When deadline is approaching and a tweet saved my life

(Well ok, it's not my life, just my music. But music is my life, so there we are...) You know what's nice to be a composer? You can steal anyone's ideas from any fields of art, and nobody would notice. Not even the person you stole from. ........................................................................................................................................... On twitter, I follow lots of writers. They like to tweet flashes of ideas, which I can then use for my music in any aspects, transforming them to melodies, chords, rhythms, instrumental colours even forms and structures. And google arts & culture (before it's called the Google Art project), it's the coolest thing too! You can see hundreds of great paintings in Los Angeles, London, Del Prado (Madrid) so I found combinations of colours that were unimaginable for me before. ........................................................................................................................................... I've been scribbling materials for my new piece, which is basically connecting motifs from Puccini's Nessun Dorma and Ismail Marzuki's Melati di Tapal Batas. This work, entitled I Wish Pavarotti Had Met Marzuki, tries to convey what if Pavarotti knew Ismail Marzuki's music, the Indonesian songwriter I so admire. I believe that if Marzuki were used as a cultural asset of the nation and the government would seriously introduce his music to the international world, it will boost the image of Indonesian music as much as Puccini for Italy, or Mozart for Austria. Usually I plan a sort of architectural structure before I write one note. This time it is the other way around. I know the materials and how to develop them, but couldn't find the right structure. I always know how to write, but not always what to write. This time it's the other way around, since the overall form is still not taking shape in my simple brain. ........................................................................................................................................... Not until last night when I came back from my midnight walk around the pool of my appartment, still trying to find the right structure (I wonder if architects also do this???) and found a tweet by my admired writer, Dewi Ria Utari. She writes mostly short stories, even in a "horror" genre which I normally don't really fancy. But hers are different, and I would even call them poetic proses (or prosaic poems). The tweet is simple : Ketika senyap terlalu gaduh. Maka gelap kehilangan kelam (When silence is too noisy. Then darkness lost its dimness). Poignantly poetic, of course, but also very useful and practical for me! So, one of the tweets that I tweeted her back is "It's gonna be dark chords transforming into bright ones. Quiet gestures growing to virtuosic pianism. Back 2 work!"........................................................................................................................................... Deadline is approaching, the concert is in 3 weeks and every night becomes a WTF! night for me, keeping developing ideas but blindly walking in a strange jungle without any ideas of orientation. Press conference is scheduled next Tuesday, and I absolutely hate talking about my work to journalists (or even anybody) when it's not at least 90% finished. Not that it hasn't happened before, but I was always feeling burdened and weary about it. Thanks to DRU's tweet, am hoping to finish it between tonight and tomorrow, so I will have a quiet relaxing weekend. Now I am doing a COMPOSER's job : composing materials that are scattered around. With a clear idea of form in mind. And as Mary Poppins said : In ev'ry job that must be done, there's an element of fun. You find the fun and snap! The job's a game! ........................................................................................................................................... On the 26th of November, the Pavarotti Foundation will bring Pavarotti's best students and Pavarotti's personal pianist to Jakarta, for a concert at Ciputra Artpreneur at 7 p.m. Pavarotti's widow will be present, which will make this event special. This event could be realized thanks to the invitation of the Italian Embassy and Instituto Italiano in Cultura in collaboration with the Ciputra Artpreneur. Indonesia's most prominent composer & pianist, Ananda Sukarlan, has agreed the commission by the Italian Embassy and Pavarotti Foundation to compose a new virtuosic piano work as a tribute to Pavarotti, who unfortunately had not visited and witness the beauty of Indonesia. At this upcoming concert on the 26th, this work will be premiered by the composer himself, which is expected to be a milestone in Italian and Indonesian cultural relations. (quoted from the press release by the Italian Embassy)