Passion

Gina Trapani is the founder and a writer for a blog that I follow called Lifehacker.  At the beginning of the year, she blogged about a wonderful little ebook called What Matter Now from which I have received a number of thoughtful pieces of advice.  I’d like to share one of these little tidbits with you at the beginning of every week for a few months in hopes that they might be a help to you as you live, teach, or compose.

Lesson #1  Passion:  (Page 51)

This is obviously great advice for a young person or student.  But, if you can’t think of how this might apply to your life as a composer, then I’ll share how it has spoken to me of late. 

I almost always write with a purpose.  I like to have something to write about musically, so I am always brainstorming about new ideas.  I find that though I can write decently for assignments given to me, my most creative writing comes when I write about that which I am passionate.  I have found that “finding my passion” is not some abstract, difficult thing to do, but rather just finding out what excites me and places me in a state of wonder or fascination.  I like that Derek defines passion as that which excites you and scares you every day!  This is not always obvious to me, but when I search with those criteria, I almost always find something to write about and usually with good results.