The Music of Pain: On Inspiration for the Artist/Composer

May 23, 2015

The Music of Pain: On Inspiration for the Artist/Composer

Beethoven's madness brought on by a combination of personal failure in the rearing of his young nephew and his early hearing loss. Mozart's inability to accept adulthood and the loss of his childhood fame leading to his ruin. Depression destroying the lives of composers like Mussorgsky and Robert Schumann, and others. Yet, their music lives on, and the music of countless other composers and artists who have transformed tragedy, loss, depression, sadness, failure into masterpieces.

Is tragedy a necessary component of great art?

Can one be an artist, a creative individual, without having experienced great loss? If life is all a bed of roses, how can the artist truly delve into the deepest throes of darkness, of the soul, in their art? This does not mean that the artist needs to delve into depression or substance abuse. In fact, productivity often comes to a standstill when the creative person does allow themselves to get lost in the pits of despair, but to simply toy with sadness, to bring up old hurts and pain, to tickle the harsh emotions, and tease, but never lose oneself, that is when notes on a page, paint on a canvas, words on a page, can truly bring to life the universal truth that humanity is rife with valleys of despair, with the plateaus only occasionally lifted by the occasional mountaintop of joy.

So tonight I sit at my computer, my heart struggling with loss and sadness, over lost dreams and a changed future, and take small solace in that at least I know how to convert this deep emotion into words or notes or moving images. That the story that must remain untold for a time can show its shadows in my work, and that perhaps someday redemption can come through a song.
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Composer Sabrina Pena Young creates mind-numbing electronic works premiered throughout the world at venues like the Beijing Conservatory, the NY International Independent Film Festival, Miramax's Project Greenlight, the Athena Festival, ICMC, SEAMUS, 60x60, and numerous music festivals throughout Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.

Young recently released A FUTURIST MUSIC ANTHOLOGY: The Electroacoustic Mind of Sabrina Pena Young 2001-2014
"Filtered through the lens of science fiction and fantasy, the electroacoustic works of Sabrina Pena Young explore the sonic outer dimensions of sound in a surreal world constantly balancing between reality and future dimensions of thought and music and the mind. With hundreds of works performed throughout Asia, Europe, Australia, and the Americas, Young's global reach extends past borders and through the Digital Realm with "groundbreaking" works like Libertaria: The Virtual Opera. Her work has been called "marvelously abstract", "epic", and "groundbreaking". Sabrina Pena Young continues to redefine electronic music. This unique anthology spans over a decade of electroacoustic works from Young's earlier days at SYCOM, where she explored the avant-guarde in sound synthesis, to sophisticated ambient explorations, and even dance influenced tracks."