A few days ago, I attended a concert with my mother-in-law at her church. A music camp was going on in the community and the faculty had gotten together to put on a recital. There were three pianists, three violinists, and a cellist. The evening began with some duets on the piano and then different combinations of strings and keys.
As the music filled the small church, I found myself amazed that someone could put the notes together to create such beautiful sound. How did they know that each violin should play these notes while the piano played those notes? It flabbergasted me. Then I realized that maybe it's not so different than writing. Just as I have novels playing out in my head—characters talking, plots happening, scenes growing—so a composer has notes, bars, entire pieces of music dancingn his head, asking to be released in the instruments.
As I listened, I wanted to write. I felt the creativity both of the composer and of the musicians who now brough his music alive, and it inspired my own creativity. I drank in the music, the beauty, the complexity. I watched the musicians, the way their expressions changed as they played—it was clear that they too loved this music.
At one time, I took violin and piano lessons. I stopped when I started university, as I was unsure how much time I would have to devote to my degree. I tried piano lessons again briefly and picked up my violin a few times while we lived up north, but I've realized that playing music isn't my talent. Perhaps someday I can teach Sunshine and Lilibet the beginnings of either instrument and, because of my lessons, I can better appreciate the effort put into a concert like this. But my creative expression is through words.
So I listened and let the beauty, artistry, creativity of these musicians inspire my own muse.
~ Bonnie Way, http://thekoalabearwriter.blogspot.com/
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Like you, I often find the creativity of other artists stirring my own.
ReplyDeleteNeat that the music concert affirmed yet again that your own creative way is through words.
Don't you just love it when something stirs you to create like that concert did?! You're taking a course this fall at UVic, aren't you? Your muse will soon be fat and flourishing!
ReplyDeleteSo true, so very true! I've often wondered how it is that the music just flows out of gifted musicians. Like you said, though, writers are gifted too, and the words pour forth while others shake their heads in wonderment. Maybe when a gift is bestowed, we don't even realize it and we take it for granted.
ReplyDeletePam Mytroen