I’m somewhat taken aback to realise that it’s been a little more than a month since I last updated this blog. It’s quite cliche, but things do tend to happen at the same time and a period of intense events just converged and swallowed up the days as we moved through the phases of rounding up and preparing for the premiere of Moving Love. Then, of course, we had the season of Lent and Easter, and I found myself saying Yes when I was asked if I would be up for supporting the alto’s of the local church choir (cantorij).

I think of language again and find myself rather more attracted to the Dutch word for church choir which is cantorij. I have the idea that there must be some other translation for cantorij. Choir translates to koor, but cantorij reminds me of the word cantor which makes me think of chants and somehow this is more in line with the repertoire used in traditional Dutch Reformed churches. (Church chanters? Chanters of sacred songs?)

With all these things going on, we still managed to make time for the acquisition of an older Eminent organ which I now use for at home practice. I read somewhere that in order to learn a new skill, one must count an hour for every year of one’s life and then multiply that by two if one is an older person. This means I will need more than a hundred hours to become somewhat fluent at pedal work. I still have a lot of hours to go, but I am looking forward to discovering what the hundredth hour will bring. I have to say that I am gaining more balance on the organ seat and am sliding off a lot less than I used to.

Where we live, one can hear the birds quite early in the day and so I’ve started a practice of going out for a short walk just as the sky lightens up into the blue. It’s so fascinating to be walking under the cover of trees and I find myself trying to puzzle through the warbling and the fluting that goes on in that birdling chorus. (Is it louder when a car swooshes by?)

This morning, I was holding out my phone in an attempt to capture some birdsong when I saw a small creature running headlong towards me. At first I thought it was little fluffy dog, but as it came closer, I saw that it was a bunny. It was quite a startling surprise for both of us, and I swear I could see the bunny thinking to itself: “Whoops. Human creature.”

It did this movement that I can only describe as a screech-stop before it hopped around and run away in the opposite direction.

I walked for a little bit until I came to what’s called a HeemTuin–something of local ecological garden with a small reserve for wild waterbirds and other kinds of local wildlife.

The benches were still quite damp with dew, but I managed to find a small spot on a bench facing towards the sun. I closed my eyes and listened to the birds, and felt the light against my eyes and for a while it was like being enclosed within a sacred cathedral. In some other world, here would be trees curving towards one another. I felt myself held fast in that beautiful light that embraces all of the world.

I’m very glad for these kinds of spaces and for hours that feel sacred in a world where there hardly seems to be time for anything sacred anymore.

I reflect on what is sacred as I contemplate the rise of generative AI and how quick people are to embrace it.

There is a tendency to excuse the use of it, even when we know its origins, even after we have been told how these tools have been built in an exploitative manner. We say: I just wanted to make this piece of art in just this way.

We forget that the beauty of making lies in how we collaborate and work together with other makers. It lies in the give and take between musicians and text writers, between a screenwriter and a film-maker, between a novelist and their editor and all the other people in-between who enrich not just the work, but enrich us as human beings. The beauty of making isn’t just about the product or the end-result. It’s about discovery and joyful surprise when the unexpected happens.

I was talking about this with someone who works in IT, expressing my feelings about generative AI and his reply to me was quite straight to the point. “If you are wondering why the work comes out sounding European or Western, it’s because the technology was developed in the West. It’s only logical that this technology is skewed towards that kind of sound or that kind of way of formulating things.”

It was something that set me to thinking even as people tell me that “we have to accept that this and that kind of work will soon be obsolete.” (The this and that kind of work often refers to work done by editors or translators or copy editors or writers or songwriters. Like gosh…it covers everything. Soon being human will be obsolete too.)

Other lines I keep hearing: “You just don’t understand how it works.” and “It’s inevitable.”

And maybe that’s true. Maybe in time, a machine will be able to think independently and convey nuance in ways I never imagined…but I still will rage.

I write this thinking about indigeneity and indigenous ways of being. I write thinking about intentions and intentionality. When I sit down to write, I don’t choose words thinking I want to sound like so and so. Whether I am writing or making a piece of art or thinking about which registers to use when I’m practicing on the organ, I am thinking of what I want to convey. I choose my sound with intention, I choose my palette of words and colour with care. I learn from the mistakes I make and often discover that what my son told me at the start of my art-making journey is true: there are no mistakes. There are only happy accidents. Often it’s these happy accidents that enrich us. We learn by failing. We become richer as we forgive ourselves for failing (the forgiving part is a lot harder than it sounds, btw.)

On Sunday, the preacher at the church asked us “what is art?”. And I realised that we need to answer that more clearly and with much more intention in this age when a lot of art, music and literature is being generated by AI. We need to ask ourselves what makes art valuable to us and why do we engage in it? Why do we invest time and effort in it? Why do we value it?

Reading back, I realise that this isn’t a neat and tidy entry. It hops and springs and warbles about. Like birdsong interspersed by the honking of geese and the barking of dogs and the white noise of wheels somewhere in the distance. It’s a fluffy bunny running pell-mell towards something until it realises the shape looming up ahead is a human.

I’ll post this anyway, because it is just like life.

(Some birdsong from this morning’s walk.)