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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.

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…

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.

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?

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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.

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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?

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John: That’s 4 questions!! pick 1 🙂

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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<<“?

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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!

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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. 

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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? 

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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…

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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.

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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… 

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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…

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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? 

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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.

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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.

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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.