Sunday, October 10, 2004

butternutfingers and the NBA

Maybe everybody else in the world knows this, but I discovered today that when you cut up a butternut squash, your fingers get weird and super dry and peely and generally gross. Good to know, now that I think I have effectively nixed any practicing that I might have done tonight.
I spent the day in Chicago at a pedagogy conference. Overall, it was just kind of boring, but the lecturer did say one thing I would like to ruminate on. She was talking about the physical side of playing, and how repetition is really important for little kids, so that they can really ingrain the feeling of playing things correctly. She kind of illustrated her point by talking about gymnasts and how those little kids do the same routine for years to learn them so well. It reminded me a little bit of something I read in a book a long time ago. The character in the book was talking about basketball, how when you see some guy in the NBA make a perfect swoosh-type basket, you know that he is simultaneously reliving every basket he's ever made while creating something totally new at the same time. She called it the divine inspiration of the NBA, and said that it was crucial for musicians to feel that in their music-making. I've always really liked that, the concept of playing with the divine inspiration of the NBA.

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