Category Archives: aphorisms

Aphorisms for Composers – September 2018

September 19, 2018

All or some, but not none.

Sound Poem (to be “translated” to instrumental music, maybe)

Thwap. Kunk. Thwapthwap. Burdbilp. Uck. Plibthwap. Thwap. Stornt ‘n thwapthwap. Stipuckniddle Wat. Uttnthaddlethwapstunndernip.

Pinnerrstenerrundir Ott. Watwat. Zup! Deedlythwap. Sussurrippendeeth…

September 18, 2018

To state preferences yet remain open to their own evolution or destruction is the uniquely poised position the composer hopes to strike.

September 11, 2018

The more exigent the issue at hand, the more eloquent the composer hopes to become. Can one enter the fray, yet also step back?

September 2, 2018

‘Considerable motivation beyond’ is needed to sustain the composer—reasons beyond the piece-making process, beyond practice and performance, even beyond personal expressive needs…A sense of larger unknowns, paths without clear direction, moraines imperceptibly carrying materials to new edges.

Like we can be enchanted by meeting a new person, ‘meeting’ a new piece of music can also beguile. Re-enchanting and re-beguiling is rarer and more difficult.

Aphorisms for Composers – August 2018

August 31, 2018

Visiting artist=enrichment w/o commitment, for both visitor and visited. ‘Just visiting.’

August 29, 2018

What used to feel like hard technical work sometimes feels like nothing by now. Does this mean I’m better at the task at hand, or do I need to re-start by aiming for something I know for sure I can’t do—or can’t do without considerable re-questioning of what seem like fundamental fluencies? Can we scan the keys or gauge the breath or re-balance the bow arm to find entirely unheard-of precedents?

…After many years, still trying to find a viewpoint that renews, even if only for a few beguiling musical seconds…

Let it fall apart; don’t put it back together—at least not the same way.

Weak, tired; ‘breathe’ through wrists.

How does a composer capture states of ‘vulnerability,’ ‘fear,’ ‘shutdown,’ among others, when performing arts teaching promotes what could be described as ‘power’ or ‘strength’? Is the composer’s ‘strength’ a contradiction, then? Is the expressive ‘power’ available through the practice of writing music tantamount to the ability to express ‘weakness’ along with a a full gamut of possible evocations of perceived emotional states? The next question: what technical preparation and set of tools is needed in order to achieve this flexibility?

August 23, 2018

Write what you want and must…but make sure you ‘teach to the test.’ (sardonic)

August 23-30, 2018

Quartets, Set 3:

Hit bottom, hit wood. (August 30, 2018; for the pianist)
Small adjustments; new universes. (August 29, 2018)
Analog composer; digital performer. (August 23, 2018, on the composer/pianist)

August 22, 2018

NEVER underestimate the intelligence of an audience.  By the same token, ALWAYS attend to how you say what you say musically. Don’t expect understanding if you garble your words. Communicate, converse.

August 21, 2018

Don’t fear your own ideas. Accept or embrace them enough to figure out their maximal effectiveness. ‘What’ matters, but ‘how’ matters more.

August 19-20, 2018

Quartets, Set 2:

Under rocks: possible ideas. (August 20, 2018)
Difficult issues; careful solutions. (August 20, 2018)
Rejuvenate each musical moment.  (August 19, 2018)
Don’t overlook musicians’ needs. (August 19, 2018)
Hand-weight; chords activate. (August 19, 2018)
To juxtapose: to develop.  (August 19, 2018)

August 16, 2018

Be a schlock absorber. Internalize any material that works; do your thing with it.

August 12, 2018

Program notes and maxims/aphorisms have a common goal: the quick capture of fundamentally musical, non-verbal observations in a few well-chosen words. Tough to achieve.

August 11, 2018

Save or write down all your ideas. Plant seeds. Weed later.

August 8, 2018

In an earnest search for meaning, does your music really signify much? Isn’t it just sound, sense, sensation? Otherwise unattached?

August 7, 2018

Composers humanize and catalyze simply by doing what they do. Abstract or concrete—in the sky or down to earth—composing music is inherently peaceful unless or until the sounds are misapplied. Consider your work as a composer a particular type of activism: you are hearing humanity, documenting experience by shaping sound. (with a bow to TJ Anderson Jr on his 90th birthday)

I’ve stopped composing—for a few minutes.

August 7-8, 2018

Quartets, Set 1:

Inhale/collect; exhale/unleash. (August 8, 2018)
Humanize: write music, perform. (August 8, 2018)
Keyboard, mind, ears, two hands. (August 7, 2018)
Meditate rather than medicate. (August 7, 2018)

August 6, 2018

That new work of yours is a little like a new human being. You feed it, care for it, put it to sleep, then it wakes up and you have to feed it again. After repeated feedings in the form of tweaking, sleeping, re-thinking, perhaps it can finally rest.

Aphorisms for Composers – On Process / Procrastination

July 11 – August 6, 2018

I once attended a writing workshop in the early 1990s at which a colleague protested that he could not write “under pressure,” waiting for the last-minute “rush” that he perceived as the habitual preference of his students.

Instead of last-minute motivating pressure, this colleague opted to sleep as well as possible, eat his favorite healthy food, and reserve a place of special comfort in his workroom—all in careful preparation for embarking on the writing process.

Question, though:  does this care represent preparation of procrastination?

For me, the morning starts with manual coffee grinding (electricity would be faster). Boil the water, pour it into the pot with the narrow enough spout; gently pour over grounds. Then I cut up and measure the smoothie ingredients and blend something with enough protein and flavor that one is nourished/satisfied. During this process I’ve already been back and forth to computer, sketchbook, and yoga mat, and piano from the kitchen. Has the work begun? Do those trips to and from the kitchen get me going on my work, or am I distracted by trying to create circumstances for a creative flow? Does the coffee and nutrition help? The stretching and breathing? The testing of phrases between poses near the piano? Then walking the dog and coming back, realizing the walk cleared the way in your mind to get those phrases you touched between pour-over, email response, and ward-off? Are these movements, false starts, or changes of direction all parts of a multi-faceted constitutional that actually dos help creative “progress?” Do the habits one works through at all levels inform the creative patterns used in writing or practicing music? Or are they just avoidances?

August 2, 2018

Does procrastinating by writing about procrastinating cancel out the procrastination, thereby constituting artistic progress?

Aphorisms for Composers – July 2018: Lunes and Fibs

July 29, 2018

Can’t Compose Just Now

              Must need space

              Can’t

              Get it going

              Can’t

              Imagine writing.

July 27, 2018

Composers necessarily live the saying “don’t stop starting.” The empty page beckons; the open mind and ear crave new input; the imagined realization lets performers spring into action…

July 26, 2018

Lunes* About Composing At Night
*[The “lune” is a three-line, syllabic poem-form (“the American Haiku”) created by Robert Kelly, with a variant created by Jack Collom; Kelly Lune is 5-3-5, Collom Lune is 3-5-3.]

Lamplight by window;
Keyboard sounds
New adventure starts

House quiet; cat out;
Sketchbook page
To be filled again.

Putting this to that
With other.
Dark while it happens.

Sundown calm
Internal unrest
Keyboard balm.

Cloud cover.
Moon lurks there somewhere

Keyboard closed.

Humid night
Upper register
Cools front room.

July 24, 2018

Fib* As Instruction for a Composition
*[A “Fib” is a form of syllabic poetry based on the Fibonacci sequence. Most common seems to be the six-line, twenty-syllable Fib: 1-1-2-3-5-8.]

This
That
Other Thing
This That Together
Other Thing, This, That: These
Three things in interplay make plenty of material. (at Apple Hill Fidelio Trio concert)

Sample Questions About Sensation

What is a ‘sharp’ vibration?
How can a ‘touch’ be ‘rounded,’ ‘pointed,’ etc.?
What does ‘unison’ mean? Hands together, people together, sung together, united effort?
How is ‘unison’ different from ‘solo?’

July 21, 2018

While enjoying where you are in the process of forming musical thoughts, you face difficulties with enhanced awareness. “Play with it,” as a colleague just told me. The sense of play will last; you will come back for more.

July 19-20, 2018

Five Fives

Walk; sketch. Discover a place. (July 20, 2018)
Tense spot. Delve further in. (July 20, 2018)
Blank page; think, fill, repeat. (quick description of composing continually; July 19, 2018)
Conceptualize, improvise, solidify, improvise more. (July 19, 2018)
Musical security comes and goes. (July 19, 2018)

July 18, 2018

Composing can be a vibrant illustration of your own never-ending story of trying to get it together (for Rebecca Sacks)

July 17, 2018

Maybe you never met, or only met fleetingly. Yet the time spent composing your memorial music, now that they are gone, is still time spent with the admired person.

July 11, 2018

How about writing preludes to the preludes?

July 9, 2018

The difference between many notes and too many notes is often incredibly small.

Sometimes the piece you’re writing feels like it’s all you’ve got.

July 8, 2018

Things just play themselves in my hands—I don’t know why [variant of an excerpt from A. Platanov’s Soul spoken by the girl Aidym; New York Review Books Classics; 2007]

June 6, 2018

To continually shape a particular rock, you chip away…To grow a plant next to the rock, you water, prune, add or subtract soil and sediment…An attention to texture and consistency rather like involvement in writing music (stacking chords, nurturing melodic shapes, removing excess, and so forth)

July 4, 2018

One gets at the center of a musical notion by hand; on foot; with lungs, back, arms, shoulders. Not as much with extensions like laptops, loudspeakers.

The crunch of a particular chord; the size/shape/sentiment of a melodic curve; a pianist’s varied touch or turn of phrase; the instrumentalist’s restraint or ability to cut loose while exciting the string, gauging airflow through reed or mouthpiece, rumbling or flam-ing with hand or mallet. Do we consider these subtle, everyday musical actions when we think of the vitality of “the arts?” What constitutes the nature of our education as musicians? Keep fine-tuning this question as you continue to ask it.

July 1, 2018

If chords thicken, can they still leave light footprints?

Aphorisms for Composers – June 2018

June 26, 2018

Recurring dreams about going back to school to study composition suggest possibilities. New input? New forms/fashions? New necessities?

June 12-17, 2018

Eights and Nines

Without support, without deferred judgement, new work dies. (June 17, 2018)
Is temperature a musical parameter? Hot, warm, cool, cold? (June 15, 2018)
No matter how remote, bring it to the surface, OR
Thoughts in the deep must come up for air. (June 15, 2018)
Flaws are important; mistakes can work; take stock often. (June 12, 2018)

June 7, 2018

Finding the right sonority in the right rhythm at the right time is almost as satisfying as finding the right footwear. Forward motion is the idea.

June 6, 2019

Doing stuff in order to do stuff takes so much energy that you’re often too tired in the end to actually do the stuff.

Aphorisms for Composers – May 2018

May 31, 2018

If you concentrate on small, important things, does the urge to create spectacle fall away?

May 20, 2018

Dispense with niceties, frills, surface distractions. But retain respect for all attempts at honest expression.

May 17, 2018

Dying strains come back to some kind of life each time they are sung/played.

May 11, 2018

Sometimes writing more music just can’t be helped.

Just when you think you’ve developed your language enough, you realize you have nothing to say. But when the language fails and you can’t quite articulate, ideas sprout anew from your very inability to speak! You are again at the beginning—after all that.

May 10, 2018

One harmony; myriad worlds.

Can there be variety in regularity?

Think about rates of change.

Get the right schwung.

Aphorisms for Composers – April 2018

April 30, 2018

Exercise “textural taste” at all times.

April 18, 2018

Music is not real estate. Composers are not developers. [reaction to a critic stating that a colleague’s new piece was “thin on development”). Ask the question: what is development? Figure out what it means every time you write something new.

You start over every time. Even after hours, weeks, months, years, decades of practice and increasing fluency, does ‘ample technique’ ever make the endeavor easier? Not if each new project leads to new territory where you’ve never been. More experience and more ready technique just up the ante; with more tools you are compelled to build more innovatively. Continue to honor your ability by creating ever-new blank slates.

When working on a big project, with your inching-forward music commanding your attention, days blend together. Non-day in, non-day out. Inspiration can be depressing!