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I am posting this as a benchmark, not because I think I'm playing very well yet.  The idea would be post a video every month for a ye...

Monday, September 11, 2017

Making it look easy

My recent discovery of an easier, more relaxed piano technique made me think of my distaste for overly labored styles of prose and verse. I want to read someone who makes it look easy, not the one who wants you to admire the effort of the writing. Even when I am playing on an instrument that is not particularly sensitive to touch, I can still hear more fluidity and continuity, an easier rhythmic flow, than I do when I keep my wrists very stiff.

You can revise, but you should revise in the direction of spontaneity rather than in the direction of revision. Take out bits that sound overworked, even if you are proud of them.

I think polish is an inappropriate metaphor, because sometimes you will want to ruffle up the style, roughen it.

You can study Ashbery or Kerouac for two contrary methods of stylistic spontaneity.  You can also have models of worked-over prose and verse. It is really a preference rather than an absolute: maybe a tighter style is what is needed for you. Where do you situate yourself along that continuum?

My revision of poetry is mostly just cutting out whole poems or sections of poems, or very mildly tweaking fine details.


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