We know Shakespeare wrote piles of sonnets but what is lesser known (and may not be true) is that he wrote them to earn the favor of young ladies. This is not artistic discipline but we commend the effort nevertheless. Judging by the number of sonnets, he must have known quite a few young ladies, in their country way. (Yes, Shakespeare did use those words. He wasn't above puns.)
Shakespeare's discipline was writing on paper with pen and ink. I don't know what such supplies cost but I imagine they were quite a bit higher than today. Thus, before committing anything to paper you better be pretty damn sure what you will write or you could waste a whole lot of money.
More than that, tho, is the incredible nuisance of editing a handwritten sheet of paper. What got me thinking is that I'll whack out a poem in ten or fifteen minutes but I can change things as I go along without it costing me any time. Shakespeare probably wrote them just as quickly, that being the difference between a genius and some clod in Fort Worth, but he had to deal with all the hassles to get it onto paper and that would slow him enormously. Consider what sharp focus he must have had on the words that they would hold together through all that. In my view, that's the discipline.
Without beating it too hard, the pitch is that things are now too easy in terms of word processing, electronic music, etc, etc.
However, this is perilous close to the thinking that one has to suffer to meet God; you have to feel great pain to really call yourself a musician.
I'm not judging anything as time will decide. Perhaps the ease with which music can be made now can permit an elevation to a new level of evolution in composition. So far all we've really got out of it is blogger moms but we shall see.
Shakespeare's discipline was writing on paper with pen and ink. I don't know what such supplies cost but I imagine they were quite a bit higher than today. Thus, before committing anything to paper you better be pretty damn sure what you will write or you could waste a whole lot of money.
More than that, tho, is the incredible nuisance of editing a handwritten sheet of paper. What got me thinking is that I'll whack out a poem in ten or fifteen minutes but I can change things as I go along without it costing me any time. Shakespeare probably wrote them just as quickly, that being the difference between a genius and some clod in Fort Worth, but he had to deal with all the hassles to get it onto paper and that would slow him enormously. Consider what sharp focus he must have had on the words that they would hold together through all that. In my view, that's the discipline.
Without beating it too hard, the pitch is that things are now too easy in terms of word processing, electronic music, etc, etc.
However, this is perilous close to the thinking that one has to suffer to meet God; you have to feel great pain to really call yourself a musician.
I'm not judging anything as time will decide. Perhaps the ease with which music can be made now can permit an elevation to a new level of evolution in composition. So far all we've really got out of it is blogger moms but we shall see.
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