The Beauty of the Noise

You know, some people don’t like contemporary music. Okay, a lot of people don’t like contemporary music. I remember Drew saying, “When people tell me they don’t particularly care for a certain style of music, the first thing I ask them is why, and a lot of times they don’t have an answer.” But I think I’ve found it.

Because it’s uncomfortable. Because we can’t predict the suspensions and resolutions. Because the chord structures are unfamiliar. And that takes me back to Drew’s piece, “Or Grey”. It’s all about paradoxes and how we find comfort in patterns, even though patterns are awkward.

And it turns into a bigger idea—one that can be applied to life. There’s a saying “Art imitates life”, but maybe a better saying is “Art informs life”.

In discovering a new style of music, I’m forced to try something I’m not entirely comfortable with. It doesn’t have the mezzo de voce I expect; it has a mezzo de voce with a new spin. Because glass bottles and pieces of plastic and old cans are being used as musical instruments. And why shouldn’t they be? Why shouldn’t we find the music in everyday things? Why shouldn’t we try to extract meaning from seemingly mundane objects?

Why shouldn’t we dive in and try something new? Why shouldn’t we use visual scores? Why shouldn’t we improvise?

Isn’t that what life is about? Going with the flow doesn’t necessarily mean following the crowd. It means taking each situation as it comes, adapting to it, and making the most of it. In short, improvising.

So art should inform life.

We’re scared to try new things, to move to a different place, to taste new food, to experiment in the kitchen, to go out on a limb and tell someone how you really feel.

None of this is to say that “classical” music (meaning music as most of us know and recognize it) does not have its place or isn’t beautiful. I’m just saying…just because we find beauty in the Ancient Pyramids, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t build architectural wonders for our own day and age.

Don’t be afraid to explore, particularly if the thing you’re exploring is your career or passion. Never assume you have all the answers. Never assume there is one correct way to attack anything. Don’t be afraid to dance without choreography. Don’t always plan out your next move.

Don’t keep everything so compartmentalized. Allow yourself to be informed by everything around you, and open your eyes to the beauty of the noise.

It's been a while...

I haven't posted anything in a long time for good reason; I like chronology. Over the summer, I was handwriting all of my thoughts. I was reading great books and having awesome thought bursts and enjoying my mornings at a small coffee shop in the same plaza as my place of work. It was amazing. A peaceful, contemplative summer like no other. I was excited to reread my thoughts, make some sense of them, and post them on this blog at the end of the summer. But the unthinkable happened. I lost my notebook. It's highly upsetting because I came to some life-altering realizations in there, and now they're gone. You may ask, "If they were so life-altering why can't you remember them?" Good question. The thing is, I came to them in very specific moments, and I'd like those thoughts back. Hopefully that notebook is just hiding in the depths of my room in Phoenix. I really want to find it. 


But today, I wrote something I think is worth sharing. So I'm throwing chronology to the wind! If and when I find my notebook, I'll make those posts. In the meantime though...






Last night I finished co-writing a script for a show my church in Flagstaff is putting on. Its completion had me thinking about all story lines I had thought of throughout the process that didn't make the final cut--or the first cut for that matter. It in turn got me thinking about creativity in general and how we tend to stifle it, both in ourselves and in others, and sometimes on a subconscious level. After I had written this, I came across an entrance by the person I had co-written with, and I wrote something else. It started off as a reply to what he had written, then morphed into a conversation with myself, which then turned into an address to all creative people everywhere. In no way am I presuming that I have all the answers, or any of the answers. Nonetheless, here is what I wrote:

Maybe the solution is finding a balance between the two. Who says you have to return fully to the “real world” and leave your writing behind? Unless the depravity is what fuels your creativity, I see no reason to keep the two exclusive of each other. Writing, or any creative work for that matter, becomes lonely when we allow our entire selves to be consumed by it. Not to say that we shouldn’t give our writing the love and attention it deserves. We should have periods where we are so consumed by our work that we hardly have time to notice what’s going on around us. It’s an unstoppable force when that happens. But when we do surface for air, I don’t think we should leave our creative fire behind. We should reenter the real world with newfound creativity and passion, better able to see the beauty in the world which grants us our inspiration. Our art is an essential part of us; to deny that part while we’re in the “real world” is to live a fractured life. I’ve never heard anyone say, “You know what? I’m just too whole. I should remove some aspects of my life that make me happy.” No one says that. People always say, “I feel unfulfilled” or “Something’s missing”. The solution is quite simple—do what you love. If you love to write, then do it. I don’t want to hear “It’s not that easy” because it really is that easy. If you know what you love, then do it. The only thing standing in your way is your own convoluted ideas about what you’re supposed to be doing. Throw those out the window, and do what you actually love. And don’t try to separate what you love from “reality”, because what you love is your reality. Yeah, we all have additional obligations, but you can’t hide the biggest part of yourself from everyone else. You’ll never be happy if you do that. Whatever you do, do not separate your passion from what you consider to be the “real” world. Find a way to meld the two, and I’m sure that everything else will fall into place. Not "everything will fall into your lap", but it will fall into place.