Last month I played a concert where something went horribly wrong. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t me.)
On the Friday night performance of Saint-Saens’ Third Symphony, aptly subtitled the “Organ Symphony,” near the end of the first movement, there is a quiet section that begins the Adagio where the pipe organ softly enters establishing the new key of A flat, followed by the orchestra. After a week of successful rehearsals, a wave of muted confusion spread across the stage as if something smelt a bit funny. The organ’s entrance seemed a bit darker, like a sour tone quality took over the stage. Once the strings joined, everyone knew that the organ was simply in the wrong key. That didn’t make sense at all. With the subtle exit of a sheepish sinner to a church service, the organist stopped playing as the strings continued. With nary a readable reaction on the faces of the performers, eight measures later the organist resumed playing in the correct key and all was well.
On the Saturday night performance, breaths were held, fingers were crossed and thoughts and prayers went out across the stage. At the organ’s quiet entrance, all was well, as a warm tonality filled the air like a tray of home-made buttermilk biscuits were freshly removed from the oven. Halfway through the second movement, the organ makes an entrance loud enough to wake the dead with a glorious C major chord. Only on Saturday night, it was anything but C major. It was C demolished. C destroyed. It wasn’t C anything.
<Power chord in VERY wrong key.>
Strings play thematic material in C major.
<Silence where another power chord should be heard>
Conductor shakes his head, resigning himself to tonal failure as the strings play second statement of thematic material.
<Correct power chord is sounded and everyone on stage watches the organist to see if he chooses to immolate himself in a funeral pyre.>
(Here’s what the big finale should sound like. Thankfully, there’s no video of our disastrous performances… that I know of.)
At the Sunday afternoon concert, the conductor told the orchestra that the mistake was due to a software glitch on the borrowed instrument, that when the thingamathing was engaged, it causes the instrument to transpose into a different key. Although I appreciated the information, as did the organist, in a way I was disappointed the concert series didn’t go 0-3, with the organist completely shitting the bed on the final performance, going for the career-ending hat trick. That would have been awesome in a way only I would have found it awesome, but trust me… IT WOULD’VE BEEN AWESOME!
As I relive this moment, I remember my purpose here is to share musical anecdotes to the writing community. Therefore, I’m currently asking myself…
What is the writing equivalent to the organist’s experience?
Turning a book reading into a profanity-laden diatribe? (Another kind of awesome, right?)
The writing experience is solitary and private. The music-making experience is public whether in concert, in a recording studio, or even the safe-confines of a rehearsal. Even chamber music rehearsals can seem calamitous if three people enter the music with grace and delicacy, and the fourth member honks out a note loud enough to alert Homeland Security.
Then there’s the stuff you write…
How many times have you started a piece of flash fiction or a short story with a plan in mind, only to reverse course once you realized your protagonist comes off as a misogynist asshole? Spelling mistakes are a given, as for the life of me, I will always type teh, seperate, defenite, and don’t even get me started on nosea… nazeua… nauscious… becoming vomit-like.
Grammatical mistakes are golden as well.
A version of the Bible was published in 1631, that thanks to one typo, it earned the moniker of the “Wicked Bible.” By omitting the word "not" from one of the Ten Commandments, the commandment read, "Thou shalt commit adultery." Wicked indeed. Insert your own personal commentary here.
“I found a typo in the Constitution…” (mandatory Sorkin reference)
In the world of loud instrument playing, there are several adages we adhere to in the realm of mistakes: Loud and proud, strong and wrong. If you’re going to enter the music with the conviction of Juggernaut and the accuracy of a whiffle bat, and you destroy everything in your path with your massive amount of incorrectness, own it. Claim it. Plant a flag on it and build your kingdom. You can be sure as shit everyone else knows you blew it.
Writing doesn’t offer us that form of embarrassment within a split second of making the choice of adding or subtracting a specific word. Typos happen all teh time (👀 👈🏻). There’s been plenty that have been published as well. Is it indicative that we as a society are faltering on our standards and beliefs? No, it’s a human error. Move on.
Mistakes can also lead to moments of artistic greatness. The accidental re-gendering from “he” to “she” might give you the missing genius your work needs. Changing the order of your sentences during the messy editing and revising process suddenly creates a new narrative style. Genius!
Writing is like sitting in the practice room, hammering away at an etude, a scale, an orchestral excerpt. I touched on the ease of this back in January. Just like taking a breath to play a note, it’s all free. You can waste it. It don’t cost nothing. Make all the mess you want in your writing. There’s no risk, there’s no crime, there’s no embarrassment, and there’s no risk of bodily harm… unless you’re Yosemite Sam.
I suppose there isn’t a direct correlation between musical mistakes in a live concert and writing. One is a performance, the other is a work in progress. When composers make a mistake while writing music, they just CTRL + Z that shit off the screen, or reach for an eraser.
The real magic for the writer is the proof reading, is the strength of beta readers, the editing team, the publisher. As writers, we have plenty of opportunities to get it right. Just make sure you do.
My mistake was also having this drafted and (almost) ready to go by June 1st, then I got distracted by a bumblebee (another Sorkin reference). After my friend said, “I didn’t see Low Notes for June,” I realized I forgot something at the top of the month.
Whoops, my bad. Not “Inverted Jenny” bad, but bad enough to say “Whoops, my bad.”
Write on, and #KeepFuckingWriting
Always a pleasure reading your writing
Absolutely brilliant article my dear friend and worth the wait!