Music’s gift is also its curse: that it’s profoundly temporal.
The great artist Jean-Michel Basquiat said, “Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.” With melody, phrasing, tempo and rhythm we literally sculpt time with our music – but it’s more than that.
If I write a book, you could read it months or years later, and my artistic impact will be intact. Provided I’ve written it well and done the right editing, its impact should remain long after I’m not working on it.
Music is different. It doesn’t matter how hard you work on a piece of music if you don’t get it right at the right moment.
It’s hard to do but oh so rewarding when it happens. I try to give my students the perspective of the challenges and joys, so that they will also strive to appreciate it when it happens.