In my last Interlude, I discussed my recent semi-annual visit to my psychiatrist. I look at that post now and realize some of what I wrote is rather snobbish and, perhaps, a bit arrogant. Let me pick up a few of the over-arching threads in this series and use them to draw this entire cycle of posts to a conclusion.
First and foremost, I’d like to discuss why I have such a knee-jerk gut reaction to discussions of music on a purely emotional level. For those of you who have not read my blog post Snake-Pancake-Ball, where I use a metaphor to discuss the compositional process, I would encourage you to read it before continuing.
Whenever I tell nonmusicians that I write music, their eyes go wide and they tell me that writing music is a very cool thing to do. Most of these people exclaim, “Oh, I could never do that!” and then proceed to tell me that, as a child, their parents made them play the flute or trumpet or piano and they really hated it and quit. Quickly following this is a wistful confession of how they wished they had continued playing. From here, they ask me: What kind of music do I write? and Who or what do I listen to? I try to tell them about composers I really like that they’ve probably never heard of before or about genres of music turning me on now that they have no idea exist. This used to make me very angry. Now it makes me sad because it is extremely difficult to express my true artistic feelings and interests to these people.
So I tell these people, “I like Beethoven.” And I do, I really appreciate and enjoy Beethoven the more I study his music. But his music has become entangled with popular culture and the “sound” of Beethoven is something everyone can easily relate to. The usual response I hear about Beethoven is that, they, too love Beethoven. They tell me his music is passionate and dramatic. They own a CD or two of his. So I ask, “What about Beethoven’s music is so passionate and dramatic?” The answer I receive almost always boils down to one thing: it makes them FEEL drama. It makes them FEEL like there’s passion in it. I want to ask them exactly WHY it makes them feel a certain way but these people are hard pressed to come up with a reason. The music JUST DOES make them feel that way.
This conversational impasse is my fault and I accept full blame. The people I’ve described above come from all walks of life, education levels, and socioeconomic backgrounds. They aren’t stupid and I’d been treating them like they were idiots because they did not try to understand me. I’ve come to the following conclusion: I need to make a better effort to bridge the gap between myself, the “academic” musician, and the general public. I need to find a way to express my musical interests to nonmusicians who don’t share the same background that I do. I need to find a way to express new musical ideas to the general public in a way that’s informative, interesting, and absolutely not condescending. And I have to be prepared to meet nonmusicians who love music and have interesting ideas from which I can learn.
In my previous posts, I’ve discussed my own battles with cyclothymia, a mood disorder similar to manic depression. From my own experiences, I’ve seen how sometimes my own feelings betray me. How, sensing a manic or depressive episode coming on, I have to think about my actions to see if what I’m doing is really warranted by my external circumstances or if I’m being over-controlled by my internal, out-of-whack emotions. In short, I’ve tried to separate the rational and non-rational thinking processes in my mind. In musical terms, I try to feel the passion of Beethoven’s music while also analyzing the structure and thematic development. I want to be overjoyed by the chorale finale of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony and analytically bewildered at his radical departure from traditional form. I want the “balanced life” the ancient Greeks espoused. I want to be in awe of the magician, to learn how his trick worked AND marvel at his stage craft. I want a Rational Life.
Counter to my desires is the general public perception that we artists and musicians are flighty people. We live on another planet. We write or paint or sculpt with magical inspiration that comes out of the sky and winds up on the page or canvas. Many people do not understand the hard work that goes into the act of creation, that the creation of an artistic work is a tangible skill. To make the assumption that music is only a vehicle for emotional expression is to deny the very skill we musicians spend our lives cultivating. It is a craft honed over many years of hard work. This work can take many forms including instrumental practice, critical listening, or writing/rewriting a score. Also, artist’s mental state is not necessarily conveyed in the work or performance they create. People make the same mistake with actors assuming that the actors ARE the characters and feelings they portray on stage.
I’d like to conclude this post with the strategy I use when confronted with manic/depressive episodes and hope this may be of help to others. My process involves two simple words: WHY and THINK. I ask myself: Why do I feel this way about X? Why did X happen? And then I THINK. If I cannot come up with a good reason WHY then perhaps my feeling needs to be examined. It’s extremely easy for me to lapse into emotional, gut-level reactions and I cannot tell you how many times that has gotten me into trouble. If someone did something and made me angry, it’s very easy to act on that anger. It’s much more difficult to figure out WHY the person did what they did. These two words, WHY and THINK, now saturate my day to day living as well as my own music composition and research processes. While some might think that I’m hindering my creative impulses by analyzing my thoughts in detail, I can tell that I’d rather live this way than in an unfiltered emotional roller-coaster. The fact that I can still ask WHY and THINK let’s me know that I’m still in control of my own mental faculties.

