Get your own Free Home PageOne of the oldest arguments in the world is the question of what constitutes good music, or, for that matter, what music is. There will probably never be a general agreement on this question, but there is one thing that virtually everyone agrees upon--that music is meant to be shared. Although a solitary person may amuse, entertain, or console himself with his own private music, it is a difficult thing to keep to oneself. Inevitably, someone else will hear the music and want to join in, either actively or passively. In either case, the music is no longer a solitary exercise, but a shared experience.
Is there, however, such a thing as music that is silent, something that no one will notice unless their attention is drawn to it? As a composer, I can give you a definitive "yes" to this question. The vast majority of the music I create exists only in my mind until someone performs it. (It doesn't really "exist" on paper; notation is just a "code" that a musician follows to interpret the composer's thoughts.) Therefore, the music I write cannot be shared until I go out and compel someone to look at it. Here is where the problem begins, for "compelling" another person to do anything has always been contrary to my nature, particularly when it comes to sharing what amounts to some very personal expressions of feeling. Here I would like to relate some of my struggles and triumphs in my quest to share the music.
I have loved music ever since I was a small child, but when I was very young the distinction between "beauty", "music", and "symmetry" was blurred. I held a deep appreciation for each, but saw them as a nebulous whole rather than separate elements. When I was in first grade, we learned arithmetic by playing with little wooden rods of different sizes and colors, each representing a number between one and ten. The rods were of proportionate lengths; the rod representing "one" was a tiny cube, the one representing "two" was twice as long as the first, and so on. During one play period, I experimented with the rods, arranging them in groups of two so that each group totaled ten. Thus, the first group consisted of a "one" rod and a "nine" rod, the second was a "two" and an "eight", the third "three" and "seven", and so on. When I had gone through all the rods, I put them all together in a square. The result was a symmetrical pattern of different colored rods with a jagged diagonal line running from one corner to the other. I was stunned by the beauty of what I had created; for a moment I could only stare at it. Finally, I decided I had to share this with someone. In the midst of play-time turmoil, I went and found my friend Martin, asking him excitedly to follow me and look at this wondrous creation. In my jubilation, I failed to notice that Martin wasn't following me as I returned to my desk. Normally very quiet and reserved, I was practically shouting as I ecstatically described the arrangement of rods to the person I assumed was standing behind me. "See?" I cried. "One and nine is ten, two and eight is ten, three and seven is ten..." As I continued, I failed to notice that the teacher, a Catholic nun who I greatly respected and loved, had called the classroom to order, and all the other children had quietly returned to their seats. Abruptly, I became aware that my voice was echoing in a silent classroom. I froze, and for a moment no one spoke. Then the teacher smirked and said, "Now we know who makes all the noise in the class!"
My excitement turned immediately to burning humiliation as the classroom dissolved into laughter. Possibly, the teacher had meant it as gentle chiding, but to me it was the cruelest taunt imaginable. From that moment on, I was assured of my relative worth in the classroom-- until that point, I thought that at least some of my classmates liked me; now, I was convinced otherwise. Worse still, the wondrous beauty and symmetry I experienced that day would be forever linked with crushing shame and humiliation.
A few years later, I was assigned to write a paper describing a battle won by Alexander the Great, from the viewpoint of Alexander himself. At first, I was overjoyed at the opportunity to create something like this. Using archaic speech patterns and bold, noble rhetoric, I could really see myself recreating Alexander's world on paper. I went over and over the text in my mind before I ever tried to write it down, growing more and more excited as I planned my literary masterpiece. However, when I sat down to write, and I saw the words in my childish, scribbly handwriting, I realized for the first time that others would see this work. It wasn't just something I could keep to myself and enjoy, but something to be read and criticized by others. "Who does he think he is?" I imagined them saying. "He's pretending to be talented and eloquent, and he's just a snot-nosed kid!" The pain of my previous humiliation haunted me, and I decided to "tone down" my paper, simplifying the prose in a manner more fitting for a ten-year old boy. The fine narrative I originally envisioned would never see the light of day.
A few years later I auditioned for the high school choir. This seemed an ideal outlet for my need to express myself musically; with so many others singing I would not be noticed. However, I learned to my horror that the choir director required students to sing alone in practice, so he could critique the work of each individual. At first, this was an impenetrable obstacle for me, but my desire to make music was strong enough to risk sharing my voice with others. Two years into high school, I began to make my first attempts to write music. Here, I encountered a new problem: What good is this music if no one can hear it? First of all, I didn't know how to play the piano, so I would have to ask someone else to play it. Second, and more important, I had no idea if the music I wrote down would sound anything like what I had imagined. What if I got the nerve up to ask someone to play my music, and it turned out to be a horrible cacophony? (Not an ungrounded fear. See Scrapped Works.) Privately, I felt I had great talent and could really create something worth hearing. Publicly, I was faced with the same old fears of sharing something very special to me and having it soundly rejected.
One day, I brought my sketches of the 1979 Overture, a work in progress, to school. During lunch, I timidly approached a fellow choir member as she practiced on the piano in the choir room, asking her to play my piece. She agreed, but played only the first few notes before stopping to give me a lecture on notation. My note heads were too big and unwieldy, she said, and my treble clef was drawn backwards. She then said, "Here, let me play you some music I wrote." My heart sank as I saw that my worst fears had been realized. Perhaps, I thought, I was not as talented as I thought I was. Who was I kidding? This girl, and many others like her, had studied music since early childhood. I was just a charlatan pretending to have special abilities. Feeling utterly miserable, I took back the manuscript, folded it neatly, and threw it the trash.
(Fortunately for posterity, I must have gone back and retrieved it, for I still have the sketches today.)
The next year I began my first formal instruction in Music Theory. My choir director taught the class, which consisted of about four or five people. Although I had been warned that this class was extremely difficult to pass, I found that I had no problem maintaining a near-perfect grade. In fact, I went out and bought an additional text on music theory because I felt the class was moving too slowly. This success began to convince me once again that I had a talent for composition, and I decided to study it when I went to college the next year.
My parents, teachers, and acquaintances were all agreed on one thing: This was a bad idea. What would I do for a living? Did I want to be a pauper the rest of my life? If I was so good at writing music, why did I need to study it, anyway? I shrugged off these objections, regretting that I couldn't make them understand. If only there was a way of sharing with them the music that was in my head...but unfortunately, I had no way of communicating it to them. In the end, I got my way. I started as a music major the following Fall at the nearby University of Texas. My parents provided me with food, shelter and transportation, and I paid my tuition from money I had saved from a part-time job.
In college, I began to get used to the idea of having my music played in public. In freshman Music Theory, our exercises were played by instrumentalists in the class, and mine quickly stood out as being particularly imaginative. (I was inclined to use techniques that I was not supposed to know yet, prompting my teacher to write on one paper, "Restrain yourself, Igor!") Other class members began to approach me, curious about my compositions and wanting to get to know me better. This was a great boost to my self-esteem, as such unsolicited contact from "outsiders" was unprecedented--in high school I had always been a nobody. Nevertheless, I never got over the icy chill I felt whenever I heard my music played out loud. In spite of all the evidence to the contrary, I was still paralyzed by the fear that my music would be laughed at-- or, perhaps worse yet, ignored.
I began studying composition formally the next year, and here everything changed. There were no longer young, enthusiastic freshmen hearing my music, but experienced, serious, and (it seemed to me) often grim musicians. Such musicians played new music all the time, and were rarely impressed with what they saw. I began to take it for granted that my music would be received coolly, and it usually was, especially since I was discouraged from writing the kind of tonal, lyrical pieces that had been my specialty. After a couple of years of this, I began to hate music. Things were not going at all as I had planned. Once again, I began to question my own abilities. Once again, I was surrounded by people who had mastered their particular skills long before I learned to read music. I felt I had no business here, and, feeling utterly defeated, I dropped out of school and worked full time as an assistant manager at McDonald's.
For the next few years, I composed very little. I was badly burned out, and it took a long time for my passion for music to return. When I fell in love with Cherise Hall, my future wife, it did much to re-kindle this passion. I wrote several collections of piano pieces for her (See Organ and Piano Works, the "Notebooks for Cherise".), but was not really able to share them with her. I lacked the skill to play them with any competence, and, although Cherise appreciated the gesture very much, there was no way she could really enjoy this music.
When Cherise and I became engaged, I began to write sketches for on organ fugue that could be played at our wedding. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to finish it, since I was now back in school and working two jobs. I finally completed it in 1987, the year after we were married. It was the Fugue in G Major, the cornerstone to a collection of organ pieces I would finish a few years later, the Three Organ Works in the Baroque Style.
In 1990, just a few months after we had bought our first house, I lost my job as a restaurant manager. For two months I was unemployed, and my already low self-esteem took a severe beating. I thought I had been doing a good job at work, but now I began to question whether I had ever been good at anything, and wondered if my still-smouldering dream of being a composer was just an illusion as well. In my ample spare time, I slowly began to work on one project, then another. Soon I had finished two song cycles, a couple of choral works, and other miscellaneous pieces. Still, however, there was no one to hear them, and I wasn't sure I wanted to risk finding out that the final shreds of my dreams were just a lie.
The following year I was on a pop-song kick, thinking I could earn a good living as a song writer as I spent my time writing more substantial works. I called around to a few pianists, trying to find someone who could record the instrumental track of one song that I thought was particularly good, When the Well Runs Dry. After failing to find anyone for some time, Cherise mentioned that Paula White, the choir director and organist at the church where we were married, was available for such work. Because of budget problems at the church, she was forced to go to part-time (in pay, not in hours, of course), and had to supplement her income by working as a free-lance accompanist. Cherise and I met her in the church basement, and she did the work for a fraction of the cost that other, lesser pianists would have charged. Paula, as I expected, did not act particularly impressed with the song. Pop music was not her forte, and her cool reaction was what I had come to expect. However, her impressive musical skill got the job done in short order, and we prepared to call it a day. As we went upstairs, Cherise and Paula were chatting enthusiastically (Paula has an extremely magnetic personality; it's almost impossible to avoid getting into an engrossing conversation when she's around). As they were talking, Cherise-- to my horror-- said, "John has some organ pieces in the car. Do you want to see them?" I started to protest; surely, Paula didn't have the time for such nonsense. However, Paula was open to the idea, though a tad non-committal, so I went out to get the notebook with my two Baroque preludes and fugues.
Paula went to the organ and played the D minor prelude and fugue first, sightreading with great confidence and skill. To my relief, she noted only a couple of minor spots where the voice leading caused fingering problems; for the most part, the piece was playable. After this, she went on to the Fanfare, then the Fugue, in G Major. This piece was considerably more difficult than the first, but she plowed through it with impressive resolve. She made no comment as she played, of course--playing an organ fugue is pretty involved-- but she did turn and give me an odd look when it got to the deceptive cadence near the end. Going on, she played the last few measures until the final G major chord echoed through the empty church.
As the echo of the final chord died away, I waited for the usual polite but muted comment on the piece. Instead, Paula whirled around on the bench, thrusting her hand toward me in congratulations. "Wow!" she said. "That's cool! You can write music!" Cherise was beaming at me as well, I think this was the first time she realized that I may be something more than a hack composer with delusions of grandeur.
In the years that followed, Paula was one of my staunchest supporters, introducing several of my choral pieces to the choir at her church. When she took a job in Georgia in 1996, she asked if she could take my music with her. (I agreed, of course!) Her enthusiasm for my work has given me confidence to share it with others, recognizing that some will be more receptive to it than others. I have experienced both triumph and rejection in this quest, and am slowly learning to ignore the latter and embrace the former.
In 1993, I discovered a new way to share the music when Laura Grosvenor and I collaborated on several works. As exhilarating it is to create music by myself, I found it can be even more so to share, not just the finished product, but the moment of creation itself. The experience also taught me to respect the work of other composers, even those who do not have the benefit of the more advanced musical training that I was lucky enough to receive.
I never have learned to play the piano beyond the intermediate level, but new technology has made this irrelevant when it comes to sharing my compositions with others. In 1992 I bought a sequencer that allowed me to record my music a note at a time, then play it back in "real" time. A few years later, my computer gained this capability as well, and I began to put my music on the Web.
Whenever we human beings share something very special and very personal, we risk the most devastating disappointment imaginable--the realization that something that has so much meaning for us has no meaning for someone else. If, however, we succeed in reaching others just one time in a thousand, then it makes all the pain worthwhile. That is why I am willing to risk sharing the music.
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