Composing With Words

Both of my parents were professional musicians, so in our house learning to play a musical instrument was assumed, not optional. I was expected to study piano and French horn.  At my parents’ urging, I also studied musical composition.

I was a good composition student in the narrowest sense. I showed up. I listened. I did the assignments.  But I never felt compelled to write my own sonatas.   If there had been a prize for Pleasantly Cooperative Mediocrity, I might have won first place.

But I was there simply because I was supposed to be. (My youthful cooperation did have limits. Unfortunately, I successfully resisted the idea of brushing my teeth, and my winning smile today is based upon two dental implants and veneer throughout.)

My composition instructor was Joseph Oroop, who taught out of his studio in the hills above Barham Boulevard in Los Angeles, not too far from where I live today.  After I had been studying with him for more than three months, Mr. Oroop said he was puzzled. Most of his students either loved composition and started bringing in their own work, or they quit. I did neither, and he wondered why.

It was a fair question.

I thought about it for several weeks. And then I quit. I simply did not have a passion for music and realized I was not destined to be a music composer.  Not a tragedy. Just the truth.

My instructor, however, did teach me one important lesson.

We are often told that persistence is virtue and quitting is failure.  Not necessarily.

Yes, persistence is admirable — but not when you’re stubbornly spending time, effort and resources in pursuing a futile struggle.

To this day, whenever I pass Barham Boulevard on the 101, I still gaze into the hills and remember Joseph Oroop. Not because he turned me into a composer, but because he helped me understand the difference between discipline and desire. He saved me from years of pursuing the wrong vocation.

And now, Mr. Oroop, I have become a composer after all, but my field is words. I’m in love with the beauty, subtlety, and exceptional variety of the English language and I‘m passionate about composing — sentences and paragraphs.

I love one word in particular, and I use it to sign off on every email. Somehow, it always fits.

Thanks.

Alan