Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.  -Michelangelo

Two glocks – One empty, one full (Which is which?)

Grayson, who is into constructing and deconstructing, took all the keys off the glockenspiel and put them inside. You can do that with this little instrument – The keys are removable. Once the keys were all inside” the box,” as he called the newly stripped instrument, Grayson heaved a meaningful sigh and we all sat there in respectful silence, lost in our respective thoughts. It occurred to me that each of these keys has its own pitch, and even jumbled together inside, they represent all the pitches needed to execute or create a great many songs and pieces. The music is, in a sense, already living inside the box. When I mentioned this, Grayson’s mom immediately thought of Michelangelo, who saw himself not as a creator, but as a discoverer, chipping away at the stone to find the sculpture that already exists.

This is an interesting way for an aspiring composer to think of composition: that the finished piece already exists, and that her task is to chip away at the extraneous notes and mold the rest to reveal the music. I am not a prolific composer, but have written some nice songs and a few pieces, and in every case, this was the sensation – That the song was being held captive and that I had been chosen to release it.

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