Onslaught

Drinking coffee with a fellow film composer before my lesson, I was talking about how well my lesson would probably go.

It's always when you're most secure that the rug is pulled out from under you. I'm condemned to work straight through another Friday night. I need to finish my thesis. Again. And again.

Wednesday looked optimistic, based on what Dr. Shrude told me. Then in my lesson today, Dr. Lillios quickly put an end to that. I think I was right all along: it doesn't matter how early you start your thesis or how long you work on it; they will find ways to make you endure it right up until the deadline. The whole point is that I wanted the composition done so I could have more time to leisurely polish up the notation and make the parts. Because it never stops at the score; you have to make parts. And all of it has to look professionally published. This is no news to the other composers reading this, but for the rest of you...

What gets me is that she "suggested" I do some things compositionally in sections that 1) we had previously established were actually perfectly fine the way they are and 2) following these suggestions makes those sections do the exact opposite of what the material is supposed to communicate. The more you have someone look at a score, the more convoluted the original idea becomes. Granted, most of what your mentor tells you you should do does make the piece better, but not when it destroys the very idea you're trying to communicate. Today's lesson was one step forward, seven steps backward.

Quick disclaimer: Dr. Lillios, despite being a Cubs fan, is a fantastic mentor. I fully respect what she has to say... but today was grossly unfair. Part of this is that she was visibily irritated that I apparently didn't do enough work on it this week. This is simply untrue. Thus, another curse of the composer: you are not judged based on how much time you've worked. You are credited on output, not input.

It's not like I'm not doing a great job composing it; like I said, some of the advice was a direct contradiction to what was already agreed upon--my favorite parts of the piece, which were "finished" along time ago. So I'm going to offer up the month of February to the thesis gods in hopes that they will be appeased.

I feel like the Rohirrim, after they think they saved the day only to hear the horns of mumac riders on the other side of the field. Reform the line!

The thing I truly hate is constantly having to cut corners in my life, aka "prioritizing." When monkey wrenches are thrown at me and I have two days to do three days worth of work, I can't even work out or train karate. My karate training comes in spurts since I've been to grad school. Every few weeks I just start to get into it, get regular, and start to rehabilitate, then I stop cold turkey for another few weeks.

I'm hellbent on returning to Kansas City, if nothing else than the simple reason that I can train with my old sensei and the gang for a couple years and really improve my life physically and mentally. I'll need that time of relative geographic hermitage.

So again I find myself grimly resigning to my fate for the weekend. I do what I have to do to redeem my thesis, which no one will ever hear anyway. I forsake my friends to get work done, still having nothing solid to show for my months of toil. I do what I must, tucking away thoughts of a pleasant future, hoping I'm not too scarred to come back to those thoughts when the time finally arrives.

Many a noble and good Jedi have fallen to this trick. They think they can simply do what they must, then return to light. Slowly, gradually, the Dark Side overtakes them. They try to outsmart the Dark Side, but the line is blurred. This happened to Ulic Qel-Droma. This happened to Anakin Skywalker. This happened to Quinlan Vos. This almost happened to Corran Horn. This even happened to Luke Skywalker in Dark Empire.

Okay, so it's not quite that bad. But I do feel pretty grim. It's that kind of motivation that's dangerous, but then again, that's the programmatic element to the music itself, so maybe it will help me do a better job. See? The Dark Side beckons...

Basically, my nuts are in a jar. Two separate jars, actually: one on display in Dr. Shrude's office, the other on Dr. Lillios' desk.

I generally prefer not to use my blog to vent, but... it will probably keep me from stabbing someone later tonight. Just don't read all this with too serious a voice, and I'll continue taking you on this journey of the cynical humor I'm famous for...

However, if I may speak more seriously:

I don't mean to give the impression that I'm incompetent. You should see my thesis so far. I'm the only person who's come this far on it. The only one who is even remotely this far along, and others are actually envious. I worked damn hard, too. I just want a little credit. I ask only for the credit I deserve. I don't want admiration from my peers, I just want a Boba Fett-esque nod of recognition. And a scotch on the rocks. Oh, and enough time to play Metal Gear Solid 3.

I am by no means a proud man, but there are limits to how long one can endure insecurity and inadequacy. That is the root of my bad mood. Fortunately, I have far more patience than I let on. I guess you'll just have to take my word on that. If you scoff at that proclamation, then you really don't know me at all, and I truly have failed at representing myself, and I will delete this entire blog permanently. Going to Truman State University and suffering the Mostly Live Composers Society taught me patience. Karate taught me that. Christ taught me that. Even reading all those Jedi novels taught me that, to a lesser extent. But there are limits. I'm probably taking today way harder than I should, but my thesis committee members don't understand quite where I'm coming from. So I keep working, and they keep kicking me while I'm down.

"Will this never end?"
--C-3PO

"It's been so long since we had any hope."
--Boromir

So there you have it. The naked truth. An elaborate look at what happens to a composer when enough is enough. I'm not alone on this, I promise you that.

Sorry if you're offended, or if you have less respect for me. But this is not teen angst. This is not childish it's-not-fair whining. This is not self-absorbed woe-is-me sympathy whoring. I expect my parents to read it that way, but it's not that at all. I'm a mature adult who's been at rock bottom a little too often. If you don't see it that way, then I've wasted my time (and yours) trying to articulate this scenario. I can take the work. What I can't handle anymore is the cycle of inadequacy that grad school is apparently built to impose on every composer I've talked to here. There's more to life than failure. There has to be.

This does deepen the fraternal bond among my peers, however. We'll all have post-traumatic stress disorder together.

In the end, I'll probably get a series of flattering compliments from the faculty, like I did in a letter from Dr. Gooch at Truman when I left. Why do they wait until all is said and done to tell us how well we did all along? By then it's too late, and we don't believe it.

That's all I have to say. That wasn't so bad, was it?