"Beneath the colour there was a shape. She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
And so it is with music. As an aspiring composer I have tried my hand at capturing the songs that float around in my head. I've sat at the piano for hours trying to dictate the melodies, harmonies, and polyphonies I hear, but what comes out is an over-simplified skeleton of what could have been, what should have been. There is nothing more frustrating than hearing symphonies but only being able to play something akin to Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Michael McLean wrote something similar in his Forgotten Carols. Speaking through the voice of George Frederic Handel he said to the effect of, "If they could only hear the music that's in my heart, they would let me sing." Truer words were never spoken. If anyone could actually hear what I hear, they'd listen. I'm not implying I don't have people that would listen to my music. I'm pretty sure my roommates would gather together to listen to me play chopsticks. I only mean that if they could hear my music, they would really understand me on a deeper level.
This is not an emo-kid cry for someone to understand me. That's not a fair request when I don't even fully understand that side of myself. I guess what all this is means is that there are great things to come. Someday I'll learn how to get out all this creative juice and when I do....drinks on me!
