the dreaming tree

sometimes i really hate being a composer. like tonight, when i basically stared at the paper in front of me for five hours. i wrote down five new notes…awesome, at this rate, it should take me a thousand years to finish. it’s this solo piano piece i’m working on (which i’m drastically hoping to avoid calling “piano sonata”), and it frustrates me because i don’t play piano, and so therefore i’m having a difficult time writing idiomatically…even though i do have ideas of what i want to happen, i can’t realize it on paper, and it’s really hard for me to imagine in the first place since i can’t play what i’m thinking. everything i write looks stupid to me and i’m afraid it’ll sound like i didn’t know what i was doing. i’m basically unable to move on from something when i can’t figure it out, so i either quit working on it, or get nothing done. it’s like my brain won’t let me skip over the problem and work on something else until i have it figured out…which is also why i didn’t finish my math exam the other day, but that’s another story. so i’m stuck. and it’s an horrific feeling.

i was also thinking about my days at ouachita when i knew all the other composition students. we had lessons together, so i knew what the others were writing and how my stuff compared. it kind of urged me on to be the best and i miss that. i especially miss talking with one michael reed about music (ours and others). i realized that i don’t know any of the other composers here at fayetteville, and that kinda makes me sad. and i’d like to see how i compare with their stuff, too…it might fuel my creativity a bit. now, despite all my complaining, i’m mostly enjoying doing composition again, and i’m having a good experience thus far with my professor. i just want to be better.