Johnny Deadline, composer (parody)

If you missed Kile Smith's remarkably insightful four-part BSR series about the process of creating a musical composition, here's good news: Kile has permitted me to condense his series into a single essay, based on my admittedly hasty reading of his original. The result follows. (To read Kile's real effort, begin here.)

As a composer, I'm often approached by people who ask, "Where do you get the inspiration for your music?" Mostly this happens in my dreams. In real life, they usually ask, "Do you have any spare change?" or "Why don't you watch where you're going?" or "How come you spell your name "'Kile' instead of "'Kyle'? What are you— some kind of hippie non-conformist?"

Many people think composers just sit around waiting for the muse to strike, the way Beethoven did. But when you have a family to support, you grab whatever commissions come your way, so sitting around is a luxury. Believe me, big-time composing is not for the faint of heart.

Last month, for example, I was working on a 12-part cantata for my church choir. Then the Vatican called me with a rush job: a farewell mass for Pope Benedict. I'll have to squeeze that in with my new national anthem for Egypt and my battle hymn for the Taliban, not to mention my long-delayed hour of silent meditation for the Arch Street Friends Meeting House.

All this on top of my regular job as a busboy at Bennigan's. And they expect you to be creative, to boot!

Searching for inspiration

So the other day, desperate for emotional inspiration, I went out on my porch, which unfortunately for me is located in a very humdrum neighborhood. As I tried to commune with Mother Nature, I noticed a hummingbird attacking a hawk in a tree. Been there, done that. In my front yard, a lion was lying down with a lamb, and an ant was engaged in an intense conversation with a grasshopper. Bor-ing.

Behind me, a herd of elephants stampeded through my living room. On the distant horizon, tanks from Rommel's Third Panzer Division rumbled toward me. Up in the sky, a guy with a beard stuck his head through the clouds and hurled lightning and rainbows at me, just as he's been doing three times a week for longer than I can recall.

"Doesn't anything unusual ever happen around here?" I wailed hopelessly to the heavens. "I can't afford to move downtown, ya know!"

Serendipity strikes

And then it happened. A slug crawled across my foot and up my leg. I shook it off, removed my shoe and tried to squash it to the rhythm of Beethoven's Fifth— da-da-da-DAH!

"Wait!" the slug shouted. "I'm not really a slug. I'm a handsome prince who's been cast under an evil spell. If you spare me, I'll make you the court composer at Buckingham Palace."

So I let him go. As he slithered away, I heard him mutter, "Sucker!"

I was furious, but no matter: Fury is emotion, and emotion is inspiration. In that serendipitous moment I had found the title of my new work for a joint concert by Piffaro the Renaissance Wind Band and the Modern Jazz Quartet: The Slug and I.

Translating emotion

But how to translate emotion into music? Generic emotion, I knew, produces generic music, just as it produces bland acting, uninvolving painting, vanilla poetry, dull doorknobs, boring bathtubs and tepid toilet tissue.

All I can say is: Thank God for "Google Emotions" and "Google Music." I don't know where today's composers would be without them.

The Slug and I was pretty much finished when, six days before the performance, I sent it to both of the intended performing groups for their approval. The next morning my phone rang. It was Joan Kimball of Piffaro.

"Kile, baby!" she shouted. "Loved your Slug piece! It's you! It really is! Move over, Igor Stravinsky!"

I took a deep breath and waited for the other shoe to drop.

Sponsor's request

"All it needs is a little tweaking," she continued. "You may have forgotten that Bike Tech and Universal Kazoo are two of our biggest sponsors. Any chance you can write in parts for kazoos and bicycle pumps?"

I felt my blood rising.

"Oh, and one other thing," Joan said. "What's with all these high F-majors? East Coast G-Minor is another big sponsor, and they hate F-majors. How about changing your F-majors to G-minors?"

This is the sort of ethical dilemma that every honest composer confronts sooner or later.

"I don't answer to mercenary sponsors!" I shouted into the phone. "I'm an artiste! I answer to my muse! You know what you can do with your G-minors, and your kazoos and bike pumps, too!"

Joan's voice grew frosty. "So you want to play hardball, Big Boy?" she said. "You have 24 hours to change your mind, or you'll never work in this town again. And let me remind you: Being strangled with a sackbut is an especially painful way to die."

"Is that a threat?" I asked. "Because if it is, you'll be hearing from my friends in the Vatican, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Friends Meetinghouse. Mess with me and you can kiss your salvation goodbye!"

"Heaven forbid," Joan replied. "Let's just say that there are some pretty powerful people in this town with strong feelings about music. Capice?"

It was just another day in the life of a 21st-Century Philadelphia composer. I escaped with my principles intact only through the good graces of the federal government's Witness Protection Program, where I'm presently enrolled at an undisclosed location. So pray for me— especially if the Sequester goes into effect.♦


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