Strike While the Iron is Hot!

The period leading up to a deadline is, for me at least, often very intense… I compose late at night, early in the morning, between classes, while waiting for my kids during their music and dance lessons, all in order to finish a composition on time.

Sounds kind of manic, doesn't it?

I don't think this is a particularly healthy way to live, at least not on a regular basis, but it happens, and when it happens, I have noticed the following:

• It is stressful;
• It is exciting;
• It really gets the creative juices flowing (i.e., the composition is fresh in my thoughts much of the time, which causes ideas to come more easily and frequently); and 
• When the deadline has successfully been met, the excitement and flow of creative ideas continue.

Excitement and stress are important parts of the creative process. If you have ever been stuck, and anyone who has made a regular habit of creating things has probably experienced this at some point, you know how painful it can be. Often, it takes an imminent deadline to become "unstuck" again.

I think that two of the main causes for "writer's block" are:

1. Extreme self-censorship (we become too self-critical); or
2. Loss of focus, for which there can be many causes, such as:

• Competing responsibilities or activities (e.g., care of loved ones, work, school, gigs, sports, cleaning/cooking, job-hunting, home-hunting);
• Depression/anhedonia/boredom;
• Trauma/major upheaval (e.g., death of someone close to you, broken relationship, moving to new home, starting a new job, losing a job)
• Stress (e.g., relationship, school, work, unemployment, financial);
• Poor health or other physical pain; or even…
• Having an unusually-good time in life (e.g., going on vacation, falling in love, winning the lottery, hitting a come-from-behind, World-Series-winning, walk-off home run, for the first time in the history of major-league baseball (thank you, Joe Carter!)).

The pressure of an imminent deadline can force us to become less self-critical and to become more focussed. On the other hand, the weight of too much stress can squash us like a bug, but lets not go there…  :-/ 

Becoming less self-critical and more focussed can unblock impediments to creativity, many of which may be self-imposed, allowing us to move forward with our composition or whatever work in which we are engaged.

What do you do after the deadline has been met?

I find that after the deadline has passed, my brain continues to be in "hyper-creativity" mode, meaning I have lots of ideas, I continue to wake up early, and I have a general urge to create things, be they compositions, blog entries, story ideas, music theory handouts, or anything else that happens to interest me.

If I do nothing — if I do not act on these creative impulses — I gradually return to my "normal" mode of functioning, and, if I am lucky, I get more sleep while I'm at it!

But there have been times when I have jumped immediately from the completion of one project to the start of another, and this has resulted in an uninterrupted creative flow, which has led to faster and more painless project completions than usual.

Right now, I have finished all school work for this semester, and I have ideas galore for stuff (including today's blog entry), and so my plan is to get busy on a couple of projects right away. Oh, and to finish my Christmas shopping too, of course (which, unusually for me, was almost done a week before Christmas).

In other words… to strike while the iron is hot!

This, I believe, is the basis for Benjamin Franklin's famous adage, "if you want something done, give it to a busy person." He was living proof of this; Franklin is described in Wikepedia as "a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat."

The busier we are, the more efficiently we must work in order to accomplish our tasks. If I return to composing after a protracted period away from it, I often find it very difficult to get started, as if the part of my brain used for composing has dust and cobwebs in it. If I immediately dive into another project after finishing a work, the composition process flows a lot more smoothly.

Let me know if you have experienced anything like this.

Happy creative flowing!

Playing With Expectations (Part Three)

My previous blog on this topic (part two) just scratched the surface in exploring ways in which Beethoven plays with listener expectations in his Piano Sonata No. 21 ("Waldstein;" op. 53). If examining this aspect of the "Waldstein" interests you, I recommend listening to the rest of the first movement several times if possible (video of this with scrolling score embedded at the end of today's blog entry), trying to identify places in which something unexpected occurs.

However, if you have the entire movement memorized, perhaps nothing would come as a surprise; you would presumably be expecting everything that occurs!

Or would you?

I discuss the "Waldstein" sonata every year when I teach musical form, and every time I hear it I am delighted/excited/amazed, and yes, even surprised, when we reach the recapitulation. Without getting too specific,¹ Beethoven does some absolutely outrageous things during the recapitulation, and even though I know what's coming, it doesn't temper my visceral reaction of surprise when they happen.

Why is that?

It could be because I am slow of mind, incapable of remembering what's coming next. I won't deny that my brain is occasionally slower than I wish it were, but I think there may be another explanation for this, and it is related to dropping a heavy object on my toe last summer.

Here's what happened: I was helping one of my kids assemble an office chair in his room, and an extremely heavy part (the pneumatic gas cylinder – the central metal post upon which the chair rests) dropped onto my foot. I vividly remember that the pain was about as extreme as anything I had ever felt, but I don't remember the pain itself. Put another way, I remember that something really painful happened, and I remember the cause, but I cannot recreate the visceral quality of the experience itself, unless I were to drop something heavy on my toe again. I do not plan on doing this, although life being what it is, I'm sure something similar will occur at some point in the future… :(

Here's another analogy, this time involving no pain: There are some roller-coasters that I have ridden so many times that I know in advance what to expect, and yet they thrill me every time.

Remembering an emotional response is not the same as experiencing it.  When I hear the first movement of the "Waldstein" sonata, I know what is coming next. I also know that in previous hearings I was astonished at various points in the piece by the ways in which Beethoven plays with our expectations, but this knowledge does not prevent my experiencing a similar level of astonishment — I can't believe he just did that! AGAIN! — every time I hear this composition.

This strikes me as one measure of a work's greatness; it can astonish, surprise, delight, or otherwise move you every time you hear it, even if you know what is coming next.

For composers, this is extremely valuable information! If we find ways to engage our listeners and play with their expectations, there's a chance our music will continue to have a similar effect on people for a very long time to come.

If you'd like to listen to the entire first movement of the "Waldstein" sonata, here's a video with scrolling score:

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^{1. I often ask students to identify the various unexpected/surprising things that occur during the recapitulation of this sonata, which is why I am not being more specific here. I don't want to give too much away, because I would like students to discover these wonderful moments for themselves.↩}