I may have told you I was studying with my teacher from 22 years ago - it was good for a while, but I stopped because he wasn't giving me what I need most.  I told my friend (the one I work for) that we become the teacher we never had, we become the teacher we always wish we had.  I thought of how I was (and am) as a teacher and I realize that I at least tried to be kind and encouraging, because that is what I needed (and still need) the most.  Everything else, for me at least, is secondary.  Everything else will come if there is warmth and consideration, and no fear, and no doubt, but a shared commitment to learning.

I know you won't hear teachers talking like this about education there in Taiwan.  They don't even talk about it too much here, but, occasionally you do hear something like this...  mostly I had to find these things out by myself...

I read a book that came through the store called 'Practicing - A Musicians Return to Music' and I thought it would be about this journey - from doing things for the wrong reasons, in an environment that does not support a sensitive artist's development - to finding the elements that make music and art a joy, life affirming, a source of strengh and meaning.  Instead the book was mostly this persons remembrances of his graduate study days, and all the stresses and limitations that whole experience was about for him (and is about for many many people).

It was disappointing, but it did make me more aware than ever that even though they pretend to foster the arts, academic environments more often than not suppress art.  They destroy art.  It is well known that in academic institutions there is pressure, ego, pettiness, competition, fear, jealousy, arrogance and small mindedness - paradoxically since we are talking about involement with some of the great achievments in cultures, and the development of the whole person.  Many people who go through that system stop playing and actually end up hating what they once loved.  Back when I was exposed to these things, I really had to ask:  where is the beauty in all this?  Where is the joy, the love, the wonder, the celebration, the refinement and uplift, the food for our souls?  All this gets lost when these other factors are there...

I think it would be better for everyone, and for art also if from the first day of school people are told that the purpose of art is not to make money; the purpose of art is not to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend; the purpose of art is not to pump up your ego, or for you to crush another's feelings with; on the contrary: The purpose of Art is to feed the soul - the soul of the artist, and the soul of the listener; the purpose of art is to receive the great and beautiful works that have come to us from previous generations, to add something perhaps, and to pass these things along to the present and to future generations; the purpose of art is to teach us love and generosity of the spirit; the purpose of art of is to give joy, and solace; the purpose of art is to show us who we are, maybe not all of who we are, or maybe not all at once, but it is to teach us about the human experience, about what others have thought and felt and done, and also what we too are capable of; the purpose of art is to liberate the expressive self...

I'm convinced that when it comes to getting a deeper education in the Arts, as it is now, it's unfortunate but it's true - we pretty much have to find our own way.


Jason Espada