A fellow musician said this in passing to me. Although he probably had thought about it a huge amount and this was more of a headline. It stuck in my head. Mainly because in my studio, I already had this massive yellow poster hanging on the wall:
On that almost obnoxiously yellow background screaming a sunny disposition, it defines optimism as the following:
Interestingly, this definition is very fixed in the present moment. That RIGHT NOW is brilliant, right now. But optimism is also rooted in future possibility..straying quite heavily into idealism. After all, the anagram of Delia is ideal (or er, ailed - maybe there is a hidden message there?).
Optimism in the Practice Room
I find it pretty handy to intently stare at this poster in my practice studio when my brain and hands are not cooperating with this belief and everything is starting to sound a bit crap. There is an act of optimism in practising, that you are going to reach something you cannot see yet, and that it is there.
Optimism Outside the Practice Room
My friend’s creativity catchphrase also tied in with the more spiritual side of being an artist; you need to believe that you actually have a good idea and that the idea has a future outside of your own head. Then you have to be willing to believe and then invest (or sacrifice) time, money, energy and a whole other host of resources in order to make it a reality.
Optimism in Collaboration
And when you collaborate with another artist, you need to believe what you think they are capable of outside of perhaps even their own knowledge of ability; when Will and I worked together on the Lark Ascending for the first time, I really believed he was more than capable of playing classical music (despite not being able to read music at all), but he did take some convincing! Will often tells me he cannot believe he is now playing full symphonic works on diatonic, traditional instruments like the melodeon.
Often art can be an act of idealistic hope. For example, in our double concerto recomposing the Planets by Holst alongside climate activists - The Silent Planet - we present music as an act of reimagining an alternative future and platforming the voices which hold the answers. We offer an alternative imagined utopia as a form of creativity to offer solutions outside of the current status quo. And suggest that innovation and invention hold the answers - that IT IS POSSIBLE through collective imagination for humans to positively affect climate change.
Refining your Artistry, Optimistically
So if you hop onto our website, we are calling ourselves "mavericks", "left-field" and "alternative" and clinging onto that idealistic optimism that music can live beyond genre for dear life.
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