Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
market
welcomed so happy to have you all here uh... you know it feels like a very busy
week headed into m
well in the whole weekend headed into easter weekend so very pleased to have
you with us this morning
threat closer to this morning to introduce dr michael rose by associate
professor of music
who has graced our campus with his talent his care his leadership in his
teaching for over twenty years
doctor Rosewall has been very engaged in the community of off campus as well
over the years having served in the past as director of music at union
congregational church united church of christ
now since my own at musical engagement and prowess could be summed up in the
phrase assured you like to listen to it
um... michael and i have not hung out a lot professionally but one story about
him stands out in my mind
it was an alumni awards ceremony and number of years ago
i believe it was a in attendance because i had served on a selection committee
and i find those ceremonies are always in regina not let me uplifting because
we learned of the great work that are alarms go on to do
but that night i was also a privilege to learn of the good work and care of one
of my colleagues
as to alarm spoke with gratitude about having been selected for an award they
describe it linked the dedication and devotion michael rose wall had offered
not only while they were students buzznet but as they continued on a
salons
and so i'm grateful and please that this busy colleague whose work is marked by
dedication and devotion agreed to share with us this morning his last lecture
please join me in welcoming doctor michael rose law
thank you are very much it's a pleasure to be here and thank you for uh...
your kind introduction and i
uh...
i've been reminded a couple times this week actually i had a
uh... several students asked me for some reason how long i've been here uh... and
i was saying you know this is my twenty first year
and they supply huge you know you are right when i was full what
ha
as if somehow that's a good thing and
right here are so
when they asked me to do the last lecture i thought answer it's like a
gold watch a writer
but uh...
it's true i a m micros fall and that i am from the music department and uh...
actually needed or in the past couple weeks says people or hearing about this
and i i have to uh... uh... get a little big to my department chair 'cause last
month on the twenty seventh
she turned to me and said are you giving your lecture this morning and i panicked
and i think
no that's marching up
now
but uh...
as people have heard that i'm not getting my last lecture you know they're
asking eucalyptus hank
uh... maybe
bigot but uh...
but perhaps you are interested in how i a became a musician and really think
albeit you'd be interested so you're gonna hear
a uh... it was kinda acts bc for me actually i i come from a family
musicians might
uh... mothers a singer my mom more parents a singer that cement
in uh... their voice teacher's voice studio
and um... my dad was my high school choir director
actually so um... my siblings play the guitar in saying that my brother please
base
so uh... we used to saying when we
took uh... trips in the car
and uh... well we use the same when we uh...
uh... before meals we saying grace
uh... we're always putting on concert search shows that uh... schooler church
y
it was uh...
easy for me to think of myself as being musician and so matter of fact
when i was growing up i thought that all families got together and sang christmas
carols in for parts and playing instruments invented
but that's what you do that
so when i went off to school i was i was kind of uh...
surprised i guess that uh...
there a lot of people out there a lot of my friends my roommates who didn't have
that kind of creative
outlet
in their lives
and how many families didn't sit around and housing with each other
how many individuals didn't really feel like they had anything to sing about
or that
any ideas that they would express or dreams that they have wood
the interesting for everybody
somehow falling short not good enough
not important enough for anyone else to hear
i think that's why i became a teacher
we sorta appropriate here
but specifically
a music teacher
because it has been the goal of my life or at least what i
my professional life
to let my students know that the thing that's inside them
whatever that is
use their unique
voices
and they have a responsibility to share it with the world
i have
kind of come to understand
that if you do me a sick people on here
can you think possible using a mac padding
mhm
and i'm new stu getting those questions uh... conversations or meeting two
people have actually turns the music some you know do you play instruments
do you write your own music u_n_ bieber hang out over the weekend
but i think the curiosity that people have a about what being a musician org
being creative in general is all about actually
goes much
much deeper than just wondering what was what does and it's fair
i think the idea of being creative
is intriguing to people
and i go even further than that i think that there's something fundamental
about the human animal
that drives us to be creative from
when i say fundamental i mean it isn't built
into our d_n_a_
it's something we need to do
so today i wanna press upon you
but being creative isn't just
doing something
or having uh... an artistic hobby
war
making something or wearing really funky tips for clothes
which some of you do very well
ought to be human
is to be creative
when we say that again
to be human is to be creative and i think this is an important message it
for all of us to hear
even if we don't feel like we are creative war
even if we don't feel we have anything particularly
unique
to offer
even if we feel that there are others who have more important
or more sophisticated www sophisticated ways of expressing themselves
more beautiful than we can muster
if you are human
i think the creative urge is there
and it's your responsibility
to dig for it
to look inside yourself and find what is that you need voice inside you
he's your responsibility to pull it out
and share it with the rest of this are not exaggerating this
that's what i think it dispassionately
and critically important for costs as a species
so what i'm saying that being human is creative i think it's probably logical
data so what is creativity
that is
what do you mean when you say
be creative
think about that word create it's different then
mate
won't be old
i mean something
at the time t
i created
some of that word conjures up the idea that the actor creation is more than
just utilitarian
dad built on box that storm i stop
i made a pizza
but how about at created this image in my head and i had to get it down on
paper
i created this plot line
shared it with my kids and that
well in trying to figure out
what that means for you
it might be interesting to look at the question what is creativity for the
artist
it's it's sitting in a practice room
or in an art studio waiting for inspiration to come down from heaven and
drops in shakespeare in your lap
to make something that is
beautiful
that's another interesting hideaway beautiful that that'll be my second last
lecture
or to build something of significance
like a pyramid
that is going to endure beyond the end of one's life
possibly
but i think you talk to create a person and by that i mean uh... a musician or a
visual artist for
an architect
or a poet
or a theoretical physicist
for that matter
the creative act is an activist exploration
making a painting
is a way to know something about the world
composing a symphony or adult step
is a struggle
to understand something about oneself
and successfully completing a creative act is not necessarily a product that is
it's not the artwork itself
or the
pyramid already two hundred and flower arrangement
success in artistic endeavor i think it's fine that solution to the problem
that is uniquely viewers
who's your unique voice that is a part of you
that you bring into the world books you give birth to to the world
sorry
i hate hoffler pass
dino this all kind of
sounds
flaky year new eighteen
org manatees yeah
certainly hard to measure in the library amy engel well in the library but in the
laboratory
but it's happening all the time all-around stands most creative people
we hear about in the news of that we see you on that
our computers
the scientists discovered something
and postulates
a mathematician theorizes and
and uh...
proves assumptions musician
composes chef whips up
the politician
yeah
and i'm gonna go
a heads-up
but why does this important
why my telling you to get why am i tell you what's important
it may be because i since i live in a whole fine arts
i see evidence everyday that people on our campus in in our towns and in our
societies
are hungry for something that is
personally expressive
or the kids meaning
to their lives starved
for collaboration
with their family and their friends
stifled by school systems that uh... tell us to swallow a whole what the
teacher of the textbook says men dump it onto the exam sheet at the end of the
semester
here's a great story
it's probably made up uh...
a group of university researchers
studying long-range effects of indication in the united states
clara conducting uh... interviews with the students of various ages
to group of research as we go on the talk to some kindergarteners
and they say
how many of you know how to say
oh him eat huh
everybody
how many of you know how to paint
who made a picture of mine
coming you know how to dance
though they went to by group of college seniors
how many of you know how to sing
i'm a member of the tc chambers is
coming to know how to paint
how many you know how to dance
seems the older we get the less we feel in contact with our own
voice
with our own ability to create a fully explore
the freedom to create
without
being
analytical or self-critical
well being analyzed been criticized
not sure if this is worth sharing a house embarrassed to show this to my
parents
just think it's really
or we wait
stay well
once they get out of
college shaiken start my own life and actually
fine by employees who engage in really do those kind of creative things that i
wanted to do
well
we'd like to marry
you know in the neck unsettled on and you know lee
believed him said
i'll share with them but it is to really couldn't
and then
we have the kids move up
in a way to live it
like an actually speak with my own or
lived a life i want to live
spending our entire life waiting
in america or culture is kind of split and i think between idolize and creative
people and and ridiculing
idolize ng is right you look at the show american idol
yes or
uh... iron chef
master thunder dome or whatever it's called
will bill gates or frank lloyd wright or
uh... thomas at its own thomas jefferson or molds art
companies fox into like caricatures
or super heroes who were marble statues on on pedestals
yet on the other hand when the uh... kid in uh... uh... the junior high
says that he wants to sing in the choir play the flute
he is teased for being on many
when a college student spends all of her time in her room coming up with elegant
mechanical solutions to in engineering problem
she's label is indeed
right formally make fun of of of exploring creativity and why when we are
made fun of why does it hurt so much
wanted wanted to get to work the or
it's important
it means something dogs
the evidence is there
i see it in the faces of perspective music majors who coming into the uh...
uh... building
they're trying to decided a career in the arts is uh... something that
that they can do that they can support them and maybe a family and other
all the just this thing that is so important to me going to be valued
when out there in the world
i see it in the
teenager picking up uh... paintbrush or a camera or
the car
again and it didn't happen again even though she only knows one-half
and i see it in the face of a sixty year old man who comes to my office
to ask about taking voice lessons from me
whose eyes fill with tears as he tells me
about his junior high choir teacher who told him to just move his lips
when everyone else was singing
because he didn't really have a good boys
criminal
when all the
with negative
import
that we get society in the schools the blast messages have been original
creative or comfort culture is a bad thing the creative urges their even if
we think it's not
we often hear the expression that with music you can say things that are in
expressing bull with words
i think that's true and i i think it's active more true
then we
we think but i think i'd say the same thing about dance and flower arranging
it
theatrical design
but it is true look let's go back to the politicians i didn't want talked about
how many of you remember where you were and what you were doing
on nine eleven
i have my own nine eleven stories memories of what went on that
terrible
terrible tuesday morning
from the ungodly beautiful aria that it was playing in my music theory class
which just and adi and crying and everyone leaving
clutching a my test when the powers fell but one of the most indelible images for
me
is one i think that is not often remembered or not
sought out endlessly on too
and that was the television coverage of
congress
on that morning and i don't know if any of you remember this
i remember watching the screen and
all the members of the senate and house of representatives poured out of the
capitol down he came down to the
microphones down in front
and there is kind of some expressions of
sympathy and and angst and uh...
moment of silence
it was called for an and people come up awkwardly standing around
not knowing what
next
expense
all of the members of congress
started singing
spontaneously
they burst into god bless america
at that instant reeking with pain and
anger and concern and fear
no words mobile ball to them
congress spontaneously burst into song
here's the most important
if you do go back and look at that it is on your trip
kinda beyond this dundee amazement of like tom brokaw
the news anchor who's reporting i like
uh... there's ringing
and you listen
you listen to the singing
couple ticket
it's not that pretty
yen on congress' singing it's not pandora wordy
but with the idea
it's beautiful
powerful
it's meaningful mandatory
it's inevitable
if there is any message i can give you to be essence of my last lecture it's
this
saying
create your own song create your own art
create your or version of the world
saying
paint dance cook
arrange
postulate opine
doing it
it's important
it's worth it
it's essential to assist humans
you know when the bible says
that we are created in the image of god
for me and
for me
that doesn't mean that i
and created
in the image of god the father walked out the mother for that matter
but i and creativity cup
the image of god creator
but they give inside of us
that's bark
that prices with the rest of the universe
the part of us that if i considered a divine
within me
that is the quality that i've shared dot
to create a curiosity about or
uh... and eager inpatients with things as they or
the need to express myself
and explore myself and exaggerate myself
assembling and
whistling
and imagining
this is the central issue their and sleep
creating or making your own song heard
not only gives something to the world
it makes the please before you
in the world
there's uh... a beautiful quote
uh... by martha graham that i'd like to carry out chick market graham itself
uh... famous
choreographer
there is a vitality
uh... life force
and energy
uh... quickening that is translated through you
into action
and because there is only one of you
all of time
this expression is unique
and if you block it
it will never exist through any other medium
and it will be lost
the world will not have it
it is not your business
to determine how good it is
or howled valuable
nor how it compares which other expressions
it is your business to keep it yours
clearly and directly to keep
the channel
you don't even have to believe in yourself
or in your work
you have to keep yourself altman
ana where to the verges that motivate you
keep the to handle open
noel artist
pleased
their is no satisfaction
whatever
at any time
there is only a ***
do you mind defense faction
a blessed
on the rest
that keeps us marching
and makes us more
so listener mark
don't wait until you've taken lessons
or learned how
or until it's ready for people to see
you don't need permission
you don't need approval
you don't need to stay within the lines
your expression
is unique
this gift from god
and the universe
it is already beautiful
and were they
and there are those of us around you who will all with us
bian either
an enthusiastic audience
whatever song you choose to say
want that wonderful many
spring without behind your state department
uh... as those of the income out regularly no im or not all interest by
the wonderful of words about arizona is wednesdays but that did that last lexus
bs next
cell life your schedule allow it very welcome to linger perhaps the downing
and on but i think a lot of michael
and would you tell me what worked and thinking about it