technique & creativity ( 04 nov 06 sat)

You cannot reconcile creativeness with technical achievement. You may be perfect inplaying the piano, and not be creative; you may play the piano most brilliantly, andnot be a musician. You may be able to handle color, to put paint on canvas mostcleverly, and not be a creative painter. You may create a face, an image out of astone, because you have learned the technique, and not be a master creator. Creationcomes first, not technique, and that is why we are miserable all our lives. We havetechnique - how to put up a house, how to build a bridge, how to assemble a motor,how to educate our children through a system - we have learned all these techniques,but our hearts and minds are empty. We are first class machines; we know how tooperate most beautifully, but we do not love a living thing. You may be a goodengineer, you may be a pianist, you may write in a good style in English or Marathior whatever your language is, but creativeness is not found through technique. If you have something to say, you create your own style; but when you have nothingto say, even if you have a beautiful style, what you write is only the traditionalroutine, a repetition in new words of the same old thing….So, having lost the song, we pursue the singer. We learn from the singer thetechnique of song, but there is no song; and I say the song is essential, the joy ofsinging is essential. When the joy is there, the technique can be built up fromnothing; you will invent your own technique, you won't have to study elocution orstyle. When you have, you see, and the very seeing of beauty is an art.