Imitation is the highest compliment mediocrity pays to genius.
Sometime around the year 2000, I found myself with enough leisure time to attempt musical composition. Knowing a lot about the human voice, having rudimentary skills at the piano, and having just enough knowledge about music theory to be dangerous, I chose to compose an “Art Song” as Opus 1.
But where to begin? How to summon my artistic muse? Where to find my creative energy? Like Snoopy, how could I begin to rake black symbols on white paper?
Fortunately, I sought advice from the great American composer, Aaron Copland:
It is very difficult to describe the creative experience in such a way that it would cover all cases. One of the essentials is the variety with which one approaches any kind of artistic creation. It doesn’t start in any one particular way and it is not always easy to say what gets you going.
I’ve sometimes made the analogy with eating. Why do you eat? You’re hungry. You are sort of in the mood to eat, and if you are in the mood to eat, the food tastes better; you’re more interested in what you’re eating. The whole experience is more “creative.” It’s the hunger that stimulates you to eat. It’s the same thing in art; except that, in art, the hunger is the need for self-expression.
Whenever you write, you see, nothing will happen unless the creative fantasy is alive. On the other hand, to be alive with creative fantasy suggests, to me, improvising at the piano. But, if you merely improvise, you might never find your improvisation again. And that’s where coolness comes in. You watch yourself being fiery, or sad, or lonely; otherwise you won’t be able to get it down on paper. Writers probably have this same problem of writing fast enough so that they can get it all down while they are under the spell. You can’t be sure how long it will go on. Outside interruption is definitely out. In music, you have to get it down on score paper. Otherwise, you might forget it… If you go on being fiery all the time, by the time you stop being fiery, you will have lost the whole thing.
My “fire” for Opus 1 came from Come In, a poem by Robert Frost. It’s imagery provided me with ideas about a sound scape, and it’s structure provided musical form.
Come In
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.
-Robert Frost
For me, the mood of Frost's poem is chiaroscuro, and the main theme-impending death. To convey darkness, I chose dissonance and a thin texture; and by contrast, I chose tonal consonance to depict light and optimism. I began my musical puzzle with a harmonic cell that symbolized the call of the thrush.
Then I chose a very exposed, angular vocal melodic line to carry the words. Following the edict that “Imitation is the highest compliment mediocrity pays to genius”, I lifted musical passages from Samuel Barber and Claude Debussy that I associated with specific lines of optimism from Frost’s poem.
The resulting song, also entitled Come In, seemed satisfying to this Tyro, and Snoopy put away his tools.
The premiere of Opus 1 took place on February 11, 2001. Since that time, it has been on a shelf collecting dust. But, here and now, twenty three odd years later, I offer it to you.
Premier performance: C. Patrick Woliver, singer; Jeffrey Wood, pianist
It is perhaps fitting that I conclude with words from Aaron Copland:
The arts in general, I think, help to give significance to life. That’s one of their very basic and important functions. The arts soften man’s mortality and make more acceptable the whole life experience. It isn’t that you think your music will last forever, because nobody knows what’s going to last forever. But, you do know, in the history of the arts, that there have been certain works which have symbolized whole periods and the deepest feelings of mankind, and it’s that aspect of artistic creation which draws one on always, and makes it seem so very significant. I don’t think about this when I write my music, of course, but I think about it after the act, and believe it to be the moving force behind the need to be creative in the arts.
Shortly after Opus 1, I realized that I couldn’t satisfy my creative impulse through musical composition. Now, my hunger is satisfied by writing this blog.
CPW
P.S. Thanks to Laurie Krcmaric who sent me the Snoopy cartoon that was the catalyst for this blog post.