The Marionette Drummer

Shivering canvas of silence,

Expectantly awaiting the brush-stroke of sound.

Squeak of the seat,

Sticks rest on the rim,

And my body is surrendered to puppet-master,

Like a marionette merely along for the ride.

Sensual whispers guide my hands from head to head,

Crash in my ears like waves of pleasure,

Hair rising, skin quivering,

Mistress of music demanding

My undivided attention.

The ride leaves me breathless, shaking,

As last brush-stroke rings unencumbered:

Brilliant color giving way to the forgetful silence.

And here I sit – just another drummer,

Just another day.

Live the Question: Pursuance of Art

"When God created - and in that way made the perception of beauty and the human creation of art possible - he gave art a place in this world in which we live; and that world he called good.  Art is here because God meant it to be here."  - H.R. Rookmaaker

Imagine: as soon as God created, Art came into being.  It was the first thing to truly exist in our Universe, in our Reality.  Sure, He made Light first.  But in the same words he breathed Light into being, Art took shape too.  There was no war, no worries, no struggle.  In God's perfect Universe, alongside everything He created, there was Art.  God called this world Good.  Perfection centered around existence, praise to God, and Art.  After the Fall, that changed.  War and worry were added.  Our focus was violently shifted.  But Art is still out there, just waiting to be pursued.

In our society today, the arts are being mercilessly cut and removed from our education system to make way for the "essentials."  But really, when God created the Universe, were social studies, Language, Math, and Science the focus?  Not at all.  They were all in the working background.  I do not mean to say that these disciplines are unimportant; on the contrary, these disciplines hold the fabric of the Universe together.  But they are not the zenith of God's beautiful creation.  Always, there is Art.

There are some great people throughout history who have not forgotten this truth: Art is made to be pursued.
 Art is the capstone of every civilization.  In every Golden Age, the pinnacle is creativity.  Why do we remember the Golden Age of Athens or of Rome?  Great philosophers, sculptors, orators, painters: artists.  The nearest any civilization has come to perfection is always highlighted by the deepest Creativity.  There is a quote that is floating around on the internet: "When Winston Churchill was asked to cut arts funding in favor of the war effort, he simply replied 'then what are we fighting for?'"  The quote isn't verified to actually be Churchill's, but even if it isn't, the truth of those words has resonated in my head ever since I first read it.  Why on earth are we cutting funding to the Arts?  What then, are we fighting for?  Are we abandoning our Golden Age?  It seems we are no longer pursuing what characterizes the things that give the Lord deep glory.  It seems we are no longer pursuing perfection.

I have been searching for who I am for quite a long time, as most of you are aware if you read any of what I write.  Recently, however, I have decided that I want to be a music professor.  I love music; it is my Art.  I love writing; it is my Art.  Pursuing a graduate degree in music theory or music history (or both) is a place I can write and perform, and I can influence coming generations towards things that truly matter.

Like finding and using their Art for a Purpose that really matters.

And learning when a word needs to be capitalized.

I've been reading a lot of Rainer Maria Rilke's "Letters to a Young Poet" recently (sincerely thankful a dear friend gave me that wonderfully insightful book), and I was led to the following quote that helped solidify in my mind that I'm on the right track.

"You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

I am not claiming to have The Answer.  I assume that will not come until very few breaths remain in me.  If any.  But I do know I feel as if I have been given some new sense of direction, and I am following it.  I feel somewhere deep within me that it is leading me toward the Art that I have, for most of my life, greatly enjoyed but thought I would someday have to give up.  A part of me feels an odd sense of completion that I am being pushed in a direction that will not require me to give them up, but instead to pursue them.  To pursue my Art - my offer of praise to the ultimate Artist.

The past few weeks I have had small glimpses into the true definition and existence of Art with a capital A.  I am immersed in its beauty in ways I never believed possible, and in ways that nothing else can achieve.  I have no witty or strategic way to incorporate the following three poems I wrote under music's influence.  As you read them, try to imagine the most beautiful and all-encompassing thing you've ever experienced.  These are the feelings I have tried to capture.  I feel as if I'm in the middle of a vortex of words of pleasure, and in reaching my hands out I can only grasp a few.  Know that many more wonderful words and feelings still rage about me.

Overwash and flow,
Sing, violin's bow,
Flood my senses,
Beautiful, yearning, pensive:
Intense musical pleasure.

Shiver down the spine,

Whisper in time,

So much pleasure,

Measure after measure:

Musically Aroused.

Back of the mind,

Rolling in time,

On or off the seat,

Plagued by the beat:

Drum fill.

I don't know for certain where I am going.  I don't know the answer, but I am living the question.  

I am pursuing my Art.  

Music and words dance constantly through my head.  Lord, please don't let the dance stop.

Insane Insomniac Inspiration: Literary and Musical

As I sat awake on my bed this morning at 4:17am staring into the darkness, I wondered how many people experience an interestingly horrifying phenomenon: dreaming in music and literary phrases.  As I've made fairly obvious, I'm a music major, and just as evident, I love poetry. Why does this matter?

So glad you asked.

Inspiration comes to me all the time.  In lots of different forms.  But sometimes I sincerely wish it wouldn't.  When I say I dream in music, I mean just that - whatever music has been on my mind throughout the day (during the production You're a Good Man Charlie Brown, that was all I heard in my head for over a month), that is the same music that plays during my dreams at night.  All night.  And sometimes it's only one phrase or motive of music.  And this has been happening as long as I can remember.  At first it was interesting.  Then it was annoying.  After literally a month of restlessly dreaming in the song "Book Report," I felt/feel stark raving mad, and the best I could describe it was something like this:

Dancing with sprites,

Worse than brightest lights,

Constant sound,

Not a moment's peace be found:

Dreaming in music.

And that's not all.  Oh no, not by a long shot.  You know that feeling you get when a friend is going through something hard, or you are going through something hard, or something bad happens to you (or even sometimes something good), and it's just so profound that you can't possibly put it to words?  But you know that it needs to be put into words somehow, just to do it justice?  That happens to me all the time.  My poetry is just my method of struggle against such feelings of injustice.

Apparently there are repercussions for ignoring said injustices.  Last night, I dreamt in literary phrases and ideas.

Imagine looking down on yourself.  Imagine being able to see the thoughts in your mind bouncing around in the dark...but instead of physical manifestations of those thoughts, all you can see are the sentences describing them.  They're like little grey animals in the blackness, gnawing away at your sanity, and not quite white enough to be distinguishable from the darkness itself.

That was my night.

Millions of words,

Few ever heard,

Die in the dark,

Without Inspiration's spark:

Insanity's catalyst.

Upon considering the fact that many normal people will read this blog post (ok...maybe not many...but at least a few), I realize that I sound like a lunatic (in fact, Eugène Ionesco's The Bald Soprano comes to mind...you know, the part where everyone is running around screaming nonsense into the dark?).  I guess most people who seriously write sound that way in their own heads.  A friend calls me a beatnik...and I admit to that title.  Although I'm not quite sure if this is me speaking, or the NyQuil I took last night sometime after 4:17am to drown all the little grey creatures that were eating away at my mind.