I always believe that a composer uses a part of his brain which is not normally used. That part has very strange nerve systems that lead to unknown paths. These days while I am highly active composing, memories of childhood flashes vividly to me together with some words from the poems which I am setting to music. I suddenly recall clearly last night the room where I woke up one afternoon during my siesta, when I was perhaps 8 or 9 in my house in Senen Raya, Jakarta, where I heard the ice-cream vendor on the street in front of my house, sounding his small gong . Curiously enough, I was reading a poem of Goenawan Mohamad, Sajak untuk Bungbung, which has nothing to do with that scene. So, the music wrote itself, incorporating that atmosphere ...
Another thing was, reading one of Sapardi Djoko Damono's poem about rain, I remember about the big tree in the park of the military hospital at the back of my house. At another moment a few days ago, I could describe vividly the pattern of the carpet in a classroom of the music school I went to when I was about 13. It was in Room 4, with a ....white Yamaha grandpiano !
Am just worried that somewhere in my grey matter exists a space that stores memories from my past life ... I just hope that my mind doesn't wander to that place ......
