{"id":1169,"date":"2017-10-23T21:34:00","date_gmt":"2017-10-24T01:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=1169"},"modified":"2017-10-23T21:34:00","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T01:34:00","slug":"music-as-communication-with-you-with-myself-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2017\/10\/music-as-communication-with-you-with-myself-with-it.html","title":{"rendered":"Music as Communication: with you, with myself, with it"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I write music for three reasons that I can name, though there may be others that elude me.\u00a0 These three reasons jockey with one another for primacy from one work to the next, and sometimes within one work.<\/p>\n

The first, though not necessarily the most important (just, I think, the most obvious), is to communicate with others.\u00a0 When I say it\u2019s not necessarily the most important, I have to qualify that by saying that sometimes<\/u> it is the most important.\u00a0 When I say I think it is the most obvious, I mean that I believe that most people would assume that\u2019s the main reason one writes music: to express one\u2019s thoughts and feelings to others.\u00a0 And sometimes, indeed, it is at the forefront of what I am doing.\u00a0 Just as often, though, it\u2019s buried beneath the weight of other considerations.<\/p>\n

The second reason I write music is to communicate with myself.\u00a0 I think Haruki Murakami expressed this most clearly, in Norwegian Wood<\/em>: \u201cWhich is why I am writing this book.\u00a0 To think.\u00a0 To understand.\u00a0 It just happens to be the way I\u2019m made.\u00a0 I have to write things down to feel I fully comprehend them.\u201d\u00a0 In the same way, I have to write music in order to make sense of what I am thinking, in order to understand myself.\u00a0 Without composing, my thoughts feel unformed and chaotic.\u00a0 I\u2019m often struck with wonder at the fact that most people manage to grasp their own thoughts without ever writing down a single note.<\/p>\n

The third reason I write music is to communicate with music itself.\u00a0 This is the part I understand the least, and have the most difficulty explaining.\u00a0 There is an aspect of composing that is a kind of strange dialogue between composer and composition.\u00a0 \u201cIf I push you a bit in this direction,\u201d I ask, \u201chow will you respond?\u00a0 Where will you take me?\u201d\u00a0 As difficult as it is to understand and explain, this part of composing may be the most important to me \u2013 it certainly outweighs any other consideration pretty frequently, although, as I say, the various reasons are always nudging one another aside.<\/p>\n

This third aspect of creation is beautifully exemplified in the work of Andy Goldsworthy.\u00a0 If you are not familiar with his sculpture, please check out the documentary Rivers and Tides<\/em>.\u00a0 Goldsworthy engages in an ongoing dialogue with the materials around him, constantly discovering new capabilities in them and in himself.\u00a0 Watching him gives me a visual analogue to an aural experience that has long been familiar*.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve left out two of the most commonly noted motivations for composing, which at least deserve a mention: fame and fortune.\u00a0 First, fame.\u00a0 At times in my life, especially early on, the idea of being well-known has been appealing.\u00a0 Now, the mild brushes I\u2019ve had with fame and the famous have made me realize that a little bit of fame goes a long way for me.\u00a0 I\u2019m not keen on the idea of toiling away in obscurity, and I appreciate the little moments of acknowledgement that come from time to time.\u00a0 But fame can also be a hindrance.\u00a0 Here, again, I come to another aspect of composing that is difficult to understand or explain, but I\u2019ll take a shot at it:\u00a0 More powerful than the craving to be known is the craving to disappear into the work, to lose myself in my chosen art form.\u00a0 I suppose fame and invisibility aren\u2019t strictly opposites, but they often feel that way.<\/p>\n

Finally, fortune.\u00a0 I appreciate being paid for my work, and I appreciate having enough money in general.\u00a0 Money as a creative motivation, though, just doesn\u2019t happen.\u00a0 I remember my teacher, Vincent Persichetti, telling me that he didn\u2019t allow people to commission new works from him, but he was happy to have them commission music he had already written.\u00a0 I haven\u2019t kept to that path myself over the years, but there is something about it that I find very appealing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t have any disdain for people who write music primarily for money: to me it\u2019s a special talent, and I have lots of respect for special talents.<\/p>\n

So, communicating: with you, with myself, with it.\u00a0 Not necessarily in that order; not necessarily in any order at all.<\/p>\n

*Rivers and Tides<\/em> also has, for me, one of the most remarkable and successful film scores of all time, by Fred Frith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I write music for three reasons that I can name, though there may be others that elude me.\u00a0 These three reasons jockey with one another for primacy from one work to the next, and sometimes within one work. The first, though not necessarily the most important (just, I think, the most obvious), is to communicate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1169","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions\/1172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}