From the Archives :: 4 May 2005

Funny time wrapping Moonrise [for brass quintet] up last night.

Sometimes, I feel I have to write, even if I feel that I will wind up throwing out what I’ve written.  Sometimes, I have to do all that, to get to where I can write what is wanted.

Last night, I had the evening off, so I wanted to write, wanted to get the quintet done.  Energy was pretty low, however, and what the corporeal Henning really wanted was, just to draw a warm bath and call it an early night.  But of course, you get into the habit of calling nights early, and months will go by and you won't have written anything.

I don’t have great problems with forcing myself to write;  sometimes, I write well like that.  But last night I wrote eight measures, had a cup of tea, and while I sipped my tea, I knew that what I had written had to go, just crumple it up.

The eight measures though, followed some six measures which I had written on the train earlier yesterday.  Those six measures were good;  they were simple, but they were good.  So I finished my tea, ditched the offending eight measures (eight measures that just didn’t belong) . . . found my bearings at last, and finished the piece.

Today I’ll weigh and consider, but the piece has reached ‘fair completion,’ and any adjustment will be minor.

“Eight measures that just didn't belong” . . . this is part of why I wanted to get the piece done.  When a piece has pretty much assumed shape, and you’re close to finishing it, but circumstances get in the way of finishing it . . . you lose your sense of the piece, and it gets easy to write things that just don’t belong.

But . . . that’s why it was good to sit myself down, write the stuff that didn’t belong ... because then, I’d regained my bearings on the piece.