writing...

I want to write.

But I continually ask myself, "have I read enough?"

Is the well full?

I've written a lot of music, but I started young enough that it didn't matter that I hadn't found a voice - that I didn't know what I was doing. I was just painting with sound, haphazardly.

Now I'm not young, and I don't have the bravery that comes from naivety. 

I have ideas for pieces, both fiction and non-fiction, but every time it comes time to move forward, giants loom in my mind. DFW. Nabakov.

It's silly.

Giants don't loom in my mind when I write music. And even if they did, I have some mastery over notes. I trust myself. There are only 12 notes. How many words are there?

Finding some solace here.

Words

Last night I attended a truly inspirational set by Zach Brock at the Jazz Standard. It was instrumental music as its best in that the lack of words contributed to the emotional intensity of the musical expression. I generally have preferred music without words since I began studying jazz improvisation. I think it's because the lack of specific direction from a lyricist - this is what this song is about - enables the listener to bring their own story and experience, and thereby their own meaning to the music. It's as if each listener is in a partnership with the musicians and composer, and since everyone's life experience and perspectives are different, there are as many meanings to a piece of music as there are people to hear it - and all of them are correct and valid for that place and time.

I also love great lyricists - the grace of Joni Mitchell, the poetry of Leonard Cohen, the wisdom of James Taylor, the spirit of Stevie Wonder, etc. We need song and the stories of song. But in a way, words fail because they leave so many stories untold.

Which do you remember, the words or the melody to Beethoven's Ode to Joy?

I love music, and I love words. But I don't love a lot of words about music. I was reading an article about a book on the music of J.S. Bach. These degrees of separation didn't help the author, who criticized parts of the book for being a "word salad." But to paraphrase any number of people, writing about music is like fishing about architecture. I have read enjoyable books about musicians and their lives, but any book or article that tries to write accurately about the actual music always falls short. For this reason I can pay little attention to music critics, although they are a necessary component of the musical community. Perhaps I'm not giving them a fair share. If you know of good writing about music, please recommend it to me in the comments.

Because of my feelings about words that are married to music, words that stand alone are becoming more and more important to me. I spend more time reading each day than I do listening to music for pleasure. (This may be because I listen to a lot of music for work.)  David Foster Wallace has recently changed my life. The combination of Zite on my iThings and Pocket provide more subway reading than I can handle. I actually wish my commute was longer. OK, maybe those are words that are not true.