The First Composition

I was eleven years old when I wrote my first composition.

I heard a melody in my head. There was a piano in the house, so I went to it, found the notes I heard, and began trying to play them. It was a painstaking process, but I eventually found all of the notes in the melody and could reproduce them on the piano. I then began practicing playing the melody over and over with the intent of eventually playing it perfectly.

Whilst practicing the melody, I began to hear a counter melody. I began playing that melody with my left hand, and determined I could play the initial melody with my right hand while playing the counter melody with my left hand.

 The coordination of the two took several weeks. I was obsessed with perfecting the performance of this little bagatelle, and could think of nothing else. I'd play it over and over and over and over....

I'm sure I drove my family crazy.

Well, I eventually got to the point where I was able to play this little minuet perfectly. And so I did. Constantly. It was an indescribable feeling. I had no idea that I had composed a song. I had no idea how significant,  and defining a moment this would be in my life.

One day, I was playing the song and happened to look out the window. I could see the tree in the backyard. The wind was blowing through it, and the leaves were rustling beautifully and shimmering in the sunlight. I was struck dumb by the beauty of those leaves rustling in the wind, reflecting the light of the sun.

I then looked down at my fingers playing the minuet, and it hit me like a ton of bricks: my fingers were leaves, rustling in the wind and shimmering in the light.

At that moment I knew who and what I was.

It's been over 30 years since that first composition. I have no idea how many songs I've written since then (hundreds?). But the experience of composition is always the same: I hear music, I learn how to reproduce it, and then I perfect the reproduction of it.

I don't know where the music comes from. I can't make it magically appear. It comes when it wants to. I have tried to conjure it up, with no success. I'm at the mercy of the god of music.

That first experience of composition was so intimate. So transcendent. So defining. I had no idea that it had nothing to do with me. I thought it was my secret possession.

It took me thirty years to discover that the gift of musical composition was placed in my care only so that I might have something to give to you.

I'm what you might call a "slow learner".