We had String Theory guru Brian Gree ne here last week. He met with our composers to explore strategies for breakthrough creative thinking. Each of the students gave an account of a cognitive leap in composition. Some reported better production under stressful conditions, others preferred to establish a very relaxed atmosphere. The common denominator was the ability to see past the details and find the larger patterns.

He also spent a little time giving (necessarily) superficial explanations of string theory, and how it differs and overlaps with chaos theory and fractal theory. He has a wonderful knack for grounding erudite topics in terms anyone can grasp. I know I came away with a clearer understanding of how these concepts relate (and don’t relate) to one another.

I hadn’t realized that Greene’s father was a composer (in addition to being a high school dropout and a vaudeville performer). Greene fils had a number of insights to share, although he was careful not to push the connections between composition and creativity in physics too much. He made it clear that he tended to prefer ideas that gave new perspectives to old notions. “Anyone can do something novel,” he said, “can you do something novel within strict limitations?”

Unfortunately, I had to slip out after the first hour to attend to other business. I understand that a politely contentious discussion ensued about the nature of existence. “It would be nice to believe in an afterlife and a soul,” Greene stated in his typically forthright manner, “but they don’t exist.”

Conventional wisdom prizes naturalness over artificiality. In music, for example, we praise the naturalness of culturally indigenous work, and decry the artificiality of a composer using a foreign musical language.

But I wonder if we use these terms too freely.

Artificial means “made by humans.” So in what sense is anything we do not artificial?

Or, to look at it another way, the whole nature-artifice dichotomy is based on a creationist point of view, the belief that human beings were made differently and for different reasons from other species. This perspective doesn’t ring true to me. I see humans as one of thousands, perhaps millions of species in the universe, each one uniquely adapted to survival in its environment.

In other words, human beings, in all their waywardness and complexity, are a product of nature.

So – in what sense is anything we do not natural?

I got a lesson in the importance of good English diction on a return flight from Palo Duro Canyon this week: as the flight attendant was going through the usual preflight announcements, she said, “In the event of an emergency, the cabin will be eliminated.”

Illuminated, please, illuminated!

Eb minor. Clarinet: A – A – Db. Sing it. No, second A longer. Two beats, three beats longer. Sing. Better. Next? Slower. 7/8. Cello on the bass, piano in double octaves up high, quiet. One measure. Two measures? Yes. Bring back harmonies from the beginning. A little faster, still quiet. Clarinet alternating high and low sixteenths. No: too much too soon. Save it. Move on – figure out the clarinet later. Piano is moving – where? Take over the bass. Four different chords in this bar, then two in the next. Here comes the clarinet. Is this the right moment? Forget it, check the timing later. Move on. Clarinet: F# -- B – E – F. Sing. Maybe. Now the same thing a little faster. Vary it later. Still quiet. Need a different harmony here: too predictable. Mark the spot, move on. No, back up, sing the whole passage. Run through in double time. Pacing, pacing, ignore the details.

Clarinet still comes in too soon. Push it back to the next bar. Try again, not quite double time, but still fast. Ignore ignore ignore the details, just get the timing right.

That will work. Now fill in. Run through again at half speed, imagining every detail. Tough to hear this spacing. Try again. Okay, that’s right. Now the next beat. The rhythm dies here, just for a moment. No good. Maybe it’s the bar before. Where you are is only half the battle, the rest is how you got there. Try again, try again. Half speed.

This chord is a little empty. Needs to be richer. Subvert the overtones, then confirm them. Appoggiatura in the inner voice. Nice. Brilliant!

Brilliant? No, not good enough. Try again.

God, look at the time.

Don’t look at the time.

Switch pieces.

Viola leads, violins underneath. Concealed pattern emerges, then folds back into texture. Off-kilter pulsations in the cello. Now loud, suddenly. Needs an eingang in the viola. That should do it. Fine. Compare to page three. Ah, forgot about that double-stop. Rethink. How important is it? Sing. Again.

Again.

Again.

Seems pretty important – not ignorable. Like maybe it could expand into something new. Grab it, ride it, improvise, listen.

Wow.

Okay, back to page 12. Concealed pattern emerges, then folds back into texture. Off-kilter pulsations in the cello. Now loud, suddenly. And double-stop. And again. And again. Obsessive! How important is it? Can’t ignore it now.

Phone. Hello? No. No. No. Can I get back to you? Thanks, bye.

Time to switch pieces again.

Back to the clarinet. F# -- B – E – F. Sing. Try these harmonies on the piano? Not yet. Just listen inside. Listen to it at half speed. Listen. Listen. Okay, here it gets a bit stodgy rhythmically. Goose the bass line, too repetitive. Sharpen the pencil, fill in the inner voices. Cello pizz, easy. Not too much. Nice.

E Major? Sure, why not. Recitation tone. Make it hang, hang, hang. Chords change beneath. Regular, then irregular. Spinning, dizzy. Then fly away into cello harmonics. Too much piano – only need a whisper. Forget the eraser, just cross it out. That’s it. Now float, float, float. And gently land.

Got it got it got it.

Got it got it got it got it got it.

Now, how about that empty chord?

Ooh, look at the time.

Composers frequently bemoan the fact that conservatories are slow to acknowledge innovation. We should try to get over that. They are conservatories, not exploratories. Asking a conservatory to produce new music is like asking a library to write books. Given their mission – to train musicians to perform increasing amounts of music at the highest level possible – it’s amazing how up to date they can be.

So what can conservatories do for us? They can produce musicians in the future who will be equipped to perform our music when we are no longer around. I’m not saying they definitely will, but that’s their mission, that’s what they are designed to do. We have to accept the fact that they move incredibly slowly, but their mission is so daunting, that shouldn’t be so much of a surprise.

It’s easy to look hungrily at institutions that produce vast quantities of musicians every year – seems like such a lost opportunity when you have trouble finding anyone to perform your latest magnum opus. But if we support the mission of these conservatories, gently prodding them in the right direction rather than wishing they would be something other than what they are, they should eventually catch up to us.

If we're worth catching up to.