The creative talent

the
Creative
Talent

Massimo Schinco
Conservatory of Music G. F. Ghedini, Cuneo

introducing myself

I’m a psychologist and a psychotherapist, working with individuals and families . I’m
also a supervisor in social services for children

I teach the so called “Milan Approach” to systemic psychotherapy at the Milan Centre
of Family Therapy

I also teach in the Conservatory of Music, Cuneo and lead learning groups in the
University of Pavia

I’m a member of the International Association for the Study of Dreams. I’m currently
serving as a Member of the Board of Directors in the period 2011 – 2013

I’m an amateur musician and I play violin in the Orchestra Sinfonica Amatoriale
Italiana

as an author, I focus on creative change related to dreams and music. My last book is
“The Composer’s Dream”, published by Pari Publishing

Massimo Schinco

in this presentation, consistently with the
subject and with the ideas I’ll bring forth, I
will rely not only on verbal language but
also on other languages, mainly on
music, and I will make a frequent use of
metaphors

Massimo Schinco

I claim that being gifted with a creative talent
means having peculiar abilities in translation
and re-translation of experiences occurring
into different realms of reality, each one
speaking its own peculiar language

Massimo Schinco

thus, creativity will be considered mainly in a
relational frame, so that

“to be creative” means

to be able to evoke, in someone else,
experiences putting in dynamic
communication different “layers” and realms
of reality such as:

Massimo Schinco

- the nearly chaotic basis of consciousness, both
individual and collective

- the narrative description of the self (“identity”
both of individuals and of communities)

- the bodily aspects of reality (through
movement, sensitivity and perception)

- the symbolic aspects of reality (languages)

Massimo Schinco

examples

Massimo Schinco

Massimo Schinco

in this piece of music the basic sounds of
nature, like chirps, evoke and get
intertwined with the basic structures of
western tonal music, like simples scales and
arpeggios.
It all raises up into the listener the echoes of
experiences such that in verbal language
they could be defined as “the beauty and
happiness of a natural way of life”

Massimo Schinco

a feeling like this is quite clearly expressed by Carl
Gustav Jung in his “Memories, Dreams Reflections”
when speaking about his stay in the “Tower” he
built in Bollingen.

In Bollingen silence surrounds me in a nearly sensible
way, and I live “in a modest harmony with nature”.
Thoughts occur that date back in centuries, and in
the meantime they anticipate a future far from
now; struggle for creation is appeased: creativity
and play are side by side.

Massimo Schinco

Edvard Grieg’s
breathing and music

excerpts from Peer Gynt’s suites

Massimo Schinco

Edvard Grieg was born 1843 in Bergen, Norway.
When he was 16 studying at the Conservatory in
Leipzig (De), contracted TBC. He gave up to later
resume, but fret over the incompleteness of his
studies ever since.

His left lung completely collapsed so that he could
breath only with a part of his right lung. All life long
he suffered from breathing disease worsening the
depression he fell into in 1869 because of the death
of his only 13 months daughter. The consequences
of breathing issues on the cardiac muscle led him to
death at the age of 64.

Massimo Schinco

despite his very serious troubles in breathing, until
advanced age Grieg used to be a strong mountain
hiker

in 1874 Henrik Ibsen invited him to write the stage
music for his drama Peer Gynt

in 1888 and 1891, out of those 22 pieces of music,
Grieg drew the most famous Symphonic Suites

echoes of his health state and habits can be easily
detected in this music

Massimo Schinco

morning mood

Massimo Schinco

Aase’s death

Massimo Schinco

thanks to its incipit on the weak tempo (anacrusis),
the sorely simple cells raising all the first movement of
the 5th Symphony recall to memory the sound of
popular dances from the european tradition like
“sarabanda” or “allemanda” (deutsche)

in turn it recalls the unresolved issue of Beethoven’s
life: “the yearn for a normal life”, meanwhile his whole
life was overwhelmed with the peculiar troubles and
joys of creativity

a demanding “destiny knocking at his door”, once
again…

Massimo Schinco

creativity implies vicinity to chaos

in personal identity
in mental health
in cognitive pathways
in the process of creation itself

Massimo Schinco

vicinity to chaos in personal identity
and belongings

Massimo Schinco

Gioachino Rossini (1792 – 1868)
was his father “Il Vivazza “, or the Count Andrea Perticari?

On 29 February 1792 a beautiful baby boy was born in Pesaro and was christened
the same day with the names Giovacchino and Antonia, his paternal grandparents.

Indeed, just five months had passed since the baby’s parents were married. The
mother, Anna Guidarini, about twenty years old, was a pretty young dressmaker
gifted with a nice soprano voice. The father, who was already thirty-three, was a horn
player and had arrived from Lugo di Romagna to take on the role of trumpet player in
the town. He was known as Il Vivazza (a man with an exuberant character), but his
real name was Giuseppe Antonio Rossini.

But serious doubts regarding Gioachino being biologically the son of Vivazza
have been put forward. He was a beautiful boy with noble features…perhaps
Anna’s spring passion flared up whilst squeezed in an aristocratic embrace, that of
Count Andrea Perticari, it is said.

Massimo Schinco

Ludwig Van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)
used to consider himself as being born in 1772 instead
than 1770 and was pleased of the widespread gossip
that he was son of a King of Prussia. All life long he
complained for being a misunderstood aristocrat.

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883)
the true story of his birth would take the entire
presentation… most likely his real father was not the
Police Officer Friedrich Wilhelm Wagner, but the
actor, playwright and portraitist Ludwig Geyer (who
bore a pretty Jewish last name!)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)
entire books have been written on the controversial
story of his death and burial

Massimo Schinco

vicinity to chaos in mental health

Massimo Schinco

Gioachino Rossini (1792 – 1868)
suffered from a severe depression for around
25 years

one thing the creative person and the psychically suffering person
share is a condition of sensitivity, a magnified condition relative to the
average person. The creative person is more vulnerable than the average
person in regard to the mystery of being, in which he participates in a
much more intense way than others.

“In sensitivity one exposes oneself, one exposes a nude more nude
than the skin which, as form and beauty, inspires the statuesque
arts: the nude of a skin offered for contact, for a caress that always –
even equivocally in voluptuousness – is a suffering for the suffering of
others.”
Emmanuel Lévinas

Massimo Schinco

vicinity to chaos in cognitive pathways

Massimo Schinco

Wouldn't you like to visit Herr Gold-smith again?-
but what for?--what?--nothing!-just to inquire, I
guess, about the Spuni Cuni fait, nothing else.
nothing else?-well, well, all right. Long live all
those who, who-who-who-how does it go on?-I
now wish you a good night, shit in your bed with all
your might, sleep with peace on your mind, and try
to kiss your own behind; I now go off to never-
never land and sleep as much as I can stand.
Tomorrow we'll speak freak sensubly with each
other. Things I must you tell a lot of, believe it you
hardly can, but hear tomorrow it already will you,
be well in the meantime. Oh my ass burns like fire!
an excerpt from a
what on earth is the meaning of this!-maybe muck
wants to come out? yes, yes, muck, I know you, Wolfgang’s letter to
see you, taste you-and-what's this--is it possible? his cousin Maria
Ye Gods!-Oh ear of mine, are you deceiving me?- Anna Thekla,
No, it's true-what a long and melancholic sound!- November 5th, 1777
today is the write I fifth this letter.

Massimo Schinco

vicinity to chaos in the creative process

Massimo Schinco

a Giacomo Puccini’s
autograph of one
page of “the Girl from
the Golden West”

Massimo Schinco

the story of the Bach’s “Air on the G string”

at the beginning of a story its location in time
a space is fundamental, but when we search
for reference points in the chronology of
Bach’s musical production, we inevitably
stumble across problems that trigger endless
controversies among scholars

Massimo Schinco

actually it is almost always difficult, and at times
impossible, to date Johann Sebastian Bach’s musical
production precisely

we have to make use of hypothetical expressions
that give a sensation of suspension: ‘it seems…’, ‘it
emerges…’, ‘presumably…’, almost…’

it seems that Bach composed the Orchestral Suite in
D major (BWV 1068), presumably between 1729 and
1737, in Leipzig where he conducted the Collegium
Musicum founded by Telemann

Massimo Schinco

the suite consists of five movements; the second of
these is the Aria

it is almost certain that he obtained the suite from
one of his previous compositions with concertante
violin dating back to the final period of his stay in
Köthen, where he had served as Kapellmeister to the
court of Prince Leopold between 1717 and 1723

Massimo Schinco

here the problems of dating the suite cannot
be said to be entirely solved: indeed, those
listening to the second movement (adagio ma
non tanto) of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
(BWV 1051) will recognize a very similar melody
in the fugue for two voices assigned to violas

Massimo Schinco

if the Brandenburg Concertos bear the dedication
date of March 24, 1721, several parts that were
integrated into them were certainly composed
previously; the oldest, amongst which is the aria
under discussion here, probably date back to the
Weimar period, between 1713 and 1717

Massimo Schinco

as on many other occasions, we have before
us a musical idea that exists, albeit in various
forms, in an all but ephemeral way within the
composer

it is as if an idea would “visit” the creative
person, and he or she has the skills necessary
for receiving it and working on it later on

Massimo Schinco

the ordinary logics of causes and effects
cannot be applied to creativity

we have not the time left now to dwell on it.
I’ll just hint, For those who are fond of these inquiries, that, as a
general model of explanation, I rely the most on

David Bohm’s and F. David Peat’s insights on

implicate/explicate – and superimplicate - orders
generative orders
holomovement

Massimo Schinco

all these models finally allow us to take seriously the
impression that, at times, creations create their authors
rather more than the other way round

the same impression we have with dreaming

both dreams and creativity sprout from the
implicate, enfolded, unexpressed side of reality, grows
up in the explicate, unfolded, expressed one and to
“the other side” they return in an unceasant
movement…

…and when it’s over, it is for real
Massimo Schinco

John Lennon
1940 - 1980
Yeah. I don’t believe in the Beatles, that’s all. I don’t
believe in the Beatles myth. “I don’t believe in the
Beatles”–there is no other way of saying it, is there?
I don’t believe in them whatever they were supposed
to be in everybody’s head, including our own heads
for a period. It was a dream. I don’t believe in the
dream anymore.

…And then the fuckin’ fans tried to beat me into being a fuckin’ Beatle or an
Engelbert Humperdinck, and the critics tried to beat me into being Paul
McCartney.

(from Jann Wenner’s interview on Rolling Stone Magazine, 1971 )

Massimo Schinco

creative persons own the necessary skills to
guarantee the unfolding of this process, which are:

openness to chaos (inner thin boundaries)
sensitivity
selective attention
capability of producing metaphors (creativity is not
psychosis – psychosis is a failure in the creative
process)
capability of mastering a technique
capability of waiting
capability of playing
capability of working and renouncing

Massimo Schinco

the “price” that is paid:

self-perception of diversity and isolation
rigidity (tendency to yes/no attitude)
exposure to violent oscillations of mood (exaltation
vs. depression, anxiety vs. laziness)
tendency to take things to the limit
compensatory behaviors (e.g. addictions,
vulnerability in relationships)
need of outer thick boundaries to protect the inner
thin boundaries (e.g. tendency to affiliation to rigid
systems, narcissism)

Massimo Schinco

John Lennon
1940 - 1980
Do you think you’re a genius?
Yes, if there is such a thing as one, I am one.
When did you first realize that?
When I was about 12. I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody’s noticed. I
used to wonder whether I’m a genius or I’m not, which is it? I used to think, well, I
can’t be mad, because nobody’s put me away, therefore, I’m a genius. A genius is
a form of madness, and we’re all that way, you know, and I used to be a bit coy
about it, like my guitar playing.
If there is such a thing as genius–which is what... what the fuck is it?–I am one,
and if there isn’t, I don’t care. I used to think it when I was a kid, writing me poetry
and doing me paintings. I didn’t become something when the Beatles made it, or
when you heard about me, I’ve been like this all me life. Genius is pain too.
(from Jann Wenner’s interview on Rolling Stone Magazine, 1971)

Massimo Schinco

John Lennon
1940 - 1980
People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine... I always
wondered, “why has nobody discovered me?” In school, didn’t they see that I’m
cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all
they had was information that I didn’t need. I got fuckin’ lost in being at high
school. I used to say to me auntie “You throw my fuckin’ poetry out, and you’ll
regret it when I’m famous,” and she threw the bastard stuff out.
I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin’ genius or whatever I was,
when I was a child.
It was obvious to me. Why didn’t they put me in art school? Why didn’t they train
me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin’ cowboy like the rest of them?
I was different, I was always different. Why didn’t anybody notice me?
(from Jann Wenner’s interview on Rolling Stone Magazine, 1971)

Massimo Schinco

Eric Clapton
1945 -
“(addiction to drugs or alcohol)… it is an obsession. A part of
my personality is obsessed with pushing things to the limit. It
can be of great use when my obsession is funneled into
constructive thoughts or creativity, but it can be destructive
as well, mentally, physically or spiritually. I guess this is what
happens to an artist who,
when he feels his mood swaying – something we all suffer from, when we are creative –
instead of facing reality being aware that this is an opportunity of creation, turns himself
to something that will switch that mood off and stop that irritation. And this can be
drinking, heroin, or anything else.
One doesn’t want to face that creative urge, because he knows the self-exploration that
shall be undertaken, the suffering that shall be carried on. This happens mainly, or in a
quite painful way, to artists.
Until they do not understand what it is that does this to them, they will keep doing
something to kill this.”
(from Robert Palmer’s interview on Rolling Stone Magazine, 1985)

Massimo Schinco

“consciousness is urge of
creation”

Henri Bergson (1859 – 1941)

Massimo Schinco

consciousness needs
obstacles to get over so to
raise up creativity

sometimes the more harsh
and demanding are the
obstacles, the more sublime
are creativity’s outcomes

Massimo Schinco

The most beautiful sea
hasn't been crossed yet.

The most beautiful child
hasn't grown up yet.

Our most beautiful days
we haven't seen yet.

And the most ) beautiful words
I wanted to tell you
I haven't said yet
Nazim Hikmet to his wife, from the prison of Bursa, Anatolya, 1940

Massimo Schinco

Thank You

Massimo Schinco

The creative talent

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