Monday, March 21, 2016

Shalom!

I hate being sick, especially when I have to stay at home and I'm not able to do anything but sleeping and watching films. That's why the only thing that I can write you about is a film that I watched yesterday (as you might suppose, sleeping wouldn't be so interesting - mostly because all the time I was dreaming about breathing normally). 

'Blue velvet' is one of the most famous films by an American director, screenwriter, painter, musician and author, David Lynch (1946). Like almost every other movie he's made, it's surreal, strange, mistifying and disturbingly violent. The plot seems to be far more complicated than it actually is. However, although we might feel that everything becomes clear at the end, there are some things that remain unsaid and leave the viewer confused and distracted. 

It's really difficult to decide which of the elements play the lead - is it an amazing charcater starred by Kyle MacLachlan, or horrifying and fascinating at the same time Isabella Rosellini, or maybe a really beautiful soundtrack, which can also compete with incredibly genious and poetic takes by Frederick Elmes. 

I've already seen it twice and I can only tell you that it's worth watching at least once! 


Sunday, March 13, 2016

And for all of you who has started (or want to start) watching new Ellen's show, the second episode is already available on Youtube. It's very sad, painful and depressing, but still, worth watching.

Another week, another challenge, another reflection.

I've just finished an extremely intense week, full of sound (mostly definitely too loud), people, stress and tiredness. It was also the last project of the Symphony Orchestra of Academy of Music in Poznań in which I had to participate to gather enough ECTS points to obtain a respected (but not so prospective) title of Master of Arts next year. And it was also the first time when the CIM gave out all passes for our concert in two hours (althought they are always free of charge)!

After hundreds of times of rehearsing the part of the first violin in Verdi's 'Requiem' and giving two, utterly tiresome concerts, I assured myself again that being a musician is one of the most devastating things that may happen to you in your entire life. Or maybe I should say 'during' your entire life, because normally you start before you find out how to say 'dog' in English, and it turns out that at the age of 21 you've already spent more than 75% of your life playing your instrument. Furthermore, you have to be aware of the fact that if you accidentally end up sitting near to the concertmaster, what means that you have to play with him (or her, like this time) the unfeasible solo part in the 'Offertorio', and you fail on one of the concerts, other musicians will make fun of you for next 300 years. And even though it sounds like a stupid trifle that should be as significant as the opinion of the Venice Commission for our government, it actually hurts a lot. Mainly because you're never as vulnerable as when you decide to open your soul in front of other people. Especially, when some of them live on other people's failures and derive from them a kind of disgusting and strange pleasure.  Contrary to writers, painters, film-makers and other kind of artists who have the possibility to rewrite, rethink and retake their work again and again, we have only one chance to do it. Hic et nunc. Nothing else. Sometimes it works and sometimes it just doesn't.

Few hours after the second concert I came to another conclusion. Being a musician is one of the most beautiful things that can happen to you in (and during) your entire life. Tiredness, stress, mental and physical sacrifice, years of exposing your heart to be devoured by vipers, always hungry for sb's failure... All these things are nothing compared to what you feel when you see tears on the faces of the most important people in your life, or, even more, on the faces of the strangers, who let you guide them to the places they've never been to, deep inside themselves.