Contemplations: Eudora Welty

“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily--perhaps not possibly--chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation.”
—Eudora Welty, in ‘One Writer's Beginnings’ (1984) 

‘One Writer's Beginnings’ is a collection of three autobiographical essays titled ‘Listening’, ‘Learning to See’, and ‘Finding a Voice’. In them, the award-winning American author Eudora Welty explores the infinitely intricate connection between her life, particularly her childhood, and her writing. This quote is a beautiful example of this unbreakable bond: time exists as an objective phenomenon, but our subjective experience makes us perceive it and understand it under our own logic, that of the narrative.

There are many angles through which we can approach this quote in relation to our music. Here are some examples:

• Music is a form of art that exists in time, rather than an object in space. It waves a "continuous thread of revelation" under its own logic, like our perception does when we make sense of our lived experiences by organizing them into a story. 
• There is no way to remove music from the act of speaking; great stories were first told in songs, after all. Is the opposite true? Is sound only music when it "speaks", and is all sound outside of the language of music just noise?
• When you play music, your listeners make sense of the time spent doing so through your music. There is power in this performer-audience relationship that can be explored via artistic intent.

Whilst none of these thoughts are easily transformed into practical advice, not all reflections have to be. Seeking to understand the essence and fundamentals of what we do is a valuable and challenging endeavour on itself. Just as scientists study nature, artists study art, many times using art for it, like Welty did by writing about her writing in ‘One Writer's Beginnings’.

A famous example in music of this is John Cage's 4'33", a modernist composition that instructs the player to remain silent and not play their instrument for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. As musicians, we understand that silence is an essential part of music, but 4'33" makes us sit to contemplate what that actually means. Although it might look silly or pretentious to some, it is an exercise worth doing.

• Does the quote by Eudora Welty bring you more ideas about music?
• Do you see a way to connect said ideas with your work as a musician?