Note, that’s an interesting one! I’m curious to see what others write about when they think about the word note. I’m a musician and vocalist, so naturally the first thing that I think of is a musical note. I’ve always had an interest in playing around with music writing software, and recently a buddy of mine from my day job (thanks Michael!) told me about Note Flight, a free software for just that. Usually these things cost a large amount of money, but not in this case! You can always upgrade your subscription, but the ten scores that you get for free are enough for me right now. I’m having fun messing around with the program and you never know what sort of fun work may come of it. Music writing has always been on the back burner for me…and I don’t think it will ever become a profession for me, but…you never know…for some reason I always seem to come back to it…now, on that…note…haha, the traditional form of music writing has always been hard for me. There are quite a lot of rules that you should follow in order to write correctly (at least in a traditional music theory sense). As my music theory teacher from college has put it (rather hilariously) you should go by “What would Beethoven do?” If Beethoven wouldn’t do that, then neither should you for your school projects. Now, there’s one composer I seriously admire who uses the rules…and bends them knowledgeably…and I’m entranced by his work as a performer and an intellectual. I’d like to write like him some day if I do become a composer/lyricist. That composer is Stephen Sondheim, the genius. He has inspired so many artists to create what they have…Jonathan Larson, Lin-Manuel Miranda, these greats are my inspiration; all 3 of them. You can see Sondheim’s inspiration in their work, especially in Jonathan Larson’s musical “Tick, Tick…Boom,” with the song “Sunday” directly inspired by Sondheim’s song of the same name in “Sunday in the Park With George.” I could go on and on and on about the large and small nods to Sondheim in Larson’s and Miranda’s work, but that would turn in to a novel of a blog post. Perhaps I will revisit this exact topic later and continue with my thoughts on these 3 and my admiration for them and their work, but for now I’ll leave you with this: check out this recent interview by Lin-Manual Miranda with Stephen Sondheim. It’s entrancing. I’m almost never so enthralled for an entire article (ADD is tough), but these guys…they have and will always have my attention.
I can’t believe the simple word “note” inspired this whole post, but I’m glad that it got me going down the road of inspiration in the subject I have loved my whole life. I hope it does the same for you. 🙂
MusicTrGrlinNYC 