For a really long time I've wanted to compose music. Why didn't I? Well, I kind of did, a little, when I was smaller and didn't really play an instrument. My friend Sarah and I wrote songs about shoes and mud and people we knew...and accompanied ourselves with the one chord I knew on guitar and usually pots and pans. It was great.
Then I started learning music. I've always been super eager to do well at things and usually end up being pretty mediocre. I applied myself and kept sort of waiting for it to 'happen' for me to be able to 'play music.' In my head playing music meant playing songs by memory or making stuff up and calling it composing. AND YET somehow I got further and further away from that. No one's fault but my own - I kept waiting for someone to force me to learn how to memorize, or improvise...but I guess I picked the wrong instrument?
I love classical music and have no desire to stop playing it...but I'm confused as to why we're not taught how to make up our own cadenzas earlier. I like playing other people's notes, but I want to add mine too...just sometimes!
I've become such a music critic that I almost can't think of creating something without killing it before it's fully formed by snarky judgemental critiques. I'm fighting that these days.
A new-ish friend of mine has a band that plays rather absorbing minimalist music of a mostly electronic sort. I really like it but feel like, given my usual stated likes and dislikes, I should hate it. It's made me reevaluate a lot of my musical decisions and been a bit freeing. If I can let myself like minimalism...maybe I can let myself create something simple again without too much fear.
