The first million notes
Dec. 17th, 2005 08:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranAt my desk at work, I've got a 2 cd set of Mozart violin and harpsicord sonatas. I bought them from a market stall, mainly because they were Mozart and they were cheap. Plus, they were on a good label (Philips Duo). It wasn't until I got back to the office that I realised that they were actually his juvenile sonatas, written while he was a child prodigy touring Europe.
None of them are great (except by the standards of your average 11 year old). Most of them are pretty. But what struck me most was the sheer amount of variation. The number of different melodies tried out in different combinations. The number of inventions that were good, but not brilliant. The number of tunes that would largely have been forgotten if not for who the boy who wrote them would one day become.
It's a reminder that even geniuses, greatness still requires work. All the more so for those of us who are non-geniuses. And a reminder that to reach the great, sometimes you have to work through the mediocre and the not-so-great.
None of them are great (except by the standards of your average 11 year old). Most of them are pretty. But what struck me most was the sheer amount of variation. The number of different melodies tried out in different combinations. The number of inventions that were good, but not brilliant. The number of tunes that would largely have been forgotten if not for who the boy who wrote them would one day become.
It's a reminder that even geniuses, greatness still requires work. All the more so for those of us who are non-geniuses. And a reminder that to reach the great, sometimes you have to work through the mediocre and the not-so-great.
