Enough Isn't Enough

The word "enough" has been on my mind recently.  It's a measuring tool that doesn't stay consistent.  Every complimentary thing I could acknowledge about myself can be minimized by the simple application of that one little word.  Sure I'm creative, just not creative enough.  I'm intelligent, but not intelligent enough.  Enough for what?  I don't know.  But I think it has something to do with personal satisfaction.

One organization with which I was involved was great at reminding people that they are indeed enough, just as they are in this very moment.  Rich enough, pretty enough, smart enough, good enough.  Except that the organization also encourages people to keep taking courses, which to me implies that I must not be enough if I need to get more of something for my life to be all that it can be.  If I'm already enough everything, then I am lacking nothing, and there is no reason to pursue further knowledge or training or anything.

The problem is that the affirmation is empty.  What exactly am I rich enough for?  I'm rich enough to be happy in my life, but I'm not rich enough to start a $3 million endowment for musical innovation.  That's just reality.  I believe that some people are smart enough to make healthy decisions about their own lives, but that doesn't necessarily mean I want them making decisions about my money or my intellectual property.  The word enough requires some kind of qualification in order to make any real sense.

My own challenge with the word recently even comes in a bit of a disguise.  My inner critic says something like, You should be doing more.  You should be composing more every day.  You should be getting out there and making something happen. Which all really amounts to: "I'm not doing enough."  It's a harsh criticism for exactly the same reason that it's a lousy affirmation.  It needs some kind of qualification in order to make any real sense. 

So my question back to the critic has become, "For what?"  There are a lot of answers that actually don't matter to me.  It's really alright to have some clear sense of realistic limitations.  It's alright with me that I can't start a $3 million endowment, so stating that I'm not rich enough to do so isn't much of an insult.  It's just a statement of fact.  So, I'm not composing enough to send a new piece out to every competition I hear about.  That's OK.  That would be exhausting, and it's more important to me that I enjoy my life.

My level of compositional activity at this point may not comparable to some prolific composers, but the question is whether I'm satisfied with what I'm doing.  If I'm not composing enough each day to be personally satisfied, then there's something specific to address.  Then, there's a qualifier that makes sense.  My inner critic may be trying to open the door to that conversation, but it's much more direct to throw an accusation than it is to ask "Are you satisfied with the amount of music you're creating day to day, or would you be happier if you stepped it up a notch?"  Now that is an interesting question.

Stravinsky's Wisdom

There are some quotes that return again and again like a perfectly appropriate refrain for many different experiences.  I have mentioned before the value I find in Stravinsky's words, "The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self."  The key, of course, is determining where those constraints come from.  External controls are a bit more difficult to embrace as desirable, but deciding for oneself where to create boundaries for a project helps define, focus, and inspire.

Q&A with August Bradley

My Dark Little Room by August Bradley

What I am finding with my current project, however, is that I sometimes fail to distinguish between what I want to create and what I must create.  I wind up thinking things like, If I compose a piece for an ensemble of this size, it will be a challenge to ever get it performed... I should go with something smaller.  That isn't really all that inspiring a decision, to be honest.  It's much more inspiring to consider what the perfect set of instruments would be for a particular piece.  It might be a full orchestra, or it might be just a quartet or trio.  That kind of constraint, being very specific about what is desirable, is what most easily opens the door to freedom.  It requires focusing on what I want rather than misconceptions about what must be done.

While that may not seem like a constraint, it does eliminate possibilities.  Once I consider that the perfect ensemble for a piece is a woodwind trio, I have no reason to consider how a violin or trombone could add to the sound.  I am free to focus on the instruments I have chosen as most desirable options, and I can go on to make further constraints about the piece based on the music and what I see as its ideal incarnation.  It becomes a matter of composing passionately rather than composing "correctly".


My own thoughts get in the way sometimes, though.  I can't start off this quietly and slowly; a piece has to grab the audience right off the bat.   Nevermind that thousands of very effective pieces start quietly and slowly, including a couple I've composed.  I can't repeat that entire section of the music; that's lazy and uninteresting.  Nevermind that repetition is an incredibly important and commonly used element of musical form that can have a musical purpose.  I have to add more complexity to this music; no one wants to listen to a piece that's too simple.  Nevermind that there have been musicians in every age who gained fame from simple pieces because so many people listen to them, or that some of the most memorable and well-loved works of music are just simple, well-written pieces that communicate something of value with compelling aestheticism.   Why in the world would I want to set up such frustrating constraints when the music itself suggests a different direction?  That doesn't create freedom.

So, as I conceive this piece, I am conscious of the kinds of constraints I am using.  I want nothing to do with the voice that claims to know how things must be, especially if those ideas lead me away from the direction of inspiration.  I want to create constraints that are based on my vision for the piece.  Freedom emerges when I am willing to set aside all of the conceptions about how the music must be and define its boundaries by what I want the piece to be.  It may take on its own twists and directions as I compose, but I will be more aware of them and better able to let the music "breathe" within well-defined boundaries.  If only the rest of life were as simple as setting aside the beliefs about what must be and focusing on what is possible.  If only. 

Obsessing Over Originality

It is hard to imagine Mozart, looking at the flow of harmonies in a piece he has just completed and saying, Crap, that sounds just like Haydn!  Or Beethoven writing a major scale in the middle of a piece and thinking, I can't do that; it's been done before!  Looking back, we know that every Western composer writing during the same era as Mozart and Haydn had the same harmonic aesthetic, and it even persists today in a ton of music.  The same goes for major scales, and yet it isn't inaccurate to say that Mozart and Beethoven were both innovative composers in their own ways.

George Crumb's Makrokosmos II, Mvt. 12

Originality seems to have a high place of honor in our thinking (mine at least), and yet our society doesn't respond with much enthusiasm for completely original thoughts.  Off-the-wall solutions that no one else has conceived are often met with ridicule and judgment.  One has to think almost like everyone else with just enough originality to captivate and inspire.  Too much innovation and people's minds rebel.

So why, when I am composing a piece of music, do I have this running criteria that it must be "original," that is must have completely new ideas that no other musician has ever considered?  Some composers manage to do that some of the time.  A century ago, the Impressionist movement (the most prominent figures of which were Debussy, Ravel, and Respighi) turned traditional harmony on its head.  Debussy took it a step further and slipped out of traditional musical forms as well.  But this didn't revolutionize the way people listened to music.  We still hear the traditional harmonies and forms every time we turn on the radio.  The influence of that innovation from a hundred years ago may be threaded into our 21st century musical expectations, but it didn't completely override the previous 200 years of musical development.

Harry Partch's quadrangularis reversum

Other composers have done very innovative things as well, and many of these people are the composers I most admire.  Yet even they used musical elements in common with other composers.  My mental criteria that what I write must be completely unique is not only unreasonable, but literally impossible.  It focuses my attention away from the actual music I am composing and onto some strange value for originality that doesn't even play out in practical reality.  Even the most compelling piece of music I can write will have some common elements with other music, and I would go so far as to say that the common ground is what makes new music accessible to people's ears.

So, I am releasing myself from the requirement that I must be an innovator.  At the same time, I recognize that if I am simply true to my own creativity, the music I compose will convey my unique voice.  Which is to say that I don't have to evaluate the originality of each discrete element in a piece in order to look at the completed product and see something of value.  Perhaps this idea extends beyond the realm of composing as well.  Perhaps there will be a time when we all set aside the obsession with originality and evaluate each idea on its own merit.

A Real Job

When I was on the threshold of adulthood (on which I sometimes feel like I'm yet lingering), my stepfather asked one evening, "When are you going to stop this music crap and get a real job?"  Or something to that effect.  My mind may not accurately recall his exact words, but I do remember him suggesting that I could be a dishwasher for a local restaurant if that's what it took.  Although at the time my reaction was fueled by teenage rebelliousness, there are still moments when I struggle with that question.  I have nothing against dishwashers, but after earning a doctorate degree, teaching at colleges, and directing a multi-disciplinary, inter-generational arts program, expecting to thrive on creating music sometimes seems like cheating somehow.

My stepfather's question made perfect sense to him at the time.  He chose a profession that reflects his strong work ethic, the kind of blue-collar career in which you know that you've been working at the end of the day.  He respects people that stand on their own two feet, people who are responsible for themselves.  A music career equated with a pipe dream of fame and fortune, slightly more respectable than winning the lottery, but less likely to happen.  Especially in the small town where we lived.  It has its own share of culture, but it simply lacks the critical mass of population to attract much attention.  No wonder he would suggest a more realistic course than being a musician.

Even then, I didn't see a music career quite the same way as he.  I simply wanted to get paid for creating music, in whatever forms that would take.  It wasn't as though I wanted to be handed something for nothing, I just wanted to make money doing what I loved to do.  Recently, I have made decisions as if I needed to earn money somehow so I could indulge in creating music.  I could see music as a luxurious destination, but not the path.  Somewhere along the way, I became unconvinced of the feasibility of just creating music and getting paid enough as a result.  Even though that had been the reality previously in my life.  Bizarre.

Relocation was an opportunity for me to hit the reset button on a few things, though.  I decided to identify myself (to myself and to others) first and foremost as a pianist and composer, and to trust that to be enough.  I don't need to add anything or take anything away from that.  It is an act of faith, and it is an act of authenticity.  At the same time, it is based in reality.  There are certainly people of my skill level and less who are doing just fine in music careers.  Perhaps partly because they believe it's possible to do so, at least most days.


Now I believe that it really boils down to authenticity.  I don't quite believe in "Do what you love and the money will follow."  I do, however, believe in "Do what you love and the satisfaction of doing what you love will follow."  I think that when people are doing something that has personal value, they will do it well enough to be satisfied.  Different people are satisfied by different levels of success, of course.  My stepfather is satisfied, at least in part, by doing something at which he excels, with the confidence that his effort is worth his compensation.  As it turns out, we have that in common.

Still Reflection on Troubled Waters

An accompanying job in one of my old stomping grounds has stirred up memories of a challenging situation.  While I'm not one to wallow in regret or rehash the past over and over again in my mind, I do occasionally consider what I could have done differently in a given situation, so that I might learn something valuable even if an experience didn't play out the way I would have preferred.  As I played through this particular sequence of events from my past, I came upon a startling realization.  Although I made conscious efforts to "not make the situation worse," there is very little I could have done to change the outcome.  It would have been more authentic, and perhaps had a greater positive impact on some of the people involved, for me to simply speak directly and honestly without going overboard on efforts to be diplomatic or polite.

As concise as I can be while still painting a more or less complete picture, here is the story.  I fired someone.  Actually, I eliminated their position.  I did so as gently as I could, and I offered another possibility for the person to be involved and continue to earn an income.  This individual was essentially getting paid for doing the same thing that several other people did as volunteers.  It was a bit of an ethical disconnect for one person to get paid to do something that other people did for free, and the budget wouldn't allow me to pay everyone I would have liked to pay.  However, I needed someone to do a different task, a more unique task that I could practically and ethically justify paying someone to do.  It seemed like a perfect fit to me.

Not so for the individual in question.  The position for which I wanted to pay someone was not desirable to this person, so when I stopped paying for her participation, she stopped participating.  I found someone else to fill the paid position and went on with my job.  It was, after all, nothing personal.  When I heard about another paying opportunity for which she was quite qualified, I passed it along, but she wasn't interested in that either. Instead, she started a whisper campaign to get me removed from my position.

One person who was sympathetic to her point of view happened to be the board chairperson, and this position held more power than any salaried position in the organization.  The chairperson already had some significant differences of opinion with me about the organizational structure.  I believed that the paid staff had been hired because of our expertise in our areas of focus, and that the volunteer board existed to guide and support the vision of the organization, spearheaded by staff leadership.  The chairperson believed that the staff were hired help who were expected to follow the orders of the board, lack of expertise or leadership notwithstanding.  This distinction was never clearly communicated to me, so I continued to operate under my own perceptions.

I knew that there were communication issues.  I knew that the board was slow to make decisions, and that many of those decisions were based on fear rather than vision.  I knew that there were rumblings going on behind the scenes and in the shadows.  In other words, I knew this organization to be like most other organizations.  So, I offered leadership from my position to support the stated purpose of the organization, not realizing that leadership was not really what was expected of me.

Eventually, ten months after these events began, it was suggested that I resign.  I did so, and they ushered me out as quickly as possible, with a polite reception and a plaque.  I received the plaque graciously and told everyone how wonderful it had been to be a part of their "family" during my time there, and I left it at that.  In the moment, I thought there was no reason to bring up any of the misguided or dysfunctional actions that led to my departure, since really there were only a couple of angry people with personal agendas that created a toxic environment.

Now, looking back at that situation, I realize that nothing I would have said could have made matters worse.  I'm sure there are things that someone could say or do that would have exacerbated things, but there was no reason for me not to be direct and honest with the people involved.  My situation would have been no different, and (although I doubt anything coming from me would have been received) they just might have heard something that no one else was willing to tell them.  Instead, I gave up and let them have their dysfunction, and in the process I didn't trust myself to be able to confront them with loving honesty.

Sometimes, being adept at self-deception leads us to the illusion that we are also effectively deceiving everyone around us.  I want to be the kind of person who will tell someone, "What you are doing doesn't line up with what you claim to believe."  Not out of spitefulness or malice, but simply because there is really nothing to be lost on my end and everything to be gained on the other end.  If I could go back and observe, "It must be frustrating to constantly be at the center of upheaval and turmoil," I wouldn't have been telling the chairperson anything astounding, but it would have conveyed that I saw the pattern of his involvement in one organization after another. 

Of course, I cannot go back and have any impact on that organization.  That time has passed, and I have moved on to other endeavors.  But I will continue to interact with people for the rest of my life, and I want to take as much as I can from my life's experiences, the ones I absolutely love as well as the ones that are frustrating as hell.  From that chapter, I can glean (among other things) that there isn't that much to be gained by me trying to "not make a situation worse."  I can trust my own authentic baseline of tactful diplomacy, honest care, and incisive discernment without adding anything to it.  It may not change the outcome in the least, but it will change how I am with myself, and that is ultimately worth more than anything.