Some days I wake up and think “From now on my works will only contain triads and they will be about flowers or the moon” and other days I wake up and think “From now on I will only write pieces with 4+ hour durations of totally serialized agonal screams that end with the performer self-immolating on stage”
To be read slowly
It is essential for a composer:
To be a good sport
To be humble in victory and to exercise humility in defeat
To be, in every sense, a good musician
A Composer MUST BE A MUSICIAN
A composer MUST BE A MUSICIAN
A Composer MUST BE A MUSICIAN
What is a good musician?
Someone who is nice
someone who has somethinf to say
someone who loves music
someone who can play
who brings skills and stupidity (non-pejorative)
Learn vigorously
Then, forget it
Write A haydn sonata but the clarinet is upside down
“To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people and
the affection of children;
To earn the approbation of honest critics and endure
the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To give of one's self;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition;
To have played and laughed with enthusiasm and
sung with exultation;
To know even one life has breathed easier because you
have lived -
This is to have succeeded.”
-Emerson
the recording wont match thats fine,
We make music because we enjoy music.
cynicism will make you sick
The composer must be an artist, and an artist must be an intellectual.
Intellectualism is the foundation of art. And I’m not talking about being smart or clever, I’m talking about intellectualism in the Classical sense: Understanding, manipulating, taking apart, and putting back together again various ideas.
“Tolle, lege: take up and read.” St. Augustine
A composer needs to be tethered to the world in which they live: good music comes from an understanding of society through lived experience.
“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.” St. Augustine
“I held my heart back from positively accepting anything, since I was afraid of another fall, and in this condition of suspense I was being all the more killed.” St. Augustine
It’s OK to write bad music
“Know thyself”
To sit with a difficult piece of music, or a difficult piece of writing, it is hard paraphrase of david foster wallace