Actually, this is pretty awkward for me. It’s strange: I can teach students or perform music in front of an audience with no problem, but a blog is proving to be an entirely different beast. It took no small amount of courage to just purchase this domain name, let alone start publishing material. For whatever reason, my mind is spawning a litany of questions. What if you don’t like my music? What if you don’t like my writings? What if you dislike my music and my writings? What if the whole world collectively decides that I am unworthy of its time and, through shunning, condemns this blog to the depths of the electronic ether? What if the mere thought of visiting this blog causes you to sprout space-alien tentacles and get a sudden urge to raise a giant intergalactic army and put the entirety of the known universe under your ninety-seven-toed alien boot? That would be truly terrible, and I would feel awful. (Although, if you are hiring musicians for your Intergalactic Evil Alien Army Band, I most humbly offer my services as its conductor.)
Why am I so reluctant to put myself out there? I don’t rightly know. I suppose it has always been so. Hey, that rhymes! Maybe this will be easier than I thought. I guess this is as good a time as any to give you a proper introduction.
My name is Evan, and I hear music in my head. An entire orchestra, in fact. I can change it at will. “Brain, I don’t like the oboe here. Let’s change it to a solo violin.” “Good, now let’s back off the rest of the strings a bit so that soloist comes through…nice.” I also write it down. I think music is my fundamental language, and I love to share it. So, with this blog, I post my compositions, as well as thoughts on teaching and creativity.
I’ve had these ideas for a long time, but I kept them bottled up like antimatter in a Penning trap. (Penning traps are really cool. You can read about them here.) I found that I couldn’t keep them bottled up, though. If a creative person bottles ideas up, they become sort of like sewage backing up, and that’s disgusting. Not that my ideas are sewage, of course (although if they are, I’m sure you’ll be kind enough to let me know). So, my goal with this blog is to share them. I see my composition, writing, teaching, and blogging as all serving one purpose anyway: to help me share my language with the world, and, hopefully, to inspire others to discover the orchestras inside of their heads. I hope you enjoy the music, and I hope to stimulate some fascinating discussion. And I also hope that you haven’t sprouted alien tentacles yet. That wouldn’t be a good sign.
Welcome to The Inner Orchestra!