The Power of Creating . . . Where Expression Meets Practice in Choral Music

the power of creating. . . Where saying meets training in choral music

Action without vision is a nightmare"? - Japanese Proverb I've been a musician for my entire life. Even before I was conscious of it myself, families report 4-year old Michael running in the back yard, singing at full voice, conducting an imaginary orchestra populated by the the creatures using a tree branch. This later grew into formally studying music, first the trumpet in elementary school, learning the best way to play the guitar at Summer Camp, then in high school where I later took up the French Horn, along with joining the choir. The best way to set it nicely . . . a little overenthusiastic. In fact, just after my audition, I heard the people who live in the room laughing. I was not making it up, I believed my rendition of 'Fools Rush In' was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. -- In thinking back on it now, they weren't laughing at my voice or my effort, but finding the comedy in someone who was so dedicated without having skill and the craft that comes through being honed by practice. Despite that myself was all expression, with little ability, I was fortunate enough to be in a choir where Beethoven, Handel, and Bach were mainstays along with standards from the American Songbook, modern composers, and musical theater and made into choir. -- It was singing in that choir that I started my lifelong journey, that continues to this day, of tempering my passion with craft. My earliest memories of music contained the Beatles the classical greats, but also, and musical theater composers as well. In a single evening in my youth house, we might hear Handel's 'Messiah' followed by the Beatles 'White Album' with a helping of musical theater as well as the American Songbook.?At exactly the same time I was attracted not only to rock and blues, but the music that all of my friends were listening to. -- There was something underneath it all, a standard voice that pervaded the music, a power which was present no matter the type go music. It is that looking for the'something underneath it all' that has guided my very own journey as a composer and also a musician. Perhaps all great art is searching for an access point to the source beneath it all. My own personal experience indicates the access point regularly appears when the raw power of expression is married with the discipline of regular practice. -- Whether music, fine art, or any other type of creative enterprise, when expression is aligned with exercise amazing things can occur. Three music degrees and thousands of concerts later, I have found the deepest issues in life and in music defy easy responses and explanation. I have spent a lot of my career trying to find a harmony between the discipline and the passion. Myself use the following as a guide to help direct my journey: 1. To much expression with no container of exercise makes for a creative product that lacks a credibility for the crowd. 2. Something that's informed by an excessive amount of discipline can come off as inflexible and lack a certain energy. 3. It is the dynamic tension between the two opposites that can lead to common voice that underlies all things to an access point. A place where really amazing things can happen. Regardless of what terms you use; saying and practice, craft and discipline, what Richard Rohr calls 'action and contemplation' and "both . . . and," it's holding the dynamic tension of reverse that enables eyesight to be apparent. And while the best of these questions can lead us to a location common to all of us, the when there is delight in the method, the journey itself can become a response.

If you'd like to hear the most recent milestone of my journey, click hear to listen to my most recent album, 'Mystical Voices'. http://www.mjtrotta.com/cd-recordings/mystical-voices/buythealbum.html