Becoming a Composer. Part II
I'm 15 years old, travelling in a van with two friends to a music composer's competition. Lilacs hang in thick clusters exuding a heavy aroma through the open windows. They line the streets and gardens of the houses we pass on our journey to Oyama, a small community new Kelowna, British Columbia. My friend's father drives. He's a jolly enough sort, although full of comments about who's the better composer, who will win, and how talented his kids are. He intersperses this with long drags on a bottle of pop, and bites into a massive sandwich. He manages to do all of this while driving. It is quite fascinating!
Meanwhile, I look out the window and breath in the lilacs. I think about the competition. Each of us has written a piece of piano music. The Dad tells me mine sounds a bit like Brahms, and the strong implication is that I've pirated something from that great composer.
However, I don't know anything about Brahms, have only ever heard his famous "lullaby" theme, and won't actually see a piano score until I begin my studies at UBC some years later. It's just coincidence, and I hold fast onto my belief (to this day) that there is no such thing as an original idea. The excerpt I have provided is by Brahms - not me! My composition didn't look anything like this!
At last we reach Oyama where a friendly woman shows us to our rooms in a large building owned by the Easter Seals Charitable foundation. It's pretty basic, but comfortable. (Later we will dine in the hall and try to enjoy the burnt spaghetti!)
The next day we are allowed to make use of the piano - try out our pieces. Our piano teacher has arrived with her family, and there is a lot of wonder and excitement about this competition. It is something new for all of us.
Later that afternoon we perform our pieces. I can't remember what I called my composition, and I don't know if I even still have it. It was written in a minor key, in 3/4 time, and consisted of a lot of triplets, creating a circular momentum. There was something mysterious about its sound.
We young competitors are an eclectic group. Not used to such great diversity within a single competition, I find it all a rather jarring. It's not that I think my music is better. I just don't know how to compare it to what I'm hearing. Not only is there music, but a young ballet dancer has choreographed a ballet solo, and this is judged too, by an ancient ballet teacher with painted-on lips, who talks through each of the choreographed movements while her student performs.
Finally the prizes are awarded. I place third behind someone who wrote a rather predictable but very technical piece. The winner is a young woman who plays electric guitar and has presented a short 'opera' called "Jokers are Wild." It's all about a house of cards and seems a bit silly. So eclectic! How did they even decide the who and why of first, second and third place?
That evening I attend a concert being recorded by CBC Radio Canada. This is the real competition. People like Ernst Schneider and Jean Coulthard are there and it is absolutely incredible to hear their string compositions.
This, to me, is real music composition. I can't imagine ever writing anything like the pieces I am hearing. How did they begin to write music? They must have started atthe beginning like the rest of us. I decide that once upon a time, these talented composers wrote something highly technical, or rather silly, or perhaps even reminiscent of Brahms!
