Cleverly Other Perspectives

Thoughts and Stories
JazzAura

 

20250505, Mon
It all started with the saxophone at the end of last year. Suddenly, I could play extremely much for my circumstances. Five months later, it is the violin that makes me move a lot. This night, I couldn’t completely recover from the exhaustion of yesterday that accumulated over the day. So, sitting on the piano is in the foreground now. But as it turned out in the last couple of days, playing an instrument when I sit results in a low mood, pretty quickly. That’s why I do the following: ten minutes piano and then two or three minutes ‘dancing’. It’s a mixture of karate and conducting movements that I do, and it brings endorphins for a short time.

20250420, Sun
Yesterday, it was still promising with a new piano technique that keeps in touch with the instrument, while playing melodies. And today, this technique is nearly ineffective already. It’s something that I know anyway. Many techniques that produced directly a mood, got weaker and weaker. In this case, it is too constrained, I think. Tommy is a very lively individual, which has to mirror in his music as well. So, playing the piano is again very airy, and it just does not help against bigger low moods. And I like it in a way. The power of Schizophrenia is difficult to drive, and this makes it a bit exciting. It’s another level that demands good ideas and dexterity. In the end, the brain disorder has made me a mighty professional, I believe.

20250419, Sat
In this week that has passed, a simple piano technique was developed by me. Because of a bigger low mood, I tried to find something that makes me play nevertheless, and I started to play a tone with two fingers, like I do now on the guitar, but on the piano it’s much different, so that I landed on playing extremely slowly, which was helping a bit. This slowly playing the tunes involved a kind of reserving the key for the next tone, before I pressed it down, something that I have made frequently already with the former, main melody-technique. And soon then, it started to get a bit boring, so, I played a step faster again. The technique that was developed doesn’t jump from one key to the other. There is always one finger of a hand respectively in touch with the piano, and this holds the mood, at least currently. It’s fascinating what making music can do, and it seems that I am depending on it.

20250410, Thu
Yesterday, I felt it directly. There is a new structure in my days that places a single big meal very late in the evening, where I had a fifteen-hours music-day eventually. In these fifteen hours, I just drink water and a smaller amount of strong, organic green tea every four hours. Well, it developed into this simplicity, because all other things, like peppermint tea or fruit tea, cause a low mood, for sure. And so the stomach is empty the whole day. In the early evening, then, it happens. Naturally, the body built up a sustainable mood that lets me be more resistant. So, there are many tricks that one can use to cause a good mood, and certainly I will find out some more in the coming months. Honestly, I wonder how other schizophrenics deal with the disorder.

20250320, Thu
Good news for my mood, and, therefore, for my music! Typically, I had been sleeping in the afternoon, and as I stood up, yesterday, from such a sleep, I came back from the toilet and decided to lay a bit in bed still. The cushion was disordered and a hard part then pressed in my neck. Because I didn’t care, being still very tired, I realized that this pressure produced something abnormal, concerning regular energy flows that happen naturally. And so I then finally stood up with an idea to put artificial pressure onto my upper neck, to see if there is something about it. A few things I tried out in the following hours, and landed on a kind of turban that I bind with a thin scarf to the beginning of the hair in the neck and the beginning of the hair on the forehead as well. The result is really amazing and actually unbelievable. The mood effect, which is simply a good protection, comes promptly with the pressure of the scarf, and so it goes also if I take down the turban. Now, it looks as if I do not need these afternoon sleeps anymore. That’s a nice spring feeling!

20250201, Sat
My music is living from spontaneity. As a multi-instrumentalist, one makes a lot of music. There is much to develop, and the more one plays the better it is typically. So, I decide to jam with this instrument a bit, then it is soon another, and a further. Also, when I am recording, it’s done spontaneously. With a video, I try to capture the moment, and it is often an accomplished stage in some instrumental technique that I like to hold. Later, the things are usually forgotten, but a video remembers these techniques. And because I express a title of an album technically, it’s optimal when I am flexible. Probably, I start to involve other instruments as well, and wouldn’t only express the titles with piano techniques anymore.

20250128, Tue
It’s new that I can directly treat low moods, which come from the mental disorder, by making music. Especially the piano functions well. With the days, it has developed a bit, I think, so that one cannot talk of relaxing as the treatment anymore. And, yesterday, I was frustrated that there was not enough effect when I relaxed. So, accidentally, as I was doing the dishes in the evening, I switched off a low mood by “loosening” the strain that builds itself up naturally when one works oneself up into the pain. It’s like getting rid of strong shivering, saying to oneself that it isn’t cold, or facing the coldness by a stronger attitude of mind. And I believe that it has also to do with my skill in making music. Because I am an advanced player already, I can constantly think and dream, and this state is necessary for loosening a low mood, I guess. All the instrumental work bears fruit now, one could say.

20250125, Sat
Making music would work better by drinking coffee, at least in a re-beginning. But I do have a serious feeling that the mood should come from inside, and not from external factors. Luckily, I have the saxophone at the moment. Breathing is life, and many bodily functions are supported. So, I will stay with green tea, even though I am drinking it very dark. Caffeine eventually blocks the effect of the medication in the long run. “Theanin” from tea, where they say caffeine to that, does not build the same problematic. That’s why I do not use the description Caffeine for it. But I do not have enough information to go into details.

20250122, Wed
Me, as a schizophrenic, is in the belief that the medication I receive in the form of a three-month injection is actually personalized, because suddenly I can drink strong coffee again, without falling into a low mood. As I came to know, it is not so easy with the medical treatment, which tells me that one has to develop the drug still. But it’s speculation since no one has ever told me anything of that sort anywhere. In the foreground, now, is but coffee. It makes me play, and it fits nicely into my improvisational music. Nearly, I celebrate it by drinking quite much, here, at the re-inception. In the meantime, I depended on green tea. The psychosis was full of coffee, and always I made music with it. It really fits well for improvisations.

 

20250119, Sun
Obviously, things are flowing more pleasantly without livestreaming. It’s not the first time that I realize this. Musicians who have to perform regularly must be exposed to enormously much stress. A reason, maybe, why so many smoke. There will come a time, I guess, when my music-making is shared with other freaks. But the intention, which I possess already, to keep being flexible, without the need to give concerts, will still be the same. It’s because of my talent that other people cannot stand. Two years ago, I started to offer solo piano albums on music streaming platforms, like Spotify or Deezer. The proportion of the price that I pay to the worldwide distribution is huge. Without much direct work, I can fully concentrate on developing my music. Every four months, there is a new album for now.

20250111, Sat
A new thought is running through my head since yesterday evening. Not even two weeks ago, it turned out that a certain stance is clearing a low mood, when making music, and I then felt that this is a case that belongs to psychology. But the stance is obviously enormous relaxing, and that’s physical. This brings me back to a former psychologist who once told me that the brain cannot produce an important substance by itself. And it came to my knowledge long ago that the genes play a role as well. Some patients have Schizophrenia shorter than others, and I am still plagued by it with being 42 years of age. That I can now but play and clear a low mood by the piano especially should be a new stage. What else do I want when I can make music? One could say that I just sit it out and wait until it has gone to zero. That takes still a long time though, I guess. Of course, the artistic side supports a recovery. Every week, there is a small refinement. A lot I have to do.

20250102, Thu
Yesterday, it happened. Because it bothered me, maybe, I simply tried to resist the pain, to not let it happen. Always, I believed that the mental disorder is physical in my case, but, here, by a stance as if I can easily swallow the bad feeling, the mood is maintained. A bit it has to do with confidence, I think. And it makes me remember my past in my youth, where my friends started to be unfriendly, and, school-time, where I was treated wrong. That is, maybe, Schizophrenia developed, since my self-confidence weakened by the things I experienced. But this is only a guess. Now, suddenly, there is so much that I can do, including, as it looks, reading in a book. In a small music world of my own that accumulated gradually, plenty of things offer themselves abruptly. Is this true even? Let’s hope that this dream stays! The saxophone, that I have been playing much in the last three weeks, or so, is probably the reason that I can resist the pain with a certain stance by playing an instrument or by reading, because I have become much stronger bodily.

20241223, Mon
Obviously, at the moment, I am live streaming so much as I have never been streaming before. The reason is clear to me. Accidentally, a slight difference in my saxophone technique triggered much more playing time. And then I could further develop my breathing that is now bringing endorphins. So, when these hormones are gone, I would play the digital saxophone for only ten minutes, or so, and other instruments can be played again. Actually, I feel a bit stupid, streaming so much, because this is not typical for a musician. But there is so much time in a regular day of mine. Making music has become my mood in the best case. Computer work, for example, isn’t really pleasant. And the new piano gives around ten recorded piano voices that make everything exciting. For friends, I am not here physically, but musically, streaming into the day.

20241120, Wed
My artist name, Tom J. Change, came into being around 2006 because of a piano technique that lets change the keys with every new chord. This technique had been used for all these years up to 2024, and it even developed into Arabic-sounding tunes. But as it turned out in the last weeks, the energy that is produced by it does not bring the mood anymore, especially when I am playing with chords. So, it cannot be the main technique, now, and that’s why other things need to form the pseudonym. There is one thing that comes to my mind, which has developed by playing multiple instruments: Monotonous techniques that make the music. And as it looks, such progressiveness makes a lot of sense at the moment because the mood is held by it. If I mix other elements into a technique, the energy is not good enough typically. For now, instrumentally changing techniques makes the name “Tom J. Change”.

20241011, Fri
It has happened for sure two times yet. Stress of playing too much ended live streaming. So, there was a break from it, and I produced video recordings again. But as if something is missing, once more I started with live performances a couple of days ago. This time, the sessions are much shorter. By not even performing for a single hour, the pressure doesn’t appear for now. And so I simply go on to frequently make live sessions during the day. My new piano is actually designed for live musicians, and a professional guitar preamp suits as well. The thought is still here that I want to give back a thing, being still in a pension for mentally disordered people. The sessions have no price and no obligation. One can come and go, as one prefers. Let’s see how it develops!

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Copyright (C) 2025 JazzAura
Paranoid Schizophrenia, brain disorder
Thomas Neubauer

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