I have been experimenting with ideas of society’s “rules” or “playbook” in our lives.
Until tonight, I have spent my entire adult life asking myself “what am I?”. It was never a question of who I was, except that I was letting my “who” be determined by “what”. In other words, I was letting my desire to know my life’s work define me as a person. That ended tonight. Yes, I have multiple careers going at the same time. Yes, I know that I tend to go “full throttle” into whatever I do. Yet, at the same time, I am not giving in to society’s insistence that as a human you find your life’s work and let that consume you. That works out for many people, but it was making me miserable whenever I contemplated my life’s direction.
So, I broke out. Am I a composer? Am I an arts administrator? Am I a writer? A guitarist? A teacher? An Excel wizard?
In short, this post is so short because I am not a blogger either. I am who I am. I blog. I compose. I perform. I teach. I make crazy Excel spreadsheets. Those actions do not define me.
I am not a composer. I compose music. Are you a composer?
Dan
(I am not a marmot.) 🙂
Frederick Frahm
hecmen
ryancarraher
DanLisMusic
First of all, thanks a lot for composers toolbox!
As profession I define myself as composer since I have been writing music for 40 years. And studied composition in Oslo and Berlin, and my music gets published and performed. But composer is not my identity as such. I see more and more that the drive for me writing music, is the work with the sketches both on paper and computer asisted composition. That is what fascinate me, and an important factor why I do it. But there are a lot of artists focusing on the need for expression as such, where they are so unpatient that they forget to learn the craftsmanship.
There is a Face book group in Nowegian where aspiering writers (literature) discuss if they are writers when they haven’t published anything. The means of publication has change, so a blogg is also a way of publishing. I do understand why they dream about being published by a large publishing house, but often continuing dreaming and not writing, and hopefully not getting bitter at the end of their lives, can also be a solution
(The Danish philosopher existensialist Søren Kirkegaard is worth reading. )
Best, Dagfinn Koch .
Hi Dagfinn,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I agree that craftsmanship is key to composing music, and it is the part I enjoy most–the process of composing is my favorite part. I enjoy getting performed, published, etc., but in the end it is the act of composing that keeps me coming back to the sketch pad for more.
Best,
Dan