Hi reader,

Before I talk about anything, I wish to share this conversation between two very professional people, one in music and another in acting. I don’t want you to go through the whole conversation, but especially from 10:23 onwards.

Here, if you have seen and understood, Christoph Waltz and Daniel Barenboim talk about live music and audience relationship with the artists, and about the general listening, like “How the people who know or they think they know, can poison the atmosphere of a concert hall!” They have an emotion of “Show me what you have got Master, or will you Pass? or If you will play better than what I have heard?” It’s slowly turning into a different culture in the audience “The culture of constant evaluation! Is it required? Either they evaluate the music or the performers? More than that, they evaluate their own presence, their time, their feedback, which is slowly turning into a social belief. Pre-conceived ideas on this subject are very dangerous, as one may feel like he is so popular, he will do great, or he is so old now, may not be as good as earlier, or he seems so young, he won’t be able to do it that well. It doesn’t happen that way!

Now, why I am talking about it? The evaluation has become one of the very important parts of our lives now. The easiest example I noticed, when I recorded my rendition of the Canon in D piece by Pachelbel, and shared it with a few of my friends. And then, I received feedback or I say evaluation from them, of whether they like it or not. Most often it is said that sugar-coated responses are not much reliable. But, is making evaluation itself a part of each and everything of our life so important? That we either say good or bad about it? Why not just simply feel it and try to participate, try to become a part of it.

You are reading this blog, how about becoming a part of this blog as a reader, like retrospecting your life of how evaluation has become a part of your life or thinking of some incident where you thought that you were evaluated but wasn’t needed. The same is for music or anything in life.

My very nice colleague often listens to my music, and he doesn’t say if I played well or not, but he does tell me how it sometimes helped him to pass through some pain, or pass through a sleepless night, or when it made him cry or smile while listening to that very music, that someone else was reviewing or evaluating or maybe finding patterns. This is called participation and becoming a part of it, where you were able to feel the emotions of the composer or performer, as an audience and were able to relate with it. You were able to feel it. It may happen that you relate with it so well, that even when the performer feels he didn’t perform well, but you as a listener was totally feeling like a part of it. This is how it looks like being a part of something, and can never be evaluated.

Evaluation, today is not just about reviewing someone’s work. I, often while talking to people, have experienced that sometimes when one is talking about some problem in life, or telling about some person, or telling about some qualities in a person, the other person is mostly evaluating. And I am also, completely included. I remember I was talking to one of my friend about some other person about the similarities in music taste, and my friend’s reaction was something like you not going to do music with them. I found it a little hurtful, it was something that I wasn’t expecting an evaluation upon. We are sometimes so lost in our conversations, that we hear things but don’t comprehend, we evaluate our presence of hearing it and respond. There could be times, where the speaker may or may not require your input, but just want someone to listen.

Evaluating has become such a thing in our lives, that we just not evaluate others but on ourselves too, a SELF-EVALUATION. Well, it does have its own pros and cons, but we are not in a battle, where we have to evaluate each and every step and move forward. Friend, life is so unpredictable. Just two days back, my very close friend had an accident. A very bad one, but with God’s grace everything is fine. He got hit by a truck from the back, and then the divider and again the truck, and the car is damaged from all sides. This is all I know about it. I remember his words, “Zindagi ka kuch ni pata kab me kya ho jaye, zindagi ache se khush hoke jiyo!” (Life is very unpredictable, no one knows what can happen when. Live this life happily.)

No one is perfect. We can either cry lifelong for perfection, and skip so many beautiful things in life from as little as uploading a not so perfect photograph, or live happily with our imperfections and share our imperfect blogs, and music renditions, regardless of what the world says about them (including what we ourselves think about it).

Before I end this, just wish to share a beautiful message that my friend has in her Instagram bio:

A little more kindness, a little less judgment.
Looking at the world through colored glasses.

Cheers!
– Navneet