Len Cnut Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 Or maybe people with issues tend to become better musicians...I actually believe that is true. The briefest look at the biographies of the great composers will confirm it: Tchaikovsky, a manically depressed alcoholic closest-homosexual; Schumann, suicidal, ending his days in a lunatic asylum; Beethoven, combating growing deafness with aloofness and anger, a ruthless custodial pursuit over his nephew; Mozart, child prodigy ''boy in a man's body'', somewhat hedonistic; Wagner, a towering egomaniac, German nationalist, racist and crank.Those are the extreme examples but even the seemingly more 'balanced' had their issues. Schubert, luckless in love, booze and Viennese brothels - which prematurely killed him; Brahms, a penchant also for brothels, the ménage à trois with the Schumanns; Berlioz, eccentric, possessing unrequited love for Harriet Smithson; Chopin, haughty, disdainful of bourgeois society, ever mindful of his Polish blue blood. Bach, disciplinarian.Only Haydn, Strauss Jr, Grieg and Verdi come across as thoroughly balanced human beings. Maybe Handel also, although he was ripping off Italian composers. You are comparing geniuses to plankton, there's a world difference between the above mentioned, whoose clear genius was fuelled by certain excesses and eccentricities...but these people were driven to create mind boggling works of genius...not Millenium by Robbie Williams. The clear difference is the people you've mentioned are remembered for their work, it's the work that endures, not the fact that they were pissheads. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasted Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 There is a well-documented correlation between creativity and mental illnesses. So yeah, some artists may just be masquerading their assholeness by calling it "their demons", others -- and with a higher frequency than the general population -- actually do suffer from various mental illnesses and are fighting their demons in various ways.People who cant function in normal life end up writing or painting. You have to be a fuck up to end up in art class. Sketch this apple, no pressure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Len Cnut Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 (edited) Comparing people like Wagner to rock stars is...I'm not sure what the word is, mental. There has not been a rockstar born, ever, that has even an ounce of the intellect and vision and commitment to even approach those sorts of heights. Some of the people mentioned here changed the way we look at music on the whole, they effected what music is...not what pissing around with three chords and a backbeat is but the actual ideas and theory behind music. Edited August 31, 2015 by Len B'stard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasted Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 Or maybe people with issues tend to become better musicians... I actually believe that is true. The briefest look at the biographies of the great composers will confirm it: Tchaikovsky, a manically depressed alcoholic closest-homosexual; Schumann, suicidal, ending his days in a lunatic asylum; Beethoven, combating growing deafness with aloofness and anger, a ruthless custodial pursuit over his nephew; Mozart, child prodigy ''boy in a man's body'', somewhat hedonistic; Wagner, a towering egomaniac, German nationalist, racist and crank.Those are the extreme examples but even the seemingly more 'balanced' had their issues. Schubert, luckless in love, booze and Viennese brothels - which prematurely killed him; Brahms, a penchant also for brothels, the ménage à trois with the Schumanns; Berlioz, eccentric, possessing unrequited love for Harriet Smithson; Chopin, haughty, disdainful of bourgeois society, ever mindful of his Polish blue blood. Bach, disciplinarian.Only Haydn, Strauss Jr, Grieg and Verdi come across as thoroughly balanced human beings. Maybe Handel also, although he was ripping off Italian composers. You are comparing geniuses to plankton, there's a world difference between the above mentioned, whoose clear genius was fuelled by certain excesses and eccentricities...but these people were driven to create mind boggling works of genius...not Millenium by Robbie Williams. The clear difference is the people you've mentioned are remembered for their work, it's the work that endures, not the fact that they were pissheads. Everyones a pisshead deviant but if you do something great you're a genius fuelled by excess. Whats that guy called Philip Glass, i bet he's a freak! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselDaisy Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 One of my favourite anecdotes concerns Chopin. Chopin's students had to secretly leave money in his house because, as an aristocrat and a 'romantic artist', Chopin refused to dirty his hands in a financial exchange. This is why he hated Britain I suppose. He visited Britain and found the British - this was in the throes of Victoria's industrial empire - to be depressingly bourgeois and addicted to money. Class act was Chopin. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasted Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 Didnt Einstein hold his trousers up with a piece string?Howard Hughes not a musician but kind of cray cray. Didnt Einstein hold his trousers up with a piece string?Howard Hughes not a musician but kind of cray cray. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DieselDaisy Posted August 31, 2015 Share Posted August 31, 2015 (edited) Military generals are often eccentric. Prussian General Blücher who came to Wellington's aid at Waterloo attacking Napoleon's right-flank, and who posthumously provided numerous German battleships with their name, is one such example; he would eat raw onions in his saddle and during a bout of mental illness believed he was ''impregnated by an elephant''! Then there is Confederate General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson who never put pepper on his food claiming it ''made his left leg weak''. Jackson is really one of my favourite characters of the American Civil War. Calvinist piety installed Lt. General Jackson with this bravery that made him unflinching during battle - ''like a stonewall'' - because God had already decreed the bullet or cannonball that would kill him. He loved battle: his eyes would light up before and during battle so his soldiers nicknamed him ''Old Blue Eyes''. They would look at him and say among themselves, ''he has that glint in his eyes'', i.e. ''we are going to fight soon''.There are many more examples. Edited August 31, 2015 by DieselDaisy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasted Posted August 31, 2015 Author Share Posted August 31, 2015 You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mizzystar Posted September 7, 2015 Share Posted September 7, 2015 Demons is something which you find bad , destructive & addictive. For example fear or being addictive to drugs! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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