Belief, a train through the countryside & Hitting BOMBS... The start of 2024!
HAPPY NEW YEAR! You find me a touch lost… but also a touch closer to being found… I know that makes zero sense but for some reason make absolute sense to me.
As some of you may know, I decided a while back to quit my job and go travelling. This was a very difficult decision to make for a number of reasons. Some of them I will share with you now:
Something has been calling me to see more of the world rather than currently settling in my hometown of Dundee.
The job I had had lovely colleagues and lovely pupils and all support was in the right places and for the first time I felt the values in my job aligned with the values I have.
I have 14 weeks holiday a year… every year… and 1 hour and 10 minute lunches. Nobody else has that...
However it came down to this… I felt I needed to make a jump. Even though I was scared, deep down I have had to trust it would be all fine. I know I am unsettled and unhappy so I decided to go travelling and currently am in New Zealand and I have a complete blank canvas for the next stages of my life. Why have I come here? In two words… Golf and Sun. I feel I have all this space and time to heal my mind of all the overthinking and doubts, see new places and fundamentally find out what I believe and figure out next, and also grow in certain aspects that maybe I have neglected in my life for a while.
My plan is this: NEW YEAR, NEW ME... to grow in different things I have learnt each week, document them in the hope it might be useful to somebody else and gives me accountability.
“When you read and write you learn how to think” - Jordan Peterson
I am going to write about three topics this week.
FAITH
Sibelius
HITTING BOMBS
FAITH
I have never read the bible. I have never liked reading. I have always enjoyed being outside and with people over being alone and inside. I have also felt like the generic thing of, I can watch the movie when it comes out which in hindsight is a blanket statement that hides a sense of impatience (Just as well THE CHOSEN is out now). Also, I hated English in school so was more of a reason to loathe reading was to be forced to read. I got my higher English and got out. When University came, it was slightly different. I studied Music so chunks of my course was performing and composing so (less reading) it was more varied. That's maybe why I chose Music, because it was less reading…
I recently saw a video of a man claiming that nobody is an Atheist. This was confusing for me as in school you are taught there are three options: Believer, Agnostic, and Atheist.
Script from the Video:
A: Do you believe God exists?
B: NO
A: Could God exist?
B: Theoretically God could exist
A: So God could exist or not?
B: Sure
A: So you are agnostic…
Basically, either believe or not sure if you believe was the premise of the video...
WHO THE HELL WAS JESUS
Over the past year I have painstakingly and at the same time begrudgingly been trying to find out who the hell was Jesus?, like literally… there are buildings in hundreds of countries dedicated to a guy, but people don’t know who he was. So the first thing I did as a standard millennial was Google "Who was Jesus?" and “What does Jesus mean?”
GOOGLE: Jesus means in Hebrew: ‘God saves.’ At the annunciation, the angel Gabriel gave him the name Jesus as his proper name, which expresses both his identity and his mission.”
I didn't go to church when I was young and have forgotten everything in school since. Basically, the story is he saved everybody, including ME and YOU. I have been so tough on myself for the past 5 years and have thought really poorly of myself and about four years ago I was told by my friend (Hi Peter!) That I AM FORGIVEN! And since then deep down I have been trying to find out basically if its true and am I forgiven… am I?
WHO THE HELL was this dude? WHAT THE HELL?
To be continued…
MUSIC
As some of you know, I did my University degrees in Music, my masters project was in conducting and in part working with the University Orchestra’s, Choirs and Bands. It was a great time and got this incredible appreciation and love of reading and listening to Classical Music. I now love trying to analyse and explain the music through reading it and how every piece tells a story. From growing up listening to music of mainly the taste of my parents music, it consisted of Scottish Celtic Rock band “Runrig” and other folk and rock bands of the 70s and 80s, I feel I got the most varied and wide palette of Music listening experiences.
I didn’t like Classical Music when I was a teenager… it was long and sounded the same… It was however when I got to University came that I started to understand it more and got interested in Classical Music. I realised that people didn’t love or listened to Classical Music because people didn’t understand it. Behind each piece of Classical Music there is a story to be told. I don't mean the story of how it was made, for the majority that is boring and I can see why. I don't mean technically either... "The exposition modulates from D Major to the relative minor in bar 74" NO! I mean the narrative story! Each piece in some way (thats well written) yes will do all the technical bits correct but through this conveys a specific narrative. Potentially a story, an emotion, an image. That's why I didn’t enjoy it when I was younger, I didn't know how to interpret what the music was telling me.
When understood, I believe Classical Music is the highest form of Music that can evoke more complex emotions that current music can't get to.
“Classical Music is for everybody, they just haven’t found out about it yet” - Benjamin Zander
I believe this statement and am now passionate that the story can be told and would love to share the passion I have for these pieces of Music that I am listening to. First Piece:
The train through the Countryside
Sibelius is from Finland in the 19th/20th Century and is known for his music having developed a specific Finnish sound (roll with me here) and identity during its struggle from independence from Russia.
The opening three ascending notes (F#, G and A in first line of diagram above) are repeated and is setting the scene of a nice day. Personally, when listening to it gives me strong imagery of a view of green fields (like passing by the old Microsoft screensaver on a train) and reminds me of the train journey between Aberdeen and Dundee. The main theme starts with woodwind (second & third line of diagram) and tells me that all is well in the countryside on a nice day - blue sky with some clouds - but by the third line something is wrong and the train stops as there is a warning of something ahead on the journey.
The train carries on and we are going but something has changed… We are going in the wrong direction and cant go back as its a train has to get to the destination. Such is life with a bit of regret and doubt of what is the right direction now we carry on a tad more tentatively but the sound has changed and we are trying different musical keys to get back on the right path like the beginning. We find ourselves in a cave, starting to find our feet and confidence back and move forward through the night. With trepidation for a few minutes, we attempt a few different directions (new melody), desperate to find ourselves back on the right track. We find ourselves with a new theme
Have you ever had that internal struggle and doubt of making the wrong decision in your life when you are full of doubts? It feels like every option has negatives and your don’t know which way to turn. Think of that moment in your life… Maybe you made the wrong decision… then where are you… in chaos… The only way back through that is by trying stuff out, probably failing then move on to the next chapter… and probably falling ad nauseam. In short, the process of learning from your mistakes is the suffering of life and this I feel is what is happening in this music. It starts on the right path then gets lost… musically its in D major then moves to various centre grounds A Major, G Major, B Minor, G#, F#, A flat, B flat, to name a few. The music is trying to find the centre ground it knows before it lost its way at the beginning.
At the 6 and a half minute mark we find ourselves managing to fly in the night sky with this triumphant new theme, it has found a route home and can make our way back to the right track of D Major. We land back gently on the track and in a new day with the sun shining again. Doubt keeps trying to creep in with the previous warnings but from our learned experience, of all that failing we manage to keep ourselves on the right track to the very end where we find - home.
If you listen closely there is something missing in that opening theme, the full theme at the end is the same as the beginning but with the Double Bass (red circles in diagram below) playing in the space. The train journey is ended. The learned experience and suffering of the journey forces you to get your act together and thus become a more complete person.
I would like you to listen to this piece and do TWO things:
Follow the tune from D major at the beginning, how it looses its way and gets back to D major.
AND
Think of a moment in your life where you have been going on all fine then lost your way, think back to all the decisions that you might have struggled or even failed in making the correct ones and eventually of did you get back on?
Listen to Leonard Bernstein’s interpretation with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.
RYPSTICK
WARNING! Golf nerds will only find this interesting…
I have started speed training GOLF Style… I have bought A RYPSTICK. For the non golfers, this is a weighted club without a head and removable weights and you swing it as fast as you can to try and get faster swing speeds for your golf game. There are specific exercises that an attached app on your phone gives to try and increase your swing speed both normal direction and the other direction.
Review: The app is brilliant, gives you a wee warm up to do and Youtube tutorial videos for doing each exercise. I did my baseline, broke my landlords washing line by accident on swing two… OOPS… and recorded an average of 90mph. Would recommend so far… bought off Amazon.
Will keep you updated on my quest for hitting BOMBS!
EPILOGUE
Well I have reached the end of my first installment of my first ever blog… GOD only knows if I will do another one, GOD only knows if anybody will read it... Thanks for taking the time to read and I will be separating it all from now on.
Best Wishes
Jack
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