Fraser Sherman on Music

Here's Fraser Sherman's post on music. You can find me at Isabelle Santiago's Twisted Fairytale.

And while I'm at it, please visit the Drollerie Chat Room on September 27th at 4 pm EST, 1 pm PST. New books will be given away. You know you want some.

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Music baffles me.

I can’t begin to imagine how composers create music.

I can understand how they write lyrics, even though I’ve never tried. Lyrics are writing, they’re words, putting them together makes sense to me. But music?
While I enjoy music, I don’t have any technical understanding of what makes it work: Why one note sounds better than another, why certain notes belong together. I’m not even sure notes do belong together: For all I know, a nice but of music from the Beatles or Mozart would have worked just as well if they’d put a whole different set of notes in.

I imagine my more musically educated friends can see the structure of a symphony or a jazz trio the same way I can see the nuts and bolts of a story if I want to analyze it. to me, it’s just a lot of pretty notes, followed by a bunch more pretty notes.

As a result, I can’t for the life of me imagine the creative process of someone writing music. They say Mozard could conceive the structure of an entire symphony in an instant; I can’t even imagine what a musical structure is.

I have the same problem with some of those incredibly busy paintings that were popular a couple of centuries ago: How do they artists decide where everything will go, what everyone will be doing, how it all makes sense. But I come closer than I do with music: I can imagine someone sketching out a painting, crossing out a few figures, adding stuff, finally getting the draft. But how does that work with music?

I suppose this makes me the musical equivalent of those people who ask writers “where did you get all your ideas?” It’s oddly fascinating to me; there are many, many skills I don’t have but most of them I can still comprehend how they work and how people make them work. Music? Not so much.

If nothing else, i guess it will help to keep me humble.

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.

Julie Rose’s Guide to San Jose

Are you going to World Fantasy in San Jose? It pays to know a native.

Here's author Julie Rose's guide to San Jose for folks who are visiting at the end of October. Thanks, Jools. I think I wants me some tapas...

Catherine

Mirrored from Writer Tamago.