Comments

Very well written! I think what your experience shows is that we get out of ourselves and our rut when we concentrate on the unexpected and go with it. You did that wonderfully in your blog. The question is how you translate it into your violin playing. Maybe that's why I envy jazz musicians. That's what their music is about. Well put, Tom. Especially this:
>The question is how you translate it into your violin playing.

I'll let you know what transpires...

Sounds like a Zen koan: What is the sound of one red grape rolling?

grape writing! Oh, I'll use any old raisin to post a blog, won't I? : ) as long as people don`t start to wine about it. Fantastic writing Terez! Aww, thanks, Debra : )

Buri, you beat me to the punch. (I was envisioning something like "stepping on the grapes and making them wine," but could find no lead-in.)

Greetings,
on a more serious note i think it is about `perception` versus `Vision.` If we are doing anything and it is not a joyful adventure then we are operating at the level of the former which is contorlled and dictated to by the past. If we allow something to free us from this then `vision` takes over and we become one with everything around us. We don`t play our insturments anymore. The music plays us.
Cheer,s
Buri Terez, you could try augmenting your practice sessions by 10 minutes, during which you give yourself license to play whatever you want. Or, roll grapes downhill... Buri, you are very wise and I'm right with you on what you're saying. That damned conditioned mind of mine.

Anne, can I borrow ten minutes from you? Because I've used up my own day. Every day. : /

But, FWIW, I must say, I had a rollicking good practice session this afternoon. It was a lot of fun and left me feeling great. Maybe it's all about visualizing those rolling grapes before I begin...

Who says it needs to 'mean' anything? Sometime the simple experience is enough. As musicians, we often get so worried about 'intention' or 'meaning' that we forget to revel in the simple sound of a chord, the crispness of an attack, the path of a grape.

Can you play like them rolling down the hill? My teacher in San Francisco could - in my first lesson (at a festival on a farm out in the Olympic mountains), he showed me airplane engines, grass blowing in the wind, donkeys' tails flicking back and forth, all in sound on the violin. I was hooked.

Terez - if you get up at 3:50 a.m. (oh dark hundred to the rest of us), you get the extra ten minutes. Megan, I love what you wrote. And Tom - hey! You're on to something! Who wants to waste all that time sleeping anyway? So dull... (To the others: I've told Tom that I get up at 4am in order to find time to work on novel-writing. Time that is squeezed later in the day by violin practice. But ah, all time well spent.) >donkeys' tails flicking back and forth...

Megan, I'm having fun trying to visualize (auralize?) this one. : )

I think it means, even the best plans sometimes catch a hitch. Let it go, with a chuckle, if you can! Terez,
It's interesting to read how nature can teach us a lesson, in your case those grapes. Nature is really our first teacher. Thanks for your comments, Laurie and Craig! Very much enjoying reading everyone's thoughts. You get up at 4 a.m. voluntarily? I got up at 4 a.m. this morning because I couldn't sleep, worrying about things like the economy and the bailout :(

But, there's nothing like a few grapes rolling to put things in perspective :)

This blog also reminds me of a piece I played in college: "Pig Rolling: Overture to a Schizophrenic Table, no legs, no top." By Doug Henderson. I forget the instrumentation now, it may have been a piano trio (violin, cello, and piano).

"Grapes Rolling" is not so far off!

>"Pig Rolling: Overture to a Schizophrenic Table, no legs, no top."

Oh, this is hilarious! : )

And yes, I get up at 4am voluntarily. In my pre-kid, pre-novel writing days, I would have stated flatly that there was No. Chance. At. All. that I would do that. Funny how parenthood (and the muse) change you.

thats deep....highly inspirational thanks for that What if Isaac Newton saw rolling grapes before falling apples? I think it's just another expression of freedom. People of all ages look to the sky in wonder when ever doves or baloons are released. why not the rolling of the grapes? Kyle – who’d have thought a bunch of rolling grapes could have produced an entire blog and so many interesting replies? I love it when depth comes from simplicity.

Cris – If Isaac Newton had seen rolling grapes first, he would have plopped his English butt on the ground and watched in amusement as they raced and wobbled down the hill. And we would have no Theory of Gravity. (I guess it would have been the Theory of Levity!)