08 March 2008

Living, Learning

Mein Camera ist kaputt. Schade. =( So it'll have to be just stories this time.

CHAPPELL ON ICE
Now, I've only been ice skating about five times in my life, with a few years elapsing between each venture, so that every time I go, I have to cling to the walls most of the time. (It's just like learning to ride a bike - once you learn, you'll never forget; so if you never learn, you'll never remember.) But Rosalind is a good skater, and really wanted me to come along. So I figured it would be good to try again, and might even be fun.

We set off for the Rathaus (town hall), the same site of one of the major Christmas Markets a few months ago, now home to three enormous outdoor ice rinks. We rented skates - it's hard to look cool while walking around on skates, but everyone tries anyway - and I headed straight to the kiddie rink. The average age of this rink was about four, and even the four-year-olds could skate circles around me, that is, if I hadn't been next to the wall the whole time. But it was just the right place for me, and I'm really pleased to report that during the course of two hours, I progressed from clutching the wall to skating on my own two feet, navigating my way around the kids and passing the two-year-olds!

They have these really cute toys for the little ones: penguin dolls that are about the same size and weight as a small child, with handles protruding from their backside, so you grab on and slowly push it forward and let it pull you, without fear of falling down. There was no adult-sized version, however - the other adults in there were also wall-walking for a while.

Rosalind had a marvelous time skating - they had a neat setup with a long and twisting walkway ("skateway"?) connecting two large rinks. Like so many other special events in Vienna, stands selling drinks, food, and desserts had popped up overnight, so we enjoyed a bowl of pumpkin soup. The other thing to mention is the music - over the loudspeakers they were broadcasting a great mix of 50's doo-wop, classic rock, and even (finally!) some German-language pop songs, including one that sounded like it was specifically about Vienna. Rosalind said the soundtrack took her all the way back to middle school dances - great fun.

THOUGHTS FROM A DEVELOPING COMPOSER
I'm spending a lot of time composing. That was the whole idea, of course, but even so, I'm amazed to be writing music six days a week, at least four hours a day - and as much as ten hours a day when I have a lesson coming up. So what am I actually doing?

Thinking of concepts — Imagining music in my head — Trying out ideas on the keyboard — Writing things down — Forming small ideas into longer phrases and sections — Discovering how the piece will go — Revising my concepts — Entering the music into the computer — Revising every detail many, many, many times

I've composed a lot in the past twelve years, but there are a few new challenges I'm facing this year which are taking a tremendous amount of time and energy to understand and work with. One is to come up with material which is really new, which is unique and different than what I've done before, and perhaps even different than anything I've heard before. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've found any 100% new ideas, but I have come across a few regions which are largely unexplored. For example, I'm currently writing a piece for solo percussionist on five instruments (marimba, vibraphone, cymbal, triangles, and temple blocks) where the player hits every part of his/her instruments, including the stands, the resonators, and the frames, which give an interesting variety of "clicks" and "pings". The piece explores the concept of how opposing worlds combine, primarily how unpitched percussive sounds can blend and interact with pitched notes, as one continuum. And in other pieces, I've found that there's still so much to explore in areas of harmony (finding and working with new chords) and rhythmic freedom (getting beyond notational or musical conventions). Leonard Bernstein said in a lecture that the possibilities of music are truly infinite - and I would add that although it was true when he said it, it's even more true today, with the new worlds offered by electronic sounds, and the discoveries of new sounds from familiar instruments (from composers like Helmut Lachenmann).

Another new challenge I'm facing is to put a lot more active thought into my composing. In the past, I've treated composition as a primarily intuitive activity, with the only guiding principle being: "If it sounds good, do it." This often worked well, as I think many of my pieces have had a high level of quality and imagination. But a year or two ago, I started to feel that I'd reached a plateau, that my composing was good but not as amazing as I hoped it would be. I felt that my limitations of technique and my habits were no longer enough to serve my imagination, to capture the mindblowing music that I could occasionally hear snatches of in my head.

Try it yourself - if you have music playing as you read this, turn it off for a minute. Get to a place where there are no distracting sounds. Close your eyes and imagine a music that swirls around, leaping and soaring, wild and free. You could think of a flute, an orchestra, choral voices, a piano, an electric guitar, electronic sounds, or anything you like. What do you hear? [I encourage you to post a comment or send me an email if you'd like to share your experience!]

Sometimes I do this freely as a kind of meditation, and frequently I do this when coming up with material for a new piece. The challenge is how to really channel this imagination, this unfettered flow of musical ideas, into a single piece at a time, without surging off into unrelated areas. My intellect tries to keep up with my imagination, to transcribe what I hear, but it's a lot like watching an incredible dancer and trying to mimic their moves - your own body can't do it as well, and also they don't listen to you if you ask them to go back and repeat something more slowly!

So here's the difficulty - I'm now trying to improve my critical-thinking skills in order to make better use of this spontaneous invention. The goal is to get my left-brain and my right-brain to work closer together. And I have a slightly different guiding principle in mind: "If it sounds good, keep searching; if it sounds amazing, go with it!" Sitting down and writing notes is easy for me, but writing something really powerful, really original and unique and alive - that takes a different kind of focus and expectation. It helps to have some stimulating concepts in mind, such as the blend of unpitched and pitched worlds for my percussion solo, because these concepts become a fertile starting point for my imagination, and get me to try things which otherwise wouldn't occur to me. It takes a lot of wrong turns and dead-ends and frustrations, a lot of time spent on sketches which get thrown out the next day and concepts that don't prove fruitful - but all of this is part of the learning process, and it does eventually get me to some music that I'm really happy with and excited by.

I hope this has given you a deeper picture of what I'm actually doing as a composer. And now, a lighter story to leave you with - a sort of sequel to September's "Run-In at the Laundromat"…

RUN-IN AT THE LIBRARY
Making copies is very cheap in America. Here, not so much. The standard price at neighborhood shops (as I found out the hard way) is between 15-20 euro-cents per page. Ah, but the library sells copy cards for 10 euros which let you make a staggering 250 copies, at a cost of only 4 euro-cents/page! So I bought one of these a few months ago, wrote my initials on it, and used it many times, maybe 3 euros worth. This copy card had little warning icons it, you know, "Do Not Bend", "Keep Away From Magnets & Pregnant Women", and so on. Well, wouldn't you know, it ended up touching my magnetic wallet at one point.

So I go to the library one day and find, alas, the copy machines will no longer speak to the card. It has become a demagnetized good-for-nothing, an outcast. I pondered my case and decided that seven euros was too much to just throw away, so I would speak to the library clerk and ask for a refund, or maybe a new 5-euro card (close enough). This particular clerk is also in charge of the Garderobe (the coat-check). So I approached him and explained the situation, in my halting German. He was not friendly about it, and as we walked towards a copy machine so he could test it for himself, he noticed that there was writing on the card. I said yes, I wrote on it. His demeanor went from "not friendly" to "outraged" (seriously, it did) as he scolded me, "Du musst NICHT ausschreiben!" (I thought it was a disposable card - but I guess they must reuse them, so it was my mistake.) He puts the card in the machine, it gives its helpful message "CARTE DEFEKT", and he tells me that I'll need to buy a new card.

Here's the heart of the story. I had to choose immediately between a few options. I could argue with him; I could buy a new card; I could come back on a day when someone else might be working there; or I could be quiet and appeal to his sense of generosity, if it existed. I chose the latter.

Quietly, I followed him back to the Garderobe and waited while he helped another customer with her coat. I didn't say anything, I didn't give him any pleading looks, I just stood around and waited. Now it was up to him to make the next move. After a minute, he asks me when I bought the card - and then I know he's coming around. I reply, and then he opens up a drawer and pulls out a new card. And not a five - a ten! He hands it to me, growling "RRRaRaRRRR!" or something - the meaning was clear: "I'm being nice to you THIS TIME, so DON'T write on it and DON'T demagnetize it and DON'T screw it up!!"

It's just an anecdote, I know, and it was just a small amount of money. But I find it so amazing that after scolding me and telling me that he wouldn't help me, this man decided to do something nice for me. I'm quite sure that if we had argued, I would have walked away empty-handed, and we both would have had an unpleasant encounter. But instead, I got to see him as a person with a tough exterior and a kind heart.

I guess I'm learning a lot this year, in more areas than music. I wish you all plenty of happiness and learning...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love this story. Carl and I have had similar experiences, especially at airports and hotels where harried workers seem to meet a lot of dissatisfied customers. Our patience and quiet approach have netted us the best they had to offer, unexpected generosity. It's a great life lesson.

Anonymous said...

I will try the musical meditation next time I am sitting in the quiet place where I like to think and see what I hear in my head. This kind of mental free play happens to me sometimes when I am driving but usually with spacial relationship ideas related to my own artwork. (One never knows where the Muse will take you.)

Great story also about the copy card, patience and persistence and humility.