The Muse That Sings is a unique behind-the-scenes look at both twentieth-century music and the nuts and bolts of creative work. Here, twenty-five of America's leading composers--from Adams to Zorn, from Bolcom to Vierk--talk candidly about their craft, their motivations, their difficulties, and how they how proceed from musical idea to finished composition. While focusing on the process and the stories behind specific works, the composers also touch on topics that will interest anyone involved in creative work. They discuss teachers and mentors, the task of revision, relationships with performers, and the ongoing struggle for a balance between freedom and discipline. They reveal sources of inspiration, artistic goals, and the often unexpected ways their musical ideas develop. Some describe personal tonal systems; others discuss the impact of computers and other electronic tools on their work; still others reflect philosophically on the inner impulses and outer influences that continue to drive them. While serious music has a reputation for being difficult and inaccessible, The Muse That Sings provides a powerful antidote. The composers in this book speak clearly and thoughtfully in response to key questions of concern to all readers interested in contemporary music. Each interview has been edited to stand alone as a concise meditation on muse and technique, and the book includes selected discographies as well as brief biographical sketches. Anyone with an interest in twentieth-century music or in the creative process will find this lively collection a valuable source of inspiration and insight.

The Muse that Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process

Arts & Photography

Ann McCutchan

Music

Oxford University Press

In this collection of personal essays, clarinetist Ann McCutchan uses the metaphor of circular breathing to animate her understanding of her own life as a woman, musician, and writer. Circular breathing is a technique for wind instrument playing in which fresh air is drawn in through the nose at the same time that stored air in the lungs is released by mouth through the instrument. The process allows the player to produce a continuous line of music without breaking the curve of a melody to inhale. The questions McCutchan grapples with have universal implications. For example, how does one come to be called to a life's work? For McCutchan, who grew up in central Florida in the 1960s, the call grew out of twin desires: to exercise a physical voice and to develop an interior one. Bringing both to fruition meant abandoning roles expected of young women in that time and place, and learning to live ever after with the conflicting claims of art and life. Questions of familial loss lie at the heart of this collection, as well. With a sure, delicate hand, McCutchan examines the impact of her parents' untimely deaths, her inability to bear children, and the foundering of her two marriages. Art may not deliver one from sorrow, she discovers, but it may console--deeply. Finally, there are the questions that arise when one can no longer fulfill the physical demands of an art. Can a musician trade in her instrument, and a world that defined her for decades, for something else? Here, McCutchan charts her journey from the stage to the page, exploring the ways both worlds feed each other.

Circular Breathing, Meditations from a Musical Life

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Sunstone Press

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Books by Ann McCutchan