In the show, a school class visits the museum to follow up on some lessons taught in school. The teacher announces that final projects are due soon. Theodore wishes for some inspiration and accidentally invokes the nine Muses to his side, each of whom want to inspire him. Theodore is annoyed and wishes them away, but in fact they are not allowed to leave until Theodore IS inspired. Only Theodore can see the Muses, but in due time his sister Thea and his friend Hector also accidentally invoke the Muses. The show is all about finding inspiration in spite of traditional education, while at the same time respecting tradition and finding inspiration in it. (Indeed, respecting tradition is an insight into Theodore’s ultimate creative solution!) And along the way, some really good laughs occur.

Here are several pictures from the show. A DVD has been made and can be ordered by anyone wishing to receive a copy.

Before show rehearsal

Theodore sees the Muses for the first time

Thea sings while the boys study the painting

Theodore and Hector

The Muses explain themselves to Theodore

Calliope: “Use Imagination”

Emily Thompson directing a scene

“It’s All Greek to Me!”

“Life Is Better With A Song”

The final confrontation!

The Company takes bows

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I thought of this years ago after one of my compositions was performed. I thought, “How will I ever top that?” My answer came from Beethoven, when I wondered if he must not have felt, “How will I top the Moonlight Sonata? The Fifth Symphony?” Of course Beethoven did not stop composing, and we have so many more musical riches because of that; I’m sure I need hardly mention the Ninth Symphony, the Appassionata, ¬†and the late quartets.

So it is interesting to read Mr Cuse’s struggle with what to do next, now that “Lost” has wrapped up its run. As he puts it,

…even the most talented among us, after an intense period of work on a project, struggle with the question, “What do I do next?”

Then there’s the typical struggle of wondering

…what, if anything, would get me excited to go back to work.

My answer has always been to keep writing, no matter what. Keep the creative habit going. Eventually you will find, as Mr. Cuse does here, that inspiration comes when least expected and in the strangest of places.

The full article can be found by clicking here.

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And what I mean is: what do I want to leave my audience with? Do I want to leave them happy, sad, excited, what?

This might help you get your composing pencil moving.

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At Central School

This past Halloween season I presented a lecture and demonstration to young grade schoolers at Central School in East Hanover, NJ. The subject was how the literary tradition of the heroic quest can be found in the music of Beethoven.

I presented the lecture six times in a row to different visiting classes — you teachers out there know how it is!

A special thanks to all the students who asked such interesting questions (“Where does inspiration come from?” “How long does it take to write a piece of music?” etc.) and to my host, Emily Thompson Schweer.

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Consider a piano trio, for instance. Obviously, one can “set” the violin high, “set”¬†the cello low, and have the piano fill in the mid-range. And yet, think of the different colors achieved in the piano’s left hand is very low, the piano’s right hand very high, with the strings taking the middle register. Or if all three instruments are in similar regions.

Of course, common sense must be used with dynamics to insure that nothing is lost “in the mix!”

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For instance, here’s Murphy’s Laws of Songwriting, including this bit about aiming your songs especially to an audience of women. The idea is that men sing songs for women, and women sing songs for women. It’s much more rare in popular music that songs are sung especially for men. So why not do what’s popular?

One can argue this point, of course (“Hey Jude”?), but for the sake of the argument, I’ll take this at face value, because it really got my curiosity going.

Compose for…whom exactly?

Gendered perspectives of classical music has been a hot topic in the last 3–4 decades. I am reminded of Fred Maus’s excellent article, “Masculine Discourse in Music Theory,” which argues (amongst other points) that one reason music became so theory-based in the twentieth century was to be more scientific and less “feminine.” Male composers wanted to appear masculine for their colleagues. (See Perspectives of New Music,¬†Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 264–293)

I wonder if there is anything to all this. I also wonder what is would sound like if I wrote for just a female audience only… or just a male audience! A little thought exercise that might lead to something.

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Last week I was quite sick and I just could not get up in the morning to get my daily hour of composing in. I’ve lost an entire week, and I’m on a deadline with scores due in March for a new commission. But I had to give myself permission to get better and make that a priority, and so I did.

Now today I feel much better, and you know what? I couldn’t see the importance of getting out of bed to compose! I had totally gotten out of the habit. Fortunately I was able to guilt myself out of bed, and I ended up taking my work in progress in a surprising new direction.

The trick is that even if you don’t feel inspired, if you are too tired, or you don’t like the work you are doing, or even if you only get one or two measures written, you’ve got to have that habit of creativity every day. Stick with it; it’s important!

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Robert Stolarik for The New York Times

My friend Haim Avitsur participated in a performance of “Orbits” for 80 trombones, soprano, and organ. (Haim was not the soprano, and he doesn’t play the organ!) The piece is by Henry Brant (1913–2008) and was performed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.

In a New York Times review of the concert, the critic Anthony Tomassini writes that Brant

…regarded space as the fourth dimension of music, along with pitch, time and timbre.

As you can see from the picture, the space of the Guggenheim is quite an evocative arena to make use of space as a compositional element! I have argued in my audio podcast that the “missing element” of music is form, but I thought I would toss this in — space — as another possible element of music for composers to consider experimenting with.

The post Another element of music? appeared first on Richard D. Russell.

But the voice I hear is always a classically trained voice.  The voice, of course, is capable of so much more than just singing in an operatic way. It can coo, hum, shout, talk, growl, soothe, howl, and whisper.

In classical music, of course, there is Sprechstimme. And there are some wild avant-garde pieces for voice as well. Still, I think rock music (or punk or soul, etc.) tends to explore much more of what the voice can do than does classical music. It’s good to stretch your boundaries from time to time.

Just something to think about when you start writing your next vocal piece.

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Andrew Bird

Ultimately, I think that writing about music is a deliberate act and has nothing to do with creating music. The latter is mostly an involuntary response to being alive.

He also writes:

I think we’ve all got a well that can be tapped and there follows the sort of sequencing or curating of one’s own ideas.

There’s some truth to this. I mull it over when I write about music. I deliberate over each word.

I do this when I write music, too, but my first instinct when composing is to just get it out. You should curate your ideas and collect them. It’s better not to edit yourself as as you go along. (As opposed to writing words, where I do edit as I go along.) The idea when writing music is to let the inspiration carry you, involuntarily, to where you need to go! Besides, you can always edit later, after all!

You can read Andrew Bird’s comments, along with several other songwriters, at this New York Times blog for songwirters.

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