Posterous theme by Cory Watilo

Filed under: try

4 adventurebolt lessons from JS Bach: Try something new; you might like it!

Sitting here putting blogs together, I am listening to some classical music as I write. Interestingly, a unique version of Johann Sebastian Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor has come on, and I have never heard it played this way.

If you're not familiar with the tune by name, you would surely recognize it as the song that is played during scary graveyard scenes in old movies, or representative of Dracula or some otherworldly evil icon. From Boris Karloff to Captain Nemo to Phantom of the Opera, it is typically played on a grand pipe organ, broadly and loudly inviting the Devil himself to the occasion at hand. Well, at least that's what it's come to be caricaturized as.

Wikipedia has this interesting note:

"The exceptional number of fermatas and broken chords in the Toccata and Fugue BWV 565 has been explained by some on the supposition that Bach composed it as a work to test an organ, which he did regularly. The first thing Bach is said to have done when testing an organ is to pull out all the stops and play in the fullest possible texture, in order to see if the organ had good bellows to provide plenty of wind to the instrument: not enough, and the pitch would be unsteady, and tone quality would be inferior. The opening of BWV 565, with its three opening flourishes and massive rolled chord, would serve as a good test for an organ's winding system."

What's interesting is that that this version of Bach's Toccata that I am currently listening to is not on a pipe organ, but on a solo piano. It changes the whole texture and tone of the piece, and quite honestly, could pass as another composition altogether.

What I've learned from this little adventurebolt is:

  1. Firstly, our preconceived ideas have a lot to do with how we interpret the world. If we always think a certain way, it becomes comfortable, and we tend to become "locked in" to this way of thinking.
  2. Secondly, there are typically logical explanations for unusual circumstances that we don't understand (like the strange sounding chords in the Bach piece).  
  3. Trying something a new way (even something as established as a classical piece of music), opens up new horizons of inspiration and achievement, and can be a way of introducing others into a whole different sphere of experience.
  4. And finally, "to pull out all the stops" is a phrase that comes from the organist opening up every pipe on the organ to experience the largest volume of sound possible; what a great metaphor for the adventurebolt lifestyle!

To leave the ordinary you must risk the comfort of security.

Easy to say, hard to do.  

Risk is not something that we typically like to think about; we're usually more concerned with comfort and security.  Risk involves...well, risk.  By its very nature risk means you are outside the comfort level that you have become accustomed to.

I could come up with all kinds of examples: a baby chick hatching from an egg;  a baby sea turtle heading for the open water of the ocean before a predator finds them; a baby eagle getting kicked out of its nest by its parents in order to learn to fly (hmmm... all of these have to do with babies, growing, learning).

Part of growing and learning has to do with exposing ourselves to things we are not used to, hence, they are typically outside our comfort zone.  Do bad things happen when we take risks?  Sure, but good things also happen.  While learning to windsurf, for example, you'll get doused and fall in the water time and time again.  However, once your skills become more refined, you suddenly can sail across the water in a way that you never have before.  

As I've mentioned before in these pages, your life is defined by what you do.  But what you do depends on which risks you are willing to take.  By learning to do some of the "out of the ordinary" things, your life will start to take on a new definition, and it will be out of the ordinary from what you've always done.  

There is an episode of the classic "Seinfeld" TV show where George has decided that his life is so messed up that he will try an experiment: whenever he is faced with a decision, he will do the opposite of whatever he would normally choose, and see how things turn out.  While it made for great entertainment on the show, there is a measure of truth in the logic:  different decisions make for different outcomes.  If you would like to become more spontaneous, then be make more spontaneous decisions, and it becomes easier.  If you would like to have more friends, become involved in other groups, communities, or gatherings and see what new relationships develop.

Remember, if you are comfortable with where you've always been, that's where you will remain.  But if you're looking for more, decide on one significant change at a time, and then go do that thing.  See where it leads and what other new opportunities present themselves.  By continuing the cycle, your life will begin to move in new directions and suddenly, what was previously "risky" will not seem quite as uncomfortable.