate, focused and are supported.  

Obviously this other system is never going to become a reality; I’m not that naive. But what about just experimenting with it in small amounts; for projects? or improving at a skill? or learning an instrument? (that’s ok if you just rolled your eyes there). Seriously though, what if there’s a piece that you have always wanted to play but you simultaneously can’t imagine being able to? What if, you just decided you were going to play it, that it was already ‘in you’, and that it was now your task to discover how to do it? Then, you measured your progress – at least a part of it – by how dedicated you remained? or how focused you were? and whether or not you were enjoying it? 

Talent plays only a small role in our ability to do anything; the rest is dedication, focus, enthusiasm and patience, and people around you to remind you that you can do it.         

      August, 2024

Why Classical Music?

I’m writing this because, amazingly, despite having spent three years studying at a central European Conservatory, this question was never asked. So here’s my attempt to answer it. 

First of all, why anything? What criteria do we use when we’re judging whether something is worth having in our lives? Hopefully, if we’re in a good place, we value things that give us strength, connection, happiness, self-esteem and perspective. It’s so difficult for anyone completely unfamiliar with classical music to find a way in, or to find it relatable. Part of the reason for this is that many of those who are responsible for its preservation do so little – almost nothing – to effectively broaden its appeal to the wider public. The decades-old stigma is that classical music is elitist, pretentious, intellectual and ‘better’ than other genres. What’s more, the people who claim to be the victims of this stigmatisation secretly enjoy it; it adds weight to their own satisfying belief that they are ‘above’, and the majority are ‘below’. Frustratingly, these people are not the musicians who actually get up on stage; who have spent most of their lives working for that opportunity. Most of the musicians themselves, I think, from experience, would like to share what they love with anyone who would like to listen.  

This is usually children; children love classical music. Just as they are unknowing about racial and religious hatred, or any other man-made form of prejudice, no one has yet suggested to them that music written by Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Bach, Schumann or Beethoven is appreciated only by ‘them’, whoever ‘they’ are. The term ‘classical music’ probably doesn’t help, and it’s only used so frequently, I think, because no one has invented a different term capable of encompassing around five-centuries of music written by people with unbelievable gifts for composition and communication. But it is just music. 

So why these composers? My answer is that, now perhaps more than ever, the world we live in has an obscene over-abundance of intellect. The information we can acquire, and the number of things we could do, have, be or want is almost deafening. We’re subliminally encouraged to rationalise our emotions in order to avoid or suppress them, and yet the entire reason for music’s existence is to oppose that suppression. 

These composers had a level of ability to communicate the primal, emotional part of being human that is impossible to comprehend even by the musicologists who spend their lives trying to analyse it. Not only that, they simultaneously managed to create works of art that are universally relatable, regardless of which century they’re being heard in. This music may be intellectually superior in how it’s made, but that isn’t the point. What it’s trying to say to you is basic. 

‘Mindfulness’ existed naturally once; it wasn’t given a label or taught to anyone for a subscription fee, the world was just quieter, and people sometimes sat quietly in it. If you feel like doing that today, tomorrow, or at another time, here’s one recommendation (forget about it if it doesn’t appeal to you and choose something else). Franz Liszt wrote a piano piece called ‘Bénédiction de Dieu dans la Solitude’. You don’t have to be religious (I’m not) to like it, I think life just seems a bit less complicated once you’ve finished listening to it, and maybe that was his point. That’s one more thing – this music isn’t something manufactured or sponsored by Apple, or Amazon, or any big corporation hoping to influence you or sell you something; it’s two hands and a wooden box with a metal frame inside, and that combination produces this. 

August, 2024

Thought on Creativity

When musicians tell people what they do for a living, I imagine one of the most common responses they hear is “Oh, I tried to play the [insert instrument] once, but I gave up. I wish I’d kept going”. Or, “I’d love to play an instrument but I’m not musical/I don’t have enough time”. The second statement points to music’s downgrade in priority in our daily lives. Creative activity and spending healthy time alone – truly alone – with ourselves is so easily replaced by social media, binge watching a series, junk food, feeling obliged to answer another email. 

Books and audiobooks advise us on how to become less distracted by the amount of online information we consume (often of no benefit or direct relationship to us) and by the companies that thrive on us consuming it. Social media, reality TV, the never-ending pressure to be successful, all teach us to place increasingly more value on what is external. What medium can – and consistently has for centuries – remind us of the importance of interiority? Art; literature, film, visual art, music. 

It’s not our fault; music education and creative subjects have been under-funded by successive governments all over Europe for decades, with one of the consequences being that we all learn to measure ourselves too much by what is quantifiable. This flows, naturally and effortlessly, into the rest of our lives. 

My career as a professional pianist can and will be demoralising, lonely, demanding and all-consuming, but I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything more worthwhile with my life. I’m not suggesting for a second that anyone puts down their work against climate change, poverty, war and injustice, but to anyone reading this who recognises themselves in the first paragraph that I wrote: it isn’t too late, and you have time. What if disconnecting from TV shows and social media between certain times in the evening alone gave you an hour? You don’t have to learn the piano (although I teach it), it could be writing, painting, singing, or anything else. Anything that gives you genuine pride in yourself. What if, instead of giving your evening to tech companies hungry for your opinion (but simultaneously uninterested in what you have to say), or to dating apps which promise you a deep connection if you would only find that perfect picture or tagline to describe yourself (funny, not too serious, but still serious though), you joined a group of other people who love what you love. 

My life involves a lot of work, self-motivation, self-discipline, worry, frustration, isolation and self-criticism… and yet, I also get to teach, play and perform piano music written by someone, two or three-hundred years ago, dealing with disappointment, loneliness, heartache, or uncontrollable happiness, just like the rest of us. Working sometimes for months on music that I’ve dreamed of playing and communicating with my own hands – a piece that has touched thousands of people, and will have an effect on thousands or millions more. The feeling of doing this successfully (when it happens) is completely indescribable.

For example, a piece I’m currently working on is Chopin’s second Scherzo. He published it in 1837, and he wrote it at the beginning of the only long-term romantic relationship he ever had, with Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin (otherwise known as George Sand). It’s angry, strong, fierce, anxious, passionate, hopeful and loving, all in ten minutes.

What if, instead of working yourself endlessly to achieve the kind of physique, power or status that media and society tells you will lead to more social acceptance, you prioritised some time in the day or week for your creative talent (everyone has at least one) and for the things you love, because you recognised that anyone worth getting to know would be drawn instead to the authenticity of your self-expression? The twentieth-century writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin said, ‘you think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read’. The same truth applies to music. We rely on musicians, composers and performers; they reconnect us to empathy. In a society of measurement and comparisons, where the World Health Organisation declares loneliness to be a ‘global public health concern’, artistic creativity (at any level or in any form) increases the chances that we connect on a more genuine and authentic level with people, and who doesn’t want that.  

August, 2024