A wonderful read, Harold. Your experience reading Little Men and wanting to re-create that feeling through your own writing happened to me at a young age too, except through music. Almost 60 years later I’m still composing. I appreciate your insights into the creative process and ecstasy – the elusive beast that it is. You put it so clearly here.
‘A genuine calling begins in ecstasy and a desire to experience this heightened state of consciousness—of being—as often as possible.’
Your quote from T.S. Eliot describes this experience perfectly '...you are the music'.
I look forward to reading your previous posts, and those to come.
Thanks so much, Glyn. I was hoping musicians would share their own experiences. It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it, to discover one’s direction in life early. That’s what every musician I’ve interviewed has said. Kory Caudill said he “never knew a time when he didn’t feel at home with a piano.”
Yes, I'm very grateful to have discovered the joy of music early on in my life, and later to have parents who supported my choice of music as a 'career'. I realise how fortunate I am to have found this calling, when I see so many others struggling to find meaning and purpose in their lives. Of course, as your quote from Flannery O'Connor says there's the 'sheer labor', not to mention trying to earn a living. I'm currently in a situation, despite my years of experience, of being offered peanuts by a major arts organisation for months of work. I know that's something every artist has to cope with, and yet we keep going because it's who we are. As you wrote so beautifully, '...we leave the self behind until the sun comes up through the window.'
Yes, there is the making a living part and that seems to get harder as the tech gurus find ways to commodify music and the other arts. But that’s who we are, as you say.
Creating communities that the tech gurus can’t infiltrate may be our best hope. That’s what brought me to Substack, perhaps naively, but I’m willing to try.
A wonderful read, Harold. Your experience reading Little Men and wanting to re-create that feeling through your own writing happened to me at a young age too, except through music. Almost 60 years later I’m still composing. I appreciate your insights into the creative process and ecstasy – the elusive beast that it is. You put it so clearly here.
‘A genuine calling begins in ecstasy and a desire to experience this heightened state of consciousness—of being—as often as possible.’
Your quote from T.S. Eliot describes this experience perfectly '...you are the music'.
I look forward to reading your previous posts, and those to come.
Thanks so much, Glyn. I was hoping musicians would share their own experiences. It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it, to discover one’s direction in life early. That’s what every musician I’ve interviewed has said. Kory Caudill said he “never knew a time when he didn’t feel at home with a piano.”
Yes, I'm very grateful to have discovered the joy of music early on in my life, and later to have parents who supported my choice of music as a 'career'. I realise how fortunate I am to have found this calling, when I see so many others struggling to find meaning and purpose in their lives. Of course, as your quote from Flannery O'Connor says there's the 'sheer labor', not to mention trying to earn a living. I'm currently in a situation, despite my years of experience, of being offered peanuts by a major arts organisation for months of work. I know that's something every artist has to cope with, and yet we keep going because it's who we are. As you wrote so beautifully, '...we leave the self behind until the sun comes up through the window.'
Yes, there is the making a living part and that seems to get harder as the tech gurus find ways to commodify music and the other arts. But that’s who we are, as you say.
Creating communities that the tech gurus can’t infiltrate may be our best hope. That’s what brought me to Substack, perhaps naively, but I’m willing to try.