Is there a connection between singing and running? Singing and reporting? Not just singing, but the constant practise of serving notes that go into making a composition — the goal of perfection towards which one is constantly striving? The connection becomes apparent, for example, when one begins to run and sing — it is often found that one enables the other. The more one runs, the longer one can hold a note and perhaps the more one can explore a composition.
The connections come to play in Alan Rusbridger’s Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible . Mr. Rusbridger, a former editor-in-chief of The Guardian, set himself a goal, which was to learn within a year Chopin’s Ballade No. 1. This composition is regarded as challenging even for professional musicians. His journey could have been a song if he could just have just stuck to playing, but the year that he set for himself also witnessed the Arab Spring, The Guardian ’s breaking of both the WikiLeaks and the News of the World hacking scandals — all of which Mr. Rusbridger had to anchor as the editor-in-chief, which meant ferreting out time to play Chopin. The book is a diary and offers a glimpse into the incremental, but significant, steps towards the author’s goal — to play Ballade No.1.
“By making time, life improves: under the great pressure and stress of the year, I discovered the value of a having a small escape valve — something so absorbing, so different, so re-balancing,” he writes. Does he play it? Yes, he does. In fact, he conquers it.
The book serves as a reminder to everyone to set aside some time from their crazy-busy lives for the one thing, or the many things, that they have always wanted to do. The pursuit of those passions could be a life-affirming and a life-altering experience. Mr. Rusbridger missed his deadline by a few months, but he stayed the course. “Yes, there’s time,” he writes. “No matter how frantically busy one’s life...”
Absolutely on Music by Haruki Murakami, whose books have always had music keeping the background score, is about a maestro (Seiji Ozawa) and a writer (Murakami). Two creative people wake up at the crack of dawn to concentrate on the one thing they are passionate about. For the writer, it is the word, and for the composer, it is keeping score. The book comprises of six conversations between them.
