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February 26, 2005
Self Revelation: August Redux
During the week of August 2nd, still in Aspen, I walked into my lesson with Steve Dibner and responded to his customary polite inquiry with, "I'm all right, except my girlfriend broke up with me." Then, genuine sympathy. Upon finishing the narrative, he pointed to my bassoon and said, "pour it out." I knew enough about his life story to sense that he felt a certain sense of identification with me then. But as hard as I tried, I couldn't push that feeling of being trapped inside my own skin out. I don't know if he knew. True, I found considerable solace in playing principal on Rigoletto, but that was more because, suddenly blinded by shock, it was the only thing I was any longer excited about.
I tell you this story because I came to realize last night, in a conversation with a very good friend, that I am not the type of artist who expresses himself well when he is sad. Some artists, we think, have made their sadness intelligible and beautiful to the rest of the world. Van Gogh, Schumann, Beethoven, Schubert, Tchaikovsky. Even if this is historically true (and I'm not sure it is), I myself find that while I've searched for meaning through art in my darkest emotional moments, those are not the moments at which my creativity has sprung most memorably forth. Instead, I'm at my most creative when content and happy, when I can brazenly declare to the world, "Hello, this is me!"
So yes, in my darker hours I've listened to Tchaikovsky's Fourth, or the Barber Violin Concerto, and tried to examine my own life from the artist's distance. Sometimes, I've been able to express myself through words in those moments, in prose or poetry, and in speech only once, on a starry night in Colorado, biting my lip through the tears. Sometimes these efforts reach ecstatic heights, like in an early morning trip on August 6th up to the Maroon Bells with Steve and two other bassoonists (the photo here was taken on that trip).
But -- and here I stake my aesthetic claim -- true self expression is more than exhibitionism, more than a cry of pain. True self expression builds the artist into the person he wants to become. Your music must reflect your soul, not the constraints others put upon it. And therein lies the path to the life I seek: commitment to be myself above all.
Posted by David Richmond at February 26, 2005 8:50 PM EST
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Comments
nice post. but for my part i find it difficult to be myself because i understand so little of myself. that's a really skimpy and slapdash criticism. but i probably don't understand your argument either.
that said, how do we explain mozart writing ecstatically happy music (eg. the clarinet quintet) at the most difficult times of his life?
Posted by: ian goh at February 27, 2005 10:03 AM
Because I'm not Mozart, and Mozart is not me (I'm making a claim about myself; not intending to claim what good art is in general). Maybe Mozart needed his life to be difficult to write good music. Maybe he separated them altogether. Maybe he wrote happy music in spite of himself, and it would have been better if he was happier as a person. We'll never know.
Also, not all art is self-expressive.
Posted by: DR at February 27, 2005 12:02 PM
David,
Here i am stalking you while you are away at your coaching. I'm reading your blogs in another attempt to quench my thirst for more knowledge about you. I don't exactly understand why i find it so absurdly pertinent that i understand you. Anyway, randomness aside, i really enjoyed this post. In a time when i am really trying to figure out my life, or for the sake of this response, relationships, your response to something i know all too much about had an impact. It is understandable that you could not "pour it out" as Steve encouraged. Who can or wants to think about bassoon when their heart is broken, their spirit bleeding, and longing only to veg out in front of the tv with a movie and munchies? However, we are all on this long road of life together, making mistakes, building memories, defining ourselves and influenceing others. In the end, all these experiences come out in music. They come out at the most obscure times and in the most obscure ways. David, i really feel that everything that happens to us, both good and bad, makes us the musicians we are today. It is up to us to take a chance, really dig deep and attempt to see how music resembles our own falls and triumps. Maybe the breakup with your girlfriend will never help you to play the Mozart 2nd movement any more beautifully, but in the end, we do music to move people and if we have never been moved ourselves...how are we to do our job? I have more respect for you then you could ever know. It is all about pickng yourself up after a fall, wiping the tears away and realizing that you are great...all by yourself.
Rachel
Posted by: Rachel Gill at July 26, 2005 7:29 PM