Mozart, van Gogh, and me

Don’t you look at me like that…

Six years ago I decided not to compose any music that had not been requested of me, i.e., if it didn’t have someone waiting to perform it, an AUDIENCE. I wasn’t going to spend time MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT for NOBODY.

Part of my decision was that composing is not easy for me, since I have never been trained as a musician. Yes, I read music, I have a competent understanding of theory, and I can bludgeon my way through orchestration — but I can’t play the piano and have no skills in counterpoint or harmony.

So it’s a slog. Every piece of mine that you might hear is the result of much tearing of hair and beating of breasts, and over the years the only thing that kept me working on a piece was the hope of performance. Thus the only real music I’ve written these six years is Getting through getting over for the Southern Arc Dance Company, and even that was an adaptation/expansion of the Cello Sonata.

I wish I were Mozart, whose hand just transcribed what was in his head, but I’m definitely not. (Who is?)

I even wish I were van Gogh, who painted 860 oil paintings (out of 2,100 works total) and sold none of them. How do you do that, keep MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT when the world around you tells you that it really doesn’t care whether you do or not? (Part of the answer is that poor Vincent was psychotic; we’ll ignore that.)

Sometimes I wonder how many van Goghs we’ve missed, how many Mozarts we’ve missed, never even known about, because they never had an AUDIENCE. How many of us have stopped creating because we felt there was not any point in churning out one more poem or short story or sonata or watercolor or cocktail? (Clearly I’m not going to stop churning out cocktails.)

All this sounds dreadfully self-pitying, and I suppose it is in a way, but mostly it’s me stuck in the doldrums and wishing I could get it together to finish Seven Dreams of Falling or to start Ten Little Waltzes or any of the other projects I’ve had in my head.

Maybe I’m Verdi, who retired from opera-making and was quite happy being a rich landowner until he was hit by inspiration in his 60s and 70s to write his Requiem, Otello, and Falstaff. Sure, that’s it. (The clock is ticking on that one, though.)

While I wait for my inspiration, I’ll keep blogging and tending to my labyrinth and working with Alchemy and making cocktails. The world will just have to wait. Hope you do the same.

(I’ll revisit this mindset on Monday.)