Tina Davidson

Composer

music by women

The Old Canon

by

I sit across the table from him. He stands, leaning towards me, his hands grip the back of his chair. The night is gathering with birds tracing the colored clouds. “You must,” he is emphatic, “Study the history and theory of music before you begin to create your own music. Only when you know where you came from can you know where you are going.”

I smile. The old canon – a powerful system of beliefs. I have wrestled with them before, and have found, after a fifty-year career of writing music, that they are not true for me.

The canon insists that one must study the classics before creating; years of studying performance, harmony, counterpoint, set-theory, analysis and orchestration before pencil hits the paper. The canon maintains that understanding music history is an essential, and without it the artist gropes in the dark in a vain attempt to reinvent the wheel. The canon implies an order – one must do A before B. It reinforces that personal creativity is not trustworthy unless it is in an old container: it is not credible without context. In other words, one must be coupled to the past to make authentic, groundbreaking art.

I disagree, differ, object, dissent, argue, debate, and nonconcur. I protest. My experience is there are multiple paths to creativity and all of them include the word “Yes.”

I am interested in a personal ownership that grows out of doing. I support experiencing writing music before too much comparison. In the initial stage, I want everyone to compose the way they painted in kindergarten. Hardly knowing how to hold a paint brush, they work with abandon and in full confidence of their creative abilities.

Playing an instrument is key. It combines the kinetic, aural and visual learning in one practice – a kind of intimate study of music – fingering each note, breathing with the phrase – a mind-body experience.

And of course, the “guts” of music – the harmony and theory, but in context. I wonder what this study tells us about the composers of that time period, and how is it different that our own. I remind myself that the ‘great’ composers that we study, listen to and venerate have been curated by excluding much of musical culture or even composers.

But mostly, I was always on guard to protect creativity – mine and my students. I believe critical thinking rather than criticism – what worked, what didn’t work, what could I do better. This is a conversation between myself and the work, no from an outside source.

And always, always, the practice of authentic self-expression comes from digging deep into my own personal, emotional and spiritual landscape.  Where do I find myself at this stage of life?  Who am I growing into? What do I have to say next?

FOLLOW TINA DAVIDSON Facebook       Instagram

Featured Work

PAPER, GLASS, STRING & WOOD
A side-by-side work to perform with student string musicians or string orchestra

This beautiful four-movement work was created so that young or amateur musicians have the opportunity to rehearse and perform with professional string performers.
1. Paper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHfCz2qbucY
3. String: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNOBbt1EHrQ
4: Wood: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_XSku4IpoU

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.

 

 

My Heart is a Cello

by

Of all the instruments, cello is the closest to my heart.

Growing up, I was the pianist in a household of strings. My mother was an avid amateur violinist and insisted my sisters learn to play violin and viola. I envied their ability to play with others, while I was continually alone on my own.

In college, I took up cello in addition to studying composition and piano. At times I studied with Michael Finkle, who, mustached, quirky, was full of joy. Up in a large room on the third floor of the music building we gathered weekly to play cello quartets and octets late into the evening. As a night cap, he turned off the lights and we improvised in the dark.

Soon I was transcribing Palestrina and Farkas for cello quartet. Later, I wrote a cello concerto for the wonderful Maxine Neuman, and Dark Child Sings, a cello quartet, which she recorded. And of course, many string quartets and piano trios.

It was Anna Cholakian, the cellist of the Cassatt Quartet, who cemented my love for cello. Delicate and long-haired dark hair, she played with a intensity and passion that belied her small frame.  Listen to her play the opening of my string quartet, Cassandra Sings.

 What exactly is it about the cello that calls to me? The high notes are clear and bell-like, and the low notes have a width and groundedness to them, moist and vibrant.

But mostly, the cello is the only classical instrument where you must open your legs and embrace the instrument to play. The broad back of the cello lightly rests against your sternum, almost touching each knee – it is a full body experience of sound. Sitting squarely, you become a tripod, a solid stance with flexibility of movement. You are the cello. You are the music.

CASSANDRA SINGS
Commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and recorded by the Cassatt String Quartet, “builds to a climax of tremendous richness, throwing out a soundscape that would seem to be much greater than merely four instruments can produce.  An extended coda achieves a resolution of sublime dimensions” (Fanfare).
https://open.spotify.com/artist/2y5Z17bEilAiViMp9FMuJh

DARK CHILD SINGS 

 

FOLLOW TINA DAVIDSON
Facebook       Instagram

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