The Space Between the Notes - III

“… here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)”

“[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]”– E.E. Cummings

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

What a pleasure it’s been to hear from so many of you after sending out the first “The Space Between the Notes” this year.
Your voices and communication with me give me hope, courage and strength for the future. It's a difficult time for us all, and feeling connected to family, friends, colleagues, and peers allows me a sense of closeness that is so desperately missing for so many people right now.

This moment in time finds me thankful, I dare say sanguine — at peace and with a clearer vision of what I feel music is and should be. I've learned a lot these past months and am still learning.

This calm demure is strikingly at odds with a niggling frustration I carry. The E.E. Cummings poem reveals part of the reason I decided to pick up the proverbial pen and begin writing letters and essays again. Returning to old-fashioned email, (and in some cases, pen, paper and a stamp), in order to be with you is my response to having my voice censored on Facebook. Literally. Oh, the days of human connection seem far gone… and I’m not referring to COVID-19. Rather, I mean, social media — that other thing that took over the world and our lives, albeit some decades ago by now.

Unpublished by Facebook

Gwendolyn Ysaye Maximilian Lederer Capture One Session0085 1 Capture One Session0085 1 Gwendolyn Masin

This is the last picture that can be seen on my Professional Page on Facebook before the Silicon Valley giant unceremoniously unpublished and blocked my page. After a seven-year love/hate relationship, I was dumped with a slap on both cheeks — unpublished and blocked!

What’s worse, I realised that I had been blocked by an automation. For those not in the know as to what an automation is, it is a line of code and it shut down my Page. There was no human behind this, no person working at Facebook that made a decision and clicked my Page into oblivion. No. A digital code had switched off the connection between myself and an audience of over 5,500 people; an audience I have spent years communicating with, and sharing news, stories, and music with. Then, cut — in one fell swoop, the blink of an eye. The reason for this “temporary block” – it’s been two months, people, TWO MONTHS! – is thoroughly unclear. You can read all about it in my article by clicking here.

I came to cherish the difference between continuously posting things, one after another on social media, and true, face-to-face personal conversations during these last 15 months when the only connection we have had to one another, in many cases, is a digital one. How privileged we are to be close! Thank you for being here.

I would love to know if you’ve cracked the code and gone far beyond social media and about your relationship with the digital possibilities at our fingertips. If you feel like it, share my essays, this newsletter, or my other social media channels.

And for those of you hungry for music: GAIA tickets have just gone online with limited availability, in respect to COVID-19 restrictions. Please visit the GAIA webpage by clicking here to secure your seat. We can finally celebrate Beethoven’s birthday – a year late, but celebrate we will — carrying his legacy in our hearts. Music cannot keep us apart.

Yours,
Gwendolyn

Image: Maximilian Lederer