Thursday, March 13, 2008

Paco de Lucia and the quest for perfection

One day, Paco de Lucia was driving his car listening to a football match on the car radio. At the half time interval of the match, a flamengo song was played on the air and, for a few seconds, Paco de Lucia was amazed by the beauty of the piece and by the brilliance of the interpretation. In the next instance, like an electric shock, he realised that it was himself who was playing. Immediately the piece sounded to him unbalanced and the guitar playing full of faults and weaknesses. He switched off the radio.

One of the most difficult things in artistic creation is to put a full stop. To say the work is finished. Perfection is a very personal thing. Assuming of course that you would want to stop when you reach it. But as the possibilities for expanding and enriching a creation are infinite, perfection becomes an utopia. A way out of this ad infinitum puzzle is to distil. So to take a backwards and forwards journey to expand improve and explore on the one hand and to distil and create "zip files" of creative steps on the other.

"Sometimes I think that I would like to work on just one record. To record and correct and re-record and to perfect and re-visit continuously until I die. It would be a record that would be completed with my death. A true life's achievement."
Paco de Lucia


Inspired from a tv documentary about the life and music of Paco de Lucia

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