from my music journal
October 3
A great day. I can hear. And I am dreaming again. The dreams are busy, as if they were leading my daily life for me while I concentrate on the symbol. My dreams wash dishes, tend the garden, and pay bills. I sleep well, though my stomach is still tender.
I came in and immediately worked out several sections, streamlining the shape of the piece, reducing it to two sections. I get to the point right away. The old sense of balance and confidence returns. The end of the piece is already written, and I am anxious to compose towards it.
Most difficult is to wait until my unconscious offers up the music to my conscious. A patient waiting, an eternal sense of trust, and then suddenly, clarity.
July 10
Monday morning. The magnolia tree is dying by degrees. The slender grey branches cross over each other at the base, this year the leaves are small and pale. Overcast day, foolish thoughts. Where do I place grief?
September 1
My music often springs from an idea first formulated in words. The titles come well before the music itself and are, to some extent, my map of the world, guiding me as I compose. They are metaphors or secret encoded meanings for my pieces that I understand, do not understand, and come to understand. Dark Child Sings, for example, is my dark child singing out his life, with growing ecstasy and passion, of sexual beginnings, of calm lullabies and of strong chants.
I have a love affair with the poetry of words. Strung together, they are both important and not, mysterious and clear. Occasionally, words stand in the way of my music, speaking louder than the piece itself, because I simply do not know yet. I cannot dig beyond the phrase.
Music is never just passion or reason, instead a delicate balance between opposites that need the other to exist. Without one there are neither. Reason, brittle and devoid of passion, can be a monster of blindness and self-service. And passion, without reason, is bloated and ridiculous.
Excerpted from Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music from a Classical Composer © Tina Davidson, 2022.
Listen: It is My Heart Singing, for string quartet:
It is My Heart Singing, music by Tina Davidson, Albany Records, TROY842, 2006
Performed by the Cassatt Quartet (Muneko Otani, Jennifer Leshnower, Tawnya Popoff, Nicole Johnson), Stephen Manes and Caroline Stinson
Purchase: https://www.amazon.com/My-Heart-Singing-Tina-Davidson/dp/B000FO443K
