the inspiration of quiet 2

Could absolutely not fall asleep last night, wide awake for several hours. Though not like the solitude that folks experience in, say, the Alaska wilderness, for me it is certainly significant alone time. And I have a lot of it. What I noticed last night, after several hours of indulging in kakuro, is that it has been my habit during this sort of time to distract myself from the aloneness. I am hiding from the aloneness. Upon reflection, I think being alone is a significant factor in creativity. What happens when I am willing to be with the aloneness and everything that fills it with no effort and listen to it and cry out of sadness or be truly joyful and grateful for the miracle of being alive? When I have done so, I have been able to create music and verse. And it has been satisfying to do so.

So the challenge is to spend such time tapping into the wealth of inspiration that lies beneath, wanting to be released, waiting for a voice. That kakuro has become a bit of an addiction. Fortunately, I’m just about finished with the white belt book. I won’t go looking for the green belt book just yet. I have some creating to do.

the inspiration of quiet

There is a wonderful article by Alex Ross about the composer John Luther Adams in the 05.12.08 issue of The New Yorker. His piece, Dark Waves (available at the bottom of the article), is an extraordinary work for orchestra and electronics, simple in concept, powerful and majestic in performance. I wonder about the influence of all his quiet, alone time in Alaska, where he has lived since the late 1970s, where the treasured silence of the isolated wilderness is disappearing. Mr. Adams has been someone who kept his distance from the world beyond the quiet for years. He has no regrets about it, as he now ventures into the world at an international level and brings his finely honed and brilliant musical sensibility to new compositions. I imagine his life of intense quiet allowed him to develop his ability to listen to the surrounding landscape in a profound way; in turn, he has been able to translate his experience into music in an equally profound way. In his own words, “My music is going inexorably from being about place to becoming place.”