I'm continually fascinated by melody and rhythm, timbre and expression. It's like alchemy. You're turning simple ingredients into something magical through sorcery. 

This thought comes from Anthony Bourdain elucidating about food and chefs in one of his earlier shows. Bourdain states this concept so brilliantly and succinctly it truly applies to music composition and any other art form with the particulars rearranged as I did.

There is an echo of what Leonard Altman told me the last time I visited him, whispering in summation to a conversation we were having about composition, "Music is magic."

Combining the concepts above with what Lee Konitz once told me, that music is about something "happening," I would say music happens when composers and performers are able to convey sensations, experiences and insights qualifying as noteworthy through the medium of musical language existing uniquely in-between the physical and metaphysical worlds being invisible and tangible simultaneously.

- Michael Robinson, June 2020, Los Angeles

© 2020 Michael Robinson All rights reserved

Michael Robinson is a Los Angeles-based composer and writer (musicologist).