2017年4月15日星期六

"What makes you play?"

I think that is the question for my goal.
Why am I playing? Why am I still playing? What am I playing for?
All these years playing music, what's it for?

After years, I'm teaching, coaching young students who would like to play music or who are forced to. And I spend a lot of my time, my effort on coaching them to play as good as I can. Days after days, months after months, years after years... So, that's what I want for? Sharing my musical knowledge to those young people who play the music just because they couldn't say 'no' to their parents' decision?

Obviously, the answer is clear.

Then what's it for? Days after days of practicing, marching myself to improve, spending time and money to learn how to play better.

Turns out that I'm just wasting myself, hanging around here. After achieving the certification of performance, I can just stop here. I can literally stop at this stage, abandon playing and practicing. I can just keep teaching without performing. Some good teachers don't play good music. It's about knowledge transferring and the sense of aesthetics of one-self. Then after years, I may get some fame among the field, and I would get as many of students as I could. I could spend 100% of my time on thinking how to make them play better, but not me.

But I don't want to do that. It's nothing about passing the techniques or knowledge to the others, but what am I looking for achieving. What fulfils me, that matters.

What fulfils me? At this moment I could only think of sharing my music to the others. I am not playing as good as the professional, as I hope for. But I can still share what I have right now. I would like to do as good as I can, as wonderful as I can, so that the others would enjoy my performance. Not just playing the music I like but neglecting the audiences' feelings. It's nothing about marketing or whatsoever, but music is something precious to share for. And those receiving should be happy and fulfilled by it. Of course with the market in Hongkong is really difficult to make it happens but I hope it will. Somedays people would think, "Ah! There they are, they do serious music, let's listen to their recent show!" That will be a great commitment for artists themselves.

But I don't know how to move forward. It's like having no direction in front of me.