luminous wrote:unique topic! glad to see there so many people who struggle a lot and have really wide understanding of this subject,without sacrifice and suffering there is no true art
from myself i'll add one thing - read (great) books,watch (great) movies,study great art - we are not the first who have this kind of problems and looking back to labyrinth of human thoughts and discovering the timeless phrases hidden in it can really give us a strength to go this path with somewhat like blink of an eye from the masters - then you really know that you are in right place and direction. studying great art keeps you in good relationship with the spirit and this is in my opinion a key to make something really special and timeless.
my point is that there are many similar areas in all form of art worth cheking out,besides sacrifice matter through books you can easily find answers to questions that are in our belief strictly musical issue. at the point when i had the biggest crisis in my musical (and 'normal') life and was thinking about quiting i step upon henry miller and discover and read all of his inspiring works - it made me back to music with a lot more deeper interest than before.
so widen up your mindspace by other art than music can help i guess, and you can get that feeling of vacation from music, but in fact staying with it all the time.
great post and some great recommendations.
appreciating and consuming art from outside our own field is great. for me, i can appreciate it more on it's own terms without feeling the need to deconstruct & analyse as I do with music, which is a refreshing and regenerating thing that we often remove ourselves from by turning music into a functional quest. Also, it is a good way to find inspiration, seeing how one person has attempted to create their artistic vision and direct attention through a particular medium. There are parallels everywhere, from a painter meticulously handcrafting textural details, to an author who uses a highly non linear narrative structure (a good example of this one is 'catch 22' by Joseph Heller, the way he tells a tiny snippet of a story.. enough to capture the attention but not give you the full picture.. before moving on to something else entirely and then gradually filling in the picture later on when you're not expecting it. very similar to how some minimal techno works i think.
however, even after spending a lifetime laboriously catalogueing and analysing music, it is still possible to approach it from the perspective of a 'normal' listener. There are ways in which it is possible to forget everything you know and approach things from a very fresh perspective. Perhaps through meditative dancing or other ways to coax the concious mind out of it's regular habitat and into a novel state.