music, life, death

A memorable post from composer Daron Hagen relating a composition lesson with David Diamond at Juilliard.

My favorite bit:

“If Life is a Melody, then Energy must be the human compulsion to organize sound into Song,” I rallied, half-serious.

“And Force is the application of creative energy,” he smiled.

“And composition is Birth?” I asked.

“And pulse is Gravity,” he answered. “Which makes entropy, or the lack of pulse, Death,” he said, taking the pencil. “Look,” he circled the head of my counter-subject, “this is memorable, but why not just take the tail of the subject, invert it, and use that as the head of the counter-subject?”

Chop, I thought: the snake devouring its tail. Chop. “In my beginning is my end. Eliot,” I risked.

He chuckled. “Right. The Ouroborus. My end is my beginning. Mary, Queen of the Scots. Earlier. Better,” he replied with finality as through the door the three light knocks of his next student indicated that my lesson was nearly up.