Message-ID: <alpine.NEB.2.00.1301160035310.1559@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.wvu.edu>, Wryting-L <WRYTING-L@listserv.wvu.edu>
Subject: confession
Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2013 00:37:40 -0500 (EST)
confession i realize my music is barking up the wrong tree. my music is absolutely useless and misshapen. it's not zen, it's just clumsy. i'm lucky if i can hit intervals at all. consider this a wordy piece of silence. it's an admission of guilt in the production of bad music. it's an admission of tricks and subterfuge with instruments. i dream of fires of wood and steel strings singing their final songs. i dream of boats of woods and steel struts carrying refugees away from me. i hear differences where none are and nothing where differences are. i hear innovation where there's nothing but tired repetition and i hear melodic repetition where i'm running out of ideas. i jump from instrument to instrument as i exhaust my limited resources on each one. i jump from speed to speed to impress and disguise the fact i can't hold a note for any length of time. my instruments are beautiful and deserve better. you are accurate in your assessment that there's too much of my music around, too much craziness, too much exhaustion. i pretend to focus on technique and exercises when all i'm doing is trying something out with an impressive surface devoid of any depth. my music isn't barking up the wrong tree, it's not even music, it's not even noise, or it's noise intended to be music. the only delight it brings is the usual shortness of the pieces but sometimes i err further and produce what appears on the surface like a meditation but in fact is just a lengthy poverty of ideas. my fingers move by themselves in idiotic patterns. my mind stumbles in idiotic pursuit. this confession should suffice, please control your anger. there's no reason to listen to anything more.