I think the secret of enjoying contemporary art is to unburden the tremendous pressure from yourself to "have to understand everything." The compulsion that one has to perceive everything by a known-mind blocks the whole beauty of contemporary art.

In fact, it is not possible to understand contemporary art from an known mind, so just enjoy every moment as it comes and be surprised and amused by it. Because lots of contemporary art, regardless of the fact it can be very complicated or utterly simple, is expressing that which is primordial. Therefore you have to "forget yourself" in order to understand the art from the unknown you, the potential you.

After all these years of performing and practicing, I find that contemporary music has become so enjoyable ( most times) to listen to, that I forgot that I once had trouble listening to some of it for many years because of the very same conditioned compulsion to learned from classical music training. So it takes practice to relax and appreciate contemporary art from the unknown me, actually.

So it may be a good idea to remind the audiences before the performance that " there is nothing to understand", and guide them with only needed information from there,  instead of feeding audiences more information, making them more pressured that they have to understand. I tried that with Taiwanese audiences last December, and it worked magically.

That being said, not all contemporary music is good. And to distinguish the quality of contemporary- it has to come from the unknown mind again, and that takes both intuition and practice. 

The most unsexy thing happens when one is trying to look sexier than the level of his or her sexiness.

The most unmusical thing happens when one is trying to look more musical than the level of his or her musicality.

Both gives shivers, but fortunately some of music business is clever enough to mix these two, so people become truly confused.

And there is yet another kind of mix: a truly musical and capable musicians  who are trying to appeal sexier than they need in given circumstances. It's a pity, because the musicality is reduced or blurred by their own confusion and their unconscious need for attention. Some music business like to use them too. 

In spite of all these mix above, there are luckily many outstanding musicians who are truly musical and sexy at the same time,  because they do not try to do anything more than what they are. They are happier, and they earn deeper respect.


Ying-Hsueh March 28, 2015 in Copenhagen