Songs: A Composer’s Journal Entries May 4 - May 29, 2005

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Songs: A Composer’s Journal Entries May 4 - May 29, 2005

Wednesday May 4
11 p.m.

Dave, the physicist, is visiting again for a week - perhaps he will give me another tour of Cornell’s cyclotron. He’s staying in the computer room, which means I need to get all my computer work done before 11 p.m. Spent most of today writing a grant proposal - and will enter the song competition. In return for my song entrance fee, I will receive a free year’s subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine. I couldn’t find any classical song competitions, nor could I find a classical category on their form, so I’m entering So Many Lovers in the Pop category. I’m listening to Louise sing it now, with earphones because M. is asleep; they require a lyric sheet, which I assume means the words to the song.

So Many Lovers was the first tonal song I wrote, & it is written in more the style of Dietrich or Piaf - or in the style of the French & German songs my grandmother sang to me when I was a child. Actually, now that I think of it, my grandmother sang them to me as an adult as well, generally when we were walking together. Hmm, maybe that is why I sometimes sing when I walk down the street ...

So Many Lovers was written for a play Carolyn Fellman directed at The First Street Playhouse, when I was in my late twenties or early thirties. The words start: So many lovers/ how can I live this way/ Don’t I know the clouds will / fall from the sun/ and take my love away ... The last verse ends: Don’t I know the clouds will / fall from the sun/ and take my voice away ... I wrote other music for that show, but I lost the scores - in any case, I can’t find them. In the show I sat at an old upright piano and played and sang all the songs. It was just before I met Louise McConnell.

Tonight, listening to Louise sing the words “How will I die” as the song ends, is a bit chilling. Her voice in this song is, in itself, a bit chilling - and so very beautiful. She could easily sing high A’s or B’s at that time of her life, & this song was more written for my range, dipping two & a half octaves below. I remember teaching her how to sing it, showing her the style I wanted, as though it were yesterday. In performance, without the score, she often got the words wrong - sometimes the sun was falling past the clouds, or the clouds were falling into the sun - & we would laugh. Sometimes I sang with her, a few notes here & there, a brief duet. I’m not sure this song is “Pop”- I’m not really clear on what “Pop” is. Well my other choices are Rock/alternative, Country, R & B (whatever that is), Gospel, Hip-Hop or Rap - & I know this tune isn’t one of those. Hmm ... Maybe the sun does fall past the clouds in my original text - I would have to look at the score & check, if I could find the score ...

Thursday, May 5

They took my July commission away - & the concert had been changed to next March. I have more time than I thought, but also there is something so compelling & exciting about a deadline that I will now miss ... Deadlines can bring genius. I think I will act as though the concert is still this summer.

Thursday, May 12

Pulled a few stray weeds in the front gardens today. An e-mail from M., from work: Sam, another neighbor at Windgarth died yesterday, after a very long illness. I imagine Cindy was whispering in his ear, “What are you waiting for, it’s very beautiful here.” He will be missed.

Hired Shaun & Alice to help me in the gardens. I reinjured myself this morning, so now must rest. Maddening really. I must watch their every move, although Shaun is quite talented & obedient when you put a shovel in his hands & tell him to dig. While I was looking elsewhere, Alice ripped out a small patch of spring lavender phlox thinking they were weeds ...

Friday, May 13
Windgarth 2 p.m.

M. dropped me off, on the way to a meeting. Windgarth is now in better shape than ever & ready for the tenants who arrive tomorrow. They will be staying upstairs for the week. Cooler today again, sunny. Some daffodils are spent, some late tulips still unopened. The blue haze of the forget-me-nots against the reds of the tulips, magical, like an Impressionist painting... Spoke to our neighbor Ester. She knew both Cindy and Sam for over twenty years. Ester was working in the garden by her back stone steps when I came up. We sat on the slope & talked. I could not help but think that Ester is as diminutive & squat as Cindy was tall & lanky. We then examined Cindy’s gardens together - Larry did get the fall leaves off as I had suggested. Now to show him where the weeds are.

Cindy’s flowering quince has begun blooming, a wondrous orange, & Ester found a new variety of forget-me-nots in the back garden, a sort with variegated leaves. It was as though we were searching for Cindy, & much remained unsaid. One lone white boat on the lake today. The songs of the birds & the sound of the water against the shore keep me company as I write in this notebook. Too much sun, I must go inside & find a broad-rimmed hat to wear. I notice that the peas have sprouted, they are an inch or so high, forming green patterns & geometries on the heaped, barren earth. Will attempt to persuade M. to plant more lettuce today, a maroon ruffled sort, as I cannot bend over.

Found Elise’s handmade rosary & fragile bag on the table where I had left it last week. Deb came by & helped me plant in the gardens. If I look left, at Cindy’s gardens, I see the blues & purples of the forget-me-nots & muscari & one red tulip & one yellow one against the firs. M. is taking a walk, soon we will go to dinner down the road. Then back to town. Above me, the locust trees still without leaves. I watch the pale clouds move across the pale sky. I would like to capture the clouds moving against the sky in my music, especially in the last movement of the new Cycle for choir & orchestra. Must send scores to Tabula Rasa for concerts, must find their e-mail. After Bob collects the scores from the musicians, we will correct the master score. Then I will send a demo CD & the corrected scores to musicians across the world. Must e-mail Bob to see when the rehearsals for Elegie are, for the June concert.

Wedsnesday, May 18

Dinner with Bob last night. Discussed finances & upcoming concerts. Finances look bleak as usual. Decided to revise Unsung Song #1 for his instruments, for piano & string quintet. This time without the tenor violin & adding his small stringed bass. Wrote the range of the small bass on a dinner napkin. A message from the Cornell group - they want to commission me for next July & the March concert is on. We’ll see.

Unsung Song #1 is currently in a legal-sized manila file folder, nicely labelled Unsung Song #1 piano & strings version. (The original version is for piano solo.) My thoughts about it continue, whether I write them down or not. I like the form of Unsung Song #1 & also have new ideas. Once new ideas arise, the wish to manifest the ideas carries the project along, bringing new energy & life - excitement, like the crackling of a young fire or crystals hung in the air. That transparency of ideas, before music is turned into physical sound ...

When I was younger, I sometimes lived in Greenwich Village, “The Village” as it is called by its natives, in New York City. One day I found a painting that someone had thrown out, on the street. I ripped the painting out & hung the frame on my wall. I called it “the non-painting” & was very fond of it.

As soon as I piece I have written is played, the transparency is gone. It becomes a new entity, a physical one, & I always meet it for the first time. Today, in the gardens, I was thinking about expectation & the disappointment it can bring. The sad sort of story where one plans and works to bring about some small beauty, a birthday party let’s say - & no one comes. Or inwardly one hopes to show a friend a small, intriguing flower that made its way into the lawn & someone steps on it by accident. The artist faces the same potential for disappointment with every idea, every brush stroke, every turn of the potter’s wheel. Every day. And alone.

The inner vision of the artist is more like the transparency and luminosity of the soul. That can never be captured fully, and so the artist continues to paint or write or compose music or pursue whatever art form they have chosen - in the attempt to capture, portray it. In that sense, art is a spiritual path & all artists seekers. The writer searches for words, the composer sounds, the painter forms & colors - that do not truly exist on earth, in conventional physical reality. It is in that effort to find them that the true artist has the opportunity to contact the soul. And it is this quality in their work that elevates their efforts to that which is lasting and great. Humanity’s response to greatness is so profound because the viewer or listener or reader is also brought to the soul - the true artist brings them to where they were standing inwardly while creating.

Friday, May 27

Windgarth
2:30 p.m.

On Larry’s dock facing south, with many waves coming in behind me. I wonder if Ester has opened the gate to her creek... Sunny. The voices & songs of the birds all around me. To the south, a grey sky & mist, the hills flat & placid. I would enjoy a storm, although our new visitors would probably prefer the sun. The wind is now from the north, many little waves running quickly away from me, under the dock. Larry needs to repair his martin house, it is without a roof. A lone duck skids across the surface of the lake, to land; now headed towards the shore. Land on water, I will never understand our language. It might be that our language is trying to express that by landing on water we, in a sense find land. There are now two small martins standing on their roofless abode, one perched on the apex of the frame, facing me. A bit of song. I too have many songs, although mine are inner.

The gardens are so beautiful, a few late tulips in shades of red & rose lit by the sun, with the blues & purples of the forget-me-nots & muscari. Some of the perennials already in bloom; the tall white spring phlox like a haze, a dash of yellow near the shore ... & everything quite green. The lawn thick & green & newly mowed, like a soft, dense carpet. Now a bevy of purple allium on their tall stems, like a scene from Alice in Wonderland in Cindy’s garden.

5 p.m.
A storm has come up, thunder & lightning. Deb is finishing up mowing the Cole’s lawn. She must be soaked. The tenants arrived, all moved in before the storm. M. is taking a walk, we will soon go to dinner. Watching Deb from Cindy & Larry’s porch - she has been caught in the deluge.

Saturday May 28

Back in town. Worked in the gardens & checked the fairies’ mailbox under the climbing rose. Found a small pair of fairy wings & half a walnut shell from the garden. Two new drawings, this time in pencil. And a new note written in big, shaky letters: Dear fairies How are you? What is your favorite food? We might give sum for you. Love Adele

Hmm... What do fairies eat? Something a child could easily find or bring. Maybe I’ll phone Carolyn & ask her opinion on this. Leaves?

Sunday May 29

An e-mail from Elisabeth. She suggests berries & flower petals. I will leave a note for small Adele with that information. And thank her for the drawings.

I have not written a note in weeks - all my music has gone into the gardens.