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Surviving in Utter Desperation

Surviving in Utter Desperation

This past week I had been contemplating the utter desperation that seems to have surrounded us in living our day to day life from politics to Covid-19 and pervading social injustice. To process these emotions and to achieve some type of catharsis, I started to write music that would convey this desperation that fuels our actions. Everything seems to be a matter of life and death. To uplift our spirits I wrote music that reflected our actions and emotions but also to give us strength and hope so that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. This too shall pass. We can get through this together.

I share with you…

Running, Searching, Chasing, Investigating....

Running, Searching, Chasing, Investigating....

We all do it in some form or another and for different reasons. How would that translate musically? Sometimes we’re running because we’re late. Other times, we’re running because we’re frantically searching for something. Others find themselves doing the chasing, while others are running away from those chasing them down. Sometimes, we’re simply trying to sneak out and get away. This is….

Music = (Composer's Story + Story's Emotions) Musical Sound + Listener's Connection

Music = (Composer's Story + Story's Emotions) Musical Sound + Listener's Connection

Music moves people in such different ways due its emotional connection with its listeners. Emotional music moves me in such a profound way. Similarly, It flows naturally from within me for outer expression when I write music. In hindsight, whenever I had a choice to choreograph dance pieces many years ago, I would choose very emotional, dark music to share stories that also had a sad dark premise. So, it appears that my creative self-expression comes from an inner desire to express that which I usually do not express in my normal course of interaction with the rest of the world. People often describe me as having a happy-go-lucky, jovial, exuberant persona. Carl Jung believed that there is a mechanism of balance between the inner and outer life of a person. Nature in its grand scheme seeks balance. Weather is an excellent example. From that perspective, that makes some sense. However, creating music is much more than that. Music goes deeper than that. From personal experience in observing other artists as well as myself, I venture to say that composers’ creations embody their personal stories plus the emotions that are a very deep integral aspect of their stories expressed through musical sounds. A composer’s creation becomes music when a listener makes a connection with a composer’s creation in a personal way to the listener. Hence, every person is moved by different types of music. What I find to be music to my ears may not be music to another’s ears. A composer’s story or emotional intention may not be exactly the same to the meaning attributed by the listener. It is the listener’s connection with the composer’s creation that results in music to one’s ears. A listener becomes a fan when that listener identifies and connects with much of a music creator’s music. The old adage “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder’ speaks a truth for music creators that music is in the ears of the beholder. So, composers hope …