Tag: courage

Has it Started to Get Hard Yet?

heathersavage1

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.

Is it “starting to get hard?”

No, it is not starting to get hard.

It has always been stinking hard.

An Attack of the Zielschmerz

heathersavage1

If you read my last post, you know that I look for inspiration everywhere. The inspiration for today’s post comes from this essay in The Marginalian, by Maria Popova, an email newsletter on philosophy and art. I find many good tidbits in this newsletter and even have a commonplace book (rather, a digital file) full of quotes, many of which I came across in The Marginalian.

In reading Maria’s essay, I learned the following term: Zielschmerz.

According to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, which Maria reviewed in her essay, Zielschmerz is “the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream, which requires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested on the open savannah, no longer protected inside the terrarium of hopes and delusions that you started up in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could. German Ziel, goal + Schmerz, pain. Pronounced “zeel-shmerts.”

The hardest thing in life, I think, is to be true to yourself. I don’t mean this in a selfish, no-one-else-matters kind of way. What I mean is being honest about who you are and what you want. That is the most vulnerable someone can be; it is in those moments we are baring our soul.

When we tell someone we love them.

When we claim an identity others don’t approve of.

When we make necessary decisions that could have negative consequences for other people.

When we start our own business.

When we make art.

Zielschmerz is a real thing, and that Zielschmerz may be THE thing that keeps so many adults from moving into being true to themselves.

It takes courage to be real, because it is very risky. The possibility of rejection or failure looms large, and if the consequences were not so substantive, the fortitude it takes to live true to oneself would not be worth noting.

When we’re young, risks don’t have repercussions as great. If we fall, we bounce back a lot easier. At the same time, we have the comfort and support of being with peers who are in the same situation. Everyone is learning new things, everyone is trying to figure out how to get through life.

Join my Monthly Digest

Once a month, I send out a newsletter by email. Sign up so you don’t miss the latest blog posts, upcoming performances, new score releases, current projects, and other news!

    We won’t send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time.
    Built with ConvertKit

    But, as the years progress, life gets more cemented, and our joints stiffen; it becomes more difficult to maneuver into something new.

    The sediment piles over the dreams with time, and it gets harder and harder to dig out what has been buried.

    Those dreams from kindergarten. Why were they hidden and protected in the first place?

    Because someone told us they weren’t good dreams.

    Not practical. Outside the norm. Pretentious.

    The killers of dreams told us we needed to stay in our place – the place they told us we belonged.

    We believed them, and along the way became accustomed to that way of thinking, even adopting it ourselves as justification for keeping the dreams hidden and protected.

    We thought it was better to believe them to be wrong than to let the dreams see the light of day and risk proving them right.

    I liken the feel of Zielschmerz to getting on a thrill coaster.

    When you’re young and carefree, you look forward to the ride. It’s more exciting than scary. But, as I have gotten older, I strap myself in, and thoughts of dread immediately enter my mind: “What have I gotten myself into? What is the actual risk regarding those health condition warning signs? When is high blood pressure too high to ride roller coasters? When was the last time my blood pressure was checked? Am I going to die of a heart attack in the next two minutes? Should I scream as loud as I can to get them to let me out before this thing starts rolling?

    They are similar to the thoughts that immediately come to mind when I am getting ready to release a music composition into the world:

    What if they think my piece is stupid? What if they think it is just awful, unskilled writing? What if it is, and I don’t know it? (Can I recover from such public embarrassment?) Can I afford to take the risk on making this recording? Will it be worth it, or a waste of a lot of money? What if I say the wrong thing and they misunderstand my politics? What if I don’t say enough and they misunderstand my politics? (After all, cancel culture has been around a long time, you know, and many musical artists and composers were, at minimum, questioned by the FBI during the Red Scare…) How long will it take for me to “find my people” who appreciate my work? What if I never do? Maybe I should just go hide my dreams again before they get too far into the world.”

    This is Zielschmerz, the pain of reaching toward goals you kept hidden for so long.

    It hurts, but it’s worth it.

    I get a sinking feeling in my gut every time I send a piece to a competition or call for scores, every time I ask someone to look at it, every time I put a piece up on Soundcloud or YouTube, every time I make a post about my work on social media. I’m not sure it will ever go away.

    At least I have a word for it now and can identify what’s happening.

    I’m having an attack of the Zielschmerz!

    Does this resonate with you? Tell me about it by leaving a comment!

    Declaring One’s Self

    heathersavage1

    The term “declaring one’s self” often refers to making a pledge of commitment and support. It can also mean stating strongly one’s opinion or revealing one’s true character or identity.  In short, it’s about owning up to a position, saying “this is where I stand.”

    Composition is an exercise of “declaring one’s self.” During the writing phase, I sort out my ideas, clarify and refine them. But once a piece is completed, I own it. I chose all the notes, all the voicing, all the instrumentation. I have declared myself to this piece. I stand behind it, taking full responsibility for it. I have said, in no uncertain terms, “this is what I want.”

    It is at once empowering and terrifying. I feel like this every time I get on a roller coaster or when I am halfway through a mountain trail and find myself in a difficult spot. On the one hand, I am quite satisfied with myself for having the guts to get on the ride or start the hike. I didn’t chicken out. But once in the midst of it, I sometimes wonder what I have gotten myself into. There’s no getting off the ride, there’s no going back. There is only one way to go, and it is forward, come what may.

    To me, writing a piece of music and presenting it is a bit like laying out my heart in front of the entire world. I painstakingly ripped it out of my soul and laid it bare.  It cannot  return to the depths from which it came. It has seen light and has been exposed, all of it: the good, the bad, and the ugly. At that point, all I can do is see what happens. Will it get performed? Will it be well received? Will it be found lacking? Will my friends encourage me or will even they have nothing to say, finding nothing to praise? I feel accomplished, having finished a project. But I also feel extremely vulnerable. My inner thoughts, shown in the choices I made to create the piece, are on public display.

    Declaring one’s self can be a dangerous activity. Some people will not like what you have to say or who you are. The practice of saying “this is what I want” clearly and firmly is an important discipline. So many times we are hesitant to reveal our inner desires out of fear they will be rejected or scorned. But pretending that our own desires don’t exist or are unimportant is a refusal to stand by our own selves and a form of self-rejection that says we are worthy of being dismissed or ignored. I’m not saying that every single desire we have is a good one that should be “published”, but too many times we hide ourselves for no reason other than simply being afraid.

    However, the skill of declaring one’s self can be developed with practice. It does get easier. The first hill on the roller coaster is the scariest. One hike up a mountain gives confidence to do the next one.  As the saying goes, what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. What is the worst that can happen? A rejection? Someone gets angry? I am embarrassed? Those things will not destroy me. I may get knocked back a little. I may hesitate. I may need to recover. But I pick myself up and write again, with a little more strength, confidence, and determination.