Issuing a retraction

I find myself uneasy with one of my previous blog posts.

A few weeks ago, I was in New York. Frank Oteri wrote a blog entry on our conversation; he was upset that I had given up on composing. I defended myself...

but the truth is, although I thought I was clear on my stance and the reasons for it before I sat down to write that post, by the time I finished writing it, I didn't quite believe it any more. Justifications kept going clunk (rather than ding... reverb), reasoning seemed to circle, there were holes in the argument....

So, with my analyst in the background, repeatedly hammering away at the need for me to be creative (at times almost mockingly – we have had a few rather sharp exchanges in the past three months; which of course suggests that there is shadow stuff floating around in the analysis, perhaps on both sides), and in a spirit of cautious investigation, and partial retraction, I'd like to revisit Why I Don't Compose, And That Isn't A Problem.

At least, insofar as I can do so....

***

1. Music, and composition, are good things.

2. However, they are not innately better than other activities – creative, artistic, whatever you prefer. (Admittedly I've pushed the opposite of this argument in some of my published papers; but I was younger, and/or trying to make a particular kind of point. The aesthetic traditions of either dismissing or enshrining music, or any particular art form or intellectual or social endeavor, are familiar (think of Kant, Schopenhauer, even Nancy)... but they are all fairly self-serving; and all of them are founded on reasons that are as easy to disprove as – well, as my argument in that earlier post.)

3. Composition is no longer plausible for me. (My skills were never very good, and what there was has faded a great deal; any musical creation, at this point, might not be as bad as are my attempts at drawing, but once you've said that you've said all you can.)

4. It's fine for Frank to defend, valorize, glorify music: he does so with passion (rather than logic), which is an entirely good reason to do things in life – but which can only make it important for him (and for those who already agree with him), not necessarily for anyone else.

***

All right, so: that's really all I've got. Any more extensive reasoning about why I don't compose starts to clamber out across soggy, swampy logical holes and self-justifications.

Ultimately, I suppose my above reasons for not composing reduce to: realistic pragmatism; and the relativism of action.

After all, people do different things – plant gardens, correct accounting ledgers, teach children, build skyscrapers, fix cars... paint, write, compose. Make love. Hem dresses. Go for long walks. Bungee jump.

And while those things can be done in various positive or negative ways (are they generous, does someone develop understanding, is something made better, are they simply fun?), they cannot be lined up on a list of best to worst. Call me a relativist – and I am (hey, what do you expect – I'm gay, have worked in the arts, grew up in the seventies, and lived in California for two decades!) – but that's my stance.

***

Admittedly: the question of what I should be doing, in life... well, if it can't be composition... yes, it still should be creative; and it will be connected to the life of the mind.

But other than that...

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen – there will be no questions at this time.

Comments

[Frank J. Oteri]

Paul,

Your responses to my essay on NMBx have been fascinating and insightful; I would have expected no less. ;)

But now I must respond regarding your assertion that I "defend, valorize, [and] glorify music [...] with passion (rather than logic)." I too am a relativist and for me there is little separation between passion and logic. In fact, what I particularly love about music (and perhaps why I devote so much energy to proselytizing for it) is that it is necessary for music, seemingly unlike most other human endeavors, to always contain both passion and logic in its creation, interpretation, and reception.

Music is also a distinctly and innately human endeavor. While scientists have studied birdsong, whale song, and on and on, they are far more functional for their species. The non-specificity and arguably downright uselessness of human music is for me its greatest attraction; paradoxically in its uselessness it has a value that actually is transcendent.

Music doesn't judge. It can't; though people do. Therefore a statement like "My skills were never very good" doesn't really compute to me. I too grew up in the '70s when John Cage went from being an enfant terrible to an éminence grise and John Blacking shook up the ethnomusicological community by his assertions that there were no hierarchies within the world's musics; none are objectively better than any other just different.

But to return to my original essay, I must reiterate that the main reason for my being "upset" with your revelation about being a composer and deciding not to compose any more was because it struck a personal nerve since I too spend more time writing about music than writing my own. I am happy to report that in the four weeks since you joined us for dinner, I have figured out a way to carve out some composing time for myself by getting up every morning at 6:00 A.M. and carving out a good 90 minute block each day. Although the fact that I've been writing this response to you now since 6:30 A.M. belies that even that time is vulnerable, alas. So I will not continue further herein except to point out, in case it wasn't obvious (I thought it was at the time) that my title for this essay "Extraordinary, But So Wrong" referred to Edward Bellamy's 1888 futuristic novel Looking Backward, not to your delightful visit to our home. My conflation of the two in my essay is just a symptom of my quirky mental processes: both the novel and our conversation that evening were prods gnawing at my own troubles writing music. The fact that in the weeks since I have been able to write some new music that I am very happy with means that those prods ultimately worked and for that I am extremely grateful.

I look forward to our next discussion.

FJO

[Paul]

Well, Frank, I *very* much hope that it didn't seem insulting or dismissive to say 'passion rather than logic'. That's not a criticism; your investment was obvious, deeply felt and deeply experienced, and carefully thought through; but you didn't reach it through some abstract consideration of alternatives. Since I'm more detached from the younger self who composed, I am more abstract/distant - especially as the only feelings I could generate for composition were so heavily infected with a confused and childish egotism. (In other words, I never progressed to a more mature relation to composing - and it seems clear that I never will, that I'll focus on other things.)

On the other hand, annoyingly enough, I had a dream about performing/creating in a group last night - very specific, lively - so that can bring me up short... Oh and glad you are composing again! Now get me to do some writing again.