Excerpts from
Transparency
By Suzanne Brøgger
"You can tell itīs a woman whoīs playing. Youīve got to train your fingersī. I hear my mother saying when I practise. I play like a child and worry that my hands will grow and grow into large and unfeminine things, like king-sized hamburgers. Deep down I feel that my mother is right. That a woman has no right to play jazz on the piano. Bach and Mozart and Beethoven are permitted; to play the already existing notes is - womanly. All the women in my family did that. But is a woman capable of improvising? Isnīt it her role to spell her way through life and imitate all the gestures, even if she sometimes does it brilliantly? Isnīt it her role just to refine what is already there, but not create anything new? My mother had been considerate enough to get me the finest jazz teachers. On a conscious level I had no problem, and Iīd had all the instruction Iīd wanted. But "it sounds like a woman playing" - made me feel naked.
I knew that, at best, Iīd never play better than competently or "nicely", because I was inhibited by a consideration I didnīt feel at all when I wrote. I had too much respect for music, and I didnīt care about language. I donīt respect it; I am it. I live language, I rape it and let it do to me what it wants. I surrender myself to it, only to sit on it, kick it to pieces and laugh at it, catch it in mid-air, imprison it so that I can free it. I lie down on top of it and am not surprised when it picks me up. I donīt respect it as far as I can throw it, merely allow it to serve my pulse and breath. Amen.
But when I played the piano, one could always tell that I had stolen a right that wasnīt mine to have; that I had entered forbidden territory. In the very first note is a fear of disclosure. By continuing to play Iīm demanding my own satisfaction [ ... ] .
I felt only my fear and my joy and didnīt I consider all the unavoidable complications. The complications which must follow when one has placed music where love belongs. But I told myself. You may as well invest it in a place where you have a chance of getting What I get back (when I play) is my sadness and longing. The ecstacy of sitting on Daddyīs knee while he makes the whole room rock and swing and vibrate with heat. I get the repression back - the denial of my sorrow at having lost him then is constantly contradicted through the music. Helpless in the face of the loss, the melody, the rhythm, the knee and the crotch: thatīs where it all is. Iīve never before allowed myself to feel my own loss, have merely expressed the loss of others. I grew up at a time when it was embarrassing to admit that you were missing something, didnīt have enough in yourself. To show weakness was forbidden. Iīve started to crawl toward my own loss in the dark, although, when the light is switched on, I still deny passionately.
Translated by Lone Thygesen Blecher
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