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#Post#: 46--------------------------------------------------
Music is good for the mind
By: Counterpoint Date: September 19, 2015, 11:06 am
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Forget the mad genius composer myth: music is good for the mind
The mad composer. Note after excruciating note dragged out on to
manuscript paper, 2 stone in weight lost while composing his
latest opera, bronchial infections from the cold, absinthe on a
drip. Mumbling to himself, shouting at strangers, scribbling bar
lines on restaurant napkins, sitting at a piano, freezing and
alone in a garret with “it doesn’t have to be mad to work here
but it helps” written on the wall. In his own ****.
It’s a cliche as erroneous as it is widespread and it is,
forgive me, quite maddening and completely false.
The truth is that there is no more a link between star sign and
intelligence than there is between madness and creativity. That
a link has been drawn between the two is, however,
under–standable. How else can we explain the outrageous creative
power of a Mozart or a Beethoven without resorting to some kind
of brain chemistry imbalance? If these guys were as normal as
everyone else, then where is the magic? It is the sad way of the
world that someone doing something extraordinary (Beethoven) has
to have an extra dollop of extraordinary (bipolar disorder) to
make it, well, even more extraordinary.
Creativity is a broad subject. Musical creativity is what I know
about. It’s my job, my passion, my absolute reason for being.
And let me tell you something categorically: the great composers
were not mad. Disturbed, sure. Angry, broke, alcoholic, anxious,
neurotic, syphilis-ridden, depressed, grieving – often. As are
most of us for that matter (minus the syphilis). But with the
singular exception of Schumann, whose fictional characters
Florestan and Eusebius were invented by him to depict in music
his bipolar mood swings, there is not one big-name composer who,
by today’s standards, would be hospitalised, or likely even
diagnosed, with one of the more severe mental illnesses
James Rhodes, Pianist
Rest of article -
HTML http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/19/mad-composer-myth-music-good-for-mind-james-rhodes
#Post#: 47--------------------------------------------------
Re: Music is good for the mind
By: Counterpoint Date: September 19, 2015, 11:14 am
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[quote author=Counterpoint link=topic=19.msg46#msg46
date=1442678811]
Forget the mad genius composer myth: music is good for the mind
The mad composer. Note after excruciating note dragged out on to
manuscript paper, 2 stone in weight lost while composing his
latest opera, bronchial infections from the cold, absinthe on a
drip. Mumbling to himself, shouting at strangers, scribbling bar
lines on restaurant napkins, sitting at a piano, freezing and
alone in a garret with “it doesn’t have to be mad to work here
but it helps” written on the wall. In his own ****.
It’s a cliche as erroneous as it is widespread and it is,
forgive me, quite maddening and completely false.
The truth is that there is no more a link between star sign and
intelligence than there is between madness and creativity. That
a link has been drawn between the two is, however,
under–standable. How else can we explain the outrageous creative
power of a Mozart or a Beethoven without resorting to some kind
of brain chemistry imbalance? If these guys were as normal as
everyone else, then where is the magic? It is the sad way of the
world that someone doing something extraordinary (Beethoven) has
to have an extra dollop of extraordinary (bipolar disorder) to
make it, well, even more extraordinary.
Creativity is a broad subject. Musical creativity is what I know
about. It’s my job, my passion, my absolute reason for being.
And let me tell you something categorically: the great composers
were not mad. Disturbed, sure. Angry, broke, alcoholic, anxious,
neurotic, syphilis-ridden, depressed, grieving – often. As are
most of us for that matter (minus the syphilis). But with the
singular exception of Schumann, whose fictional characters
Florestan and Eusebius were invented by him to depict in music
his bipolar mood swings, there is not one big-name composer who,
by today’s standards, would be hospitalised, or likely even
diagnosed, with one of the more severe mental illnesses
James Rhodes, Pianist
Rest of article -
HTML http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/19/mad-composer-myth-music-good-for-mind-james-rhodes
[/quote]
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