At the prodding of a friend, I’ve started writing some new music for the hymn “Does the Journey Seem Long?” The melody actually just sort of came to me when I was walking home from stake presidency meeting this morning, and I wrote it down, fleshed it out, revised it a bit, and started adding in the other parts (since I want it to be SATB). I’ve really missed writing music. :)

The fact that it just came to me, though, makes me wonder: am I actually composing something new, or is my subconscious just regurgitating some tune I’ve heard in my past? I really don’t know. And I don’t know how I’d find out other than finishing the piece and getting it out there and then waiting to see if anyone comes up to me and says, “Hey, you stole that from so-and-so!” ;)

Anyway, for the technically curious, I’ve been writing the music out by hand in a Moleskine music notebook, but since I don’t have a piano or keyboard at hand to use as a reference, I’ve been using GarageBand’s musical keyboard to figure out what notes I’ve got flying around in my head. I’ve also been using BarFly to notate — and it’s so fast. I was able to enter the melody for the whole song in around thirty seconds, and that included being rusty on my ABC notation. It’s awesome. (I mainly use it to make sure I’m notating the rhythm correctly; I usually get it right, but every once in a while my brain will short-circuit and I’ll write a whole note when I really want a dotted half, or something odd like that.)

What usually happens at this point is that I forget about the composition and leave it half-baked for who knows how long, languishing in the back of the pantry until it turns greenish white from the mold and fuzz. Hopefully that won’t happen this time. I really need to just finish this hymn and upload it. I would do it tonight, but bedtime’s already here. :)

Here I am writing plays, but do I actually read any? I realized today that if I don’t see what else is out there — and see it in script form, not just on stage — then I’m going to get into a rut where I’m effectively writing the same play over and over again. I can already sort of feel it happening, in fact. My four plays so far have widely different subject matter, but — to me, at least — they feel uncannily similar.

It’s not just playwriting, of course; in any creative area, you have to provide grist for the mill. Life gives you plenty of ideas for the content, but to study the craft, you really have to look at what else is out there. This morning I was reading Patrick Kavanaugh’s book Spiritual Lives of Great Composers and came across this quote about J.S. Bach:

Bach’s brother owned a set of compositions, which he forbade the younger Bach to use. Perhaps because it was placed off-limits, that musical manuscript grew irresistibly attractive to the young musician.

And so for weeks, Bach stole the precious pages and hid them in his room, where he stayed up late night after night copying the musical scores by moonlight. When his brother discovered the copied pages, he angrily confiscated them. But Bach had already gleaned valuable lessons in composition, as well as discipline and devotion to music, from the clandestine exercise.

I bought a book of staff paper today and checked out some Beethoven and Mozart pieces so I can start copying scores. :) You see, it’s been so long since I’ve done any composition that I feel like I’ve almost completely lost touch with that world. I’ve been forgetting the language of music notation. And the structure and theory behind music? Merely a memory.

I’m not saying all that is necessary to write music. It’s not. But for me, without it I feel like I’m churning out the same thing over and over again, never growing or expanding, never deepening beyond the shallow waters in which I start. To get past that, I need to study the works of the great musicians. (That’s more important, in my opinion, than studying the theory. But I happen to be rather fond of music theory, too. :))

And I need to start reading plays. And poetry, if I ever want to break out of the mold I’ve been in for years. (I rarely read poetry, so it’s no surprise that my own poems sound like carbon copies. In fact, I think they’re almost all in one of two or three different meters. It’s sad.) Particularly poetry that isn’t like the poetry I write. And the more plays I read, the more my understanding of the guts of theatre will expand, and I’ll produce better work. It’s exciting. :)

(One of these days I do intend to start painting again, by the way…)