Showing Your Work

Sketch and “map” for Mvt. VII.

 

When I began this blog a few years back, I always intended to make it about more than my creativity in the kitchen.  For the next 50 days, I will primarily be posting about composing music (with hopefully a delectable picture of a luscious meal or two).  I’ve been working on a piece for nearly three years, and it’s time to pull it from the constant loop of my brain and place it to rest on paper.  Don’t get me wrong; I have been working on it – I swear!  I have several notebooks full of musical sketches and research.  I have multiple first attempts at sections, but only about 1/5 completed.  So, I’ve set a due date – June 15th, 2014.

In the meantime, I’ve been reading Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon; a lovely, quick read!  In it, he suggests putting your work “out there”, so I’ll be posting photos and some audio (eventually) concerning my new “requiem” for full orchestra, chorus, and cantor based on the wonderful poem The Last Matinee by John Nizalowski.  The piece is in seven movements; over the past few months, I have hobbled away time to complete Movement VI (though greatly in need of a rewrite), and have large portions of Mvts. I and II completed.  Today, I completed Mvt. VII: “In Buddha’s temple I break forth…” (for double chorus, humming bowl, djimbe, and cantor).  Here’s a couple shots of the completed score.

Enjoy 🙂

Being a Bad Artist

Writing through Lunch - Fortunately, I always keep some carrot/ginger soup in stock; I whipped up a quick two cheese quesadilla on 96%-fat-free whole wheat tortillas. Yum!

Today was a lovely day spent writing and reading and listening.  I sketched the intro for movement III of my new seven movement adaptation, having completed sketches for the introductions of I & II yesterday.  I read about Quetzalcoatl, Ashoka, symbolism in gravestone carvings, and counterpoint theory.  I listened to Corigliano’s Symphony #1 “Of Rage and Remembrance” from beginning to end.  I watched a delightful documentary on AETN about my wonderful former professor Dr. Francis McBeth who passed away on Friday.

I’ve been so fortunate to be in a great mental place lately making it easy to write.  While I know that it is brought on partly by the leisure time that Winter Break has allowed me, I actually think it has more to due with two other factors – blogging and painting.

Over dinner tonight, I was telling my friend Kathleen (El Tapatio, her first time; awesome meal, great discussion!) that I feel like blogging allows me to “brain dump”.  It accomplishes for me the same as “Morning Pages” from Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way.  The blog allows me to get all the loose thoughts in my head organized and OUT so that I can get to the creative materials.  Painting helps me find artistic freedom.  I didn’t even know that I didn’t have artistic freedom before I started painting last summer.  But when I put forth my creativity in a medium that held know gravity for me – pure child’s play – I saw the absurdity behind worrying about final product before even starting the process.

And for the past six months I have continually asked, “What does this mean for my composing?”

I think it means everything to composing. And acting.  And singing.  And pottery.  And dance.  And pet portraiture.  At the base of all these “art forms” is “child play” – the essence of creativity.  And like a child, I have to be able to enter into art fearless of the outcome and uncertain of praise.  I have to simply paint, sing, write to get it out.

Julia Cameron said it best (and I say it ad nauseum to my own students):

“Remember that in order to recover as an artist, you must be willing to be a bad artist.  Give yourself permission to be a beginner.  By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one….Creativity is an act of faith, and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.”

Thank for participating in my daily “brain dump”. I’m so glad that y’all are enjoying it; I certainly am!

from A Year with Hafiz by Daniel Landinsky