SCATTERED RAMBLINGS AND LINKS TO COHESIVENESS

 Like all artists...for that matter, like all people...I claim the right on occasion to get lost in conflicting thoughts, cloudy question marks, worlds apart from so-called everyday reality. In that vein I invite you to read my latest blog at jamesgibsonarts.com. I ask you to listen to my piano piece Threshold on Youtube if you have not already done so. I recommend you listen to the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds album, or maybe Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert. Allow yourself to get lost in music, perhaps music unfamiliar to you. Put away your cell phone and your day planner for a while, stare out the window and just listen. Finally, to all my fellow composers and performers of classical music, may I urge you to do as I have done -- let us shed our pseudo-sophistication, our contention that music has to be complicated or intellectually dense in order to be 'classical'....that music has no lasting value if it does not challenge the listener at multiple levels. I suggest, rather, that music is thought, music is impulse, music is emotion, music is the breathing of our souls. Complexity and sophistication have little to do with the greatest gift music gives to us. Just let your music flow, in whatever voice and temperament it emerges. The listener will do the rest.

James Gibson   

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