Sonic War

Creating music has its upsides and downsides.  Doing something you love is always, always worthwhile, but sometimes it can become a bit overbearing.  The creative process is so different for everybody that it’s difficult to nail down the most worthwhile part of it.  The rewards are great, the frustrations are greater, and the feeling of making manifest something that at one point existed only in your mind is overwhelming at times. In order to create anything, though, you need to challenge yourself to try new things and not be afraid of losing anything. The physical strains of music will take their toll as well, but it’s important to keep going.

I’ve always been very self-concious about my voice… I’ve always been afraid to fail. This morning I sang for the voice department’s weekly vocal forum. Instead of singing a Handel or a Chausson, though, I had a piece written by friend and fellow Miami composer Charlotte Loflin prepared.  As it was pretty much the world premiere of the piece, I was free to interpret it how I wanted… and interpret I did. The song is called “How to Die” and chronicles a dying soldier’s final thoughts. In my opiniotn, the most important thing for the first peformance of any new piece isn’t vocal production. The most important thing is to get the text across, to make the audience feel the way the composer wants them to feel. Normally when I sing, I’m not the most expressive physically, but during this piece I felt obligated to reach out and SHOW the audience what I was singing about. My arms flailed wildlyI looked the the sky when warplanes passed overhead and smiled, and I clutched the gaping bullet wound in my chest. After this fairly overdone bout of acting, I left the stage having performed the piece to the best of my abilities. The reaction from the audience was overwhelming. More people than I can count told me that it sounded like “I really loved the piece,” and some went as far as to say that it was the best I had ever sung. Needless to say, I was elated and extremely grateful for these compliments… Involving myself in the moment, not caring if I screwed up and challenging myself to fall in love with the music led to one of the best performances of my college career, and I’m happy with it.

Duende, as lord Wikipedia describes it, is “the spirit of evocation. It comes from inside as physical/emotional response to music. It is what gives you chills, makes you smile or cry as a bodily reaction to an artistic performance that is particularly expressive.“  This definition, while one of many, describes perfectly how a composer thinks.  I have experienced this feeling when looking for texts for new music and finding a particularly perfect one, I have felt it when my own music reveals something in its sounds that I didn’t purposefully write, and even when practicing with Schallkrieg, I feel inspired to raise my horns in salute to metal.  It’s a particularly intense feeling, especially when your creativity flows in bursts instead of a steady stream.  On Tuesday while working on a new piece, I was so deeply involved, even in love with the music that I didn’t notice anything around me. Tunnel vision developed and I forgot about all of my other worries in life. I spent three hours writing eight measures of solo piano. I tweaked, I flirted, I obsessed over single notes and how they lined up with the following and preceeding notes.  When all of a sudden, I hit “Save” and instead the program inexplicably closed, I was furious. I was broken from my creative peace, and I was thrown into a rage.  I threw things, I cursed wildly at my computer, and had to leave the room in order to regain my cool.  There is nothing more painful in this life than losing someone you love, and that is exactly what it felt like.  The lesson here is that the connection between your creativity and your actual physical state goes far deeper than you would suspect.  The next time you’re load up your iTunes, play that one piece that gives you chills every single time you hear it.  There’s a reason for this – your body is physically reacting to the images in your mind; the composer’s love of music and calculated tweaking has manifested itself as a primal response in the listener.  This the price that we pay for our creativity. We can control the music or art that comes out on the page, but we cannot control the evocation of our own emotions.  If you can’t fall in love with your creations because you’re afraid to fail, or to lose it, your art will have no meaning.

Recently, I’ve fallen in love with a Japanese Show that has been imported to America and aired on the unbearably awful G4 network called Ninja Warrior. After its humble beginnings in a small convention center around ten years ago, this show has grown to be one of Japan’s premier athletic events. It consists of one hundred athletes taking on an incredibly difficult obstacle course in competition only against themselves. There have only ever been two men to complete the entire course (both fishermen, strangely enough).  The atmosphere on Mt. Midoriyama where the contest is held is one of honor, respect, and support for your competition.  People have devoted their entire lives to besting this obstacle course because of its immense difficulty and the prestige that accompanies winning.

What does any of this have to do with music?

All of these athletes challenge themselves day after day, training on painstakingly crafted replicas of the course in their backyards. Others train 300 days out of the year on fishing boats or in the wild. They devote themselves entirely to the pursuit of this goal, and they fall in love with what they do. They are not afraid of taking on the course and losing, because even the all-stars fail constantly. The rewards are great, the frustrations are greater, and the feeling of completing an obstacle that exists only in your mind is overwhelming.  I draw a lot of strength from these men and women who constantly strive for perfection, and challenge themselves to fall in love with their craft.

For just a little taste, I’ve included a few videos of G4 American Ninja Warrior Challenge winner Levi Meeuwenberg taking on the Ninja Warrior obstacle course. Note: Do not watch this show intoxicated. You will spend the entire run saying nothing but “HOLY SHIT, THAT’S SO FUCKING HARD” and annoying everybody around you.

Lessons learned: Remember to challenge yourself creatively, mentally, and physically, and don’t be afraid to fail every now and then…

-Kevin