Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
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Thursday, January 27, 2005
genius?
According to North Korean state television, Humankind's Greatest Musical Genius is (drumroll) Kim Jong-Il. There, it's settled.
I began piano lessons as a little boy with a local teacher named Eva Horvath. It was love at first sight. She was an older woman -- I think she was 23. I remember our first lesson: she gently lifted me onto the piano bench, placed my fingers on the lustrous keyboard, and showed me how the lines and spaces on the staff corresponded to the white and black keys.
Naturally, I was too shy to profess my deep-seated passion for her. In fact, I don't believe I ever opened my mouth in her presence. Instead, I took to expressing my devotion by writing a new piece for her every week. I began each lesson by presenting her with a scrap of music paper, on which I felt I had poured out my soul. From her reactions, I thought I was making pretty good progress. But eventually she lost patience with my wooing strategy: after one year she ran off with another man and moved far away.
I never saw her again, but, for better or for worse, I was left with the habit of composing every day. It was years before I learned that some people actually did this all their lives.
That's not genius -- it's just stubbornness.
posted by Lawrence Dillon
9:30 AM
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