Three Principles, or, “What do you mean, ‘I’m a perfectionist’?”

After the Mountaintop, I started separating what I truly enjoyed from the first 20 years of my career, from what I abhorred, or, less dramatically, what I felt like I had to do in order to be a successful capitalist. Meaning: the work I did to put monetary value on my artistic output, measured by the amount of external buy-in, literally and figuratively. 

Ayanna Cotton (required listening) talks about perfectionism as internalized capitalism. I never considered myself a perfectionist, but - if we think of it as a continuum rather than a binary condition - I can see how the pretzels into which I twisted myself just to generate likes, page views, returned emails, commissions, ad nauseum, reflected such an impulse. I can also see the toll taken when those external markers weren’t being met. It wasn’t a perfect system, and I was not a perfect system administrator.

After the Mountaintop, the dust settled into three piles, or what I’m calling, the Three Principles.

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I obsessed over technique, especially in the first decade of my professional life. But it really wasn’t technique. It was the conditions that had to be correct in order for me to be artistically productive. I obsessed over finding the appropriate pencil, the right staff paper, time of day, the right work/rest balance within a session, how many measures to set as a goal, opening and closing ceremonies, if you will, that delineated creative time from the rest of my life.

I recently came across a quote that said something to the effect of: Amateurs seek perfection before they begin. (This search for perfection conditions is also, I see now, the source of the so-called impostor syndrome under which I suffered—silently and not so silently.) Real commissions with real deadlines, however, put the kibosh on perfect conditions.

My jazz professor at Southern Miss, Larry Panella, prefaced his teaching of improvisation by saying it was a problem-solving exercise. My first composition professor (also at USM) talked about the limitations inherent to a project how a composer can approach them: time limits, instrumentation, programming compatibility, performer ability, and, on top of that, self-imposed boundaries - restrictions on harmonic language, modal considerations, rhythmic complexity, melodic ambition.

Sidebar: my wife, who sings a lot of difficult modern music, tells me that if a composer is dealing with three things—text, melody, and harmony/rhythm—they should pick two to mess with and leave the third intact. I’ve extended this idea: if a piece has melody, harmony, and rhythm, I pick two to mess with and leave one conventional.

These are the roots. But it took a quote from Sondheim to put it all together (pun intended). There’s a video of him being interviewed by Ned Rorem (required viewing), and in it, Sondheim makes an offhand comment about, “...the hundreds of micro-decisions I make in a writing session, which is my technique.” Nothing had made more sense to me than that. 

Rigor. Limitations. Technique.

Craft is the first principle.

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When I went to undergrad, I didn’t study music at conservatory. I went to a state school that had a conservatory and auditioned into the wind ensemble, playing Bari Sax. My first concert at university closed with a work for full band that, for some reason, had no Bari Sax part. Even though I had no reason to be there, I chose to sit through the rehearsals for the enjoyment of being in rehearsal.  I also sat through the performance, sitting on stage while everyone around me played. Ok, I was trying to bring attention to myself by being a “committed team player.” #perfectionism.

My point is that for me, rehearsal has always been where the work happens. Performance is what you get to do later. That’s not to say every rehearsal I’ve attended has been transcendent. But when the conditions are right (or when they’re decidedly not) I remember them very clearly. 

I can recall horrendous reading sessions with amateur church choirs that taught me how a piece should be written to suit the ensemble, not the other way around. There were also equally withering rehearsals with my wife reading through songs I had written for her, wherein I learned what a soprano can and cannot do, and what they should - and should not - be asked to do. But then, there were the orchestral rehearsals of my latest opera; hearing the ensemble sound precisely how I had envisioned it validated years of work.

Even observing rehearsals that have nothing to do with my music has been immensely instructive. Hearing John Heiss, one of my teachers, describe to a chamber ensemble the importance of dissonances being perfectly in tune; sitting on the side of an orchestra rehearsal as they pulled apart the coffee house scene of Bernd Alois Zimmerman’s opera DIE SOLDATEN and learning how to make a 100-piece orchestra sound like a 6-piece Jazz combo; the unvarnished terror of learning Messiaen’s “O Sacrum Convivium" with Leo Nestor at the Basilica of the National Shrine in Washington, D.C.

The second principle of my career—one that continues to invigorate me—is Collaboration.

Working with people, whether in a creative role or in performance, is central. But one thing I’ve learned: collaboration doesn’t mean egalitarianism or absolute democracy. Nor is it totally organic or casual. Someone has to be driving the train.  When I’m the origin point, the catalyst, that comes with weight—and I feel that weight. But it’s a weight I want to carry.

A further complication: being in collaboration with myself, with my experience, ambitions, and the need for growth which fights with the safety of where my technique has gotten me so far. 

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The third principle is Connection, specifically, connection through participating in the social and cultural dialogue.

It’s a bit more specific than the previous two, but a lot of it, for me, comes down to education. I view Resonanz - in all its parts - as the expression of this third principle. I’d love to teach at the university level: to coach, to work with young composers and performers who want to engage with modern writing. But without advanced degrees, my options to be taken seriously are limited.

Through these blog posts, podcasts, and the project updates to come, I aim to be part of a dialogue sparked by expressions of my own experience, offered for anyone who’s interested, in the hope it might shine a little light.

Most importantly, for me, it’s a forum to connect with my own experience. To appreciate it for what it is—to me. And to respect the foundations I’ve built, in order to seed future works and deepen my craft and collaborative practice.

Join me in Patreon for indepth discussion.