19.39 Today I have allowed myself to indulge a bibliophiliacal tumescence, and paid for the privilege, with a lunch at the Ruby Tuesday's near David-Kidd. I noticed that a significant proportion of the Pump-Down-As-Much-As-You-Can-Keep-Down salad bar customers were somewhat, well, extensive of girth. Yesterday's lunch, at a as-much-as-you-can-eat Mega Bar, was quietly terrifying. Nearly all the patrons there were corpulent, rather than merely swelling gently with the delights of the table. This is not the hypocrisy of a swelling post-mature Englishman who sees both Father and Grandfather coming to live in his body. I saw people whose health must be prejudiced by their size, carrying huge stacked plates of Mega Bar wonderment to their table before pumping it down and returning for more.
This is not criticism, particularly from a Taurean who enjoys their food, but a report of an experience which was both surprising, although not, and somehow terrifying. One of the small, but significant, changes I have noticed over 30 years of touring America is the increasing proportion of well-fed in its population.
Back at Chez Belewbeloible, my fingers are beginning to snap like whipcords as they leap across the fingerboard. There were several periods of sheer physical joy when, effortlessly, the fingers locked knowingly into sequence. This quality of visceral delight is wonderful during practice but, in performance, may mislead the player. I have known one exceptional player who was unable to take control of his body in full flight: instead of stopping when form & a sense of the appropriate demanded it, he would continue to play, regardless of the needs of either musical shape & development, or fellow players.
Exceptional players, rather than the merely superb, are aware of this trap.They train in the division of attention that, when the body is tempted to follow the merely calisthenic, they are standing immediately behind themselves to direct the action. Lesser players, like myself, practise the division of attention so that, when we are about to be lead astray by the body's momentum, we might stand aside and decline to follow.
Frequently, audiences are also seduced by the apparent delight of the player in their full flight of physicality, and cheer them onward. Their physical enthusiasms reinforced by the gallery, this kind of player is rarely given the opportunity to reflect on their playing strategy. Commentary within a group, in obvious contradiction to the expressed will of the people, carries little weight. Silence, restraint, presence are powerful and tangible. In time, they make their own argument. In the short term, volubility, activity, motion may well carry the day.
Power is the capacity to access what is possible.
"When we act as we like, we may get what we want.
But not what we need."
