Little Waltz No. 10: a look at process

I hammered away at Little Waltz “10. Finale” over the weekend and I am not at all satisfied with the two new sections. But here they are, warts and all — and that’s the point of these blog posts.

Actually, there are two points to these blog posts:

Point 1:

The first is to show how the King of Hearts Fallacy will always be a trap: No artist of any description has ever “started at the beginning, gone until they reached the end, then stopped.” Certainly I haven’t. This waltz — as I’ve said before — started with the grand finish, and then I reverse-engineered that melody for the opening.

Now I’m just working my way back to the finish.

Point 2:

My second point is that it’s important for everyone to remember that I am an amateur composer. I have no training other than a childhood spent in band practice and church choirs. I cannot sit down at a keyboard and just play; I have to hammer out each and every melody, every chord, every cadence, until it all sounds “right” to me.

And if you’ve read the book, you know my answer to the question of how can I do this if I’ve never been trained: No one told me I couldn’t.

Both points are just as valid for you and your creative process as they are for me: You shouldn’t get trapped by the King of Hearts Fallacy, and you shouldn’t allow your inexperience/lack of training to stop you from Making the Thing That Is Not.

Just in case you’re reading this and have listened to the waltz and are thinking, “Is he kidding me? He’s obviously good at this,” here are the bits that are still living in the vast wasteland between what you’ve heard and the grand finale. They are not good, and that’s putting it charitably. But you never know: With enough GESTALT and SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION, I may be able to hammer something amazing out of those ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS.