The Talks
Emerging MastersRandall Goosby: “It’s not just notes on a page”
Randall, you first picked up a violin at age seven and have played it every day since. Can you imagine what your life would be like without music?
I can imagine it, but none of the imagined scenarios seem very realistic! I guess if I’d gone a different route, I think I probably would have had something to do with sports, you know, I started getting into playing basketball with my friends. So who knows, I might have ended up a washed-up wannabe NBA player working a desk job somewhere… With the violin, though, it was love at first sight. Instead of coming home and watching cartoons or going to play outside, I just played my violin. I don't even call it practice, I just played for hours and hours. I don't actually remember putting the violin away — I imagine there were times when I even fell asleep with it! (Laughs)
So practice never felt like work to you?
Well, of course, I started to understand that I do have to practice three hours a day, it’s a requirement! So then it started to become a little bit more… I won't say it became a chore. But my mom and I we started to butt heads a little more. I would want to go play basketball with my friends, and she'd say, “You can do those things, but you have to get your work done first. There's a difference between work and play.” So I'm really fortunate to have a career at this age, and a lot of times it doesn't feel like work.
“Of course we all do stupid things when we're young, but that's your way to find boundaries, you know. Have I done stupid things I regret? Yeah. But I can learn from those mistakes and grow. That's what it’s all about.”
“Making something or creating something is about looking and exploring the potential, and I want to do that right up until the day of the performance. And then when we’re performing, I want to do it a bit more. There’s no reason we can’t.”
“The recognition of luck is extraordinarily important — as well as making the best of it and creating to the best of your capabilities on that one opportunity you’re given so that it doesn’t end up in the museum of errors.”
“If you’re doing one thing, you can burn yourself out. But for me, if ever one of those things burnt out, I would have moved to another one. So it makes it difficult but it makes it possible to keep going.”
“Just about anything is possible if you can find the map or the blueprint to get there. I think you’re only limited by your imagination.”
“I never have been into trends. Not now or then! I was born like that, in fact, if I see too much of something, I change it. I like independence. I love the eccentrics. Find your style and stick to it.”
“I think my photographic career has been one of growing, learning, experimenting and trying different things. That was a big journey for me! It’s always a progression, it’s about challenging the idea of what photography is.”
“I think you know when you’re playing it safe, when you’re stagnating, and when you’re growing. It’s probably an ongoing thing for all of us — and a tricky balance. I try to learn at least one thing on every album, to reach out. I become my own teacher.”
“You’re always looking for a second chance. You’re always looking to do a little bit better than you did the last time. And you hope that the readers will stay with you.”
“Life is confounding and who knows what’s around the next corner. But in many ways uncertainty can be exhilarating—there’s a lot of freedom in it. It would be a shame to waste our snippet of time on this planet being afraid.”
“I think the final circle in being an artist is connecting, making some conversation to the world you’re in. I think if you have that feeling of why you need to do something, you’ll find a way. And I think that really takes you forward! If you’re feeling that, maybe other people need that to.”
“One of the reasons why I have this much success is because I’m hard on myself. Until now, I never really saw myself as a talented chef! I don’t take the easy way. I put in the time. From the age of 17 until 23, I didn’t take any vacations, I had almost no days off.”
“I feel very lucky. There is luck behind me, there’s luck in front of me, there’s luck ahead of me. But that is a perspective that requires a lot of work. It doesn’t come naturally.”
“There is something quite beautiful with the art thing, that you can only hold it back for so long and then you have to do it.”
“I can’t make people happy if I’m not happy myself. That applies to anyone who tries to achieve something in their life: if you’re not happy, you can’t transfer any happiness to anyone else.”
“I follow the beat of my own drum. I think I’ve gotten more confident and self-trustful in my ability and my natural appetite for play, and not over-adorning it with anything. I’ve always been disciplined and I’m still nothing if not conscientious.”
“The more experience you have, the more time you’ve spent on this earth, the more regrets you accumulate. It’s normal. You can’t do everything right, nobody’s perfect. But if you think too much about that, you’re not here. You have to make some efforts to stay open-minded.”
“Being creative and keeping your brain occupied is very sensible because if you don’t you die, slowly. Sometimes I feel tired and think I ought to give it up, I don’t want to just retire. I enjoy it all.”
“Failure is just something you have to go through on your own. Nothing can prepare you for it, just like a broken heart. I thought about folding, but I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to quit.”
“I never thought of art as a career. I thought it was more like a monastic practice. It is something that you do – you can't not do it. If I made money doing it, I would do it; if I didn't make any money, I would do it. Obviously I’m not perfect but the thing I am best at is painting.”
“Writing itself should be so extreme, so wild, and so much fun that it doesn’t matter whether or not you ever sell the book.”
“I really lacked confidence at the very beginning. At first I was quite intimidated! I wasn’t accepted in the kitchen initially, I wasn’t part of the system; the other chefs didn’t welcome me. But in the end, those experiences made all the difference. It freed me.”
“I am less anxious to have a successful career. There were times when I was anxious — even in the past, people said, ‘You make successful films.’ But my films were never successful. Even The Godfather got a terrible review. My films did better over time.”
“One day I realized that it didn’t matter whether people loved me or not. I was released of all that insecurity when I released myself from that fantasy and came to the conclusion that I could be happy making music regardless of whether I was successful or not.”
“I have to free myself from my creation, I have to send it off, I have to give it up. And that is also the beauty, that you pass on something, that you let something live, that you allow it to confront. To get in contact with others.”
“I think that when you’re a creator, you set out to create the perfect thing, but the idea of reaching that kind of creative nirvana — that’s something that you should never quite reach.”
“I act on intuition. I just let my intuition go in situations of fear. I live from my heart. I will continue doing things the way I have done them my whole life. And it gave me mostly a great time.”
“I think the best you can do for yourself is let your subconscious drive you, instead of doing things because you want to achieve some sort of glory.”
“You have to open yourself. Just as in life you have to be open to other people, to other perspectives — it’s the same thing when you write. That’s what religion’s about, that’s what literature’s about, it’s what life’s about: the stories that you build.”
“I try not to look back. I’m looking forward. I’m worried more about what I’m going to do next week than I am what I did last week. There are too many things to do. Looking back is for everybody else.”
“You don’t have to please everybody. As long as you and the people whose opinions you respect are comfortable and happy with it, then… keep going! Keep making that weird stuff.”
“For me it’s a lot about physicality, about how I feel. When you have these hardships or when you see someone you love in pain or you struggle, all the petty shit goes away. You are like, “I can’t believe I was worried about this other thing,” when you see what really matters.”
“If you are ambitious, you are running in a tunnel that never ends. You will always find something new to go after.”
“Architecture is the oddest profession. In the beginning you're very much involved in finding your voice and locating yourself artistically. For 25 years you're working with small projects, domestic projects. And then you mature at 50 and you're given your first projects.”
“When I was younger I had these moments where I was surprising myself with my spontaneity, and I thought, ‘This is what you should be chasing.’ The cerebral part of acting and the perfectionism can be exhausting, but the spontaneity can be very joyful.”
“The truth. The whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. And that’s it! May it be ugly, may it be beautiful, may it be perverse, may it be all of those things. That’s it, I can’t lie; it is what it is, unabashed, naked. I expect that of myself, that’s for sure.”
“Everybody is amazing at something — some people write music, some people are leaders, some people raise children, some people cook food. If you find what it is that you can offer to your fellow.”
“Part of being a designer is to fail every day, to try things that don’t work out. In a way, every project fails every day until it succeeds! That’s what the iterative process of design is about. Timing in many ways is key.”
“I wouldn’t ever compromise on the essential, on the essence of a project, the ideas or the themes.”
“Belief is very important. It’s like when you are riding a horse and you want it to go to the left, you look to the left first and then pull the horse’s head. As a human being it is the same thing: wherever you put your attention is probably where you are going to find yourself.”
Ohad Naharin: “What is this something else?”
Mr. Naharin, in your opinion as a dance choreographer, can everyone and anyone dance?
Everyone and anyone can dance, because dancing is not only about performing. Dance is not even about being together, you can dance alone. Dance is not about dancing to music, you can dance in silence. So of course everybody can dance — and not only can, should. There was a time before I had come up with my movement language, Gaga, when I was starting to discover things that really connect to what I’m looking for, which is the quality of movement, the flow of energy, the use of gravity, lightness, silliness. I don't think I even thought about form!
The kind of dance you teach seems almost uninterested in precise form or perfect technique.
Right, we are creating very in a very free way, finding groove, being in the moment. So it has a kind of meditative quality, but you also sweat while doing it. With dance technique, there is no such thing as perfect. That's a mistake; many times dancers look for perfection, instead of admitting that we're far from being perfect. We can still be magnificent, you know, you don't need to be perfect to be magnificent, and you can be so-called perfect and be very boring, especially when you come to ballet. You can see two dancers doing the same movement, and one of them turns you on, and one of them you're bored with. So it’s not the technique. There's something else there. And that's what I'm interested in, what is this something else?
