Free Play

Zusatztext "Stephen Nachmanovitch has produced a celebration of human uniqueness. What it amounts to is a guide for gettingthe most out of whatever is possible " Norman Cousins! author of The Anatomy of an Illness "This is an unusually intense! packed! thought-through book on the most difficult subject in the world: mystic creativity. If you wantto be intellectually informed about how people actually craete things! then you should read it at least once." Robert Pirsig ! author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance "Would that Free Play found its way into every school! office! hospital! and factory. It is a most exciting book and a most important one." Yehudi Menuhin! violinist "Nachmanovitch tells it like it is in the most important book on improvisation I've yet seen." Keith Jarrett! pianist " Free Play is a superb guide for anyone who aspires to create! whatever medium." New Woman "This book is important not only because it delves into the creative process! but also because Nachmanovitch creates the opportunity for the reader to get in touch with her/his own creative possibilities and abilities." Harvard Educational Review Informationen zum Autor Stephen Nachmanovitch Klappentext Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms. Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life, and how finally it can be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice. The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had. Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page Epigraph Acknowledgements Introduction The Sources Inspiration and Time's Flow The Vehicle The Stream The Muse Mind at Play Disappearing The Work Sex and Violins Practice The Power of Limits The Power of Mistakes Playing Together Form Unfolding Obstacles and Openings Childhood's End Vicious Circles The Judging Spectre Surrender Patience Ripening The Fruits Eros and Creation Quality Art for Life's Sake Heartbreakthrough Notes Bibliography Illustrations About the Author Most Tarcher/Putnam books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs. For details, write Putnam Special Markets 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014 Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. 375 Hudson Street New York, NY 10014 www.penguinputnam.com The author thanks the following for their permission to reprint from copyright...

Autorentext

Stephen Nachmanovitch

Klappentext

Free Play is about the inner sources of spontaneous creation. It is about where art in the widest sense comes from. It is about why we create and what we learn when we do. It is about the flow of unhindered creative energy: the joy of making art in all its varied forms.Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us, how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life, and how finally it can be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play, with our own authentic voice.

The whole enterprise of improvisation in life and art, of recovering free play and awakening creativity, is about being true to ourselves and our visions. It brings us into direct, active contact with boundless creative energies that we may not even know we had.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

 

Title Page

Copyright Page

Epigraph

Acknowledgements

Introduction

 

The Sources

Inspiration and Time’s Flow

The Vehicle

The Stream

The Muse

Mind at Play

Disappearing

 

The Work

Sex and Violins

Practice

The Power of Limits

The Power of Mistakes

Playing Together

Form Unfolding

 

Obstacles and Openings

Childhood’s End

Vicious Circles

The Judging Spectre

Surrender

Patience

Ripening

 

The Fruits

Eros and Creation

Quality

Art for Life’s Sake

Heartbreakthrough

 

Notes

Bibliography

Illustrations

About the Author

Most Tarcher/Putnam books are available at special quantity
discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums,
fund-raising, and educational needs. Special books or book
excerpts also can be created to fit specific needs.
For details, write Putnam Special Markets
375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

 

 

Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
a member of
Penguin Putnam Inc.
375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
www.penguinputnam.com

The author thanks the following for their permission to reprint from copyrighted works.

 

Constance Crown, for Hands by Rico Lebrun.
Walter Gruen, for Musica Solar by Remedios Varo.
Ben Berzinsky, for his photograph of a Carlo Bergonzi violin, c. 1770.
Grateful thanks to the late Arnold Fawcus of the Trianon Press, Paris, for permission to
photograph his magnificent William Blake books.
Artist Rights Society, Inc., for Two Children Drawing and Dawn Song by Pablo Picasso. © ARS
N.Y./SPADEM.
Charles E. Tuttle Co., Tokyo, Japan, for Tomikichiro Tokuriki’s Riding the Bull Home.
North Point Press, for excerpt from Wendell Berry’s essay, Poetry and Marriage.
For M. C. Escher’s Encounter © 1989 M. C. Escher Heirs/Cordon Art, Baarn, Holland.
Excerpts from “Burnt Norton” and “Little Gidding” in Four Quartets, © 1943 by T. S. Eliot
and renewed 1971 by Esme Valerie Eliot, .
Excerpt from The Secret of the Golden Flower: A Chinese Book of Life. Introduction by Carl Jung,
translated and explained by Richard Wilhelm, .
Excerpt from A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, © 1929 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Inc. and renewed 1957 by Leonard Woolf, .
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Nachmanovitch, Stephen.
Free play; improvisation in life and art / Stephen Nachmanovitch

 

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 9781440673085

1. Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) 2. Improvisation (Music)
   I. Title.
   BH301.C84N-49303
   153.3’5-dc2O CIP

 

Copyright © 1990 by Stephen Nachmanovitch Paint as you like and die happy.

HENRY MILLER

Acknowledgments

The following are only a few of the many friends and colleagues whose support, criticism, ideas, and other contributions were vital to the creation of this book:

Inhalt
Free PlayPrologue: A New Flute
Introduction

The Sources
Inspiration and Time's Flow
The Vehicle
The Stream
The Muse
Mind at Play
Disappearing
The Work
Sex and ViolinsPractice
The Power of Limits
The Power of Mistakes
Playing Together
Form Unfolding
O…