This will be a free writing blog for me.   What comes to mind is what will be saved here.   Sort of like Andre Breton and automatic writing.  The only difference is that I'm likely to stay on one topic.

I hear and feel music all the time.   If it is not going through my head it is somewhere in my body...foot tapping, finger movement, teeth clicking, baton waiting.   It's stuck in me.  I've learned to live with that.

What I haven't learned to live with is my increasing hypersensitivity to sound.   Every sound...all the time.   There are timbres I love...that I could listen to all the time.   There are timbres I need to get away from immediately.  There a combinations of sound I love....there are those I tolerate and there are others I now detest.

So here is where I stand...I stand on a podium quite frequently.  I'm aware of every sound and the quality of that sound...from the moment the sound begins to the moment it ends.   In nearly all cases I want everything about the sound to be beautiful - I want it to begin beautifully and end beautifully.  Yes, there have been times when the sound of a note must be filled with angst, violence, aggression.  However, there is no split second within a second itself where it's ok for a note to be treated as anything less than precious piece of an artistic puzzle.     

There is a reason why painters step back from their canvas quite frequently.  It means the world to them.  It is their world.   They want to see it not only as themselves but as others might see it.  They will then go back to the canvas and take great care in manipulating or fixing what does not please them.   

The conductor fulfills this same role but as the representative of the composer.  We have been handed the work of art and we must present it to others and they in turn produce the sound which in fact IS the work of art and that world is transferred to the listener. There is no room for any individual players not to perform up to the highest expectations of themselves, the conductor and most importantly the original artist, the composer.

So it can be torture for me from time to time. I don't mind saying that.  It's true.  I know I will never have enough time on the podium to get the work of art to sound how I truly feel it should but this is my profession and there are certain constraints I must learn to live with.   The problem is that it keeps getting more difficult.   But in those rare moments when I hear a sound or series of sounds that I believe encapsulate the deep inner emotion of another soul I cannot help but instantaneously smile.    It's a feeling that I hope someday will start with the first note and end with the last.