On working on my work...
Mar. 21st, 2005 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sen_no_ongakuThis evening, I spent about 2.5 hours more or less working on a new piece for the NOW Ensemble (though only one of them knows about it). That translates into about 50-60 seconds of music. I've had this section in my head for a few weeks, now, but haven't been able to write it out/compose it. By now I know what the next 2-3 minutes will sound like, and I have a nebulous idea of the end; I just have to figure out what the notes will be...though there's always the chance I'll be surprised.
I wish I were more diligent about composing. Often, for me, it seems to alternate between quick sprints and long periods of lazing about. Partly, the problem is that proportion of the time I feel able to compose seems to be exponentially related to the free time I have; that is to say, the more free time I have, the higher the percentage of it I spend composing, and vice verse. Partly, I'm simply a lazy bastard. I would like to have the temperament to be able to set aside time every day to work on my music, and do it whether or not I feel inspired.
One of my teachers at Williams, David Kechley, once said that the hardest thing about composing is sitting down and doing it. For me, I think that part of that difficulty is the fear that I'll sit down and nothing will come out. I think a greater and subtler fear is that what comes out will not live up to what I had imagined; that my skill will not be able to match my imagination. As long as I don't touch pencil to paper, there's a possibility that my piece will turn out as great as I hope it will. Once I start writing notes down, begin manifesting the piece, chances are I'll fuck up that potential; that I'll take the piece in the wrong direction, realize the wrong possibility, develop the wrong material, and the piece will miss its chance.
On the other hand, I also recall my teacher once advising me that everyone works differently, and that it's important to come to terms with your own compositional temperament. So, perhaps, I need to work on maximizing how much I get done while in sprint mode rather than try to become something I'm not -- slow and steady.
While I'm composing, I have a lot of nervous energy. I'll write out a few measures, then get up and pace about, maybe check my e-mail, noodle around on the piano, play with the cat, deal myself a few practice hands of Hold 'Em, tidy up a little, then plop myself back down in front of my music. Usually, while I do these things, I'll also be thinking about where to go next...usually. If I'm working on a piece in which I don't need the piano to figure things out, sometimes I prefer to work in front of the TV so I'll have a ready-made distraction.
Sometimes I wish I didn't have to take the time to actually write the notes down, which is something of a distraction in and of itself.
----
I note that I tend to talk as if the music I write somehow exists outside of my conception of it. Many musicians do. In some essays and writings I've read, the author refers to themselves, the composer/performer, not as the creator/performer of a piece/performance but as its vessel. It seems apparent that this has its roots in Judeo-Christian parlance; but I'm not sure it's inappropriate. I wrote this a while back, somewhere else:
----
Anyway, just talking.
I wish I were more diligent about composing. Often, for me, it seems to alternate between quick sprints and long periods of lazing about. Partly, the problem is that proportion of the time I feel able to compose seems to be exponentially related to the free time I have; that is to say, the more free time I have, the higher the percentage of it I spend composing, and vice verse. Partly, I'm simply a lazy bastard. I would like to have the temperament to be able to set aside time every day to work on my music, and do it whether or not I feel inspired.
One of my teachers at Williams, David Kechley, once said that the hardest thing about composing is sitting down and doing it. For me, I think that part of that difficulty is the fear that I'll sit down and nothing will come out. I think a greater and subtler fear is that what comes out will not live up to what I had imagined; that my skill will not be able to match my imagination. As long as I don't touch pencil to paper, there's a possibility that my piece will turn out as great as I hope it will. Once I start writing notes down, begin manifesting the piece, chances are I'll fuck up that potential; that I'll take the piece in the wrong direction, realize the wrong possibility, develop the wrong material, and the piece will miss its chance.
On the other hand, I also recall my teacher once advising me that everyone works differently, and that it's important to come to terms with your own compositional temperament. So, perhaps, I need to work on maximizing how much I get done while in sprint mode rather than try to become something I'm not -- slow and steady.
While I'm composing, I have a lot of nervous energy. I'll write out a few measures, then get up and pace about, maybe check my e-mail, noodle around on the piano, play with the cat, deal myself a few practice hands of Hold 'Em, tidy up a little, then plop myself back down in front of my music. Usually, while I do these things, I'll also be thinking about where to go next...usually. If I'm working on a piece in which I don't need the piano to figure things out, sometimes I prefer to work in front of the TV so I'll have a ready-made distraction.
Sometimes I wish I didn't have to take the time to actually write the notes down, which is something of a distraction in and of itself.
----
I note that I tend to talk as if the music I write somehow exists outside of my conception of it. Many musicians do. In some essays and writings I've read, the author refers to themselves, the composer/performer, not as the creator/performer of a piece/performance but as its vessel. It seems apparent that this has its roots in Judeo-Christian parlance; but I'm not sure it's inappropriate. I wrote this a while back, somewhere else:
- ...a piece of classical music exists only as a kind of Platonic ideal...I can't point to the score of a Beethoven symphony and claim that it defines the symphony. Nor can I do the same to a performance or a recording of it. Those are manifestations of the music, or realizations of it - but they can never be considered the totality of it.
----
Anyway, just talking.
