Today I plunge back into my schedule. Even though I am still weary from Holy Week, I am hopeful I can pace myself and do okay through the rest of the spring. Both church and Ballet should lighten up in a few weeks.

This morning I found myself reading Friedman. I continue to think his insights are valuable for the 21st century.

I like this:

By [a] well differentiated leader …. I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals … someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about … someone who can be separate while still connected… [who] can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, sometimes challenging presence… someone who can manage his or her own reactivity

Whew! Tough stuff. But worth trying.

Also reading in The Auditory Culture Reader I came across some good thoughts.

The best one can hope for in writing about music is better kinds of failure: the least that should be insisted on is to avoid prose that strangles the life in music

Les Beck and Michael Bull

I can feel my relationship to music changing. I am trying to be as honest with myself and my music as I can be. This has meant shedding most notions that college tried to teach me. It means embracing beauty and life in music where I find it. Also I keep asking questions about its history, how it works, and where it is going.

On the one hand I see musics that trends towards consumerism and stilted narrow understandings of historical music. These are two that repel me. But even inside commercial and academic musics I find things that interest me. This week I found the band, TV on the Radio (a commercial example) and reconnected with Francois Couperin on the piano (more academic).

Tomorrow when I reseat myself at the piano for ballet I will use all musical type languages in the way I improvise in the moment. Hopefully it will be a “better kind of failure” that doesn’t “strangle life out of the music.”

Paul Gilroy – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am working my way more slowly now through The Auditory Culture Reader. This means I come across many interesting people. Gilroy is one. He is a culture critic who has written about black studies and vernacular culture.