Science has liberated us ‘cogs’ from the religious machine and revealed our complexity. We are now shiny drops reflecting the world around us in all our individual glory. But science, with its acceleration of communication, has also brought us to the ocean. I see myself as a drop-an individual with a vital message to give to the world-but when I tried to express it I am brought face-to-face with the fact that I am one of millions of unwanted writers clogging up the in trays of thousands of unwanted publishers when all that the world really needs is a steady flow of bestsellers from leading celebrities published by a couple of top publishers. The same is true for everyone -hopeful pop stars, bright-eyed school leavers, revolutionaries, inventors…. We all feel our enormous value as shining drops, but when we approach the ocean we just melt into insignificance. Science has given us a cruelly indifferent universe………. Ramsey Dukes

As a musician and teacher I am constantly aware of the problem of the rationalist aspect of education and the general media babble. Much of this, from the media especially, is loosely scientific and maybe best put as pseudoscientific. Stories that knock unscientific thought abound in the media and particularly in the hallowed halls of the BBC where they will quite happily knock alternative thought but quite happily embrace some religious programme in the guise of free speech.

What I would like to do is to look at this from the point of view of the artist and musician and that scientific thinking is not conducive to creativity. The above quote by Ramsey Dukes is a good example of this because anybody who wanted to start a band only has to look at the statistical possibility of having any form of success is so remote you may as well become a professional lottery player.

However because people are irrational and illogical we have art and we have music with new musical bands and solo artists of which the United Kingdom is truly blessed. So being naïve is probably a gift for the young, for the irrational, no rules, and no holds barred sensibility of the artist.

The scientific viewpoint as pictured in the above quote is intriguingly homeopathic, where a small droplet in the ocean can make the significant difference in somebody’s health. This is of course poo-pooed by science but strangely seems to work for people since the time of Hahnemann back in the 18^th century and intriguingly also works for animals. Hey but according to science doesn’t work.

If we look at the world of computer programming we find no problem with a small program acting as a virus that can destroy complex computers and this is the attitude that we need to adopt as an artist that something that we do which in the scheme things will be incredibly small will have a vast impact in the sea of human consciousness.

So be brave and irrational adopt a state of mind this is egotistical and naïve and create something beautiful. Remember small is beautiful.

Vic