To Study Music

Tonight, instead of dutifully completing my homework (which was tonight's original plan) I am thinking about music, song, and creativity.

Because I chose a route that leads to an academic career as opposed to a strictly creative one - though I think the two are far from separate - I sometimes feel that I need to practice my abilities to remain impersonal and objective.

Sometimes (I'll admit this in the spirit of being candid) I even feel like taking too much time to function as a creative person/musician will deter from my scholarship.

But right now, that seems so unbelievably ridiculous.
I'm studying to be a Musicologist. Music in words. MUSIC in words. Sometimes I think/act like I'm somehow separate from other music students. Certainly not better than them, or worse than them - but different.

But, really, I'm not.
Music is ultimately the study of people (composers or performers), their creative ideas (programmatic/absolute), and how those ideas take hold in sound (music). It's so human. And, really, I'm finding more than ever, it requires creativity.

Music is not impersonal and objective. It's an ongoing list of commentary - upon music/sound itself, upon politics, upon art, upon people and cultures and ideas and life itself.

If I'm going to add anything of value to the words that come after and about the music in "Musicology", I need to be engaged. In life, in the world, in creativity, in music.

This, I suppose, is where balance comes in.
There needs to be time to write the papers, read the books, memorize the facts. And let me be clear: I love the books, the papers, the facts, (to an extent) the Canon, footnotes, and academic writing. I love comprehending and exploring the conversations which surround music.

But there also needs to be time to live. To create. Time to play the piano and listen to music and create and connect. To engage with the world, and what is present in it.


[Clearly, I lean towards the programmatic side of things.]