The Composer and his Message

This article is about the composition of music. I have been playing the cello for half my life and have composed a few pieces of music in my time, yet this article is still very much over my head. I feel as though many of the ideas and concepts Sessions discusses are very abstract and difficult to grasp unless you happen to be a real composer. I agree in the most basic level with Sessions when he says that the essence of musical expression is emotion. Much deeper than that and I am again lost. When he says “In trying to understand the work of the composer, one must first think of him as living in a world of sounds.” I find this most unhelpful, because if I could think like that I would understand, but I can’t think like that, so I don’t understand. Another statement he made just like this one is that “He [the composer] is not so much conscious of his ideas as possessed by them.” I feel as though I can’t truly understand that having never been in this situation. I think that if this article were meant to be preparation for me writing my own piece of music it was not very helpful because I am not a composer already. I think that the creativity it takes to compose music is the same as any other creativity and it is different for each individual person. Every person needs to find their own way of composing that works for them.