Tina Davidson

Composer

composing music

Music is Like Bread

by

We sit, shoulder to shoulder, listening to her string quartet. Composer Jennifer Higdon is a student at the University of Pennsylvania. She comes over often to share her music or to talk. The afternoon is late, and shadows lengthen through the windows. She is dressed in a dark jacket, her face is open and smiling, framed by short black hair.

Her musical style is in the same spirit as mine, a beautiful motif appears and then recedes, ebbing and flowing as it is pushed by rhythms. We wonder out loud what relevance the standard of development has to our music. What does that word mean – develop?

I keep hearing the word ‘allow’ instead of ‘develop,’ giving the music room to fill. Is this merely about semantics, or does the argument have a deeper meaning?

In the classical music tradition, development is a process by which a composer uses the musical material of the piece. The melody and accompanying components are reworked, stretched out, condensed or changed in some fashion throughout the piece. The sonata form uses development as part of the overall structure of the piece, so that whole sections appear again, sometimes slightly modified. The idea is that the listener will anticipate the return of a melody or a section, and even understand the mu sic better because of the repetitions.

Many living composers use development as a chief technique in their music. They push the melodies around, and rework them by directly transposing or inverting them. My ear pauses. Why do I feel that they stand at the river’s edge beating their musical material with stones until it is thin, weak and colorless?

I provide the right size pan, large enough so the bread can expand to its fullest potential, and small enough so it can use the sides of the pan as support. I decide when the bread has risen enough without too much poking around. This is a judgment of my eye, heart and mind acting together. Rising too much, it will be filled with air and collapse. Rising too little, it will be mean and hard, an impenetrable nugget.

The word ‘allow’ asks for balance and helps me rethink the issue of ownership and parentage. Allow provides a medium for growth, and questions authority. Too much control forces a finger into sacred ground, leaving a trail of infection. To allow, in the end, is to have.

Featured Work

LULLABY
for solo & unspecified instrumentation (6-8)
“a gorgeously gentle piece” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
Listen: https://open.spotify.com/track/77Nm1qrUp6RKBRWhti8z2S

FOLLOW TINA DAVIDSON:    Facebook       Instagram

Join our Newsletter mailing list!

Email Contact

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Who Names Me? (Healthy Narcissism)

by

“I have wondered for a long time why it is so hard for artists — especially women — to own their status in the world,” writes artist and author, Lisa Congdon recently. “It took me years to identify confidently as an artist.  Why are we so hesitant – at least until we’ve graduated from school or until we’ve ‘made it’ — to proclaim, ‘I am an artist’?”

Sigh. The idea that it is presumptuous and pretentious to call oneself an artist has a long history. It was connected to my gender and the insistence of the music world I grew up in.

I came of age as a composer when two things were happening simultaneously. Women were testing and changing boundaries about themselves and life around them, and composers of atonal, dissonant music fought for a position in the classical music world. Just as I was looking to be included as an equal participant, they famously declared that contemporary music was above the laypeople’s ability to understand, and music, as a ‘high art form’, implied a hierarchy – who could be a composer and what kind of music one could write. Calling oneself a composer, particularly without proper pedigree, became a kind of a reverse impostor syndrome. There was no need to doubt yourself, because everyone around you was doing it so well.

And there I was, back then, naming myself – “I am a composer” without excuse or preface. It was an act of self-definition and self-creation, it was healthy narcissism.

Early on, I would spit it out, daring others to refute me. It was my mantel, my fighting clothes, instead of the more gentle “I write music.” But, by articulating my identity, I was creating a framework that allowed me to explore how I related to the world, particularly as a woman and mother. In an article for Ms Magazine (1990) I wrote how my sexuality and physicality impacted my music,

… my sexuality seems dark and powerful.  It comes out of a center place and is wide, continuous, warm, moist.  My physical energy is long and deeply rooted. It goes on and on, winding from one rhythm to another, slowly moving out, until, at its peak it is suddenly transformed into something else — a glowing, evanescencing energy.  This, for me, is not a climax, but an epiphany.  

Staking the claim, my vision became broader – I began to see more opportunities and possibilities. No longer hoping for work, I pursued it. I sent my music to performers without introduction. I became a part of a new music ensemble both as a director and performer, and wrote many pieces for them. I wrote grants, and investigated how to become more connected to community work. And always, I was on the scent of new collaborations and connections, and new works to compose.

These day, naming myself helps me deal with the ups and downs of being a life-long artist. The career of an artist takes a certain kind of exterior and interior toughness, not only a willingness to speak your truth to an audience who may or may not accept it, but also lasting through successes and failures, growth and fallow times, and career ups and downs.  But, these are, quite simply, part of being a composer. It is a package deal, and within that context of who I am, this is easier to bear.

Pastel, by Tina Davidson, © 2023

Follow me!  Facebook       Instagram

ORDER Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music From a Classical Composer by Tina Davidson
https://www.amazon.com/Let-Your-Heart-BrokenClassical/
dp/1633376966/?fbclid=IwAR3BU-_
UMhxivpy4A3mnPFttpYpiyLae RdD0H
HQnsVZwUjYeE7K2Lshse6M

Sign up for Davidson’s Newsletter

Email Contact

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Napping and Other Diversions

by

I am lecturing at a local university to a hall full of music students. One of them stands and asks,  “What do you do when you hit a creative road block and can’t move forward in the work you are composing?”

I hesitate, and smile. “Take a nap!” A wave of laughter shimmered through the audience, then applause.  “No really. Take a nap, go on a walk, bake some cookies.”

There are many times in the composing process when I am at a standstill. I sit with pencil in hand, poised over the staff paper. Suddenly I find myself sorting through bills and filing letters instead. I tackle the garden, removing vines and poison ivy. My lawn, usually a tangle of clover and violets, is now in neatly mowed rows. I take long rambling walks in the woods with my little dogs. I make myself tea and stare out the window.

Ah, procrastination, I recognize you – my old nemesis! You used to make me  doubt my capacity to move forward. Now, you are signal that I am not quite ready to compose and can relax a bit. Procrastination is part of the process.

Still, progress is bumpy and halting. So finally – finally, I take a nap.

Sleep is amazing not only in its restorative power, but in it’s function to leave my brain space to do it’s work. When undistracted by my conscious clutter, my brain organizes, sorts and stores information. More importantly, it somehow simplifies the problem, sweeping away the undergrowth to make the path clearer. I wake rested, perhaps not completely ready to move forward, but on my way.

It has taken me years to develop a good creative practice, and even then it is sometimes hit or miss. I have learned be curious instead of worried, to trust my process (it has, after all, worked for over forty-five years) and to know that my mind continues working on problem while I am doing something else – and top of the list is napping. Dreaming is a special bonus.

In between times, I feed my music constantly; it is voracious. I read, journal and draw on a daily basis. I dance, garden and walk. I take ‘think weeks’ every three or four months – a week in a cabin somewhere, with my books and journals – to think and listen. And I sleep and dream, taking procrastination to bed with me.

Window, pastel by Tina Davidson, © 2018

Critical Acclaim for Davidson’s memoir, Let Your Heart Be Broken“The real music here is in the words, which cascade across these pages with a gentle, precise rhythm that is reflected in Davidson’s luminous musical scores. Let Your Heart Be Broken is not the story of a solitary artist obsessed with a craft, but rather of the life that informs the art: a humanistic, worldly spirit, creating beauty amid an often-maddening yet ever-hopeful world.” 

– Broad Street Review

FOLLOW TINA DAVIDSON      Facebook       Instagram

ORDER Let Your Heart Be Broken
https://www.amazon.com/Let-Your-Heart-BrokenClassical/ dp/1633376966/?fbclid=IwAR3BU-_ UMhxivpy4A3mnPFttpYpiyLae RdD0H HQnsVZwUjYeE7K2Lshse6M

Sign up for Davidson’s Newsletter

Email Contact

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

 

 

Redemption Song

by

Each Monday I work with the residents who live in the YWCA shelter facility for women and their families. I have just started my Meet The Composer residency, and will work with the women, helping them to write operas of their own lives.

I am teamed with writer and director Zadia Ife, who runs the IYABO program, a parenting skills class. She is lovely and thin, and suffers from a chronic illness that often leaves her exhausted, sometimes for days. I know, first hand, the carefulness with which she leads her life. We go out to lunch; she has forgotten her coat. She stops and silently calculates how much energy it would cost to run back. She shivers all through lunch.

We meet with the women in the kitchen of the shelter in evenings. Sitting in a circle in the large blue tiled kitchen, I am quiet during the first couple weeks, and feel my privilege with embarrassment. I am a total novice. Under Zadia’s guidance, I begin to learn. I use her credibility to gain admittance into this world; she is my access card.

The women in the residence are kind to me, and slowly over the weeks, we get to know each other. They reveal their stories of poverty, child abuse, beatings and addictions. Many of them have lost their children to foster care. All are homeless, but tough and resilient.

I lead a meditation to help them reconnect with their stories. We close our eyes and go back to the house of our childhood. “Listen,” I tell them,  “What do the walls remember?” Memories emerge, triggered by a door, a closet, or a heating grate. They sing their stories; I write them down.

We begin to create a performance piece they call Redemption Song. Zadia will write the script and they will compose the songs. They will perform it next year at the Jesus Be Ready Church.

Taking down the pots and pans of the kitchen, we make a drum circle as part of the piece. Laughing, singing and sometimes crying, they create a work containing their stories, their songs – their sorrows, joys, and their hopes for a different life.

Tina Davidson’s Meet The Composer residency (1991-94) was their first national residency that worked directly with a social service agency. With host organizations, OperaDelaware, Newark Symphony and the YWCA, she wrote a major work for each  organization, and worked weekly with women at the YWCA shelter, helping them compose operas of their lives.

Listen to Tina Davidson’s opera, Billy and Zelda

Random Thoughts, #7

by

Notes from my Journal

July 28
A beautiful, clear, bright and cool day. The children sit on an animal swing with four chains in the park, swinging back and forth. The chains creak and scream, high and overlapping, a shrill cry.I am composing finally; “After two days of ranting and raving, mercy descended.”

August 4
I begin the saxophone concerto with earnestness. It is on my mind constantly. I listen, knowing both time and persistence are on my side.

Sometimes I have to hear all the old ways first, before I can steer clear to a new place. Always, a balance between movement and patience. If I move too soon, I run over myself. If I relax too much, there is nothing. I work and wait.

September 1
I focus on the solo, the “first person” of this piece. This is, in many ways, the first flight. Rupture – big glissando section. Out of the disorganization comes the voice. Out of sound come melody and energy. How do I give the saxophone space to improvise without boxing him in?

November 20
Today, the work on this piece discourages; I lose heart and go shopping for Christmas presents. I contemplate a movie. I eat gummy bears, drink coffee, and sigh over a new flannel nightgown. I snarl at smokers.November 22
In morning’s first light, all is not lost. Even my music has possibilities.

November 30
My piece is almost complete. I have a few weeks of orchestrating, and it will be done by first of the year. The last ten days have been a wonderful slide home. Once I was able to accept the flaws and disappointments of the piece, I started making progress.

Music with Saxophone by Tina Davidson

LULLABY
for solo & unspecified instrumentation (6-8)
Lullaby is the song we all sing to our children, amid the distant noise of the outside world, cradling and surrounding them with a protective love.
“a gorgeously gentle piece” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
https://open.spotify.com/track/77Nm1qrUp6RKBRWhti8z2S

TRANSPARENT VICTIMS
for soprano/alto saxophones & pre-recorded saxophones
 “Davidson has created accessible music of real substance.”  (Classical Insites)
https://open.spotify.com/track/4u13FNvMkWlx9AhLxU6mJJ     

\CEL”E*BRATE\
alto saxophone, bass clarinet, piano & percussion 
To commemorate, bless, carouse, ceremonialize, commend, dedicate, drink to, eulogize, feast, glorify, honor, jubilate, keep, laud, let loose, lionize, make merry, make whoopee.
https://soundcloud.com/tina-davidson-3/celebrate-for-alto-sax-b-clar-piano-percussion