Take a Breath. It Don’t Cost Nothin’
Making art can be messy. Let it happen and clean it up later.
How the hell do you start a story? Use Song and Wind.
If you are one of my musical readers who are brass players, you likely know the phrase Song and Wind.
If you are one of my musical readers who are brass players from the great city of Chicago, you live this phrase because your brass DNA has been written with this crucial data.
If you are one of my writing readers, I’ll explain.
“Song and wind” are the magical three words that sum up the mastermind teachings of the esteemed and world-renowned pedagogue Arnold Jacobs.
When he wasn’t setting a new standard for orchestral tuba playing from the legendary back row of the Chicago Symphony, Mr. Jacobs shared his love for science and artistry through teaching. Generations of musicians learned about the adultlike complexity of the human body and its functions alongside the childlike simplicity of making great music.
I was fortunate to take two lessons with Mr. Jacobs in 1994-95, and it’s a good thing I recorded the lessons because his majestic presence and brilliant brain-words went over my head higher and faster than a piccolo trumpet in a Vivaldi contest.
Take a breath. The air is free. You can waste it if you want. It don’t cost nothin’.
The common challenge of playing any wind instrument is running out of air. For generations, young students have continued to pursue joining their dream orchestra by winning big auditions. They prepare challenging music for artistic perfection as if their lives depend on it. If you play bigger wind instruments like trombone or tuba, expunging every ounce of oxygen in your lungs causes vasodilation (blood vessels and skin pores widening to deliver oxygen to the muscles, causing one’s face to redden).
I was in Mr. Jacobs’ studio in the Fine Arts Building in downtown Chicago, turning purple while playing the finale of the Wagner opera, “Das Rheingold.” Sixteen glorious, lyrical, and loud measures later, I emerge from behind the mouthpiece, gasping for air like I just accomplished a free-dive to the Mariana Trench and “Jake” says to me, “Why are you working so hard?” He then said some medical and physiological mubojumbo about the lungs sending messages to the brain and messages from the brain traveling to the seventh cranial nerve down the front of the… the something, something. But then, he begins to sing the melody with his magnificent deep, and resonant voice. I suddenly forget all about the big medical words, and now we’re making music.
Knowing how it works is the adult complexity. The musical portrayal of the Rainbow Bridge into Vahalla can be executed with childlike simplicity. Don’t worry about the body. Sing the notes.
There isn’t a direct correlation between the aerobic challenges of brass playing compared to creative writing. (Holy Moses, if you run out of breath typing, get to an E.R.!) But the bold-faced quote above (“Take a breath. Air is free. You can waste it. It don’t cost nothing.”) can easily be converted to those afraid of the blank page.
“Write some words. Words are free. You can waste them. They don’t cost nothing.”
The Blank Page.
(Dun dun DUNNNNNN!)
Allegedly, this is a scary sight to writers. Nevertheless, we heed the call as inspiration summons us to the keyboard or the notebook. Our index fingers blindly and instinctively find the F and J keys, anchoring us to the QWERTYverse. Our fingers wrap around the sleek and ergonomically-designed black Pilot G-2 .07mm gel pen as our thumb engages the nib from its plastic housing. Inside our head plays a 2-second film of every story beat we’re about to commit to the page, and then…
Nothing.
At least nothing on the page. Inside your head, a thousand images of protagonists, antagonists, side characters, scenes, settings, character arcs, denouement, dark night of the soul moments, Pulitzer/Oscar/Emmy/Nobel/Hugo/Eisner acceptance speeches flash before your eyes, and yet…
Nothing.
Suddenly, myriad thoughts from elsewhere in your soul rises to the surface like an air bubble in a vat of nacho cheese on game day.
“The first sentence is the most important sentence. No pressure.”
“This won’t be any better than my third-grade kid.”
“My chair is not adjusted correctly.”
“Is the toilet still running?”
“This already sucks ass.”
And then you get up and walk around the room, or retrieve a snack that involves cheese or pick your nose or something else entirely. And you still haven’t written anything down yet.
I could segue into other adages like First Drafts Always Suck and Summon Your Talent At Will, but I’ll save those for another day. As much as I believe in them, you need to puke on the page and just get started.
Here’s one more musical analogy…
In 1993, I developed a hiccup in my playing that was annoying to me, devastating to others when they dealt with it, and it’s an entirely mental problem: the Valsalva maneuver. In layperson’s terms, I would take a breath, lock up somewhere between the lungs and my lips, and could not release the air. Either my throat would close, my tongue would jam against the back of my teeth, and the note would be stuck inside, desperate to break out but held back like a prisoner denied parole. What next? I would stutter the beginning of the note, explode the note out late like a sneeze, or pathetically lower the trombone, crestfallen and dejected.
When I brought the problem to my teacher, Jeff Reynolds, he had a whole lesson plan for fixing it, having experienced the disorder himself. One of his tested methods was inelegantly forcing the note out simply to get it out. It was the musical equivalent of jumping out of a moving car. I had to bully my brain and chops to MAKE the note happen. It wasn’t pretty, but as a practice method, it at least convinced me I could still play.
Some of us sit and stare at the blank page with absolute fear of commitment. Call it performance anxiety, writer’s block, or a “lack of ideas.” However, harkening back to Jake’s magic words, “You can waste it. It don’t cost nothing,” just get started. Write something, anything.
Night.
Sad night.
Sad dark night.
Sad dark wet night.
It was a dark and stormy night…
This morning I sat with an idea for a short story. I could see every beat in my head, an arc, a wave of emotions and complexities for my protagonist, aged and widowed. But to represent him respectfully became a daunting task, like introducing your best friend to an audience of thousands and not knowing what to say.
I was determined to honor my main character with poetry and grace. Instead, I wrote:
Man walks down stairs.
WHEW! Good work, Jay. Take a two-hour break.
As a closer, if you really want an accurate portrayal of how a writer begins writing their novel, listen to “Novel Writing” by Monty Python’s Flying Circus… and then, Write On!
Brilliant. Same in horse riding: take a breath. If you're working real hard, you're messing things up. I'm just learning to keep breathing and not to work so hard, so your words are a perfectly timed reminder.
"anchoring us to the QWERTYverse" love this.
I love this, Jay. Good advice. (And as a former clarinet player, I understand the whole breath thing.)