a manifesto of sorts

(As you can see, I’ve been sitting on this one awhile, and after you read it you’ll understand why. Some parts of this may be serious. Some may be satire. I leave it to you to decide which is which.)

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I am a bit preoccupied with musicality.

Trouble is, I don’t really have the vocabulary to explain my thoughts about it. There's a quote by Steve Martin that is apropos: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." And I certainly don’t have the ability to reproduce it yet when I play, which means that when I go off on a rant¹ no one knows what the hell I’m talking about.

This has sometimes led to the following exchange during a lesson:

"I’m having trouble with [insert piece], I need help."

"Okay, let’s hear it. [I play.] It sounds fine to me, what’s the problem?"

"I don’t know! It’s just not right, and I don’t know how to fix it."

"...Right. Let’s move on for now, and we’ll just...come back to that later."

Pete and I had a discussion once, when he was describing a recital that was "so perfect it was boring." My points were 1.) doesn’t that imply that the only way to create musical interest is to make a mistake? And 2.) isn’t boredom an imperfection? In other words, if it was boring, was it really perfect?²

I set my standards high, I know.³ In my practice I’m lucky if I achieve "well, I can’t hear anything wrong," and even if I could reliably reach this tepid form of supposed perfection I couldn’t settle for it. Ultimately I will never match my idea of how I ought to sound. Trying to explain this to others makes me appear slightly unbalanced.

So what is it I want, anyway?

...

I want the audience to be wide-eyed and awestruck. I want to break them and remake them, all in the space of an hour-long concert. I want tears and euphoria and rage and fear. I want people that are passing by, people that don’t even like the trombone, to stop in mid-step when the music starts, and I want them on their knees by the time it finishes. I want to reach straight through their conscious mind into the primal center of their brain, and I want their souls to tremble.

I want to make music that shines so brightly it hurts.

I might possibly be asking too much.⁴

...

See? I have somehow managed to take what should have been a perfectly innocuous discussion of musicality and turn it into the megalomaniacal ramblings of a mad scientist.⁵ I am not sure how this happened. As it stands it reads less like casual entertainment and more like something that would make a psychiatrist raise an eyebrow and reach for the panic button.⁶

I will drive myself crazy trying to achieve this. I can’t learn to settle for what is "good enough," even if it’s good enough to get me a real job.⁷ Instead I will wear though the threadbare fabric of my sanity while sitting in a practice room for hours upon hours, struggling towards an ideal I can’t really describe and can only barely imagine.

No, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Maybe I just need to drink more.

1. (as I am wont to do)[↩]


2. Thanks to all my teachers for putting up with what is clearly obsessive insanity on my part, by the way. Clearly I am not the easiest student, and you all have my profoundest sympathy.[↩]


3. Stop laughing.[↩]


4. Let's not even mention the clichés I've abused here.[↩]


5. I'll show them all, though. Fools.[↩]


6. I don’t actually know that psychiatrists have a secret panic button that summons doctors in white coats to throw you in a straitjacket and carry you off, but it seems like something they ought to have, doesn’t it?[↩]


7. And right now I am so far from this that I shouldn’t even be considering what lies beyond it any time soon.[↩]