I’ve just stumbled upon some interviews with the writer James Ellroy. I relate to what he says in these interviews about how an artist learns and creates.
I have yet to read any of Ellroy’s books, but having now watched these interviews with him, I hope to do so in the future.
I’ve shared excerpts from these interviews that I relate to, for those who also relate to them, or find them interesting:
Quote 1
INTERVIEWER: Are people born good writers?
’10 Questions for James Ellroy’, TIME YouTube Channel
JAMES ELLROY: No. You have to read, read, read, read, read, read, read, read, and read. And as you read, for enjoyment and edification, unconsciously you assimilate the rudiments of style and technique. And when it comes time for a person to begin to seriously write, they either have it or they don’t. The level of artistry can be enhanced, chiefly through hard work. But you read, read, read, read, read, read, read. It’s an informal education, that is oddly formal by dint of the very fact of reading.
… I haven’t read in a very, very long time. I fear and dislike intrusions. I live in a world of my own cultural creation, in the works of mine.
I relate to the above quote because I don’t listen to music anymore. At least, since my accident in 2014, since the depression I’ve suffered since then, except in infrequent cases, I seem to have lost the joy I used to get from discovering music, and this has led me to avoid listening to new music, as it is too painful for me to be aware of the numbness I now tend to feel towards it. It’s as though I have lost a bunch of nerves I once had, my sensitivity to new music having fallen so dramatically from where it had once been. And yet, there is one case in which I can listen to music and still feel excited by it: when I make music. It’s difficult for me to make sense of that, but I’m grateful for still being able to really feel music, at least when I make music.
I’m someone who, for the majority of my life, has found listening to music to be one of life’s most fulfilling activities, an activity so crucial to learning about who I am and my perspective of the world, and to enjoying both, and yet now I can’t bring myself to try to discover new music, because, of the pain that results from rediscovering instead, my new numbness to it.
Over the past year, I’ve managed to get myself to listen to more music than I have in recent years, this being music of the classical genre. This listening effort has been motivated by the dream I began to have last year, of one day studying Composition at The Guildhall, this dream motivating me to learn more about the history of music. But this effort has felt more forced than exciting, when prior to my accident, I know that I would’ve found such an endeavour to be nothing less than a wonderful adventure.
At the same time, I’m aware that, everything I know about music, that is, everything I instinctively know about making music, has been learnt by listening to it. And not just by listening, but, to use Ellroy’s emphasis: by listening, listening, listening, listening, listening, listening, listening, listening, listening, and listening to it. So I relate so much to what Ellroy says about how one becomes a good writer, but from the perspective of how one becomes a good music maker. To rephrase his words:
“As you listen, for enjoyment and edification, unconsciously you assimilate the rudiments of style and technique. And when it comes time for a person to begin to seriously make music, they either have it or they don’t. The level of artistry can be enhanced, chiefly through hard work. But you listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen.”
This is why Ellroy stating that he hasn’t read in a very long time, in spite of attributing everything he has learnt about writing to reading, brings me some comfort. It is a relief to find that I am not alone in this odd place of no longer being able to bear the company of the one I owe everything to, even if I continue to do what that company, and that company alone, has taught me to do. Now, like Ellroy, I suppose it is accurate for me to say that “I live in a world of my own cultural creation, in the works of mine”.
I have, for a long time now, been concerned by this new problem. The problem of knowing that whilst I have acquired all of my musicality by listening to music, I now struggle to listen to new music, and yet, at the same time, I still create music. I have worried that I might not be able to make music as great as I used to, because I am no longer as practiced in identifying music made by others that excites me. If I have lost this ability, to judge the music of others, how can my judgement of my own music mean as much, when I no longer have any references with which to compare the level of excitement I feel about my own music? And if I’m no longer excited by new music, how can I still make music that excites people, who are still excited by new music, when we will have this fundamental difference in our psyches?
Hearing Ellroy talk about being in an equivalent situation, of writing, but no longer reading works by others, will I hope help me to dwell less on the concerns I have had about my making music when I no longer listen to new music. It works for him, so I hope it can work for me too, in that, I hope the music I make will still be able to connect with those who are still excited by new music, when I no longer seem to be.
I also hope that one day I’ll be able to feel my old excitement about the new music of others again. It’s been nine years since my accident, but an ENT I saw earlier this year told me, to my surprise, that my body is still physically healing from the accident, so I hope that the same will be true of my mind, and that it is still healing.
I think that listening to music must have been my life’s greatest joy prior to my accident, as listening to music proved sufficiently captivating for me to instinctively learn how to make music from it, and listening to music moved me enough to make music something whose presence I needed to be in, first by listening to it, secondly, by making it. So I hope that one day I’ll heal enough, mentally, to experience that greatest of joys again, as that greatest of joys is responsible for all of the musicality I’ve ever possessed.
Quote 2
JAMES ELLROY: I instinctively know how to tell stories. If a story comes to me, in raw form, in semi-finished form, I know there is a reason behind it. A spiritual reason, a metaphysical reason, a moral reason. It feels like God telling me: “tell this story, this way now”. If this ball of moral, metaphysical, spiritual putty sticks to me, I follow up on it. I realised a long, long time ago… that whatever I could conceive, I could execute, and that there was divine calling behind it, and I have not questioned this dynamic in my life since.
‘The James Ellroy Interview’, LA Review of Books YouTube Channel
I relate to the above quote because it describes how I would feel about making music, prior to my accident, when I used to find comfort and strength in the belief that things happened for a reason. Recording and sharing the music that came to me felt like a duty, a “divine calling”, like “God telling me: ‘tell this story, this way now'”.
I also relate to Ellroy’s confidence in his ability with his craft. He says that he instinctively knows how to tell stories. Similarly, I instinctively know how to make music.
LYNA GALLIARA 