The Artist's Diet

Hello, Fellow Artists!

I don't know how this past week has been for you, but it has been awfully rocky for me...I blame the equinox (but then again, you all know my motto: why take it personally when you can take it cosmically?). So, this afternoon, I headed for the hills....literally. A dear friend and I took a little drive up to Silverthorne to look at the fall leaves in the mountains and do a little retail therapy.

That got me thinking....last week, I went to hear Kathleen Battle with the Colorado Symphony, which made me feel really good. Why? Because it was beauty, it was art, and people who are artists need to be nourished by art.

And, when I was in the thick of the week's ickiness, another dear friend of mine said he, too, was having a crappy time, and that he felt a major symptom of his icky feelings was the fact that he had stopped listening to music for pleasure...and that he planned to make it a personal discipline to open up his ears and listen again. All part and parcel, you see....an artist who finds him/herself avoiding the very art s/he loves is an artist who needs help, who needs fresh inspiration. Burnout happens to all of us, and this little conversation was both a good friendship moment and a wake-up call...because sometimes what we need most of all is to feel connected again, to know we're not the only one, and to give ourselves the love and the grace and the artistic nourishment it takes to feed artistry.

So, in that vein, and because it's truly my favorite thing to do, I want to give you all a gift.

All Levels

Take 15 minutes a day, and listen to music. Music you love, music that makes you happy, music that makes you sad, music that is full of memories and meaning for you. That's it. Just listen, and remind yourself of how great it is. And, throughout the day, take little opportunities to look at beauty, notice good things, be grateful for little spots of grace.

If you'd like suggestions for listening:

Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise

J.S. Bach - Magnificat or St. Matthew Passion (especially "Mache dich mein Herze rein")

Alison Krauss - Lonely Runs Both Ways

Randall Thompson - Choose Something Like a Star

Joni Mitchell

W.A. Mozart - Solemn Vespers of the Confessor (especially "Laudate Dominum")

A mix CD from a dear friend

Tomas Luis de Victoria - O quam gloriosum

Edgar Meyer - Appalachian Journey

Vaughan Williams - Dona Nobis Pacem (especially the last movement) or The Lark Ascending

Kansas - Carry on, My Wayward Son

Stravinsky - Firebird or "Gloria" from the Mass for Mixed Voices and Wind Instruments

William Byrd - Any of the masses or motets

Bartok - anything from the "For Children" set of pieces, or the Romanian Folk Dances, or (if you're feeling adventurous), the second piano concerto

The big ZK said that the masterworks of music are our birthright...take him at his word.

PS: and just because laughter is also on the artist's diet....

A college classmate of mine recently posted on facebook that one of her colleagues recently asked a group of music history students to name two early medieval composers of the Notre Dame school. One clever student answered: "Leonin and Penetron."

I'm sure Perotin may have been flattered (and maybe that was his nickname), but if that's not funny, I don't know what is.