All articles – Fluffy Crumb

I don’t understand music (part 1 – first confusion)

2024-11-28

Two years ago (in 2022) I thought to myself, “I don’t understand music.”

Why?

I can listen to classical music, then rock, then rap, then musical parody, sung poetry, postmodern music, and so on, and so on, and so on… …and I can’t find many common elements for these songs… And I really can’t understand what music is?

Musician John M. Parker (St Celfer) commented (via email) on my doubts: “For me my background was to treat music as language, a superior one.”. And this is where I have doubts about the meaning of music. What kind of “language” is it if it is “different” for so many songs?? Maybe it’s the language of angels? Maybe it’s the language of our souls? What do they express, what can they express, what can the style of the work prove about the creator? Can anything be proven about them? Apparently so – but I have never found the “global” key. For example, my parents hardly listen to music at all. Does this in any way indicate the quality of their souls? About their life paths, about themselves? You can trace billions of tastes and… I doubt whether there will be a global algorithm describing what music talk about…
Speaking without grammar?

2024-12-30

Once I found on the internet this sentence: “Music is not a language because it has no grammar”… and I could be done with the topic but… Let’s undermine understanding “language” for a moment.

I don’t understand what a language is. And no one is sure of it. There are many thesis what are the main criterias of language. Even if I don’t understand the boundaries of the definition, I know that for something to meet the definition, the criteria of this definition must be met to at least a minimal degree.

I see a problem – the most important criterion of language is communication! It is so important that even body language is called that, even though as an unstructured, ungrammatical and widely interpreted form of communication, and is not a form of language… I can use miming or my hands to communicate many situations, actions and emotions. I know scientists won’t call it language, but being the everyday language of ordinary simple people, they might call it that.

Next problem is that music has structures and rules which are not understood by people. Maybe superior souls have hidden grammar inside them?
I don’t understand music (part 2 – between artist and universe)

2025-01-26

…how is it possible that there is so much of it?!? As Władysław Komendarek, a master of inventing forms and tools of musical expression, often repeats: “there are billions of possibilities!”

Personally, when I was twelve years old and I was fiddling with the piano keys, I feared that I would run out of inspiration to create melodies. It was hard for me to believe that I would come up with something… and then I would come up with it again… and again. There are over two hundred pieces by Chopin and… it was magic for me… The very fact of creating a new melody was something wonderful, extraordinary, impossible – but despite this impression, I did not become a professional composer or musician.

What I also don’t understand about music: when I listen to music, I don’t have just “ears” for a given song. I am, rather, in the composer’s “world”, as if I was penetrating the intentions and maybe even examining the his soul(?). It’s not that the “world” of his piece becomes my world, but that it fills my “surroundings” (can these be described as “empty spaces” in my thoughts?). How is it possible that so many of these 44,000 samples per second are contained in a wavelength that can contain music, and at the same time can “contain” other “realities” and, even, “souls” (more precisely: to describe music, a much smaller “wavelength” is enough, e.g. just musical notation)? You can put a picture next to a picture and compare your impressions almost simultaneously/in parallel – this is not possible with music. And yet there are “billions” of works in one world describing “billions” of “realities” that can exist in one world at the same time.
Elements and boundaries of music

2025-02-28
The main elements of traditional music are:

melody – determines the sequence of sounds of different pitches and durations,

rhythm – arranges the sound material in time, usually repeated,

dynamics – regulates the sound intensity,

agogics – determines the speed of the piece, i.e. tempo and its changes,

articulation – determines the way the sound is produced,

harmony – arranges overlapping sounds in various types of combinations,

color – determines the overall emotion or mood.

When we use these attributes then we can compose many different songs… but when we do this, could we analyze in an exact way to reproduce any song?

We can reproduce approximately by determining these parameters (in the score). Problems arise with emotions. My former co-workers, programmers, couldn’t find the reason for an International Chopin Competition. I explained that in piano playing there are many subtle combinations of these elements beyond the score.

Boundaries

Just in case, I touch on the difference between the avant-garde and the experimental. The avant-garde expands the boundaries of traditional music, while the experimental should go further beyond the boundaries.

One of the first musicians who intertwined popular entertainment music with an experimental approach was Paul McCartney with The Beatles. In the middle-part at the end of the song “A day in the life” he added growing noise played by the orchestra.

Now – can someone tell me – is it correct if we define this song using notes and lyrics? What is these weird parts? Aren’t they necessary?

Where are the Boundaries of music?

The most basic definition is that music is “organized sound”… and…
… in traditional music such as classical the most important element is sheet music to organize the sounds. Over time, many technologies of recording have emerged and people were allowed to create more complicated compositions. That was one of the main reasons that Sound Art or Noise Wall was born (someone might not agree with this, but I think that these type of experiments with sounds and noise were from the beginning of humanity). These possibilities cause someone to think a song is a piece of music while someone else might think a song is not organized… in his mind… and this is not music.

Am I understand boundaries of music?

I think that most listeners of music have had more than one moment in his life when he asked himself – is this noise a music? After longer time he starts to think: this is obviously music. Between avant-garde and experimental is also thin boundary. But are they a boundary for an open mind? Maybe it is only time before one organizes sound in his mind? Is an experiment only a part of avant-garde or not?

What defines a song called a musical experiment?

I don’t know and I agree with many people that there is no universal definition of experimental music. For me – a song with such a name must distort elements of traditional music so much that the average listener has a problem calling it music at all. The definition is very relative and fluid in the long run, because people’s tastes change and tolerance increases.

My favorite experiments of the beginning of XXI century

In my personal taste, experimental music should have very strongly hidden melodies, or extensive portamento, or very unusual sounds, or very broken rhythms.

Additionally (and very personally) – I don’t prefer ambience (too slowly changing music), experimental articulations of classical instruments and abstract jazz. Here is the list of my best discoveries in this topic:

Qba Janicki & Obsequies – Autolysis – it is a bit like a mosaic of sounds with parts of music of many sources. Emotional, expressive with many levels of loudness. Good quality, big complexity and many changes in time. It is impressive that whole piece creates a great unity.

Wilder Gonzales Agreda Music For Dreamers, Real Music For Real People – Peruvian musician created many albums but on these two I hear mostly that he is a master of broken rhythm and weird (but wonderful) timbres.

John Macdougall Parker (St Celfer) created not only his own style, but he created his own instrument. His widely diverse music has many different, strange elements like – portamento, many kinds of distortions, floating changes of timbres (including changes of character of sounds). He learned to correctly use every specific feature of discovered effects – his instrument has infinite potential

I omit many experimental music that I love (I have even my favorite noise wall) – but these three are the most significant for me.
I don’t understand music (part 3 – how to define song?)

2025-03-29
Assuming that we do not analyze the boundaries of music, I cannot determine, among others: what a piece of music is. And this is just an atom, an entity of music

Assuming that a piece of music is an ordered set of sounds, can notes represent a piece of music if they are an abstraction, devoid of the subtleties of sound and arrangement?

Assuming that we have a precisely defined piece (notes + sounds + intonations + others) – when does the interpretation of the piece end and when do variations on the theme of a given piece begin?

Sound is said to be changes in air pressure, but what if the sounds “sit in the head” of the ex-listener, where there is no air naturally?

If we find that a musical piece is defined by momentary samples (digital recording), what if the spectrum distribution changes subtly (for example, the listener’s hearing defects or the player’s imperfection)? Isn’t this lofi version of the song the same song?

Something less precise, but requiring greater contemplation: in what cases will a given recording of sounds never be considered music by any human being?

These reflections are my internal reaction to the technical and scientific education I had. A reaction to positivist education which very often promotes empiricism, technocracy and the absolutism of science, and which, unfortunately, I sometimes succumbed to in my youth. In my quasi-philosophy that I shaped while writing this blog – music is something I don’t understand, but it is intertwined with the soul in a way that is beyond understanding. The most important thing in all this is the fact that you don’t have to understand music to enjoy it.

P.S. I remembered something that results indirectly from the text – in the dispute about universals, I tend to side with realism versus nominalism.
I don’t understand boundaries

2025-04-25

Someone or maybe most think that a boundary is such a simple term as e.g. integers in mathematic. The imagined geometrical definition is simple – something like a line or surface separating two areas or spaces. In practice, even geometrical boundary, is more difficult to clearly define. In the physical world, when we have to measure the surface of something real like a island, then we have no single number defining area – it depends on precision and the method of measure. Do you think that precision is not important? Quantum-level disruptions could cause massive changes in weather prediction….

These were the simplest thoughts about boundary. The problem is when we think about something that has more dimensions than two or three. Naturally I do not mean spatial dimensions, but certain abstract…

Defining

To understand something, we need a definition. One of the most obvious problems is its boundaries – something is inside – in the set covered by the definition, and something is outside.

Are the definitions real?

Already, in the early years of philosophy (age of Greek domination of ideas), people had a problem with definitions. Until the end of the Middle Ages, people were thinking if definitions, abstracts, entities or only physical units are real? Next problems for philosophy were, among others, how do people get to know the world…?

The most known enemy of realism of definitions is Ludwig Wittgenstein, who said that the most important aspect of life is language and that our minds “create the world” and complicate everything.

Does music exist?

In earlier post I don’t understand music (part 3 – how to define song?) we had technical problems with defining song. Now I go to another plane of thinking – the problem is that a piece music doesn’t exist only in our mind, doesn’t exist only in a score sheet, doesn’t exist only in the air. How it is possible that it can be in these planes at this same time? Does music is a part of physic, mind, structure, or beyond our reality? I don’t understand that and I give myself a rule to undermine understanding music. We have some interesting adventures ahead of us…
I don’t understand music (part 4 – what is the reason for its existence?)

2025-05-26

What is the reason for the existence of music? Isn’t it the secret of humanity? Technological and scientific progress improves the economy and the quality of life, and sometimes saves or extends it. Books and cinema contain a specific, more or less intellectual message. Traditionally, a picture was supposed to reflect what a person sees, while a sculpture was supposed to reflect the shape of objects. The taste of cuisine comes from the times when distinguishing between good and bad food could affect health or life (nowadays, taste can be treacherous for health, e.g. when a person succumbs to the temptation of “fast food”).

And what is the anthropological justification for Music? What is the goal of ambitious creativity, since most people are satisfied with the musical equivalents of “fast food” or “instant soups”? Not that they are bad in themselves, but they cannot be – for health reasons – the basis of a diet…
A quick overview of St Celfer’s opuses

2025-06-29

John MacDougall Parker began his musical career relatively late, at the age of over 30. Does that mean he was lazy? Nothing like this! He was a hardworking, all-round successful man. He studied history, he received a Master of Fine Arts in painting (visual artist as eyekhan and gnitcelfer), he was an olimpic rower, many times a coach of olimpic rowers, and director of sport’s rower institutions… but… he was able to drop everything and, as an ambitious person, become an artist in one of the least appreciated and most demanding varieties – experimental music.

Musician but not as a St Celfer

As an experimenter, John used many pseudonyms relative to type of experiment. His first publish playing was as a Dj Taint with Djing in Spongeworthy and also he has been co-creating music in the He Goatan. Much more long musician manifestation were as jenghizkhan (2001 – 2022) and as earcon (2004-2013). As jenghizkhan he composed stylistically wide (often harsh and sharp) complex songs using many electronic instruments and other devices, sometimes with microphone. Earcon was more easy to listening to because the core of his songs were simpler rhythms made on a Elektron Monomachine. In my impression, jenghizkhan created songs more aggressive and menacing with many irregularities, earcon created songs more traditional, like music for party – more nice for common people.

Man From Planet Risk (as a proof)

In experimental music it is very difficult to assess quality and level, and that is why in most cases it is the professional musician who becomes the experimenter, because he does not have to “convince” that a given experimental piece has value. But… John Parker as Man From Planet Risk proved that he is a professional musician! In my opinion, a professional musician should create music that appeals to a simpler audience – music that is almost “made to order”, music that meets a given commercial goal. Album Escaping Chixalub were popular in New York and had a chance to promote themselves all over the world. On this album he combined elements of traditional styles such as trip hop, rock, punk and metal.

The reason of St Celfer (Step.4D instruments)

Much could be written about all of John’s collaborations and projects but the most interesting is his incarnation which has been for 2016 year. It was a time of inventing Step.4D – an instrument made from many musical devices like theremir, turnables and guitar pedal. He can play music life alone but sounds like group activity.

Review of StC Lives

These albums like: “Step.4D Symphony”, “StC Lives I: 51-61-74”, “StC Lives I I: 4BC” are St Celfer’s first steps with his instrument. For me, they are not just experiments where John wanted to push the boundaries of sound and music. He created very interesting but hard to understanding songs. When someone is stubborn – the tresure is to find many portamentos melodies with very untypical timbres changable in time. Next albums like “Step.4D Motifs” and “StC v earcon” were more traditional songs with many untypical elements.

Review of more traditional St Lives

In a next step, John composed a set of songs for performances. Among others (for example – the most “traditional”) songs: “Finale dois”, “Fifty one”, “Pink me Bjork” are almost typical songs but in a new – expanded aestetic “from the future” – teoretically they are very advanced avant-rock with classic but sounds very “cosmic”. John played them in many performances and everytime songs sounds different. It is a mistery of Music that every realisation of these songs are so different but despite everything, it’s the same music – in his concerts bonduaries of exceptable variations are very elastic.

Alcatraz Music Hour

For me this project – over dozen of around hour long tracks – are a symbolic escape from inner prison. This is a quintessense of an artistic John’s road. He had so many incarnations as the directions where he wanted to be over himself, over his ego, over his mind prisoned by language. What characterizes these songs are the fact that these sounds attract attention, are catching focus and they hypnotize. These are a kind of tauching of not easy percepting.

I thought U thought I

As a final stage of Alcatraz Music Hour, John processed his own conception to even higher artistic level. He cutted Hohm’s creations to small songs and he added descriptions with images. These comments are a kind of philosophical poetry, manifestations of art’s concept, abstractive conclusions about reality. This is impossible to define in one sentence what’s these text are but they force to hard thinking and meditation. These are a kind of tauching of not easy thinking. It’s almost impossible to prove, but I think these songs are the height of intellectualism – it may take several listens of an advanced listener to understand their “content”.
I don’t understand music (part 5 – an attempt at an anthropological justification of music)

2025-07-28

I decided to delve into Karl Popper’s three worlds and try to place music in them. According to his theory, the first world is the physical world, the second is the mental world, and the third (roughly speaking) is the “world of language products”.

My instincts failed me a bit, because I cannot directly insert the language of music in place of the language of abstraction. K. Popper stated that language became necessary to produce tools that became an extension of biological evolution. Music, on the other hand, does not produce these tools.

The common element for language and music is that they build a world common to many people, but in different meaning. Language, by eliminating errors, builds a world of victorious abstractions (to put it poetically), while music builds a world… well, I don’t know what kind…

In “I don’t understand music, Part 4” I wrote that I do not find an anthropological justification of music. However, I will try to “defend” the evolutionary meaning of music:

1 The world of mathematics, 2 The world of chaos and 3 The psyche. And what connects these three worlds is music, which is chaotic mathematics, meaning breaking the rules embedded in forms and harmony in order to create a sense of security.

For man is not only language and logic, but also suffering, pleasure, certainty and fear. Evolution must have clearly responded to the formation of abstract memory in man and the associated more frequent sense of threat.
Souls from a perspective of music

2025-08-27

What I am about to write may seem too poetic, abstract, or even absurd, but in my defense I will mention that in the Renaissance people described human memory not as a record of events, but as a garden of growing memories. From the point of view of people of the 21st century who are obsessed with computers, this is a mistake, but from a human perspective it seems very lifelike. In this poetics I will “paint” my idea of something that I would personally call a soul, although I may be wrong.

I imagine the soul as a multidimensional carpet that can be limited to a tape/long image for the purposes of imagination. With the passage of time, this tape gets longer and is formulated by experiences (I do not mean a record of memories). Experience is multidimensional and contains all dimensions of sensations, it is wound incoherently on a spool. In my opinion, this whole “reel” is precisely the soul of a person – as if a record of their life path, something that is embedded as an idea in the immaterial, Platonic world. This ball is not written in human language, but in the same language as music is written – it is a kind of struggle between order and chaos – what the soul does and what it should do.

So why are musical pieces composed in connection with the above? A person’s moment, their feelings are a compilation of fragments of this spool – on this basis they build a kind of image of their internal (seemingly external) world. Music is a kind of bridge between these images of themselves with their life and the harmony hidden within themselves, creating the impression of the meaning of life and its order.
I don’t understand music (part 6 – Why is there music… Rather, does understanding music exist?)

2025-09-27

Philosophers ask: “why is there something rather than nothing?“. The existence of no thing is more likely, because some thing is specific and requires a lot of coincidences. Personally, I approach this self-centrically: if I can ask this question, it means that I exist, so there is a single probability of the existence of some thing rather, since the possibility of asking this question arose…

I have more strange question in my mind – “why is there anything exists at all”? Why mathematics exists? Why matery and space exists? Why music exists?

So there is something, several instances or abstractions of something, and from this you can infinitely combine… this is how I feel about mathematics and this is the reason I feel that music is unfathomable.

In mathematics, you can partially derive numbers from the theory of sets, logic or geometry from numbers… everything is connected and creates a mosaic that is impossible to fathom. And… the great miracle: “How is it possible that we find these abstractions in physical world?”

A simpler example is chess, which, limited by several dozen rules, creates a mosaic of an unlimited number of rules that lead to a winning position… but I’m not intend to writing about mathematic, physics, chess… I want to write about music, understanding and understanding of music…

Understanding (even partial) as a miracle

To understanding we need not only anything, not only something, not only abstraction but also mind. These combinations are almost impossible – this is a miracle of the universe… I can undermining understanding but – the infinite and greatness of everything implicit that we are not even so small

Where does music come from?

The scientific and philosophical associations of music are – somewhere harmony has appeared in the current reality (also cosmic – orbits of planets), rhythms have been recorded in the pulse (e.g. heart, astronomy), sounds have become embedded in our everyday life… we can connect everything with everything but does it a delusion? I don’t understand music.
Honest Soul Sound Stories Manifest

2025-10-27
Music may be the language of the soul embedded in a sonic reality, but at honestsss the priority is the soul, not the construction of the world. Therefore, honestsss musical works are guided by the following principles:

Content over form – usually the content of the melody (imposes the interpretation of the content), so it should be kept to a minimum.

Aesthetic shock – the human soul is by nature repulsive because it is distant from God, which is why the sincere ugliness of works is recommended.

Story – music as a language, is supposed to tell a story. honestsss songs should be composed as an internal dialogue of the artist with his experiences, fears, dreams, suffering, conscience… or… his relationships with angels and/or demons.

The link below contains examples of pieces created according to the above principles:

https://fluffycrumb.bandcamp.com

Inspired by:

https://pointless-geometry.bandcamp.com/album/qba-janicki-obsequies-autolysis

Related articles:

I don’t understand music (part 5 – an attempt at an anthropological justification of music), Souls from a perspective of music

Methodology:

Main method in the Soul Sounds Stories genre (you can read manifest here) is to create music so spontanously as it is possible. Each incidental sound should be join without overt intention. I discover that when I order sounds in this method – I can find many emotions from my life.
I don’t understand music (part 7 – proving the existence of a musical plot)

2025-11-25

Assuming a priori understanding of most of the previous parts of the series, we can say: “I understand, yes yes…” “music is the sounds that make up a piece of music”, that “it is a melody written down in notes”, that “the first and last sounds of >>A day in the life<< by the Beatles are not important”, and “that the interpretation is not important”…

… this is one mystery that haunts me – these are the so-called progressive rock suites (I removed the word “rock” because of Komendarek’s suites, which tend to be less rock-like. I had to leave the word “progressive” because originally the word “suite” meant something else). I mean such pieces as “Bohemian Rapsody” by the Queen, “Ten najpiękniejszy dzień” by the Exodus, “Spring Impressions” by W. Komendarek. (To this I can also add the beautifully matched “Abbey Road Medley” by the Beatles, composed of several pieces.)

What’s fantastic about them? Fragments of individual songs (this probably applies to other genres as well, but here it’s significant) have few common parts. In the rock “Bohemian Rapsody” there’s a choir at one point, in the rock “Ten najpiękniejszy dzień” there’s a waltz, in the electronic “Spring Impressions” they have a classicist part and a rock part, and “Abbey road Medley” is meshed, among other things, in different keys. Despite this, some element that I don’t understand (form? content? structure?) makes everything come together as a whole…

I don’t understand music… for me it’s “colorful magic”…

The book also has many different elements, but they are connected by the plot and message. I can remind you here of the view of John Parker, among others, that “music is a language”, and as we know, it can tell a plot. I can quote here the thoughts from the beginning of the cycle (I don’t understand music) that I don’t know whose language it is and what plot it expresses…

Also John Parker, as St Celfer composed almost two years ago a kind of progressive suite which he called: Forcing function (auralmeet). In just 4 minutes he fit three parts in which the first is dense (focused), slightly nervous (tense) and consists of two colors. It moves to the second, more esoteric and dispersed, in which from calm it moves to a kind of fight of numerous sounds. At the end it moves to standard glissandi typical of Step.4D Lives I, embellished with numerous glitches and additions such as “sound of comets”.
The measure of complexity and other values in music

2025-11-26
In the late period of my fanaticism, when I was listening to Komendarek’s music all the time, the idea came to me to mathematically determine the complexity of musical pieces. Why? Out of a certain snobbery (pride) and irritation. Snobbery, because, “I’m listening to one of the best composers in history… and I have no way of proving his greatness” (I still lack this competence.) So, a measure of complexity would be a useful tool. Irritating, because you can meet fans of weak pieces who in hundreds of comments manifest their feelings for the performers and “pat each other on the shoulders” – and in this way I could fire up a calculator and say: “it’s not what you think…” and proverbially stick out my tongue.

Is it possible to mathematically measure the complexity of musical pieces? I don’t think so, but I will nevertheless consider the various factors that affect the complexity of music. We know what the elements of a musical piece are (melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, agogy, dynamics, articulation, color). It is possible to determine the complexity of a melody and its length, probably advanced statistical methods are possible that would calculate the density and variability of the rest of the listed elements. But (1) it would not be a universal measure (if it is possible), (2) there would be algorithms generating pseudo-music that would theoretically create very complex pieces that lack emotion and are impossible to listen to, (3) there are other, including extra-musical, values of music that testify to the “greatness” of a piece.

I will list examples of properties in music that are not “elements of a musical work” in the sense of being its components, i.e. its building blocks:

innovation,

individuality/uniqueness,

emotions/variability of emotions,

mixing/combining styles,

sincerity,

accentuation (related to emotions and sincerity),

mood and its “strength”,

extra-musical message,

etc.
I don’t understand music (part 8 – parallelism)

2025-12-23

It is known that when it comes to paintings and sculpture, points exist “next to each other” in space, and differences occur in colors – everything is based on matter. Literature is a more complex subject in terms of parallelism – although several equal sentences cannot be presented at one time, there are many parallel threads that sometimes intertwine. When it comes to music – this is something that is a mystery to me and has several aspects:

Parallelism of sounds at the level of physics

It seems obvious – there are sounds of different colors, of different frequencies, and the musician takes care that they work according to his will, that is, that they either resonate together or occur independently. For me, it is a miracle that human hearing has such selective spectral resolution.

Parallelism and at the same time “symbiosis” of sounds (perception)

This parallelism, however, has one additional aspect concerning perception – not only can each sound be heard separately, but they also resonate together, giving a measurable aesthetic value. And it almost shocks me that the sounds occur together and separately at the same time.

Parallelism of melody with chords and rhythm

It is a matter of the structure of the piece but also of the sound. The composer feels what the final effect should look like, but can you understand how it is that in one time interval in one piece the basic frequencies of the melody notes, “tone packages” (chords) with, among others, percussion change in parallel?

Parallel melody lines

You can hear it in F. Chopin’s Nocturne op. 9 no. 1, in J.S. Bach’s polyphonies, and in Gregorian chants. When I first noticed it in my life, I felt like I was in space. Listening to the aforementioned nocturne for the first time, I noticed that my brain can analyze several “competing” melodies in parallel and simultaneously…

The brain supposedly thinks in parallel, but I am amazed by the fact that it also feels in parallel!

In mathematical terms, the matter of the image is simple – it is enough to define points on the plane. With music, mathematics is complicated – we have one numerical dimension in time, which is selected in the spectrum only at the level of perception and interpretation. Among other reasons, contrary to the wishes of Pythagoras, Leibniz or Hegel, mathematics will not encompass music. I believe that the indirect reason is that artificial intelligence “can” pretend to be a painter, but “can” not regale us with its musical compositions.

Not so simply music

I will only add that I am simplifying the matter of the structure of a musical piece very much, and for example I will give the avant-garde music of St Celfer (John MacDougall Parker), who disrupts the musical structure with almost every fragment and goes outside its framework, only to return to it after a while (in short). His works contain sounds that change color and harmony during the duration of the tone. What is ordered sometimes smoothly changes into chaos, only to change form to another after a while. Parallelism in his case is a multi-layered affair – what seems like a melody can become a chord and vice versa. I noticed this especially in the album shown below:

https://earcon.bandcamp.com/album/stc-v-earcon
Feeling a piece of music

2026-01-08

Feeling a piece of music means feel meaning in how sounds follow each other. It is not a simple process as people think. People have become accustomed to being able to understand a piece of music relatively quickly. However, they forget that before listening to a given piece, they have been exposed to similar pieces for many years.

To feel a piece of music, the listener doesn’t need virtually any musical knowledge. For example, in my family, almost every child, around the age of three, cried during listening the Christmas carol “Jezus malusieńki” (en. “little Jezus”) To feel a piece of music, one needs, above all, the composer’s intentions.

In a feeling of music is something magic. Most people, after listening to his favorite music doesn’t need to deep knowing musical theory, doesn’t need to remember every layer of instrumental background and/or harmonic piece. Former listener can reconstruct this piece in his mind despite the missing pieces. Additionally, most people would be able to sing this song out of tune, but in his head the song is played perfectly.

Learning to feel music

Not every music are so easy to feel and/or to understand. The more difficult the music, the more it requires from the listener. Last years I used my mind as an “experimental field” for music. I has been learning a very hard to feel music: pieces without overt melody, with irregular rythms or without rhytms, sometimes without repetitions. Many times I listened to these songs that seemed like random sounds but finally my mind understand intentions. It looks like my mind has given a property to feel – it is as if listening training has placed a gap in the brain into which the puzzle piece of the song can be fitted.
I don’t understand music (part 9 – perfection)

2026-01-12

While it’s common knowledge that perfection is rare in nature, the concept of perfection itself exists. Almost each person who love music told in his life: this is a perfect performance.

Perfect performance

According to , there is no strict definition of what a musical work is. Instinctively, it’s simple, but mathematically and philosophically, “framing” a musical work “blurs” into (1) metaphysics/ontology, (2) performance interpretation, (3) the location of the music, (4) the quality of recording/reproduction, and (5) determining whether a given piece of music is music.

… let us assume that the work is a flexible entity and no interpretation (whatever that concept is) disturbs its boundaries…

Can a performance be both perfect and good, when I, John Parker, and some artists and listeners are drawn to imperfectionism? When, for example, an actor spends almost their entire life preparing for their profession and rehearsing performances to appear like a pro? When singers hide their training to pass themselves off as natural talents? When music is supposed to reflect the inherently imperfect human soul?

I don’t say this arbitrarily. There are cases when even I prefer perfectionism. One of the best performances of Fryderyk Chopin’s Ballade in A flat major I’ve heard was performed via a MIDI player(!), that is, strictly from sheet music via a computer. Chopin so perfectly transcribed each note that (in this particular piece) no additional pianistic mannerisms were necessary. I should emphasize that this wasn’t a rule with Chopin—almost all of his pieces allow for considerable freedom of interpretation, to the point that the pianist practically identifies with the composer.

The Beatles, on the other hand, said in an interview that they strive to play concerts as if they were recordings, yet they have a whole “palette” of interpretations (even on their official albums). How could one describe a composer’s perfection? Not in terms of musical accuracy, because then even Disco Polo or Country could be described that way. I think perfection lies in the composer’s control and consideration of each fragment, as well as the entire piece. And here’s the incomprehensible aspect – what is this “magical” consideration? What extraordinary dimension of thought is hidden in such a cluster of sounds?

Let’s call perfect execution the “best of the best” standard… does it exist? Music follows different rules than graphics, but is there a perfect image of a sunflower? Or is it possible that there can be an unlimited number of perfect images of sunflowers?

Perfectly composed musical piece

Let me start with an example: Fryderyk Chopin was a very meticulous composer. This irritated George Sand, who believed that two weeks of work on a single work changed nothing in the piece. As we know, history has recognized his unwavering devotion to every bar, every note, and every sound. And here’s something I don’t understand: how is it possible that, despite the composer’s diligent, focused, and experienced work, a piece can be played better, or less better? Despite the score’s dense density of notes, interpretations can be diverse—perfect in different dimensions…

…continue…

…we live in an age of electronics that allows for the recording and correction of every fragment of a piece. Does this possibility answer the question: what is perfect composition? I recently encountered the perfect Amy Winehouse, who was supposedly able to sing correctly in the recording studio on the first try. And despite hours of mastering and expert musicians, her stage performances are captivating in various, different ways. While it’s all about interpretation, the line between interpretation and a new work is fluid. This is especially audible in the performances of the staunch anti-perfectionist St Celfer, who plays his own works so differently at every rehearsal or performance on his Step4D that realizing it’s the same piece happens almost magically.

…I don’t understand…
My creation of Sound Art compared to chess

2026-01-30

I once read an interview with world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, who said that a chess game can be interpreted simply: one chess player tests his game plan against his opponent’s… …but is it really that simple? This same multiple world champion, a genius at blitz play, said in another interview that he doesn’t like to talk about chess because no one understands his concept of the game anyway… (a somewhat “autistic” dissonance in his statements)

Why am I writing this about creating Sound Art pieces? Maybe my composing isn’t “intellectual” enough, maybe my pieces are too simple, but… lately I’ve been under the impression that it’s simple – I select a sound generated almost randomly (balloon, elephony) and process or supplement it to achieve the appropriate tensions and expansions… and so on, recursively…

…are such simplified statements permissible? I don’t know. Just as M. Carlsen’s chess games can shock with, among other things, unusual combinations, perhaps my Sound Art creations can also surprise with, among other things, unusual “combinations”… I don’t know, I don’t know anything, a creator can’t judge their own work… so I’m left to climb the next levels of complexity and quality of the pieces’ content – there’s no point in “looking around”

P.S. I just realized that even making an incredibly beautiful jug can be as simple as removing and adding clay, and making jewelry can be as simple as modifying and adding elements.

P.S.2. Recently I wanted to interview John on the topic of “sports coach and art coach – differences and similarities.” John quickly cut the subject short, saying it wasn’t an interesting topic. My father, when he read this post and heard John’s reaction, replied that it was obvious – John, like Carlsen, works intuitively and prefers to act rather than talk about what is almost obvious to him.
I don’t understand music (part 10 – pictures neither)

2026-02-08

As I wrote in I don’t understand music (part 4 – what is the reason for its existence?) it is easier to find a reason for images – they are simply a representation of physical, visibly, reality. There are in images of course, abstrations and fantasias – but we can assume that these are distortions of what we see. I don’t want to analyze abstractive art but I will wrote something about painters:

When I was a young boy I heard the question: “why musicians agree with each other, but painters, when they meets together – thet are argue about crafting?”

The answer came to me unplanned while writing the blog: Painters argue about their craft more often because the object being represented is the external world or fantasies about it. Musicians, although they often engage in mutual criticism, are not “possessive” because the object being represented is an abstraction connected to their souls—and these are not shared.

In my youth, I also wondered why the Bible forbade the creation of images. I have many clues, but no “iron-clad conclusion.” Image and sound have completely different effects on the human psyche and development, and the processes of creating, shaping, and maintaining civilization are a topic beyond my reach.
Art as a kind of control

2026-03-20

As I wrote in I don’t understand music (part 5 – an attempt at an anthropological justification of music), Music may have arisen from the emergence of human values such as fear and hope. Contrary to appearances, the concept of the end of life is a form of abstraction. Here I will add another issue that is crucial in human life, and certainly appears in the life of an artist: control.

As St Celfer (John wrote to me):
“I was desperate to find calm in my life as a kid, which was not under my control, and in my mind, which now 50 years later I have learned to calm.”
Insertion – John were an athlete, coach, and painter – stubborn – full of successes (among other – olympic successes)

In other mail he wrote:
“Music was always in my control. Music saved me. It kept me up when I was down. It was always there. There is more freedom in the mind than in the body.”

Personally, in chess, music, science, and engineering, I’m very drawn to control. It’s so compelling that when I played chess with a friend and showed them my game plan, I was thrilled with my plan, even when it turned out to be a losing one… a bummer…

Once a time I’ve reworked a large portion of my application through 2 weeks so that it does exactly what it used to. The difference is that I’m using different external libraries, which will make the application easier to extend. Even though I can’t see the change, I get a lot of satisfaction from gaining much more control
I don’t understand music (part 11 – is it really an angelic language?)

2026-04-08

When creating my clumsy sound arts, I’m almost convinced that I’m guided by angels who criticize my life/my soul. Roughly speaking… the problem is that this doesn’t entirely align with I don’t understand music (part 5 – an attempt at an anthropological justification of music), nor with the notion of angelic perfection.

My theory of the three worlds of music requires both human uncertainty, the imperfection of the world, and the need for a precise justification of both of the previous factors. But what if we substitute “angel” for “human”?

For these creatures, there is no death above the material world, so uncertainty and imperfection don’t apply to them. A friend of mine, a graphic designer at work, told me that people who supposedly returned from the afterlife remembered music more beautiful than anything played by humans on Earth. Is this true? I don’t know.

Do angels use music as language? I don’t know. Do angels have music that is more perfect and therefore more beautiful than human music? I don’t know… …I don’t understand music in this respect either.
When does music lie?

2026-04-20

The subject of lies and truth is very complex and difficult, so I will approach the issue from a less philosophical, theoretical perspective. I will describe the issue casuistically, considering extreme cases.

When does the plot tell the truth?

I haven’t done any sociological research, but it seems to me that most people fall for the slogan “based on facts”… What? Stop! Back when I was still “connected” to television—first to two or three channels, then to satellite and cable (now I watch one movie every few months), it seemed to me that the “illustrated scenario” conveyed timeless truths…

…Now I believe that the most truths are conveyed by… film parodies!…

I’ve discovered that most of the “sociological facts” pushed on us by the film industry are far-fetched stereotypes—the plots are often twisted to suit the thesis. It was parodies that most often exposed these falsehoods…

Can music lie?

Music is often considered a “pure,” “undefiled” art. In my opinion, this isn’t an absolute fact. A person can lie to themselves through music when:

First case: A person under the influence of music gets the impression that he is someone other than he actually is.

Example 1.: I happened to meet a truck driver. He had a somewhat superior intellect, perhaps, to what is commonly believed, but he was also a superficial, party-loving libertine with a lot on his conscience. I remember him saying of the widely praised, ambitious, and sublime “Rozmyślania na Górze S.”: “This piece is life itself.”

Example 2.: In the film “A Week in the Life of a Man,” the main character, after a series of shameful choices, when asked why she sings in a church choir, replied: “to feel like a better person.”

Second case: The artist breaks away from art and tells a story that is not his own, but one forced by circumstances… this is what happens when he tries to use his craft to gain access to his fans.

Third case: Music of low craftsmanship and poor artistry, but involving the entire orchestra, creating a sublime impression among the common people…

… Is it true that the irritating HonestSSS is real? Is it true that in depression, a person learns the truth about themselves? Is silence truth? What is truth…
I don’t understand music (part 12 – attempt to conclusion)

2026-07-09

When I read about the disputes of philosophers, I sometimes had the impression that they treated their views as equivalent to the objects they studied. Despite the discovery of very clever, sometimes accurate, mental combinations, reality almost always escaped them when people tried to apply them in every case. Of course these research conclusions are very useful to maintaining civilisation but human mind doesn’t need them to feel music.

Listener doesn’t need to know does a piece of music a kind of abstraction (realism) or a concrete realization (nominalism). He can follow the Chopin Competition and analyze every interpretation of every Chopin piece with no knowledge about ontology and or phenomenology.

Music permeates almost inertly from the creator, through the performer, to the listener. The word music describes the entire set of elements from this journey; it can even be recreated in the listener’s memory. Of course every philosophical view are in his boundaries accurate but I will try to enter a higher level of understanding – the human mind.

And what is human? He is a wonderful machine—he is not uniform, yet he is one.

It can process numerous impressions, feelings, thoughts, and gestures—and still remain a whole, like a point. This is how music is perceived—in many dimensions. Each instance of performance, musical notation, structural solution, emotion conveyed by the composer, cultural and historical aspects, move human unity with varying force in different areas of essence. Sometimes they “touch” through “abstractions embedded” in mathematics, sometimes through emotions, sometimes analytically, and sometimes even philosophically (contemplatively)…

It is known that the centers that concentrate all these “messages” are located in different areas of the brain, but they are processed simultaneously in a single person. How is this possible? As British physicist Roger Penrose suggested (“The Emperor’s New Mind: On Computers, Mind, and the Laws of Physics”), the mind cannot be a wholly mechanical entity. This is impossible, if only because of the previously mentioned inability to synchronize sensations. Instead, the mind must be an entity that reaches into the quantum “world,” one that, unfortunately, cannot be studied in detail. Mathematicians (based on Gödel’s theorem) and physicists (Heissenberg’s uncertainty, Schrödinger’s equation) have proven that quantum mechanics is unlikely to become a theory, meaning it will likely not transcend the framework of a set of specific theories.

Let’s focus on this: what could this human uniformity be?

Music demonstrates the shortcomings of materialism: pure atoms cannot explain the concept of “F. Chopin’s music”—this is the world of ideas. Similarly, determinism, which is “married” to pantheism, cannot explain the phenomenon of creating a new musical work. Determinism has two additional weaknesses: chaos physics and the “never-definable” quantum world. Determinism is not necessary—assuming belief in God, he does not need to know the future—he creates it at will (Thomism).

People know that the material world is vast and capacious—this is true. However, the quantum world contains barriers that reason can never overcome—it may contain an even more vast and capacious world of ideas “on the other side.” There may exist structures and/or constructs more complex than computers, computer systems, computer games, or any other inventions made by humans or even other beings.

Can music be a “reflection” of this (Platonic) world?

Thesis 1: The human soul is uniform not only in the moment of time, but also uniform in duration from its birth.

Thesis 2: The human soul is a multidimensional bundle that is equivalent to a record of the “whole” in time.

Thesis 3: The human soul is “corroded” over time by experiences, emotions, sins, pain, etc.

Thesis 4: Music is, in a sense, the reverse of these “corrosions” – it fills the “corrodes” and soothes the “pain of existence” of human souls.

Additionally:

Thesis 5: Free will exists because, having abstractions in reason, man can make choices between nice evil and painful good. This creates a feedback loop, like disturbances in deterministic chaos.

Ad. 4 If a person without musical education, but with internal experiences, is able to feel the emotions contained in music – this would prove the existence of the soul described in “attempt to understand music”.

Proving this thesis would require large-scale anthropological research—or observations of people from their surroundings. The best evidence for this would be provided by individuals who grew up in “quiet” environments and were exposed to music for the first time in their lives.

What could be so moving about music to people without musical education? Primarily, it’s cyclicality (in frequencies and the repetition of fragments of a piece) and change (in frequency, intensity, and tension). Combinations of these can induce bliss, irritation, and states in between (in a whole range of different experiences—so-called moods). This may reflect their daily lives, long periods of life, or selected aspects of life. Music can reveal the truth about themselves to the listener, but in most cases, it temporarily “lies” to them. Most often, composers who intend to evoke beauty use harmony, structure, and other classical aspects to present an ideal “sketch” of the soul.
Dialogue – John M. Parker with Fluffy Crumb

2026-08-06

Hi John!

The last few days I have had no art activity (a bit busy with other things), but I have been thinking about your coaching.

Do you think this would be an interesting interview: about your experience in sport, coaching, visual art activities, musical ones and coaching (including me in art not rowing)? I’m interested in the common elements and also the differences…

One of my observations is that I’m not a sportsman, and I have no great powers and have not learned to continuously pursue any activities… You are the other way around.

Do you want to continue this conversation, or not?

————–

John: Hmmmm. I’m not sure it’s an interesting topic. I’m not sure it’s even true? OK let’s give it a try.

————-

FC: For me it is an interesting topic, but probably you are right. You know I love to mix together a few subjects and analyze them. I even wrote a post about chess and music once.

You had many professions:

– musician

– sportsman

– coach

– visual artist…

Do you believe in something like “a talent”, or do you think that success is only hard work? What is a recipe for yours? Do you think that if you were to begin your life as a musician it would have been more fruitful?

————-

John: That’s 4 questions!! pick 1 🙂

————–

FC: I’m sorry if you don’t like this question. I know that it’s complicated to answer… Can I change the question to: ” Do you believe in something like >>a talent<<“?

—————

John: I do. And, I believe talent is genetic. You see clues by looking at your parents and your children, if you have some like we do.

There is too much belief in experience these days, as if we can change our fate, that the Will overcomes adversity. So, anticipating your next question, as an athlete, I do not think success is tied to hard work. Now I contradicted myself didn’t I!

————–

FC: I never believed in hard work, and I don’t believe that genes are determining our talents. In my life there were very complicated situations which changed my personality. Do you believe in “a universal person”? I believe that such a person is impossible, but I can’t see you lacking in any area of your professional lives?

————–

John: In my professions it might seem like I am Nietzsche’s superman, but I was far from it. There may be some things in which I might have more talent than rowing or music. The struggle I faced and my engagement with it created the outcomes. (So, that is experience’s effect on talent and now I am contradicting myself a little less!)

Interestingly, both rowing and music involve issues concerning water.

————–

FC: Simple question: Had you a dream about a particular profession as a kid? Did you have a dream about being a sportsman, coach, musician and/or visual artist? You wrote recently that you hear music in everyday noises, but what are similar talents that lead to other professions?

————–

John: At first, I did not have a dream, per se. As a kid I was desperate to find calm in my life, which was not under my control, and in my mind, which now 50 years later I have learned to calm. So, the clear event that gave me well-being in my life was finding sports. First, it was swimming when I was 8 – I wanted to hang out with my friends, and I liked girls. I also played hockey and began to excel going to a school away from my home, in one of the centers of hockey in America, where I learned that there were levels way beyond what I had experienced. With this dawning reality, I started rowing and met one of my most important life mentors, my coach, who helped guide my way through complicated teenage years. I was good at rowing, a sport my father and others in my family had done. Nonetheless, despite having some talent, I only succeeded because of the hurdles and the effort required to get over them. Fortunately, rowing is a sport that rewards trying hard because I was not, at first, the most skillful. Ironically, fast forward many years later, I made it to the Olympics because of my skill. Am I contradicting myself again?

Only now when I look back do I realize that music preceded all this. Music was always in my life. Music saved me. It kept me up when I was down – literally some nights with a small radio under my pillow so my parents would not know. It was always there, something I could control, meaning always accessible. There is more freedom in the mind than in the body.

My dream came as I was rowing that I wanted to coach like my mentor. I did coach and despite many monumental memories in my life doing just that, and successfully, I kept running into the everpresent encroachment of what I call ‘the imposition of power’ that institutions exert to achieve their own needs instead of those of the people they represent. During these moments I began a second dream of becoming an artist. I had low talent as a kid in art compared to someone who had natural ability like my sister. Whether she likes it or not, my mother, too, has an artistic inclination: we were surrounded by fine antiques from her store which she built up from the ground. On my father’s side, his mother, of the MacDougall clan, was an opera singer in New York. There are also other artists on that side of the family.

I started painting when I was coaching which, fortuitously, saved that career for many years, by balancing it out. I never thought this entire time that I could actually create music, but gradually once I started making visual things, I dabbled in the wonder of playing in the aural world. It’s been an easy transition where I apply painting theory to sound. They both have liquid properties, working with waves, just like water. I’m not so sure I actually have talent, just having too much fun.

I can say for myself, others see only the mountain tops – this success you refer to – but I had big canyons, too. In fact, there are a couple people who want to define me by just one of these times that I was at rock bottom. The difference is that I have an extraordinary stubbornness. I only see this now because I see it in my kids. I learned a lot from them. Man, can they be annoyingly stubborn!

You need lows to have highs.The low points define how high are the highs; so, those seem organized and picturesque on the surface. I feel fortunate for those rough times, too.

————–

FC: Next question: did you write anywhere about your first rowing coach? This story may be what I’m seeking.

————–

John: I have not said much about my high school coach. I have said more about my recent mentors, Tom Moody, Matt Freedman, and Denzil Hurley, who are all more directly linked to where I am now in the arts and coincidently have all passed away so there has recently been a point of reflection.

Where should we start about Todd Jesdale?

I can say he got me at age sixteen to read William Shakespeare which I still love. He also taught me to do creative writing by keeping a sports log which naturally turned into a personal journal. Some of these made it to my recent work, I Thought U Thought I, which comes out on August 15, 2026. There are some texts from that time, with Todd encouraging me, that I cannot surpass now, 40 years later. He also got me to apply myself intensely to an activity that rewarded excellence, rowing, which easily transferred to the arts.

————–

FC: I have a thesis that music made by an artist manifests his soul. My annoying music represents my lousy soul.

As I wrote once, I hear in the HΩ hour long tracks (the basis of I thought U thought I) your athletic struggles and concentration… … Do you agree that this is connected, or not?

————–

John: Your music is not annoying or lousy but to answer your question about HΩ, yes.

Art is close to sport in so many ways even if our culture does not regard it that way. I have worked in other places that do easily connect the two, where the two fill the same need. This view is outside Western cultures.

————–

FC: About being an artist: what if I say, that talent is not needed to be an artist, but an anti-talent is needed to be a crafter? I haven’t learned piano playing or music theory intentionally, because I wanted to be original and honest… I simply want to burn away my bad emotions…

————–

John: For me I would say “opportunities” (and not talent in this situation), and this is a privilege that I am LUCKY to have received. I think in horror of what I would have done should I have not received some chances in life, namely to pursue rowing and music.

We end up talking about this often, but this brings up the idea of the “will” which I dismiss as not as prevalent as many would like to think. However, in the case of sport or art, I both loved the activity so I did it all the time but also needed it always available, an outlet to keep my sanity. To make the Olympic Games, I was insane, certainly deluded; I had to make it! I think with enough effort and time I can make one great thing in the world of art; so, here we go again…

Who is to say that I should be denied to make art even at the most disappointing levels – now I sound like my parents when they were just trying to protect me and persuade me to not touch the subject.

I don’t believe it when you say you have no talent. I do believe in souls and the quality of yours. I would argue that if you really believed in what I am trying to do in my own art, that one could not say they are a ‘crumb’. In a way this outlook is a self-defeating system because then who are you to say any of what you have said here? and who should care? I know you actually know you have something to say and that it could help people. You like to jest about this.

————–

FC: About the soul in music – Amy Winehouse wrote:

“I write songs about stuff that I can’t really get past personally – and then I write a song about it and I feel better.”

That’s my honest soul’s sound stories – I compose them almost only for me…

About the use of “crumb” – do you know that the first successes in my worklife began when I realized that I’m small? My parents gave me advice that did not work like: “You just need to be self confident”, “When you try and are hard-working, you can do anything”, “When you need to do anything, you will”, “When you finish Technical University, you will be an expert”… but they didn’t give me “opportunities” – i.e. correct coaching and managing.

Catholic religion suggests that the “size of the soul” is on a scale of how well a soul is following the true love of God. And… One of my first soul sound stories, I named: “I regret that I was far away from love”… That’s why I’m small. And I don’t care if anyone cares about that… Being honest is very unpopular in this world…

————–

John: I crave honesty constantly.

Yes, we often talk about the end point with your work. I learned under a mentor, Denzil Hurley, drilling into my head the advice that I should stop thinking about anything being “finished”. I understand now. First of all, anything others might find worthy, we have no way of knowing ourselves when it is finished. When it is worthwhile, we can only be in an interested state, be perplexed. Second, it is the quality of the journey, the intention, that makes something worthy. When it is good, it never arrives. This can be frustrating…

I like that quote by Winehouse. I don’t like her music as much, but I am interested in her life. And Van Gogh’s – I love his art. Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix… I think they felt like they would arrive somewhere and that was the mistake. As you know I was brought up Catholic, but I think sometimes the advice and almost always the rules are just a human invention to control often revolutionary ideas as expressed in the writings about Jesus. He did not follow rules and gave advice which was radical. He had an artist’s temperament.

To understand that you are small seems like such a gift and privilege. We all need to do this. I am reminded now by your story…

————–

FC: Maybe you were right that I shouldn’t be modest because I can’t afford it. I’ll explain: when I said to Komendarek: “mistrzu” (maestro), he answered: “I’m learning every time”. A friend said that “Komendarek is modest because he can afford it”. The problem is that I don’t believe in this kind of “positive thinking”. Every time I was self-confident – I failed. I’m almost sure that talented people (with good genes and with good luck) always have success.

Next questions to you: do you believe in “positive thinking”? (you used in a sentence: “self-fulfilling prophecy”), and: do you think that every sports coach is a good life coach?

————–

John: No. No. And No!

No to positive thinking. My proof is saying ‘no’!

Not every coach has a positive life effect. Probably the opposite is more true!

However, I think your friend’s comment is sarcastic, is not positive, and serves no deeper purpose. These types of witty responses usually expose the soul of the person saying it. Or at least the intention of the comment. (Sorry if I offend your friend.)

And, I disagree that all talented people reach success. I know this from my own experience in sport both as an athlete and coach. This is tested and true by my experience.

Most successful people have an insecurity about themselves, a part of their soul they seek to improve. I think this is the reason Amy, Vincent, Kurt, Jimi hoped to arrive at a place. You list many qualities of your music that you hope to arrive at…

I don’t like personal coaches. I don’t believe in this. It is like going to a school that advertises that it will make you a leader. It’s a delusion of the worst kind.

Tell me why you like my so-called coaching in music? I just say what I think might help you when you ask for advice.

————–

FC: Maybe it’s because I was making bad career choices, or maybe my personality didn’t match the people I met, but I could never find anyone who took my questions as seriously as you did… Moreover, they weren’t just answers, but a complete introduction to (among other things) the world of abstract music, taking into account my psyche. Such analysis somewhat simplifies the issue, but in Vienna, after my performance, you said, “Now you’re the new Mateusz”… I didn’t believe it at the time… but I truly feel that over the five years we’ve known each other. You’ve “sculpted” my (not only) “musical” form like a coach… the performance in Vienna, itself, showed you have high-level conducting skills.

————–

John: It was such a miracle that we got to meet after such a great correspondence. I think once again we have another synergistic moment together which I hope others enjoy reading! Thank you, Mateusz.