Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
********************
When I was studying art I took a drawing class for a year from a great teacher named Marshall Glazier. Mr. Glazier was not an old curmudgeon, but he liked to pretend he was for the amusement of himself and others. He would come into the class room after the class had begun saying in his gravelly voice "All right, all right, what's going on in here?"
One day he came in and said "What's the difference between genius and talent?" One person said Mozart and Salieri. Another one said Bernstein and Bacharach. He said "Yeah, those are good. Now I'll tell so that you'll know, A man of talent does what he can, a genius does what he MUST."
"Oh, that's good"someone said.
Glazier said "You think that's good? I got it out of a fortune cookie."
---------------------------------------
One definition of a genius is someone who can do something extremely difficult extraordinarily well and make it look simple. I think we all can have moments of genius. No one is a genius 24 hours a day. It is said the Albert Einstein sometimes couldn't remember if he had lunch or not and forgot where he was going.
A genius is one who comes to a solution no one else thought of and perhaps could not have thought of. When Mozart went wandering in the forest of music the trees and bushes stepped aside for him.
A genius is one who does something that can't be done. There is no way man can fly. But now we fly thanks to a couple of bicycle mechanics. We now have the benefits of the International Space Station, the Hubble Telescope, the shuttle crafts and the Soyuz vehicles thanks to the work of some far seeing geniuses who saw what others could not see and made amazing things happen.
The first step on the road to personal genius is to dismiss the idea that something can't be done, That's a lesson that took me years to learn. I pass it on to you free of charge. Once the "can't be done" is thrown out in the trash whatever it is is going to be done. The next step is the "How" factor and that means observation and imagination, followed by persistence, setting up theories and testing them, until finally the light bulb stays on and the plane stays up.
Never say "I'm not a genius" because you might be at least once in your life and probably more than once.
DB - The Vagabond
*************************
WEEKEND PUZZLE
So you didn't care for last week's Who Done It?
All right, try this one.
FINISH THIS STORY.
It was an early September in the afternoon. The sky was darkening and a storm was threatened. But Dick and Jane needed to reach the other side of the lake. So they got into their canoe with two bags of groceries and Maxine, their Chihuahua. They began paddling across the lake and everything was going well until....
Grand prize goes to the one who gives me the best continuation of this story.
Good luck.
DB
*****************
Showing posts with label Mozart. Allegri. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mozart. Allegri. Show all posts
Saturday, June 26, 2010
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Mental Might
Give me a laundry list and I'll set it to music.
Giocchino Rossini
********************
Most people, if they are not opera lovers, don't know anything about Rossini except for two things, the famous Figaro aria (Figaro, Figaro) and the William Tell Overture, (thanks to the Lone Ranger), but then only the last part of it.
That Rossini was a genius there is no doubt. He wrote 36 operas, both comic and tragic, beginning at about the age of 12. As a young man he went to hear a performance of an opera by one of the established composers. A day or two after, he went to see the composer with the voice and piano score of the composer's opera which Rossini had written out from memory. He said that if he had another week he could give him the score with all the orchestrations.
That was an amazing feat of memory. But it's not that unusual. In the 17th Centry a man named Grigori Allegri wrote many religious works for the Vatican. One of them composed for Holy Week, Miserere Mei, was considered by the Pope, Urban VIII so beautiful he decreed it should never leave the Vatican and should never be published. But in 1770 Mozart went to the Vatican, heard the piece, went home and copied it out from memory. It eventually found it's way to England where it was printed and so now we have the pleasure of hearing it.
There are people who can go to a lecture and then go and copy it out from memory word for word. There are chess masters who can recall every move of a chess game they played yeas ago, and painters who can reproduce a painting they once saw.
That kind of memory totally astonishes me. I will recognize a piece of music if I've heard it once and a film, once I've seen it. But I could never reproduce anything as faithfully as those masters do. I wouldn't even attempt it.
I can remember roles I played years ago, but that's because I went through them a great many times, not once.
The fact that some people are capable of that kind of retention and recall is a sign that most of us are capable of more than we do, at least as far as mentality is concerned. That's a truism. No one would doubt it. But for most of us those who can exercise such extreme mental abilities seemingly without much effort is a challenge. Are we up to it?
DB
*******************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Giocchino Rossini
********************
Most people, if they are not opera lovers, don't know anything about Rossini except for two things, the famous Figaro aria (Figaro, Figaro) and the William Tell Overture, (thanks to the Lone Ranger), but then only the last part of it.
That Rossini was a genius there is no doubt. He wrote 36 operas, both comic and tragic, beginning at about the age of 12. As a young man he went to hear a performance of an opera by one of the established composers. A day or two after, he went to see the composer with the voice and piano score of the composer's opera which Rossini had written out from memory. He said that if he had another week he could give him the score with all the orchestrations.
That was an amazing feat of memory. But it's not that unusual. In the 17th Centry a man named Grigori Allegri wrote many religious works for the Vatican. One of them composed for Holy Week, Miserere Mei, was considered by the Pope, Urban VIII so beautiful he decreed it should never leave the Vatican and should never be published. But in 1770 Mozart went to the Vatican, heard the piece, went home and copied it out from memory. It eventually found it's way to England where it was printed and so now we have the pleasure of hearing it.
There are people who can go to a lecture and then go and copy it out from memory word for word. There are chess masters who can recall every move of a chess game they played yeas ago, and painters who can reproduce a painting they once saw.
That kind of memory totally astonishes me. I will recognize a piece of music if I've heard it once and a film, once I've seen it. But I could never reproduce anything as faithfully as those masters do. I wouldn't even attempt it.
I can remember roles I played years ago, but that's because I went through them a great many times, not once.
The fact that some people are capable of that kind of retention and recall is a sign that most of us are capable of more than we do, at least as far as mentality is concerned. That's a truism. No one would doubt it. But for most of us those who can exercise such extreme mental abilities seemingly without much effort is a challenge. Are we up to it?
DB
*******************
WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.
You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
20 responses so far.
DB - The Vagabond
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)