Music Well » Competition

Resume

Dosia McKay — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 23:42:41 +0000

Born
Don’t recall

Where
Anywhere but here

School
A degree of wanting and waiting

Work
Is holy said my friend

Worth
Everything to few nothing to most

Race
Becoming extinct

Belong
Sometimes I don’t

Connections
Looking people in the eyes

Scores
Prime numbers and golden proportion

Languages
Always leave things unspoken

Experience
Raspberries are equally tart sweet and velvety

Goals
To always be reaching for them

Writing
A dozen of tones endless possibilities

Background check
Check

Gaps
Could also be windows or trap doors

Extracurricular
And then some

Posted in Competition, Life, Poetry Tagged: Relationships, Resume

Success

Dosia McKay — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 04:53:39 +0000

The depths of the ocean are supposed to be earth’s last frontier. Far removed from the reach of humankind, indeed, even from the rays of light, are bizarre creatures of the sea, swept about by the blind currents of the water. The fish are perfectly adapted to their mysterious world, communicating with the life around them by emitting colors unseen by humans.

One of my teachers recently posed this question:

“What is success?”

What constitutes success, specifically success for a music composer? Is it the gold frequent flyer status earned by music touring? Is it a performance in a particular venue with appropriate publicity? Is it a number of sold records? Is it the “who you know, not what you know”? Is it a cushy job with benefits? Is it a name on a building?

Many great antiquity and medieval composers did not have any of these things. Many wrote music out of their overflowing inner well, without the thought of reward or recognition. Many, brilliantly gifted, are forever forgotten because their stone tablets, parchments, or paper manuscripts were destroyed, while the music of their mediocre colleagues survived through some unfair twist of events. Is the one whose works survived millenia more successful than the one whose works did not? Perhaps.

Perhaps dolphins who perform back flips for humans above the surface of the water are more “successful” than the deep sea creatures no one has ever seen. Unless, of course, those creatures derive their purpose and meaning by merely living at the bottom of the ocean, dazzling the darkness with their colors, entirely oblivious to human praise.

Danse Macabre Wins Again

Dosia McKay — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 20:59:41 +0000

I am pleased to announce that my Piano Trio Danse Macabre (earlier introduced in this entry) won on regional level of Society of Composers Inc./ASCAP Student Composition Competition.

The same composition also won the Southeastern Composers’ League’s Arnold Salop Memorial Composition Contest in March 2007.