Posts Tagged ‘music composition’
Catching Up (Including Some Thoughts on Milwaukee Sports)
Folks, I thought I’d just type something to you all today, mostly so you’d know I’m still alive and doing the best I can.
The last several months have been beyond difficult. Sometimes, I’m not sure I know when the stress ends and I begin. The only good thing I can point to is that I’ve been able to write more…it’s more that my writing is demanding that I set it down than anything. (Most writers have been there a time or three.)
I’ve also been able to write some music from time to time, though it’s fitful. For example, right now I have a multiple movement piece going, and not one of the movements has been finished. They’re all started, which is great. But if I don’t figure out where the melodies are, where the harmonies should be implied (this is a solo saxophone piece, in case anyone’s wondering; since the sax cannot play chords on its own, the best anyone can do in a solo piece is to imply what the harmony might well be), and figure out how to end these movements while trying to tie them all up in a nifty bow, I’d be doing myself a disservice.
You might wonder why I say that. It’s because I know, as my late husband Michael used to say, that my first language is music. My second language is words. This is why I listen so much for what something sounds like, as well as how it flows, in words. It’s probably why before I started writing a great deal of fiction, I’d written quite a few poems.
I also have made some excellent progress with the can’t-tell-you-yet-project. Here’s to hoping I make even more progress in the upcoming week.
I’m also looking forward to the start of Major League Baseball’s Opening Day. The Milwaukee Brewers will be opening up their season on March 27 in New York City as they’re scheduled to play the Yankees. A few days later, they will return to Milwaukee and play their first home games of the year.
(Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers played the Chicago Cubs in a two-game series in Japan on March 18 and 19. I’m sorry, though; that did not feel like Opening Day or even Opening Week to me, instead feeling like two glorified exhibition games that the Dodgers get to take two games as “wins” for the regular season. I was not impressed.)
As per usual, I’m also keeping an eye on the Milwaukee Bucks. They’ve been playing well, for the most part, despite having games where their star players either are not able to play, or are dealing with significant injuries that can’t help but hamper them. Giannis Antetokounmpo is, to my mind, the best player in the NBA. He is excellent defensively, has a great mid-range jump shot, can take the ball to the basket on just about anyone, and somehow, the coaching staff has gotten him to lay off the three-point shot (as it’s really not Giannis’s strength at all). He dishes out assists, pulls down rebounds, and scores over thirty points a night regularly. Between him and Damian Lillard (an excellent three-point shooter and much better defensively than I’d expected), the Bucks go into just about any game believing they can and will win. (Then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.)
So, that’s about it. I’m writing and editing as I’m able, watching sports as I always do, keeping the home fires burning as best I can also, and am looking for the silver lining, even if I don’t yet know where it is.
What are you all doing this week?
Recapitulation or Reversal?
Folks, I’ve come to a fork in the road.
Earlier this year, I discussed what it felt like to be dismissed from the Racine Concert Band. I’d been in that band on and off since I turned fourteen, played three different instruments in it at various times, soloed on all three instruments in front of the band, and done everything I possibly could to represent the band well.
Being told I was no longer welcome was a major reversal.
Suddenly, a bedrock of my life was no longer there. Even though I’d had previous experience with bedrocks not being there (what else could I call widowhood, except that?), it stung to know that people I’d known most of my life had no compassion or understanding.
When you’re hurting, whether it’s from physical illness, depression, protracted grief, or anything else, you need both of those things in order to heal. You also have to learn how to be compassionate toward your own self — something I’ve found incredibly difficult — as you struggle with it all.
“But Barb,” you ask. (Yes, I can hear you.) “What’s this bit about recapitulation about?”
In music, recapitulation is a statement of the main theme, usually toward the end of a movement or piece. (For the musicians in the audience, yes, I know full well I’m oversimplifying.) In writing, a recap is restating the main points of whatever your argument is, and a recap often summarizes that selfsame argument.
Basically, I’m trying to figure out what my life means now that my time in the RCB is over.
As my Facebook motto says, I’m a writer, editor, musician and composer. I am all these things, and I will always be all of these things.
Eventually, I hope to play again in some sort of band or orchestra. Music feeds the soul (as my friend Lika has put it so well), and right now my inner self feels very far from fed.
For now, though…I continue to work, slowly, on my various musical compositions. (I write melodies first, and fight with harmonies later. I know that sounds odd — harmony isn’t supposed to be a struggle! — but the melodies come very easily to me, while the harmonies don’t.) I continue to work on my writing, too, while also editing, proofreading, or doing whatever I can to aid another writer and/or editor providing it won’t drive me straight into the ground.
I guess, if I had to pick one of the above — reversal or recapitulation — I’d go for the recap instead. At least with the recap, you’re hitting the high points…and if you’re talking about yourself, in your own life, sometimes reminding yourself there have actually been high points is necessary.
Especially when you’ve dealt with too many reversals, too quickly, to be borne.
What have you done, when you’ve come to a fork in the road? Or when you’ve had too many reversals hit you, all at once? Please tell me, in the comments…as at the moment, I feel akin to someone shouting into the void.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 