Beauty

It's been rather a busy weekend for me, off shooting and going to band camp and such. That's not really what has been most interesting to me though, not directly at least.
There have been a few things that have deeply affected me recently, which has been interesting because that doesn't happen all that often. I'm not talking about in a psychological way or anything. It's difficult to explain.
Anyway, it started with me looking around at a poster sale at uni. Usually I don't buy any because I'm poor and there's nothing worth paying for, but this time I bought a couple of posters. First one was a print of a traditional japanese painting, portraying high mountains, snow and a small figure walking through it all. It had elegance and I liked it so I bought it, but it didn't exactly move me deeply. On the other hand, there was a poster of a fantasy scene, done almost entirely in blues, that portrayed a fairy sitting on a mushroom in the middle of a forest. It wasn't as simple as the japanese painting, but neither was it as busy as fantasy pictures often are. I didn't buy it at first, but after sitting around for a while I had to go back and look at it again. The fairy has a face that I find it difficult to look away from. I decided that that was what good artwork should do to you so I bought it. It might just be crap to anyone else, I don't know, but I guess that's what makes appreciation of artwork such an individual thing. Anyway, I have it up on my wall now, and after a few days I still find it difficult to look away from and find that it captures my attention every time I go into my room.
Next interesting thing was my shooting on the ranges. We had a bit of a practice before doing the real qualification test, firing off 10 rounds (note: live rounds make a hell of a louder bang than blanks, with a decent amount more recoil). Even just getting the hang of it here I still shot two groups under 150 (150mm between widest shots at 100m, in a group of 5 shots, 150mm being the qualifying spread for infantry). When I went back up for the actual shoot I knew what I was doing more and was less disturbed by the sounds of the other guys gunshots nearby. My techique still wasn't perfect, but having got the hang of the breathing I found that I was able to hold my aim almost perfectly still for a short time. It reminded me of karate quite a lot actually, I had the feeling of there being a ki factor to shooting straight. Anyway, I shot 43 in my calibration group of 3 shots, then 42 and 41 for my first two real groups. After the first group I heard the warrant officer saying that my screen must be broken (I didn't actually get to see any of my scores until after all 4 groups were fired). After my second group there seemed to be a keen interested in my shooting. By this time my arms were starting to fatigue though and I found it a lot harder to remain still, probably due to my technique, and I shot 180 for my 3rd group. After this the warrant officer was asking me what I found harder about that group and I told him about my fatiguing arms. He then stuck around and gave me some pointers for my final group, which made it a bit easier on my arms, and I shot 110 or so for the last group, not as good as 41 but still pretty decent. Bit of a random spread of groupings, but 41 was the top score for the day, (the warrant officer shot 44) which was kind of cool. It'll be interesting to see if I can pull it off again. Sitting there shooting I was rather wishing for a higher magnification scope, the target is just a little dot in the centre of the sight and you can't see where on the target the shots land. You just have to aim for same spot all the time and hope for the best.
Anyway, next interesting thing was at band camp. One of the pieces we're playing is Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture, its a very beautiful piece of music, even when we play it :p. On sunday though our conductor had a cd for us so we could listen to it played by a professional orchestra, to teach us the huge emotional content the piece has and he felt we were missing in places. With classical music the emotion doesn't just come out and smack you in the face, you have to be in the right frame of mind and give the music your full attention, with as little other sound around as possible. That's when the subtlties and true beauty of these pieces can be heard. It wasn't the recording that was the interesting part though, beautiful as it was; it was when the full orchestra next played along with the cd. The music gained an amazing power, the cd provided a strong guidance for us so we could all hone our intonation and follow the dynamic contrasts, and it provided extra bass sound (they surely had 10 or so cellos to our 3). However, we provided the true resonance in the room and the fullness of sound that is the difference between a recording and a live performance. The energy in the room was quite amazing. I would even go as far to say there is a certain ki quality to playing music also.
I highly recommend going and downloading that piece of music, and listening to it with as close to silence in the background as you can get. Remembering the story of Romeo and Juliet while the music plays adds something too, it helps you understand the emotion that tchaikovsky has put into the music. You have to let it wash over and captivate you.
I guess I'm just saying that I feel that I have experienced true beauty in several forms over this weekend. It's interesting the places you find it and the different forms it can take.
Yet they all seem fundamentally connected in some way.