The thing about creating an integrated work of art

I began scoring the "exponential growth" number for MELISANDE this morning. This will be a complicated piece because it functions as the big mid-act number, and of course when I wrote the lyrics I was hearing what you might consider the standard golden-age musical theater pulse underneath them, cut time with a strong bass line, I-V-I in the verse and IV-I-V-I in the chorus, and now I'm messing around with throwing all of that out and using the accompaniment to demonstrate exponential growth (Middle C in whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds and so on), and I'm pretty sure I'm going to throw all of that out too.

The thing about creating an integrated work of art may be that you have to create both the art and its integrating factor, which is to say that you can't necessarily copy the golden-age musical structure even though that might give you a semblance of integration.

The other thing about creating an integrated work of art may be that you have to discover this factor as you create it, such as my recent discovery that these characters sing not when they feel, as most musicals would have it (the quote is something like "characters sing when their emotions are so overwhelming that they can no longer speak"), but when they think.

My characters use song to organize their thoughts, which is why my accompaniments are written to reflect not only this process of organization but also demonstrate when these characters are lying to themselves and/or thinking irrationally.

This was something I was working towards from the very first draft, of course; but I wasn't investigating my own impulses, so I didn't completely understand why I was doing what I was doing. It was only when I asked myself why I didn't write a love song for Melisande and Florizel when they first meet (because that would be the standard musical theater choice) that I understood that this wasn't a show about singing your feelings.

Also, they don't really have any feelings for each other when they first meet. They introduce themselves and work together to solve a problem. It's only later, when Melisande (who has been taught not to have desires) realizes that she wants to solve more problems with this particular person, that what you might call "feelings" and what I might call "a grand reorganization of thought" comes into play.

Are these in fact the same thing? I will have to ask Larry what he thinks this evening.

I asked him over the holidays whether it was fair to say that one should center one's life around the idea of the integrated self when in fact one could integrate one's self around a falsehood.

He told me that nobody had ever asked him that before, and then he thought carefully about it, and he said that the difference might have something to do with whether the point around which you were integrating was based on an evaluation of what you considered to be the consonal best, given your limited-but-expanding knowledge, or whether you were choosing to integrate around an attempt to avoid dissonance.

"One of these leads to possibility and creativity and technology and growth," he said, "and the other leads to the Matrix."

"You mean people in pods," I clarified, "sucking fantasy out of a tube."

"Not literally, not necessarily, but yes."

The idea that rationality involves both experiencing and confronting dissonance, that the pursuit of happiness is not the same thing as being happy all the time, well – that's going in MELISANDE too.

And I hope that later this week I'll be able to give you a recording of one of the musical numbers.

If you haven't visited NicoleDiekerFinley.com lately, you might have missed the addition of the "Now" page.

This is an idea popularized by Derek Sivers, and in fact my website is now part of his NowNowNow list which catalogs everyone who keeps a similar record.

Here's my "Now" entry for December, for example:

• Scored "I Want" for MELISANDE.
• Completed one assignment for Dwell, two assignments for Vox, and one spec assignment that could turn into a monthly column.
• Taught two piano students.
• Performed three holiday concerts with the Eventide Singers.
• Served as music technician for Quincy Community Theatre's production of CINDERELLA.
• Served as organist for the Unitarian Church.
• Composed a holiday medley for solo piano to play at the Unitarian Church on Christmas Eve.

I won't be able to post anything for January until I've actually done it, but here's what's on the schedule:

• Scoring "Exponential Growth" for MELISANDE.
• Completing one assignment for Vox, waiting to hear back on my spec column, and pitching additional freelance work.
• Team-teaching piano with Larry to improve pedagogical skills.
• Memorizing the first movement of Ravel's Sonatine and studying it as Larry's student to improve both pianistic and pedagogical skills.
• Serving as organist for the Unitarian Church.
• Serving as accompanist for the Quincy Symphony Chorus.

That's what I've got to do, in addition to all of the other things I do (making the home, balancing the budget, maintaining the social calendar, reading, watching, listening, staying active in both the literal and community sense, etc.), and one of these days I'll write about the idea that an integrated life needs to include all of these factors, because good gravy we cannot be Dagny in Galt's Gulch thinking that cooking should be "a rare and special rite" and then imagining and rejecting a life in which she had to deal with "grease, steam and slimy peelings in a reeking kitchen," first of all you can ventilate your kitchen and second of all you don't have to make greasy food and third of all if you meal-plan your vegetables properly you can eat them before they get slimy and most important of all, what I've taught at the beginning of every writing class I've ever taught, is that all of this is part of the work of functioning as a creative and integrated person and must be scheduled and optimized accordingly.

I wonder what would happen if I talked to my elementary-school-aged piano students this way.

Something else to ask Larry, I suppose.