Today is the day of my graduate recital in music composition.
One hour of music written by me, performed by myself and twenty-four other musicians.
While I will share the stage with them, I will not be sharing the program. Every last name listed all the way down the right side of the page is mine.
It is a momentous occasion.
Earlier today my husband and I were wondering aloud to each other why this seems like such a big deal. It’s not the first time I’ve had pieces premiered and performed. Yet, this feels different.
In some ways, it feels like the culmination of an artistic project, because the process of getting ready for the recital requires choosing music, finding musicians, deciding on the order of the pieces, writing the program notes, reserving the hall, running rehearsals, and printing and folding the programs. It’s a lot.
But this recital feels like more than that.
It feels closer in weight to my wedding day and the births of my two children. Not just the culmination of a project, but a life-changing event.
However, unlike the other life-changing events, this one is all about ME. I’m not sharing it with my husband, or my children. I am the sole focus.
Not just for five minutes during a concert shared with other composers.
A full hour that is wholly mine.
I am being birthed.
I am coming out, and my audience is waiting for my arrival.
I am not sure I would have understood the enormity of this moment when I was younger.
Although I did not do a recital as an undergrad, I was quite familiar with them and attended many. Recitals were a big deal, but they seemed more like a requirement than a MOMENT.
But they are, indeed, that MOMENT.
In a college musician’s life, the graduation recital is a presentation to the world that one has crossed the line into “professional.”
I’ve been a “professional” composer for some time, as I have made money from composing, both through commissions and score sales. So, for me, this recital has more personal meaning than professional.
And that is because I don’t have to share.
I have been sharing since I was almost two years old, when my sister was born (and I don’t remember anything from before then!)
As a mom, and as a pastor’s wife for fifteen years, I put myself aside a great deal.
And, unfortunately, for most of my life, I have experienced having my thoughts, ideas, and concerns dismissed. Sometimes simply because I was a girl/woman. Other times because I was in unhealthy relationships where I didn’t have a voice.
But today, I do.
Not only do I have a voice through my compositions, but the performers are there wanting to play, and the audience is there eager to listen.
To me. To only my music. For a full hour.
I am walking onto the stage that is mine for this night.
I am taking up space, stepping into the light.
I feel the transformation happening, and everything is all right.
The avant-garde is defined as “new and unusual or experimental ideas, especially in the arts.”
A lot of people don’t enjoy avant-garde art because it is weird. This is to be expected. The avant-garde doesn’t exist to be widely appealing. That’s not the point.
So, who needs it?
I can hear that question forming in the minds of some of my readers.
Why should art that few enjoy even exist? And, more so, why should it be funded?
This essay is an answer to that question.
The “avant-garde” is, essentially, made up of artists who are the “inventors” of the art world.
Inventors are strange people, always tinkering away at stuff in their garages, or laboratories, or computers. We don’t know that they are doing, we don’t understand it. We might think that the end results are useless, unnecessary, or just straight-up bizarre.
The difference between inventors and avant-garde artists is that most inventors end up with a final product that “works” before demonstrating it to the public. But in the art world, especially in the performing arts, the invention – the art – cannot be tested until it is brought before an audience.
Avant-garde art is an exploration, an innovation of a new way of making art discovered by the artists while they are at work in their studios.
Like many inventions, the avant-garde is quickly embraced by those who are fascinated by newness. It may not gather enough fans to be sustainable and become a movement. However, like some inventions that become normal household items, some avant-garde may catch on as the broader public warms up to it.
Again, like many inventions, it might not be the first iteration that engages the public. It may be that improvements made upon it are what make it more appealing.
Even today, many people may not know that most modern film scores incorporate aspects of what was once avant-garde music, from highly dissonant music to the use of electronics. That is just one example of how avant-garde art (specifically, music) has garnered wide enthusiasm.
I do not consider myself an avant-garde composer, but I use material that has been mined by avant-garde composers who have come before me or work concurrently in the present day.
I use that word “mined” purposefully. In my mind, the avant-garde composers have gone spelunking and have discovered unusual things long hidden, which no one has ever seen before now.
I, though, am claustrophobic and will not go spelunking. That’s not my role.
But I appreciate seeing what they have brought out and how they can be used, then having the privilege of choosing which discoveries I wish to incorporate into my own music.
I have pet names for the type of avant-garde music that is, essentially, 100% extended techniques. You may recognize the music by these nicknames: Plink-Plonk, Scratch-and-Dent, and Quack and Cluck. Don’t take these terms as disparaging. I love my Siamese cat, Paulie, but I also affectionately call him a weirdo. It’s not the word so much as the tone.
I use some of these extended techniques in my music. Not a lot, not every single kind of extended technique. I have my personal favorites. I usually write music inspired by extra-musical ideas, and I judiciously choose extended techniques based on what I believe will best bring out the idea behind the music I’m writing. Sometimes I use no extended techniques at all. Some of my music is very traditional.
I like having the freedom to choose.
Freedom is very important.
And that is the second – and I believe even more essential purpose – of the avant garde.
The avant-garde is a canary in the coal mine of freedom.
It is an indicator of the health of democracy and the freedom of the individual.
In fact, during the mid-20th century, the political right in the United States and Europe supported avant-garde art as a statement against totalitarianism and the perceived threat of communism.
As I said above, avant-garde art needs an audience in order to be tested.
It’s OK if it is not liked. It’s OK if it is not popular. It’s OK if people complain about it and criticize it and call it bad.
That’s not the point.
The point is to be heard.
If avant-garde music is blocked because people in power determine it is too ugly or too freakish for public consumption, then freedom is diminished. Not only the freedom of the artist to speak and express themselves, but the freedom of individual members of the public to decide what art they wish to partake of.
Totalitarian regimes control art, and they usually tend to promote art that is more “widely appealing.” Art that is populistic. It is simpler. It harkens back to folk and historic art to promote an approved, nationalistic style.
In contrast, avant-garde art is often criticized for being “academic” or “intellectual.” There is some truth to that, but it is still needed because the muzzling of the avant-garde is a signal that individual freedoms are threatened.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with art that “appeals to the masses” as long as there is room for all voices.
You don’t have to like avant-garde art but it is wrong to dismiss it because it is “ugly” or because it doesn’t align with your definition of beauty. Holding to such an opinion is only an attempt at control. Instead, understand its purpose. Engage with the conversation. Let both your voice – and the voice of avant-garde artists – be heard.
Let the future tell us what stands the test of time.
You’ve probably heard that studies have shown that children are more creative than adults.
The “Paperclip Test,” in particular, is often used to show that 98% of 5-yr olds, 30% of 10-yr olds, 12% of 15-yr olds, and just 2% of adults tested in the “genius” range, determined by the number of ideas they had about how to use paperclips. This test tests divergent thinking, in other words ideas that do not have to go together, work, or make sense.
As a creative adult, I have a lot of questions about this test.
Perhaps that is evidence of my divergent thinking – questioning the authorities. It has gotten me in trouble plenty of times.
Questions are often interpreted as attacks or judgments. (This will play into my point.)
As a creative adult, I know first-hand that actually creating something requires BOTH divergent and convergent thinking.
If it didn’t work, is it finished?
Do we credit Thomas Edison for inventing the incandescent lightbulb before it was successful? No! Thomas Edison went through many versions of lightbulbs before it was a success. Divergent thinking allowed him to try more things, but convergent thinking helped him learn from previous attempts how to make the new attempt better.
Mulling over ways to use a paperclip is not necessarily a test of creativity. It is only a test of divergent thinking. Could the test subjects actually create something and use their paperclips in the way they imagined?
In my elementary school art class, we sometimes made things out of clay. Those were some of my favorite school memories. Many of the students made mugs. Others made some sort of platter, I guess. I decided one year I was going to make a coin purse.
Yes, a coin purse.
There’s divergent thinking for you.
Did it work? I think you know the answer.
No, a clay coin purse is not a coin purse. Once the clay is dry, it cannot open and close to hold coins. I was probably old enough to know better when I made it, and I cannot for the life of me understand why I thought this was a good idea. I joke about it know and say it is my interpretation of a coin purse found in an archeological dig.
But my point is: did I create a clay coin purse? No.
That said…
A base of divergent thinking is necessary as a bed of new ideas to draw from so that convergent thinking can narrow them down and allow the best options to be picked. The best ideas cannot be found if there is an insufficient number of ideas at the start.
The divergent thinking test is still very important.
WHY are 98% 5-yr olds, yet only 2% of adults, divergent thinkers?
This is my hypothesis:
Children have more divergent thinking because they are 1) more curious and 2) less judgmental.
Children, by nature, know nothing about the world. They live in utter wonder, curious about everything. That is why they ask “why?” They are constantly exploring, even when they put stuff in their mouths as young babies.
Children ask “why?” and they ask “what if?”
I asked myself, “what if?” once. When I was three, I said to myself, “I wonder what would happen if I somersaulted down the stairs?” And so, I tried it.
It didn’t end well. I told you my divergent thinking sometimes gets me in trouble.
A normal adult would have enough experience to use convergent thinking to discern that idea is a bad one.
No discernment is problematic. This is why young children need constant supervision. They don’t have the discernment to know what ideas to act on and which to avoid.
But, on the other side, too much judgment squelches creativity.
Convergent thinking can get too tight when it quickly assesses ideas as “bad” or “impractical” before they have had a chance to be tested.
Of course, there needs to be a balance between divergent and convergent thinking.
But when it comes to wondering why adults lack divergent thinking, we need to olook back on why children are so good at it.
Are adults less curious and more judgmental?
I would argue yes.
Most adults have established their patterns and are satisfied enough to not explore further. They know the food they like and make the same things for meals because it’s easy. They know how to get to work and are not likely to “go a different way” just because. That would be a waste of time.
These are simple examples, but it’s easy to get stuck in the everyday sameness. It’s comfortable. As the saying goes, don’t fix what’s not broken.
Many look at the world and see the status quo. They believe they know “what works” and “what doesn’t work” – or they are unwilling to take the risk of failure to see if something might work.
No wonder only 2% of the adult population uses a significant amount of divergent thinking. It’s super risky!
I understand that, to a degree.
But when it extrapolates into, “I’m not going to entertain new ideas or experiences” the lack of newness leads to the quenching of creativity.
The same way a lack of an influx of fresh water leads to stagnation in a pond.
People like to blame “school” on the crushing of creativity.
But it is not school per se that destroys divergent thinking. It is authorities. It could be a teacher. It could be a parent. A church leader. A coach.
The decrease in creativity is not due to knowledge. It is due to the suppression of curiosity, the development of judgmental attitudes, and an over-focus on maintaining the status quo and following the rules. Knowledge alone does not cause those problems. Instead, it is the cultural and emotional environment in which one learns or is raised.
(That said, I am aware that, more and more, teachers’ ability to be creative in the classroom is hampered by those in authority over them. But it is important to point out that the squashing of divergent thinking can happen in other places, too, and is not simply a school problem.)
Some in authority will entertain the questions: Why? What if? Can I try something different? Good teachers, parents, leaders and coaches will supervise and even explore with their student, kid, or protégé to help them investigate those questions in a safe way and understand the results. They may even come to accept answers they don’t like.
The good news is that some people will bust through the limitations. For them, the pressure to conform will only cause their inner fire to think differently to burn hotter. Some might call them “strong-willed.”
But most will accept the constraints, which over time become self-imposed.
There is a way to break free from the ho-hum and embrace divergent thinking and become more creative. Adults may need to get some oil on the creaky creative joints that haven’t been used for a while.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t be creative.
Creativity is not out of reach for adults. It is not something that disappears. It only gets buried, hidden. It can be revived with practices that encourage exploration, wonder, and divergent thinking.
Creativity is not a skill one has or doesn’t have. It is a mindset that can be changed.
How to do that is something I will cover in a future post.
Let me know your thoughts! Do you consider yourself creative? Why or why not? What role does divergent/convergent thinking play in your life? Tell me about it in the comments or send me a message here.
Over the course of writing this blog, I’ve made many references to gardening. It’s amazing how much my experience gardening has impacted how I think about creative work and life in general.
At one point, I even thought about writing a book about all that gardening has taught me. Maybe someday I will.
But, for now, I have yet another post in which I will draw on analogies from gardening, specifically growing vegetables.
The lesson today is: one does not normally plant only to let the harvest rot on the vine.
I remember so many times at the end of the season when a frost was threatening, I would run out and pick as many tomatoes as I could that were still hanging on the vine waiting to ripen. It didn’t matter that they were still green. Some of the “almost ripe” tomatoes would gradually turn red on the counter. The rest of the green tomatoes were turned into Salsa Verde or a green tomato vegetarian mincemeat (yes, that’s a thing and very tasty.)
The point of growing tomatoes is to harvest and eat tomatoes. Right?
Earlier in the season, if I went out and discovered that I waited too long to pick cherry tomatoes and they were split or otherwise unusable, I always felt guilty about wasting the tomatoes and my time growing and tending the plants. Thankfully, that didn’t happen too often, but the point remains.
If you grow tomatoes, your intention is to harvest the tomatoes, not let them spoil.
I understand things happen. A sudden illness or other significant event, in my case a back surgery, can prevent us from being able to harvest what we grew. But those are exceptional cases.
When we plant, we intend to harvest.
I almost lost track of this wisdom when it came to some of my music.
You may know that I had intended to apply to Duke University to begin classes next fall (2025.) I was planning to pursue a PhD in musicology, hoping to study the heroic in music, a topic I began to delve into during one of my courses last year. I went so far as to ask a few of my professors to write letters of recommendation for me and to write my application essays.
But a week before the deadline, I realized I could not follow through with this plan.
Over winter break, I had more time to think, and I also attended a couple of music entrepreneur and career-planning workshops, which I do on a regular basis.
At the last of these workshops, the leader said something that made me stop in my tracks. Unfortunately, I can’t remember what she said.
But when she said it, the set of piano meditations I recently completed immediately popped into my mind. They were crying out to me, like a small child who needs attention calling out for mom.
I realized then and there that I had somehow – ridiculously – left them out of my plans.
If you’ve been following me on social media or through my email newsletter, you know that I finished this set of meditations in September 2024, right before Hurricane Helene hit. I then quickly put together a concert and performed them all at my church in November 2024 to raise money for hurricane relief efforts.
It was a huge success and well received!
That’s where I had left it. I figured that I would record them, but I wasn’t thinking beyond that. I was simply on a path to apply for a PhD.
But then, all of a sudden, my set of meditations – an already completely designed and proven concert – was shouting, “Hey! What about me?”
This set of meditations was a gift from God, born out of hard work, that was finished. They had been planted and tended and brought to maturity. The fruit was ripe.
The Parable of the Ten Talents came to mind. I had a choice: “bury” the work and let it rot in the ground or gather the harvest and do my best to turn it into something delicious.
I realized I had to turn my attention toward these meditations and this concert. I am the only one who can expand this project, and it is not compatible with doctoral studies.
So, I am holding off on applying for any further degrees until I see what happens.
Instead, I am taking these meditations and this concert on the road.
If your church might be interested in having me come, or to learn more about this project, I have an entire page dedicated to it here.
In the past, I have taken time to look back over the year and take account of what has happened and what I have accomplished.
But this year, the thought of doing that was truly exhausting. I was barely getting through Christmas, nursing my sick husband and preparing for a trip and trying to find a cat sitter that I just couldn’t handle sitting down and thinking about the past year.
It’s been a blur.
What I can tell you is that we moved. I also traveled a bit for performances of my pieces, had more performances than in any previous year, and I got my graduate recital scheduled for the spring. I wrote a lot of music. I have not sat down to figure out how many pieces or minutes it totaled. A lot. Just a lot.
So, its New Year’s Eve, and instead of trying to make a list of everything that happened in 2024 and then publishing the list in 2025, I’ve decided that it’s better to write about my “word” for 2025.
Many people come up with a word that will act as a guide, a north star, through the coming year. For some, it is a mantra or, perhaps, something they wish to see manifested in the new year.
When I thought about it, the first word that popped into my head was “story.”
I’ve been hearing that word a lot, especially in the context of business advice. You need a story to connect with your audience.
The problem is, I’m not so great at telling stories.
When I was a kid, my sister would want me to play dolls with her. That was something I hated to do, mostly because I didn’t know how. It got to the point where I would hold a doll and she would tell me what to say, and I would repeat it. I couldn’t come up with the conversation on my own.
Somewhat-oblique poetry is more my speed.
Even now, I feel like the encouragement to “just talk” creates a deer-in-the-headlights situation for me. I freeze and no words come. I cannot think of anything someone else might be interested in, or how to say it.
Sure, given enough time I can come up with something. But it takes me longer to write a blog post than a page of a research paper.
However, I am convinced of the power of stories to connect people.
I have already begun telling stories to an extent through my podcast.
From time to time, I get frustrated with the podcast because it is time-consuming, and I have encountered numerous technical problems along the way which only add to the time involved and delays in releasing episodes. I feel like I am bumbling along this podcast route, and when I get discouraged, I wonder if it’s worth it.
That is when I remember the stories.
My guests’ stories are so valuable and so powerful, and I feel honored to be able to hear them and help send them out into the world, where they can do their magic building connection and community.
So, I continue and work to overcome the obstacles, because the stories are that important.
My mission in 2025 is to get better at telling stories – my own, and others’.
By “better” I mean:
I want to become more efficient in my writing and speaking so I can complete more blog posts and videos. I want to get to a point where writing and speaking on video feels more natural. I want to find it easier to come up with good ideas of what to talk or write about. I want to become more skilled in creating social media posts that best reflect the messages in those blogs and videos. I want to improve my engagement with people online through social media and email. I want to talk about my music and why it matters. I want to feel more at ease in situations like conferences, where I am meeting new people, so we can connect through shared stories.
My word for 2025 isn’t a resolution to start on January 1.
Those of you who follow me across social media platforms have probably noticed that I have begun doing some of these things already. Rather, my word is a public declaration of commitment to put concentrated effort into something I have already begun tiptoeing into.
I suppose you could say that I am giving my word to abide by my word.
Music may bring us together, but it is the stories that will keep us connected.
I love the Olympics, but I missed the opening ceremony this year. I was surprised to wake up the next morning seeing cryptic posts on Facebook criticizing the ceremony. Only later did I find out what the controversy was all about.
Many conservative Christians were in an uproar, saying that a scene from the ceremony was mocking the Last Supper, by way of a fat woman wearing a halo, drag queens and a naked man painted blue representing Jesus and the apostles at a table like in the scene famously depicted by Leonardo DaVinci’s Last Supper.
Curious, I checked YouTube which allowed me to watch clips – enough for me to see what was happening.
And you know what? Yes, to me it looked like the scene was designed after DaVinci’s Last Supper.
But you know what else? I didn’t feel mocked.
I’ve been mocked for my faith. I have been called names, accused of having attitudes I don’t have, and had my intelligence questioned because I am a Christian. I have observed the Christian faith be ridiculed endlessly online by people I know on social media.
The Olympic ceremony was doing none of that. Mocking is direct.
All the Olympic opening ceremony did was make a reference to DaVinci’s Last Supper.
I want to make a clear distinction between DaVinci’s Last Supper, the Last Supper as described in the Gospels, and the Lord’s Supper as named by Paul in his epistles.
DaVinci’s Last Supper was only about one moment in an entire evening that Jesus spent with his disciples, and was an imagination of what the disciples’ faces might have looked like when Jesus said one of them would betray him.
The actual Last Supper involved a great deal more, including Jesus’ washing of the disciples’ feet and a great deal of teaching.
The Lord’s Supper, while referencing back to Jesus’ words at the Last Supper regarding his body and blood, is not the same thing. That has to do with the eucharist, or communion, depending on which extraction of Christianity you identify with.
Equating DaVinci’s Last Supper with the Lord’s Supper, which is at the root of a lot of the fuss, does not even make sense because DaVinci’s painting portrays a moment of betrayal while the Lord’s Supper celebrates the believer’s union with God through Christ.
The 2024 Olympic opening ceremony did not mock the actual Last Supper. The 2024 Olympic opening ceremony made no comment at all on the Lord’s Supper.
The 2024 Olympic opening ceremony only referenced DaVinci’s painting.
That should not be extrapolated by anyone to be an attack on Christianity itself.
DaVinci’s painting is not sacred! It only is about something sacred.
The form is up for grabs, soundly in the public domain.
The form of the painting is what made it so genius in the first place; DaVinci figured out how to show all twelve disciples around the table with Jesus, without one having his back to the viewer.
The form is what has been copied, changed and “parodied” over time.
Many people have referenced this painting. In the 20th Century, it even became a meme. If you take a look at this website, you can find many references to “parodies” of DaVinci’s Last Supper.
On that website you can see parodies involving Darth Vadar and his followers, cartoon characters led by Bugs Bunny, and even a My Little Pony theme. Particularly striking, given the popularity of the TV show, is the pic of the cast of The Sopranos arranged in the same way.
What these memes tell us is that DaVinci’s Last Supper has become more about the form than the content. Yes, DaVinci painted a scene of Jesus and his disciples. But the form of his painting has taken on a broader cultural meaning related to “leader” and “followers.”
In each of the scenes on the website, the viewer is told who the characters are and who the leader is. In some instances, that leader might have the role of “savior” of the group. But in no instance is the leader equated with Jesus, nor are the followers equated with the apostles. Rather, it is simply a visual form that tells us who is in charge.
When we understand this form, we see that while the Olympic opening ceremony used DaVinci’s form, that does not mean it mocked the content of DaVinci’s painting. The woman with the halo looked nothing like Jesus. All the people standing or dancing around looked nothing like the apostles.
If I write a haiku to express something sarcastic, that may be a bad haiku. But it would be unfair for someone to read that haiku and jump to the conclusion that I am mocking Japanese culture. My bad haiku might just be a bad haiku, and it might be in bad taste, but the form I use is separate from the content I insert into it.
Using a form – even badly – does not equal mocking.
Form is NOT content.
My example isn’t even a good one, because a haiku is specific to Japanese culture while DaVinci’s Last Supper is specific to DaVinci.
When we make art and let it out into the world, it takes on a life of its own. We cannot control what happens to it. It can be changed and modified. Parts of it may be utilized for something that upholds the same sentiment as the original, and parts may be twisted into having a new meaning.
But it doesn’t necessarily equal mocking. Again, mocking is direct.
Imagine if someone took DaVinci’s painting and drew horns on Jesus’ head or distorted the faces of the apostles that DaVinci drew.
That would be mocking.
Using the same form – a straight table with a singular leader-figure wearing a halo in the center surrounded by people in a line on either side – is simply a new take. It is an adaptation of the form, not a commentary on the content. (By the way, DaVinci did not put a halo on Jesus.)
Saying that DaVinci’s form can’t be used in any other way other than the sacred content of the Last Supper is ludicrous. That’s like saying that once a sonnet is used for religious content, no other sonnets can ever be written, especially if they contain irreligious content.
In an interview with Vogue magazine back in May 2024, the director, Thomas Jolly, made no reference to DaVinci’s Last Supper, but did say that he was referencing the Ancient Greeks. His recent remarks reiterate his intent that “everyone would find a place.” At the table, so to speak.
(Take a look at this painting by Jan van Bijlert and decide whether the scene from the Paris 2024 Olympic opening ceremony was more like this or DaVinci’s Last Supper. Perhaps even Bijlert drew inspiration from DaVinci since he lived a few decades later.)
Rondall Reynoso, a Christian artist and scholar, shares even more insights about this controversy in his article. I do not feel the need to recount them all, but I do encourage my readers to check out his writing here.
All of this brings up an even deeper question which goes beyond the scope of this post:
Why are Christians holding up a piece of artwork as a symbol of Christianity?
The line of what is sacred versus secular has become disturbingly blurry.
While DaVinci’s painting contains religious material, it is not used in worship. It is not an icon. It is not a Christian form.
In fact, the New Testament says nothing about making or using visual forms for worship, and the Old Testament specifically prohibits making a “graven image” of God.
So, why is anyone getting upset about someone copying the form of an artwork which contains an image of Jesus that many could find questionable to begin with?
DaVinci’s painting is NOT Jesus. It is his imagination’s idealization of what Jesus (and his disciples) looked like.
You can say you didn’t like the content of the opening ceremony. You can say you didn’t think it was well done. You can say you were disturbed by some of the content, or that it wasn’t family-friendly, or that it was unworthy of the Olympics. Think what you want about all of that.
But don’t claim it was mocking Christianity because it used a form inspired by a famous piece of artwork which originally contained religious content.
If you’re a Gen-X’er, I hope you enjoy the play on words I used for my title!
Let me introduce you to the Blobfish. The following photo is of a blobfish specimen that was dredged up off the coast of New Zealand and is now preserved in a bath of ethyl alcohol in the Australia Museum’s Ichthyology Collection, in Sydney. In 2013, the blobfish was voted the “most hideous animal on earth.”
Yeah, it’s pretty ugly. This specimen, anyway. I think most people would take one look at this fish and step back, avert their eyes, distort their face in discomfort, or even turn away in disgust.
But our perception of the blobfish is distorted, as distorted as the fish’s body in the photo.
The blobfish lives deep in the ocean, up to 3,900 feet below the surface. It does not have an air sac like other fish; the water pressure would crush it. Instead, that same water pressure gives structure to the blobfish’s jelly-like body. In its natural environment, the blobfish looks like…. a fish, familiar and un-repulsive.
I titled this post “Beauty and the Blobfish.” So, what does the blobfish have to do with beauty?
So often, our judgment of beautiful and ugly is based on an initial reaction, a visceral response.
I believe it is this visceral response that earned the blobfish the title of being the most hideous creature on earth.
We can have the same reactions to art.
Often, when we see a painting or hear a piece of music we don’t understand or don’t like, we immediately dismiss it saying, “That’s not art!” or “That’s not music!” At that moment, we are declaring it ugly and not worth our attention.
But what if the problem is our perception – biases based on our cultural understandings, experiences, or personal preferences?
Many situations exist in which the ugly can obscure the beautiful, if we let it.
EMTs and ER doctors and surgeons (and the nurses, too!) must get past a lot of the ick factor in order to treat the individuals they care for. These professionals look beyond the ugly and see the beautiful. They see the beautiful humanity of the person who needs their help. They see the beauty in the workings of the human body which help them know what to do. They see the beauty in restored health. This is what spurs them on to do whatever they can to treat the people they see, no matter how drastic the situation is.
The Good Samaritan in Jesus’ parable (Luke 10:25-37) looked beyond ugly to see the beautiful when he helped the beaten man.
Jesus himself looked upon ugly and found beauty when he healed the man with leprosy (Luke 8:1-3.) The leprous man said to Jesus, “If you are willing, you can make me clean” (italics mine.) Jesus was willing and touched the man and healed him.
Not all of us can handle such gross things as blood and guts. I know some people even faint when they see it. Most of us who are not faced with it every day probably initially turn away from a graphic scene during a TV show or movie.
But what if no one could look upon ugly and see the beautiful? Think about those consequences.
The world flashes images and sound at us all day long. Our eyes are pummeled with videos and photos; our ears are constantly filled with music floating in from every direction. Some might argue that the visceral response to all of this is necessary as a protective barrier, in order to filter all the sensory material we are bombarded with.
Unfortunately, our culture trains us to have knee-jerk reactions all the time, and not just in situations that are truly potentially dangerous.
But a knee-jerk reaction is not a thoughtful response; it is not based on review and consideration.
Art, though, asks us to stop and pay attention – to examine a painting for several minutes, to read a poem slowly, to watch how dancers move their bodies, to listen to a monologue without checking our phones, to listen to a piece of music in its entirety – the opposite of making a quick judgment.
Essentially, it is asking us, “Are you willing?”
Are we willing to look, to listen, to view? Even when it is initially uncomfortable, or gross, or disturbing, or confusing, or even offensive. Are willing to consider it and see beyond what we initially find ugly to search for the beautiful?
Growing up as an Evangelical, I heard the words of Philippians 4:8 countless times: the apostle Paul admonishes us to think on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, or worthy of praise. In the circles I was in, this was taught in a way that meant that we should think only about things that were already judged to have these qualities. So, exposure to what I will call “challenging material” was limited.
I do not agree with this interpretation of Paul’s words. Instead, I believe we are called to find these qualities and zero in on them, like the doctors who ignore the ugliness of the blood and guts to focus on the beauty of health to get a body working properly again.
It does no good for the world to ignore ugly, to avoid the beaten man in the street (referencing the story of the Good Samaritan), and surround ourselves only with what is immediately recognizable as beautiful.
As a professional musician, I believe it is part of my job to consider all artistic approaches, even what initially appears ugly. I must consider it and find that nugget of truth, beauty, goodness, nobility, or excellence – and praise it. It is there where I have a point of contact and a conversation.
That doesn’t mean I like all art. That doesn’t mean I agree with it all. But if I simply declare a piece of art as “ugly” or “not art” and turn away, there is nothing more to be said. I have become the judge, and the relationship between me, the art, and the artist is broken.
The organization running the poll for the earth’s ugliest creature was the British-based Ugly Animal Preservation Society. This organization exists to “raise awareness of Mother Nature’s endangered but ‘aesthetically challenged children.'” In other words, they are helping to grow empathy for ugly animals in order to help preserve them.
I have written elsewhere that part of art’s purpose is to build empathy. It does this by helping us to view the world from another’s perspective. In order to achieve this, however, we must give our attention to some things that are outside our experience and may challenge – or even horrify – us. We must get beyond the initial shock and do the work to find what is praiseworthy about it – to find the beauty in the blobfish.
I have kept journals off-and-on during my life, but in the last year I have been more on than off. Going through the book The Artist’s Way last winter helped me establish the habit more strongly. Since then, I have learned more and more about journaling through people I follow on YouTube. And, even better, my best friend and professional writer Kristen (who calls herself K.) started a guided journaling business.
All successful people journal. That doesn’t mean everyone who journals is successful, but I don’t think one can be truly successful without journaling. (Journaling helps you define what success means to you and set specific goals, so you’re more likely to achieve them.) There’s something about journaling that helps you tap into your deeper motivations, goals, and hang-ups – and then do something about them.
For me, journaling can also help me focus on what I am noticing in life and develop my inspirations.
Kristen started a month of journal prompts for June, and I have already been able to find inspiration through that. Day two of the challenge was to write about what we love about summer.
I have to admit, summer is not my favorite season.
It is just too hot. Even Rhode Island was too hot for me. (One might ask why I would move south if I don’t like the heat, but being at a higher elevation makes up for that!) During the summer, I am religious about avoiding the heat of the day, only going outside in the early morning or late afternoon/evening. If I must go out during midday, I try to keep to the shade.
But I had committed to taking on this challenge. So, I took five minutes to write about what I love about summer.
I realized that what I love about summer are the sounds.
Which got me thinking.
There’s a lot of discussion about what exactly music is.
The experimental 20th Century composer John Cage argued that all sounds can be considered music. In a way, he is right.
Essentially, the difference between what is art and what is not is how it is framed. The frame creates the focus. Ultimately, art is communicating to the viewer/listener, “Pay attention to this. Focus on this.“
A bird in a tree is a bird in a tree. But when it is photographed, the photo becomes a piece of art. The camera lens literally focuses on the bird and then urges the viewers to pay attention to the bird.
Music, being a temporal art, lasts for a period of time. The beginning and end of that time period mark the frame.
One of Cage’s most famous (or infamous?) pieces was 4’33”, which has no written notes. The “performer” marks the time through a movement. A pianist will shut the keyboard lid at the beginning of the movements and lift it at the end of movements. The audience is encouraged to notice the sounds during this time. By bringing attention to those sounds, the frame creates the art, the piece of music.
At one point in time, I scoffed at this piece and said, “That’s not music!” I still question if it is music, because I feel very strongly that music is a performance art and I don’t consider the person on stage marking time to be a performer. But I would call it a form of sound art. John Cage called it a “silent” piece. I would call it a frame for listening.
My philosophy of art has morphed through the years, but as I read and experience more, my ideas about art continue to expand and become broader rather than narrower. At this moment in time, I believe art has more to do with the purpose of it than the qualities of what is made. After knowing the purpose of the art one can judge whether or not the artist was successful in the creation of that art.
The Ancient Greeks proposed the concept of the music of the spheres, the musica universalis or musica mundana, the idea that the ratios of the movement of the heavenly bodies create a harmony. The Roman senator and philosopher Beothius, expanded this concept generally to “unheard music” and contrasted it with musica humana, the music of the human body, soul, and spiritual harmony, and musica quae in quibusdam constituta est instrumentis, the music made by singers and instrumentalists.
We know that every atom vibrates, so every thing vibrates. Vibration makes sound. Most of it is beyond the capacity of the human ear’s detection. But that doesn’t mean the sound is not there. Most of it simply goes unnoticed, even when it is within our range of hearing, by wavelength or proximity.
I have read that Pythagoras first came up with the concept of the music of the spheres because he noticed patterns of intervals in the pounding of a blacksmith’s hammer against the metal.
Sound is happening all around us. Too often, we are not paying attention. As I have written in recent posts, inspiration comes from paying attention. Attention is the frame we create when we stop to notice.
What does this have to do with summer?
Summer gives us a chance to slow down and pay attention to the sounds, to frame our world by setting aside time to pause, listen to and meditate on what is around us. By doing so, we are creating art – not necessarily art that is made for others to consume, but art made out of pure joy like a child’s uninhibited, spontaneous drawing. It is a personal expression of gratitude for the beauty in the sounds we are experiencing.
Here is a list of some of my favorite sounds of summer (in no particular order.) Conveniently, the list forms a poem.
Sounds of Summer The crackling of a campfire The tweeting of songbirds in the early morning The hoot of owls at night The sizzle of grease falling into the flames of an outdoor grill The splash of water in a pool Children laughing, playing chase Thunder booming Rain falling on soft ground Crickets chirping Doves cooing The crack of a bat hitting a baseball Wind rustling in leafed-out trees
My June challenge for you is to set your timer for 5 minutes (or 4’33” if you like) and sit outside (in different locations if possible) and simply listen. Give thanks for each sound, even if it is something you might normally find unpleasant, like a car horn or an airplane going overhead, which represent our technological achievements in travel.
Try it. Then come back and let me know what happened.
To join Kristen’s journal challenge, visit her Facebook page here to follow each day’s prompt: Kristen Castrataro.
I was asked this question the other day, in regard to my efforts in music composition.
It is a truly ridiculous question. Out of respect, I won’t say who asked it, but I will say this person should have known better.
While I rolled with it at the time and didn’t take offense, thinking about it more (and discussing it with my husband and my best friend) I realized it needed a better answer than the one I gave.
And that answer deserved a blog post. So, here it is.
Has music composition “started to get hard” for me?
Well, music composition has always been hard. Or, at least not easy.
It’s hard when I don’t feel like I have any good ideas.
Yesterday I worked at composing for five hours and wrote nothing down. That doesn’t mean I didn’t experiment with ideas. It just means I didn’t catch any worth keeping. Like undersized fish.
It’s hard when, instead of going out to see my husband’s gig, I stay home by myself and compose.
I have learned to be by myself. A lot. Sometimes, I like it. Sometimes, I don’t. Either way, I feel I am communicating that I am antisocial. I’m really not. But I have to work, and this is my work.
It’s hard when I feel discouraged about how slowly my composition career is growing, and I wonder if it will get off the ground before I die.
I can relate to orchardists. Do you know how long it takes for a fruit tree to produce fruit? Several years. An orchardist must invest a tremendous amount of time, effort, and MONEY into purchasing the land and the trees, planting and tending, for YEARS before even a first modest crop is produced. That’s what a composition career is like. But instead of buying and planting trees, I am writing pieces. And, like the orchardist, I can use the best skills I have, but I am still susceptible to things outside of my control, like the weather (or in my case, public opinion) that could ruin everything before it even starts. Unlike the orchardist who can get a loan from a bank, I can’t even get funding from a grant before my work is proven.
It’s hard when there’s no/not enough money coming in from my composition.
Yes, I work. Not just at composition. I do other work, mostly playing the piano or teaching, that brings in income. But it is demoralizing to compose and not see rewards from your efforts. The Bible says workers are worthy of their wages. But our society says workers are only worthy of their wages if society determines that what they produce has value and only the wages society is willing to pay. This problem is not unique to artists, but it is hard nonetheless.
It’s hard when I don’t hear back from calls for scores and competitions.
It’s worse than rejections. At least a rejection makes me feel seen. Like I actually exist. But not hearing back feels like I just sent a piece into a black hole and no one cared enough to respond.
It’s hard when it feels like other musicians don’t respect composers.
Like the people who don’t let composers know the results of calls for scores and competitions. Composers spend many, many hours composing the piece. But they can’t spend 20 minutes getting an email written? I see performers complaining on Facebook about the cost of scores. They wouldn’t play for free. But they want to composers to do their work for nothing? I see certain ensembles asking composers to pay them to look at their scores, but if they perform the pieces, they don’t pay for the copies and probably don’t even report a performance properly so the composers can get royalties.
Of course, not all musicians are like this. Many ensembles treat composers fairly.
But it is hard to do the work of vetting who I will send scores to.
It’s hard to write music in a style or combination I have not used before.
It’s hard to figure out how to communicate and notate how to produce non-traditional sounds.
It’s hard to figure out how to reproduce a percussion sound you fell in love with, but the instruments aren’t made any more because the inventor and sole producer died.
It’s hard to write music in combinations for which there are no models (at least that my professor could think of.)
It’s hard to know if all your ideas are going to work.
Composers don’t have a true lab. Sure, a computer program can reproduce some sounds. But not all. And there aren’t always live musicians around to try out what you need to hear when you need to hear it. And sometimes the set-up needed is not something that can be assembled without a great deal of planning.
Sometimes, the test happens in real time on stage at the premiere in front a live audience. What if it flops?
This hasn’t happened to me yet – and I certainly hope it never does – but that would be hard.
It’s hard to go through the process of composing.
Thankfully, I have done this often enough that I know what to expect of my own process. (Every composer’s process is a little different.) I know it can take a long time for a good idea to ferment in my mind. Sometimes that is scary because I feel like I am getting way too close to a deadline. And I am not a procrastinator! But I can’t magically make a good idea. I can not-so-magically come up with a bad one, though.
As George Crumb said, “it is easy to write unthinking music.”
But hard does not mean not worth it.
I wrote to my dear friend, Jerry, a 90 year-old composer who I consider to be my adopted grandmother, this week about the thoughts I’ve been tossing back and forth in my mind regarding my plans for after I graduate in ONE YEAR. Time flies by faster and faster as you get older, and I can’t believe I am already halfway through my master’s.
I shared my frustration with the significant number of views my compositions get on YouTube. But few score sales. No comments. The significant number of hits on my website. But few subscribers, few comments, and few score downloads. It seems many experience my music or my writing, but just don’t engage. I feel like I am missing the mark.
That’s hard.
So, what happened in the two days since I wrote to Jerry?
Two people liked blog posts and I got a new subscriber.
Then, a huge surprise – my piece, Eidolons was selected for performance by chamber music players of the Raleigh Symphony!
The life of a composer is like a roller coaster. Serious dips. Glorious highs.
But riding a roller coaster all the time is hard.
Knowing whether or not you should stay on or get off the ride is hard.
In the last couple of posts, I have been writing about inspiration. In “Inspiration is a Lucky Penny” I write about how finding inspiration requires discipline and practice. It doesn’t just happen. You have to keep an eye out for it, just like paying attention to changes in light can lead you to a lucky penny.
In “An Attack of the Zielschmerz” I gave an example of how I found inspiration in a new word I learned in an email newsletter I read regularly.
Today’s post is about how I grew inspiration from a spark (or, rather, a smoldering ember) into a fully engaged fire.
A piece I wrote last fall started with a feeling. A vague feeling.
I knew I was going to write a piece for flute and clarinet, and I knew I wanted to explore microtonality and multiphonics. But that was all I had.
Part of my compositional process involves connecting my music to extra-musical sources. It helps keep me on track with form, motives and colors I want to use in my piece and excluding the ones that don’t help to convey the idea of the extra-musical source.
That is where I was stuck. I didn’t have an extra-musical source. I only had a vague feeling. I kept searching for what this vague feeling was pointing at, for about a week, with no success.
Then the solution came to me: use my favorite resource, the THESAURUS.
I looked up “vague” in the thesaurus, and I went down the rabbit holes thesauri lead to, following all the tunnels between words, searching for the just the right word that would solidify the inspiration.
I finally found it: Eidòlon.
Eidòlon is an ancient Greek word that refers to an apparition or an ideal – a ghost, a fantasized hero, or even an idol.
This was the vague thing.
After that, I took another step in my artistic process and looked up other artwork associated with “Eidòlon.”
Low and behold, I found Walt Whitman’s poem, Eidòlons!
I was drawn immediately to two stanzas. The first is this:
Lo, I or you, Or woman, man, state, known or unknown, We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build, But really build eidòlons.
I was reminded of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.
All this STUFF we amass? It means nothing. We think money will get us somewhere. Or physical strength (or political power?) Or beauty? We build stuff…like houses. We collect treasures. But it will all be gone. It doesn’t last. We can’t take it with us when we die. It’s all just a phantom in the end.
Eidòlons!
King Solomon called it “a chasing after the wind.”
I was reminded, too, of what Jesus said, “Do not build up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But build up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 5:19-21.)
After reading Whitman’s poem, I knew why I was feeling so “vague.” This was the first piece I wrote after moving to North Carolina and starting my master’s degree in music.
My old life was gone. I moved away from friends and family, and we left our house.
Our house.
We loved it.
It needed work – more than we could afford to fix, really, but the land was even better – a very quiet 2-1/2 acre oasis in the woods. It was hard to leave that. I still miss it.
I have kept in touch with my friends and family, of course, but we will never get that property back.
But you know what? It was an eidòlon. Something that doesn’t last.
The poem spoke to the intense feelings I was having about leaving a home – something that represents (to a degree, anyway) security and financial success – to pursue artistic development, which on the surface looks like almost the complete opposite.
No wonder I was feeling so “vague.” I was perceiving the eidòlons.
This next stanza also stood out to me:
Ever the dim beginning. Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle, Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again.) Eidòlons! Eidòlons!
After reading it, I decided to make the form of my piece into an “imperfect mirror” which means that the end of the piece is a reflection of the beginning. Which it mostly is, but not exactly. I won’t bog you down with the details, but I will say it is “imperfect” in the way ripples in water may not reflect every bit of an image accurately.
My piece explores the blurred reality of pitch and rhythm through a nebulous sense of meter and tunings that seem “not quite right” based on multiphonics and microtones between the pitches Western ears are accustomed to.
Eidòlons! Eidòlons!
Here is a video of the premiere at the International Festival of Music by Women, on March 8, 2024. Dr. Soo Goh is playing clarinet, and Carol Shansky is playing flute. Many thanks to them for their willingness to bring this piece to life, and for their encouragement of my work. They did such a great job!
I’d love to hear your thoughts – on the poem, on the idea of eidòlons, on the piece! Leave a comment!
