on practicing

Here is the thing: no one ever got famous by trying. For instance, Charles Ives was just an insurance salesman who came home in the evenings to compose because he could not live without it. Apparently Woody Allen wrote tons of screenplays, more than were ever published, because there they were inside him and they had to come out, no matter whether or not they landed in the laps of high-praising critics.  Artists who are deep thinkers and seekers — these people must create. It is in their very blood stream and it is not a choice.

A few weeks ago I went to see a play called “Maestro: Leonard Bernstein,” a one-man show by pianist and actor Hershey Felder.  My mother said it would be life changing and I was unwilling to believe her, but as with many things, she was right. Since graduating NEC, I’ve been struggling with questions like: in which genre should I write, how should I write it, what instrument(s) should I write for, or should I really just be practicing instead?  By the end of the Bernstein play I had a realization that was so obvious, it felt as though I had stepped into my own skin, like I had just cleaned a little more rust off my pipes; I should compose.  Not just songs, but pieces that develop, that are not necessarily limited by genre and “shoulds.” For me, the word “compose” implies Scheherezade, The Rite of Spring, Schoenberg, Three Places in New England, the 8-movement Gematria-based song cycle my sister recently composed, Gershwin. To compose is to allow. To make space for. To get out of ones own way.

The magic of this realization lasted about twelve hours, and when I woke up the day after the play, I remembered that composing is actually hard. At this point I decided to give up altogether, succumb to the desire to spend my days reading the New Yorker and knitting.  Maybe I would listen to music on good days, when I’m not too depressed to see that other people can successfully write inspiring works.

But then I remembered that the composers I admire did not get famous in a day, nor did they write a symphony in a week. (I’m ignoring you if you are mentioning Mozart right now).  I am a far cry from any Charles Ives or Woody Allen, but it turns out that creativity is in my blood stream too and I do not have the option to ignore it. Trudging through the sludge of neurosis and judgment is indispensible to the creative process. This act of searching, searching, finding, losing the way, searching again — this is how art is made.  

The only fly in the ointment is, though I know all of this, it is nearly impossible to believe when the voices of doom are saying that if I do not sit down and crank out some kind of masterpiece in the next hour, I am a failure. So, I ask myself three questions:

1) Were you always able to play concertos, improvise and walk bass lines on the cello? I answer no.

2) Were you always able to touch your toes? I say, no, but due to a regular yoga practice of five years, now I can.

3) What is the common denominator?

And then I remember.

I practiced.

As Alan Watts said in a quote recently emailed to me by my mom, “The point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.” It’s true that practicing gets you places. But it is trusting that it will get you places, every day for the rest of your life, that must keep you going, that must keep you in this precious moment that will, quite literally, never come again.

If I happen across fame or money along my way, then won’t that be nice? Until then, I’ll just keep attempting to clean the rust off my little old pipes.