Tag: cello

Talking about failure, success, auditions, concerts, marks and everything that I wish didn’t define me

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I don’t keep it much of a secret that I’ve suffered with performance anxiety for the whole of my life as a musician, just as most of us do. It comes in peaks and troughs as I feel my mind drifts between a space of acceptance and joy to a place of dread, judgment and fear. I want to look closer into why I feel so defined by playing well and why success, for me, is usually a personal affair.

 

There aren’t so many times in my life that I have found myself crying uncontrollably. This extreme physical reaction to sadness has really only occurred when I feel I have failed myself in a performance situation. Humiliation, perhaps a mark far below what I was hoping or feeling as though I have failed to impress others. It may be the shame of the suffering my anxiety has caused me, perhaps through memory lapses, tense body and a less than desirable sound. The absolute agony that is experienced when I feel I have not delivered for myself. My steadfastness towards a goal alongside the expectations of success have failed me. I have failed myself, my art, and music entirely is better off without me. I wish I hadn’t bothered trying.

 

Writing this is fascinating for me. It all looks very dramatic on paper, but in my head these are thoughts that I have truly believed about myself in the past. My successes cultivate great levels of self worth; my failures thrashing any sense of worth that was there. The reality remains that I absolutely will fail. I must fail to succeed. This truism is often thrown around but I think it’s important that I start to think about what it means to me. It is likely to be one the most important question that we ask ourselves. Who am I without my success? Without the self expectation? Without being prisoner to others’ expectations? Who would I be then?

 

First it the inevitable, I must fail. If I’m not failing, not risking failure it is likely that my success is also narrow minded. I don’t dare to go beyond my capabilities and so my capabilities remain limited. We limit ourselves through our fear and through our absolute repulsion to the emotions of failure, but what does the knowledge of how failure can change us for the better do for our performances? It says goodbye to the fear. Perhaps not the fear in the moment, fear of the unknown, but it takes away our fear of the fear. Our fear of who we are when we are vulnerable, when we feel we have let ourselves and everyone down. Knowing what failure can do for us should make us perversely excited to fail. It should make every performance and every outcome an adventure. How amazing that we do what we do and how amazing that we get to witness the ups and downs of our existence, just like everyone else.

 

We can take each performance just as it comes, living out whatever happens in the moment it happens. We need to look within to find a trust, a loving for the who we are aside from success and aside from failure and, even, aside from our art. It may surround a lot of our lives, but success and failure are tiny in comparison to everything else we are in the world. We are here to see and be seen, to experience the whole spectrum of emotion. I’m sure composers had and have an expectation for us to put ourselves on the line, just as they did. We will face criticism just as they did, but we are all connected by this same suffering and experience and not divided by it.

 

Remember your core values and then try and tell yourself that failure is a bad thing. If you have been courageous, open and expressive, any failure you experience is only going to enhance the way you experience success.

A Commitment to Sound 1- Motivated by What?

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This series shows the ups and downs of me having made a commitment to sound. I have spent many years studying the cello, but very little time has been dedicated to the sound I create and how I create it. Because of this I want to make sound, and not success, my new obsession.

The aspect of this new venture that I am finding most challenging is that I am not always sure what sound I actually want to create. It’s very easy to tune out and get away with a very average sound, especially in the practice room.

I know that my ability to push for a great sound is there because as soon as I am under pressure my critical voice works overtime. It is in my cello lessons, or when someone is listening to me practice, that some of the greatest sound work is done. This is both because my teacher is always pushing for a wonderful sound, but also because suddenly I am being observed. When we start to work on the repertoire have bought I can’t help but hear all the unevenness, the intonation issues and the lumpy phrasing. I am suddenly very frustrated, hyper aware and am striving for better.

If only this constructive and critical voice were more present in my practice. I am happy with less in practice because there is no one watching me, and therefore (admittedly) no one to impress?! The sound commitment I have made is purely for a deeper connection with music through the sound I am creating. Through this I should be trying to impress myself with a wonderful sound and not only motivated towards it in the presence of others.

I have tried to take the music I am playing, maybe also the composer, and imagining them observing my practice. I am asking them questions about how their piece should sound, what type of vibrato to use and how to achieve this. The benefit of this is that the sound motivation has changed from being success and validation to being for the music itself and living up to the expectation the composers had of their piece.

It has also been interesting to record my practice and imagine teaching myself. As a response to recording, so much of the sound work I have done so far has been focused on releasing tension that is obstructing the freedom I am searching for. I often move a great deal when I play, especially when performing, but once relaxed I observe that the emotion in the sound is a result of freedom and not tension.

Sound is such a huge concept and highly personal also. It is proving a tough commitment to have made but one full of much more life and motivation.

A Commitment to Sound

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It has been unnervingly easy to go about living, practicing and exploring music without really listening to what I create. I have become complacent, getting by with what is ‘good enough’ and what might sound impressive. My practice has become a frustrating mass of confusion towards a foggy goal of ‘perfect’. Unaware of what I want to achieve, hours per day has become a reassurance that I must be improving. I must be achieving things because I am working hard.

Practice is the bones of creating wonderful music, but what is the use of it if we don’t know what we want to hear? I was about to go to bed a few nights ago when suddenly I decided that I’d had enough of this mediocrity and the rut i’d got into. The many composers whose music I worship and study deserve better. I sat down and wrote ‘I have made a commitment to sound’ in my diary. I commitment not to 7+ hours a day of practice, not to the next award or to proving myself against other musicians. I have made a commitment to, well, the music really and a desire to play it as it needs to be heard.

A ‘nice enough’ sound is not enough to sustain me anymore. There’s no going back from here which is exciting. I am going to use my practice to explore sound and the spirit within the composers bursting to come out. Playing the cello isn’t a sport anymore, I am going to start listening and loving otherwise I see very little point.

I am going to use my blog to share my sound journey with short videos and a raw honesty of how I’m feeling and how my practice is going. I anticipate that this journey is not going to be quick, but with the sound and music now at the centre I am looking to a direction and greater understanding of music.

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REVIEW: Trio Sōra at St John’s Smith Square

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Trio Sōra’s recital at St John’s Smith Square on 16th November 2017 marked the start of their UK tour with eclectic performances of Haydn, Kagel and Chausson. The 2017 Parkhouse Award winners are three female musicians who met during their studies at the Paris Conservatoire and are set to take over much of the UK classical music scene this next year. The concert included one of the lesser-known Haydn piano trio’s, the no.44 in E major alongside a one movement piano trio by the contemporary composer Mauricio Kagel written in 2001 and the piano trio by Chausson, an earlier work by the French composer leaning towards the world of chamber music whilst his contemporaries were ingulfed in opera.

Trio Sora’s life and charm was accompanied by their natural intimacy as musicians. Part of the wonder of their performance was the contrasts they were able to deliver from the sweetness of the Haydn to the turbulent and athletic Kagel and then to the undoubtedly romantic and soulful Chausson. Each piece was blessed with its own sense of ownership and shaped by the trio’s undeniable knowledge and understanding behind both the music and their personal musical intentions. It is clear this trio is set on developing its own distinct sound, the communication of the musicians really exposing this desire.

We were taken through the journey of the Haydn with dramatic contrasts from the trio, each phrase holding equal importance to the music’s overall structure. Each musician contributed to the masterly interpretations of sound and colour, the independence of the scores (and even perhaps the instruments!) allowed for none but beauty to radiate forwards. The Kegel was approached with similar finesse and style, but the genre lent itself to a much more academic interpretation. The trio held such a similar intensity and passion for this work, the cellist’s vitality and virtuosity especially prevalent. Ending with the Chausson, its depth and darkness was eagerly met by the trio, the dance of the second movement especially moving in terms of joy and excitement conveyed.

A strong internal connection is essential to the Sora’s style, with a huge depth of playing and a inspiring maturity far beyond their years, they are certainly a force to be reckoned with. This was hugely emotional playing with a transcendental connection both between the musicians and their audience and the musicians and the composers. What a privilege!

Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra- A Poetic Response

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Saturday 13th January was my first experience of the London Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. One thing and another sadly prevented me from hearing the first half of the concert’s Genesis Suite, but luckily arrived in time to hear the incomparable Concerto for Orchestra by the Hungarian composer Bela Bartok.

I had the idea of a sort of live poetry stream as the concert was running. Although we were in almost complete darkness, I set about this challenge, jotting ideas in my notebook and couldn’t believe how natural it felt. The concert began with a reading of a letter Bartok wrote to his friend whilst writing the concerto. The letter talked in great detail about how much the natural imagery surrounding him inspired the writing of the piece. We were also prompted by a back- drop of nature scenes, each refleting a movement of the concerto.

The orchestra were so detailed and expressive in their use of colours. Each member knew their role and were frequently given clear direction and artistic inspiration from Rattle. He struck me as the work’s true soloist and was indefatigable in his commitment, charm and love towards both music and orchestra.

The poem beneath is a totally unedited version of what I wrote as the music was playing. It was so tempting to edit it as I was typing it up, but I felt it important to stay true to the words that came to me in the moment. This new style of poetry has never felt so natural, this down foremost to the orchestra’s poetic excellence!

 

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Painting by Philippa Butterworth

 

The mist is sort of solid

It’s humming a cheerful tune

Laden with discontented discords

The mist clears to expose

Such a raw urgency, a coarse tension

Imagery of such hills as these pushes

My vast imagination further-

A blanket of interweaving paths

None quite explored, and yet cheerfully

Enticing

To be shown either side of a peace,

A deep sleep encircled with pungent colour

And warm horizons slowly encroaching

 

This clan chuckles

In thirds, a joyful good morning

A mockery of our silent peacefulness

Some stark hunger to provoke this

Creeping, a hide and seek

Where’s my laughter faded to

Once upheld by strong sun stokes

 

Mischief in pairs

One, two, three to brighten

Our dreary winters

 

Seasons, both heavy and light

Inhabit the clearings in our conscious mind

An elegy for those swimming in grief

Such as this

A deep hole of loss, a pool of tears

Need never be understood-

Too close for comfort

These variants on love and death

A memory kept alive through shortness of time

The fear is greeted with a shaft of sweetened light

The darkness is softened, knelled in our joy’s

Raging sun

 

Images of meadows etcet. Etcet.

Is this all too obvious?

Yet

It feels so genuine!

Oh blow,

Let’s sit another hour

This love is so bright and blooming

And it intercepts our longing for

Whatever.

 

Great swathes of energy

Hurl us towards this huge beacon

Stinging, reaching

Energy to fill intensities of sorrow,

A persistent murmur of peace.

Here sits the contemplative

A rising joy, that these days have strengthened

In their outbursts they raise us up to Him.

 

Hattie Butterworth

Talking About Performance Anxiety

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anxietyHaving started the cello much later to most other musicians, I found myself battling the fear of performing at the same time as facing an insecure self-image that often comes with being a 12 year old. I believe this made the issue far greater than it would’ve been, had I been performing at an earlier age. It has, nonetheless, forced me to address the way I deal with my anxiety on and off stage and encouraged me to read much more into the subject.

What is performance anxiety for you?

Performance anxiety for me is waking up on the day of a performance and being so terrified that you are unable to move. It is going over and over in your head all the possible worst-case scenarios and the consequences of performing badly. It’s being desperate to impress people and to receive reassurance that you’re doing OK. It’s trying to calm your breathing but you end up making it more rapid. Then it’s playing as though you have no connection between your mind and your arms and even less connection between your mind and your instrument. Performing feels like a mad free-for-all. Every man is for himself as I push through this Bach suite movement, making a hundred mistakes a minute working to the end. And then there’s after; the beating yourself up for being so anxious and losing security and control, feeling as though it was never all worth it and will never be again. But what is important to remember, though difficult to believe, is that these are all just thoughts.

We are not doomed. We deserve to play the way we dream about and share music with people on the the highest level that we a capable. We can hold ourselves and forget ourselves at the same time and we can find the benefits to this alongside. The philosopher Kierkegaard had an existentialist theory which I think can help us understand the way we perceive music in performance. His idea was that people need a deep satisfaction and relationship with themselves, the energy of the universe (God etc.) and the core of their being. It is only after that that they can enjoy the materials (aesthetic) and relationships on earth without depending on them. We are all guilty about having a huge desire to impress people, but the issue is that we make this the center of our thoughts around a performance and become greedy for praise and recognition. If we think about Kierkegaard’s theory, connect with ourselves through being mindful and agree that whether or not our performance goes well, we will still feel at one with ourselves (and music!), we suddenly see a performance completely differently. It’s purpose isn’t to satisfy our needs as individuals for recognition, it is for us to connect with the power music has and our ability to give this power to our audience as a gift. It is much less diabolical to hold this at the centre of our thinking. Then, be it praise, opportunity or reward, we can enjoy these parts to a performance without relying on them.

This theory is not so difficult to explain or understand, but how can it be applied? Many books have helped me shape a rusty but improving bank of coping strategies alongside experience and talking to different people about their opinions and experiences. The most important way to start is to talk about it. Just like any mental health issue (people dislike the terminology but it is what it is!) performance anxiety can be improved by talking to people. One of many reasons for this is it can make you feel much less alone- almost all musicians experience performance anxiety to some degree and certainly have a lot to say about it. Another reason for this is it can increase awareness of the issue of performance anxiety in the arts industry and encourage more people to talk about it. Certainly raising the issue with your teacher can hold enormous benefits, but anyone you trust can be a worthy listener.

But even once you’ve altered your mindset towards performing and you are happy that everything will be OK, how do you manage the sometimes inevitable symptoms that we experience before a performance? The most important thing to remember here is that we can still perform well when we are nervous. There is nothing stopping us even when feeling sick and shaky- we can concentrate and there is no reason the physical emotions should overpower us. It is easy to develop a ‘fear of the fear’ because we associate the physical sensations with a bad performance, but there’s no reason for us to. We are still in control. People often talk about being prepared as being a very important part of combating anxiety but I contrary this and say that practicing performing when you’re under-prepared is incredibly beneficial. Of course, the anxiety involved in this is great but it is likely that you will emerge feeling much better about the situation. The reason is that your confidence increases as your mind believes ‘well if I did that when I was so unprepared, I can do anything!’

The final part to thinking and discovering more about performance anxiety is forgiving yourself for failure. You are on an incredible road, learning at every part of it and finding ways to manage anxiety is just a part of the bigger picture. It cannot be solved overnight, but you  will find that you become more and more aware of yourself and your purpose as a musician. These ideas I have shared are not an exhaustive list and I will collect many resources below for you to explore. What works for me may not work for you and I am a long way from an answer. I still can get cripplingly nervous but I try to distance myself from my thoughts and turn the focus for the music. I think to take any of this on board you must first ask yourself why. Why music and why love and why faith? The answer is purpose and if music gives you an enormous sense of purpose, you are not destined to sabotage your communication and expression and you will, in time, find a solution.

“There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming” Soren Kierkegaard

Resources:

This is an amazing, short book complied by many famous classical musicians- great short term relief!  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Keeping-Your-Nerve-Confidence-Strategies/dp/0571519229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490095038&sr=8-1&keywords=keeping+your+nerve

For changing your perception:Life Is Not A Journey  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSSzYIqQsdw

A classic, but it really helped me to start thinking: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inner-Game-Music-Timothy-Gallwey/dp/1447291727/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490095345&sr=8-1&keywords=the+inner+game+of+music

How do we feel inspired in the world at the moment? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tSBkT9AFWA

Fantastic book for liberally exploring faith https://www.amazon.co.uk/Simple-Faith-Margaret-Silf/dp/0232527946/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1490095497&sr=8-1&keywords=faith+margaret+silf

 

21/03/2017 Hattie Butterworth

 

 

Larsen Magnacore Cello String Review

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Strings are to a musician like ballet shoes are to a dancer. Just as each dancer is very different and requires different size and softness of shoes, every cello is vastly different and requires different strings to compliment the resonance of the instrument. My cello has an especially bright and powerful quality, especially on the A string, but it also has the tendency to sound brash. It also often has projection difficulties on the low strings, particularly in high positions. I knew more could be done to improve the sound and I started to think about trying new strings in order to address this issue.

With this in mind, I got in contact with Larsen some weeks ago, eager to try new strings on my cello. Having been a devotee to their standard cello strings for quite a while, I was hearing great things about their Magnacore strings and was desperate to give them a try. I’d been reassured how balanced the string sounds were across the cello and, knowing my cello was in desperate need of this balance, was excited to try them. Suffice it so say, I was not disappointed! I changed the A and D strings first and noticed an immediate increase in the sound quality. The strings needed virtually no playing in time and adapted to my cello immediately. A strings on my cello often have the tendency to sound increasingly ‘brash’ on my cello, but the Magnacore A string had a sweetness that I was convinced my cello wasn’t capable of producing. The D string matched the A both in resonance and quality of sound and was so buoyant to play. Finally I have found strings that create equal tones on both A and D, I have struggled for so long with a brash A string and a muted D string, thanks to these strings I feel my strings compliment each other and my playing.

I later replaced my G and C Spirocore strings with the Magnacore C and G and, once again, the effect was immediate. The strings were so much more responsive on my cello and the resonance was electric. I did find the strings to feel quite a bit stiffer and not entirely flexible under the fingers, though they tuned up easily and maintained tuning with no issues. In saying this, it was as I expected that the bottom two strings took a few days to play in and feel totally settled. This created an short period of discomfort, but it quickly subsided and, once settled, my cello produced resonant and expressive sonorities that were unprecedented but certainly welcome!

Proof of the strings’ transformation of my cello came about when I played the Bach Suite no.3 in my cello lesson last week. My Teacher immediately mention how much she thought my sound had improved. I mentioned that I’d recently changed my strings to Magnacore and she was fascinated at how much of a difference they had made to my sound in such a short space of time.

It’s such a joy and a blessing to find strings finally that work with my cello and not against it. I’ll certainly be using Magnacore again and will be intrigued to witness their longevity. They cannot come more highly recommended!

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Hattie Butterworth

Tennis and musical injury- the injustice

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Following a hectic final term at school, my return home last Friday was greeted with the excitement of both the women and men’s Wimbledon finals. Throughout the whole of the tournament this year, I couldn’t help but compare the lives of tennis players with our lives as musicians, and how tennis may be revealing the darker injustice in the musical industry.

Much of my cello playing career so far has been enormously rewarding, but I did encounter a traumatic tendon injury for 6 months last year. I don’t feel it an exaggeration to admit that I felt very much alone during this time. This was not entirely out of the fault of my school, but largely because I felt injury wasn’t discussed or accepted within the school. Prior to my injury I had received little, if any, education about injuries and prevention, and had no idea who to talk to. So often I was made to feel I was letting people down, the fault being my own. This stemmed from being one of the only injured musicians in my school at the time. 

The isolation I encountered through my injury is far from the experiences of those in the sports world and tennis in particular. If a player has recovered from injury, many of the commentators and treat it as a tremendous act of resilience and bravery for them to be competing. They understand the impact of an injury and don’t ‘expect’ the player to return at full health straight away, because injuries are understood in the sports world. Sports people don’t fear them because they know they will have the support they need to recover. Why are musicians different? As well as physical injury, being unable to play and has a significant mental impact that needs treatment and support. Injury is a big deal because you lose your means of expression. Injured Musicians are left watching rehearsals, excluded from concerts and plagued with the fear of missing opportunities that their fitter fellow students will instead receive. I know my experiences aren’t rare and, although musical injuries are perhaps less common than those encountered by sports players, most musicians will experience an injury at some point in their career. 

It’s also interesting to question why injury happens in musicians and highlight another comparison between the sports and classical music industry. It is without a doubt that success in the classical music industry nowadays is based around perfection. We attend a concert expecting a certain standard. If a musician makes a name for themselves, they are expected to maintain this level throughout their career and at every concert they perform. The classic example of a ‘bad day’ was seen in Djokovic’s devastating 4th round loss in Wimbledon this year. Of course, many fans were disappointed, but the sports world as a whole appears much more understanding of failure. Djokovic has been so successful in his career that this one set back doesn’t fail him in our estimation. I’m not entirely certain whether the same would be true in the classical music industry. This fear of failure and constant search for perfection puts stress on the body for many people, and it is here that injury is likely to occur. It feels more often that our motives in practice are turned towards perfection, rather than the ability we have to communicate the inner soul of the composer. This can’t be healthy or rewarding in the long term.

Musicians are communicators, just as sports people are, and both, more importantly, are human. It appears that the sports world are much more in tune with this fact than the musical world and, as a result of this, the failings of the athletes are both respected and expected. Musicians are humans with human needs and functions. Although my injury turned into something positive in the end, it took a lot of pain, darkness and loneliness before I was able to release myself. We shouldn’t go at it alone and don’t deserve to.

 I can only hope we begin to learn from those in the sports world; an industry that is far closer to us than we may invisage. 

“Play it like something you hear down by the river”

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I believe it is now widely accepted, or at least should be, that the soul of great music and a great artist is not solely created in the practice room. We use the practice room as a place to learn how to interpret a composers emotions though our instruments. The practice room is used to iron out any technical faults that may come between ourselves and the composers music. It allows us to perform with as little of ourselves and technical issues and with as much of the composers emotions. Practice is a guidance tool to our music making and by no means the heart of it.

It is important to remember that these entities go hand in hand. In order to translate an emotion, or at least interpret it, we need to access a part of ourselves that has experienced life outside of the practice room. Our audience connect to the soul of our performance. If we are to encourage non-musicians into classical music, we need to ensure our music connects to them. Observing the way we go about our day-to-day life may be the first step. Observing and relating to what ‘ordinary’ people do could be the key to communicating classical music to them. This being said, it can also remind us not to lose touch of ourselves and of the real world. The practice room holds no value unless we enter with an intention of how we want to communicate and are prepared to experiment. Once the technical barriers are gone, or at least diminished, the world of expression is your oyster.

I suppose what I’m trying to puzzle out here is how we as young musicians can connect to real people outside the music bubble when we’re bombarded with the ‘practice’ mantra? The answer is that I don’t believe we can. Our inspiration is what creates great music. Translating what we see, hear and experience outside our practice is a life long exploration, but it is vital if we want our music to be universal.

Perhaps ‘fine artists’ are the lucky ones. They have a direct line between the images they see and the image they produce on paper, so are used to interpreting nature and ‘real life’. Musicians also need to connect this line. Although it may not be as direct and tangible, it is the most necessary part of our music making.

Why do performers find composition difficult?

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I’m aware my blog has been somewhat neglected for a few weeks so I wanted to post a quick thought whilst travelling back from London today. I’ve been on the Stop Trident CND march which was awe inspiring! It always excites me to see just how many people are willing to stand up to the government and say no. My stance on trident is in opposition due to the disgusting thirst for power through this system, but also the money at stake. Think about how many places could be funded at Chethams School of Music for 100 billion pounds! Sickening, but anyway…

  
Whenever I find I have time on my hands to dedicate to music, I attempt, in vain, to turn my creativity to composition. Needless to say, this is invariably an impossible task, ending in me either writing poetry instead or sullenly pick up my cello to play some solemn elegy. I don’t feel a natural connection between my inspiration and the creation of a melody or piece of music. Personally, I find words to be more appealing, easier to handle and craft. How can this be if I have striven to a life in the music industry for so long? Shouldn’t my musical creativity be overflowing? 

I have come to a few conclusions. Firstly, I am a performer and have been for many years. I have been trained to channel my emotions into interpreting other people’s music. This is natural for me, so  suddenly to create an original piece of music results, often, in the music being either contrived or stiff. As performers, recreation is not often at the forefront of the teaching syllabus. This makes composition rather alien to a group of people who should know it rather well. 

Another reason for the blankness may be because I haven’t yet been inspired to write music- I actually discovered poetry through silence of music! Perhaps composition will be the same? Our creative minds are constantly changing and developing so it may be that soon I will feel comfortable with composition. I think it certainly would help my performing and interpretations if I were to recreate, or at least attempt it. In the meantime, I’m not panicked about it, just simply curious as to why. 

It may be that composition will never come naturally to me, but I don’t think that should stop me trying now and again. 

My first recital was appalling,

My first poetry is laughable.