Sparks from the Fire

I thought many of you might share an interest in a back-and-forth I recently had with one of our inspirational music composers.  We’ve probably all experienced this perplexing problem at one time or another in our creative endeavors.  The following contains excerpts of our dialogue.

Composer: I have been seriously stalling about doing some more composing.  Fear of the blank page, I guess.  I know you know what that’s all about… I’m not prolific at the best of times, but I need to start and get those first bars done…

Yours Truly: The basis of all this is that you have the music in you. There’s no question in my mind that this is true.  If you can write (the songs I’ve heard of yours), you can go as far as your dreams.  You have a great skill and talent and could easily have a terrific audience for your music.  I think that “fear of the blank page” really means that you’re starting wrong.  It means that you’re trying to start on the wrong beat, so to speak.  I’ve seen it in so many composers and writers.  I experienced it myself years ago until I figured it out.

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If you haven’t noticed, we have a little debate going on regarding last week’s September 15 post Feed the Hungry – Heal the Thought. A number of astute comments poured in reflecting several musician’s thoughts and frustrations with the art of sampling.

It’s clearly a controversial world and I live smack in the middle of it seeing both sides with equal respect. However, tonight, I’d like to clear up several misconceptions about the sample process.

First of all, sampling is the act of recording the actual sound of the real instrument and then re-using those notes to build orchestral parts. Many people confuse this with synthesis.  [For a much more detailed study of this, please see: On Sampling – Part 1-3 in this very blog]

I have orchestrated for ‘real’ orchestras in my career and also for the virtual ‘sampled’ kind as well and though there are virtues to each, I believe the public generally misunderstands the latter. These too are ‘real’ orchestras. They are just as ‘live’ as a ‘real’ orchestra because they too are digital recordings of orchestras playing music.

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I am inspired by my work. For the past year writing this blog, I have gotten up nearly every night and sat here and thought and wrote about what inspires people, what inspires me and just what Inspiration is. I’ve mentioned before that the root definition of the word “Inspiration” is ‘to inspire, to breathe life into”. I’ve learned during the course of this that this is oh so true.

The building and development of Watchfire Music over these past 3 years has been extremely time consuming, to say the least. We’ve all worked our tails off to bring this idea to fruition. For me, it’s been a hugely creative process and I’ve learned more these past 3 years about business than in the previous total years of my life.

But the process has short-changed me as a composer – especially in the last 6 months. I’ve looked down that hallway in my apartment here into my dark and lonely studio and wondered if I’d ever get back in there again. In the course of the last year, until last week, I had written just one song all year. That’s the first time that has happened in many decades.

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