Perhaps it’s my age catching up to me, but my taste for art has significantly changed. I say significantly, but it only seems that way in comparison to times past.

One could even argue this has always been a latent desire of mine, but I’m only getting honest about it now.

Normally, my go-to music for writing falls between playlists of ambient collections, coffee house artists/songs or simply a Portishead album (my first few books were written strictly listening to the Dummy album on repeat).

Now, I find myself diving into the depths of classical music. I’ve always skimmed the surface of its offerings, mainly from growing up with a sister who played piano and also from perusing movie scores for my magic shows.

However, for the focus I need to get work done, it’s the only genre that works for me now.

And every so often, I’m stopped in my tracks. There comes a composition so beautiful, so enticing, I have to stop and listen.

For instance, the title of this post points to a particularly powerful piece that had me stop and reflect on the nature of art; specifically, the nature of the artist.

When I listen to Barber’s Adagio for Strings, I ask myself, what was he thinking when he came to the blank page on this one?
What was he going through to mine such depth of emotion?
What part of him did he search that he refused to go to before?
What was he experiencing to want to deliver this to the world?

Just listening to it awakens something inside of you and while it may sound familiar to cinema goers (especially older wartime movies), it resonates.

In fact, the only way to play this piece properly, is to reach the depths of emotion Barber was experiencing himself. As artistically pretentious as it sounds, one must become the music to give it justice.

But that’s what good art does.

It makes you feel something. It brings you to a new level of awareness. It makes you get down and dig through emotions you normally hide.

Good art takes something out of the artist in order to give something to the receiver. In other words, it wakes you up and makes you alive.

It stays with you and leaves an imprint on your soul.

Consider this rendition of Roy Orbinson’s “Crying” as sung by Rebekah Del Rio. It was featured in Mulholland Drive and while that movie left you puzzled, frustrated and upset for having spent so much time with it, no one ever complains about the scene in which she sings this piece.

She took an already brilliant song and reached a new level of emotion with it.

While I am no composer and my aptitude for music is minimal (my family tried… oh did they ever try…), I have never stopped thinking about the nature of art.

Even as a magician, I was obsessed with trying to elevate the artform to something beyond mild amusement. I never reached it, but I appreciated those who tried.

Now, I have the blank page where I conduct my compositions. My orchestra is twenty six letters, each one attuning itself to my thoughts upon which they are cast.

Each piece must take something out of me. It must… or it falls flat. It’s discarded, or not written at all.

One day I might write my own Barber masterpiece, but the only thing I will be thinking is… what next?

The artist never stops.

The obsession never dies.