R.I.P. TAFKAP

I was reading that Prince had not touched his guitar for some time and was devoting all his time to playing the piano. This is probably a strategy taken so as to not corrupt how one approaches an instrument, by putting yourself in isolation to achieve maximum focus through self-imposed limitations. Perhaps the hope is that by hermetically sealing yourself off from other influences, new influences will flow back in once the gates are open again. This seems like a smart move, to kind of trick yourself into another mode of thinking. For me it causes a terrible nostalgia for the things I’m avoiding. Bjork said it felt like she was having an affair when she did something other than music.

When I first started playing piano, several years after playing bass by ear, I noticed that it completely remapped my knowledge of music. Perhaps this is not a good thing, but in retrospect, I realize that the remapping was really a new baseline (bassline), from which lots of things rest on.

I would argue that metaphorizations are less possible when an artist goes ascetic, or “goes electric” like Dylan did, but was doing the same thing he ever did, and still plays an acoustic. His playing a Strat didn’t change his thinking that much (I don’t think), but changed everyone else’s.


QED.

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Post-script: From David Whyte's book "Consolations...": "Hiding is the radical independence necessary for our emergence into the light of a proper human future."