Tina Davidson

Composer

procratination

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

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The Dance is On

by

Composing and daily life

The day is cold, and snow-blown. The sun shines clear on the stark, naked trees. The house is bright with reflection. I could be resting, inside, warm from the white, frosty day, instead I am disconnected.

The time nears to begin my new composition for saxophone. I am restless and irritable. I pace and growl, find other things to do, and waste time. I want to move forward and to stay back at the same time.

Of course! My old friend, procrastination. For years I fought against him, as he sniffs around my house. Now I concede. Procrastination has transformed from the art of avoiding my work into that nebulous space of beginning – I am on my way, the dance is on.

from music journal by Tina Davidson

At first, I only have an impression of the piece, its general size and weight, as if I were holding an invisible oval shape in my hands. I can only feel the smoothness of the outside shell. Gradually, I start to hear the edges, like an egg hissing in a frying pan, the whites gradually crisping under the heat, gaining definition.

I begin to write the material for the piece. Quickly, notes scatter over the page, a short hand of sorts. I am interested in the journey, the relationship between where I am and where I am going. I map out the whole piece before I start to score it.

There is a beauty about this process. Sometimes I am so deep into the work that daily life is not a conscious act. Instead, it revolves around me on its own, as if it knows what to do without my directions. It is something else, it has a pulse and a rhythm of its own, color and speed. My work is silent, far away, full of itself and only itself. It has my total attention. I am rapt and inert, and at times rapturous. Then life tugs at me, like a suture on the skin. I leave reluctantly; this will await me tomorrow when I take up the pencil again.

But there is a dark side as well. Often the music I am composing has a mind of its own.  When I am unhappy with the direction of the piece, I erase measures. Later I notice that the deleted section has wormed its way back in without my noticing. Try as I might, the direction has been set and unmovable. 

After an intense day of work, I wake several times a night hearing my music, or watch it slowly, scrutinizing every moment. My mind is like a computer; I am forced to watch the notes twist and turn. My privacy is invaded and music blares in my ear, possessing me. I roll over in bed, “Get back to the studio where you belong,” I mutter.

In the worst moments, I am resentful of my music. It soars, breathes, moves on its journey. I am the servant. I sit, quietly, studiously and patiently pressing the small black and white notes on a staff paper. Hours away from friends and family.  I have a fleeting fantasy, a secret fear; I will turn into music, this vehicle for sound. Music will overtake me, fill my pores, and submerge me. I will wake up one morning scaled and encrusted like an ancient desert creature, a reptile with congealed flesh. A watcher.

Excerpted from Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music from a Classical Composer  © Tina Davidson, 2022.

Listen: Transparent Victims for soprano, alto and pre-recorded saxophones (soprano, alto, tenor and baritone)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLE-HbmLOPg