Do Not Trust Your Teachers: A French Horn Tutorial
I know what your initial worries are,
but they are all false worries.
Listen to me carefully,
I have something serious to say, for a change.
People with photographic memory do not exist,
everyone who has claimed to have photographic memory, lied.
This type of "I am superior",
is the same damn thing that fuels racism and hate.
When you buy into this "I am holier than thou" s**t,
something important is taken away from you.
And not just important to you,
important to Humanity, to History.
Being born a genius is fake too,
it is bad etiquette to use that word once you do master something.
The word Genius, or Savant,
is a bad word, because it has been used to rob Humanity of Beauty.
When teachers grade you down, for something you forgot,
because you never used it, or they tried to teach you in an abstract setting and it made no sense.
Or they forced you to memorize it so you could perform on a test like an actor,
or just told you that the world is not fair.
They committed the same crime against you,
and against Humanity, and History.
Their motive, is not sick superiority,
but just getting paid, for a job they often hate, so that thy can another miserable day as a fraud.
The number of Great Dreamers that were prevented from growing because of teachers,
is so high, that one can only weep.
We are taught to respect and listen to teachers,
but it is them, who have sold the world.
(If any teachers are listening to this, it is time to stop making your kids memorize, either help them grow for real, or get out of their way,
remember those old metaphors, what goes around comes around, you reap what you sow, and whatever you send out there, you get back times three.)
Once you play the French Horn, a second wave or morons will stroll your way,
they will tell you that you will never be as good as Tchaikovsky.
Once your music hits the European Dance Floors,
another wave of fools will come...
And they will tell you that you will never win the Tchaikovsky Competition,
where artists are still taught to use their fingers.
And they will keep coming,
the only way to stop the critics from trying to stop you, is to stop listening.
Stop listening to people that are not just saying you can't,
but attempt to convince you with fake education, fake meaningless grades, and endless insults.
Never forget that you can make your own competition,
one attached to a school you build, perhaps a virtual school for all.
Perhaps not just a school where you teach how to use Digital Audio Workstations,
but how to use Programming Languages the way Sam Aaron uses them.
And certainly a school,
where you put an end to killing souls of artists.
The French Horn is more than Tchaikovsky could grasp,
in the primitive era that he was alive in.
That's right, this is a new era,
an era where professional artists worry about falling behind to teenagers with computers.
I know what you are thinking,
I know nothing about notes, I can't compose.
Maybe you are thinking,
I don't know music theory.
Or perhaps,
I don't know what a French Horn even, freaking is.
But,
is this what your ear worries about?
Music, is not about knowing where to put your fingers,
it is about creating a road forward, one of Beauty and adventure.
I want you to hear, what it is like to compose music from your soul,
from your heart, unafraid, in a world where if you fail, you will come back the next day.
And the next day, you will feel nothing but certainty,
and a kinship with all the others, including Tchaikovsky, no matter how old fashioned his use of The Horn is.
And if you fail again, and my goodness I hope you do, then, then, your mind will begin taking notes apart, it will rip through brass,
out of an animal like yearning for comprehension of composition.
It will come as automatically as running, as learning to ride a bicycle,
in just a few more failures, just a few more failures, you will earn it.
You will hear it, whatever your instrument of choice,
you will hear it in popular music, because there are countless other lovers out there.
Some of them, still learning, some still tricked by teachers,
others, your upcoming competition, racing forward as fast as yo are.
This is our world now... the world of the electron and the mouse,
the beauty of the infinite potential of the digital creations.
The Pursuit of Excellence does not distinguish,
the original instrument, or the synthesized one.
Now, listen to how I find a note I like.
* PROGRESSION OF NOTE SEEKING PLAYS *
Do you know what this process of note seeking, is called?
It is called composition, and do not let anybody tell you otherwise.
THE PROCESS OF FINDING THE RIGHT NOTES,
IS HOW YOU MAKE MUSIC.
YOU DO NOT MAKE MUSIC,
BY LISTENING TO TEACHERS TELLING YOU HOW MUSIC IS MADE.
Do you hear me,
do you hear me...
And this is not a secret, it is just how bad schools have become,
how easily we have listened to the teachers, how strong the imperceptible grasp of whatever it is that we perceive as authority.
If there is a secret to be had here,
it is that school is the last place you go to learn.
And that is is the first place.
where gentle and creative minds come to an end.
Now, here is the whole song, and oh my gosh, please forgive the drums at the end, I couldn't help it,
this is my first day learning the horn, and it is even MORE POWERFUL than I thought.
And believe me, you can do anything,
those who stand in your way are just bad dreams.