{"id":800,"date":"2015-07-02T08:45:10","date_gmt":"2015-07-02T12:45:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/?p=800"},"modified":"2015-07-02T08:45:10","modified_gmt":"2015-07-02T12:45:10","slug":"alignment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/2015\/07\/alignment.html","title":{"rendered":"Alignment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Align_Object_To_Grid___Select_Objects\"<\/a>In my last post, I said that music is thought. First and foremost, of course, music is made of sound, but the way it is embedded in our consciousness and our being connects it readily with everything else that goes through our minds.<\/p>\n

Although music can connect with anything, many people experience strong connections with specific nonmusical corollaries. For some, music is a sonic embodiment of mathematical principles. For others (and I seem to hear more about this lately than ever before), music aligns naturally with architecture and spatial concerns. Still others generate powerful emotional responses. All of these are valid; all are variations on the same idea of music as thought.<\/p>\n

For me, music closely aligns with literature. To be more specific, I feel a particularly strong empathy for the challenges and opportunities faced by novelists.<\/p>\n

What I value most in the novel is character development and language as a conveyer of more than literal meaning. Compared to those elements, I don’t experience plot as a very powerful hook.\u00a0\u00a0 The critical connection for me is the fact that novels unfold over time: information accrues from page one to page last. I like to think of my compositions that way, with characters that develop and deepen over time, sometimes because of layers peeled away, sometimes because of an accrual of experience.<\/p>\n

Milan Kundera said a novelist should never be smarter than his characters. I\u2019ve found that viewpoint a helpful directive in composition: rather than trying to force my ideas into preconceived scenarios, I listen to them as if they were living, breathing beings, respectfully trying to gauge their needs and implications.<\/p>\n

That approach doesn\u2019t work for every kind of composition, but I\u2019m not interested in finding a single approach that works for every kind of composition. More important is to find something in each composition that resonates internally — subjectively — reflecting and embodying a certain set of artistic goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my last post, I said that music is thought. First and foremost, of course, music is made of sound, but the way it is embedded in our consciousness and our being connects it readily with everything else that goes through our minds. Although music can connect with anything, many people experience strong connections with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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-800","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800","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=800"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":804,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/800\/revisions\/804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/curves\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}