Composing Emergency Reminders

While it is harder to get out for walks during daylight hours with the time change, it’s been wild to see how early sunset begins in this region of the country—this gorgeous sunset was photographed at 4:30 in the afternoon!

I’ve been meaning to share these for awhile. For a long time, I’ve kept a running list of helpful reminders and strategies to use when I’m feeling stuck. Whether I’m just tired in the face of an impending deadline, feeling anxious about the piece I’m working on, or feeling suddenly insignificant and meaningless when faced with the vast world of amazing music that already exists, this list has anchored me during some of my worst spin-outs.

While this list may not prove useful to everyone, I do hope it provides some comfort or direction to some other arts-making person too!

1) You can’t edit a blank canvas

Write pages of crap - even if you delete it all later, you have taken an important step in the creative process: creating something! I dare you try and write the worst thing imaginable - what is the worst possible music you can make right now? Even doing that is better than nothing. Write crap, but write something.

2) Protect your time

If working towards your deadline needs to be a priority right now, make it known. Let your loved ones you need some space to focus on your work. Put your phone in a different room. Answer emails the next day - there is nothing so urgent that it can’t wait a single day. Right now it is YOUR time to get some creative work done, and you have the right to affirm that and keep it sacred.

3) You’ve been stuck before! Retrace your steps

Remember what worked! You’ve gotten through tough pieces before with strategies like these:

• listening to other music

• study a score

• take a walk and breathe; clean out your ears and come back to the piece fresh

• write the opposite of what you think the piece should be; then you can go back and figure out what it is

• use a generative device or game - what ridiculous rule can you set for yourself to follow? (more on this process to come in a future blog!)

• draw a picture of what it should sound like

• make a sound bank - narrow down some sounds you actually want to use and draw from those

• use “old” material from other pieces - what new way can you use them in this piece?

• map out what you already have to get a bigger picture; what’s missing? What still needs to happen before the piece can end? Have you been staying in the same key or tempo too long? (more on this process to come in a future blog!)

• Read some one else’s advice! Poke through YouTube videos to see if someone’s extended technique provides a sound to inspire the first/next section; read Dale Trumbore’s Staying Composed again; read through some articles on New Music Box or I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. Does an art-maker you respect have a blog/newsletter/interview about their writing? Go look and see what they’re doing.

You don’t need a lot to start writing; the perfect equipment is often just a pencil and some paper.

4) Clear your mental desk

• write out your other worries and to-do’s and put that list in another room while you work

• keep your phone and tablet in another room

• stay offline

• do some breathing exercises to refocus

• focus only on your own voice (for me, I often get overwhelmed when I start imagining other people’s reactions to what I’m doing in a piece—former teachers, colleagues, the commissioner, the audience, etc. When this happens, I try to ask myself: Now that we’ve heard from all of the other parties, what do I think?)

5) There’s always time to make changes - even if it’s after the premiere

(This may be it’s own blog entry someday, but here’s an abridged version) You are alive! Living and breathing! You could wake up after the premiere and decide to change every key and tempo and take out an entire section to replace it with a kazoo and boomwhacker duo. If there isn’t time to really workshop the piece and make edits, do what work you can before it premieres (I sometimes frame this as: this premiere is lab-time; a time where I can see what works in the context of a live performance and what really doesn’t). The premiering ensemble may have notes for you to consider afterwards even if it’s a great piece—so give yourself permission to see this work as ever-evolving and open to change.

6) Your failures are not exceptional

Lots and lots and lots of composers write bad pieces (many of which are still performed regularly!) or have a terrible premiere or lose face to an ensemble they really wanted to show up well for. Some composers—including ones I deeply respect—go through years at a time without producing anything for the public or for themselves. These are normal, natural struggles for a creative person to go through. You don’t need to feel alone in that struggle.

7) It’s just music; the stakes are not that critical

My work “Interplay” has undergone several changes since it’s initial premiere at the Dallas Contemporary—the second performance pictured here (at the same venue) included dance by the Bruce Wood Dance ensemble, and I was much happier with this performance than I was at the premiere. It has also undergone changes in subsequent performances—and it remains one of my most programmed pieces!

Music is probably one of the most important things in my life after my loved ones. I really don’t know what I would do if I wasn’t connected to music-making in some way. So I understand that it will sometimes feel like my entire universe will collapse in, everyone will hate me and my music, I will never be allowed to make music the way I want again, or that I may turn off an ensemble or collaborator from new music all together if this one piece or project or set of pieces doesn’t go well, but…when you say it outloud, as all-consuming and ingrained as that feeling may be, it’s easy to see it’s just not true. We can be so afraid of people not liking our work, but—at the end of the day—a “good” piece will always be a lot more effective and influential than a “bad” one. The stakes are not high; if the music is bad, it lasts only minutes to the listener.

And let’s remember to have fun, as well!

Wrap-Up

Whether you are feeling stuck, anxious, unmotivated, or overwhelmed, I hope at least one of these “emergency reminders” has helped you in some way. Do you have a phrase or reminder or strategy that’s not listed here you’re willing to share? Let me know in the comments below! I’d love to hear from you.

In the meantime, happy art-making!