Hatta Kōyō 八田高容: Scholar’s Studio:
Rakushisha no aki [Autumn at the Rakushisha] (1925)

" … overlooking the center of the universe from the edge of the familiar abyss."

Every morning, I ask myself what kind of writer I am. My usual response might surprise you as much as it surprises me. You see, I do not consider myself much of an essayist or story writer. You might have noticed that my writing style seems challenging to categorize. My stories do not seem precisely like stories. They're more vignettes, glimpses rather than fully fledged. Some seem complicated but rarely very long: three or four minutes. I think of them as songs and focus more on their rhythm than their contents when laying them down. I think of them as lyrics, for I was first and will, therefore, probably always remain a Lyricist. I almost exclusively write songs, though most still need music, or written and performed accompaniment, anyway. For me, they elicit their scores. I can hear their accompaniment in how I perform them and how I end up reading them to myself. Each story leans toward the lyrical.

Or, that's my self-image, anyway. I have not strayed very far from my founding talent, the questionable ability to muster up some lyric statement, often in dubious couplet form, often with a rhyme on the end, sometimes even compelling. I play myself like a good guitar, though I only rarely touch my guitar these days. I've been thinking of getting back into playing again. It seems a shame that I so often walk by the stand holding the instrument, making an excuse rather than my music. I write these stories instead when I might choose to write actual songs. It's been so long since I settled in and produced a novel melody and wrote a proper lyric to accompany it, but the urge remains strong. I have been resolving that primal need by creating these stories.

A decent lyric usually emerges from an awful one. A catchy phrase gets improved by sloppy repetition. What begins as inspiration resolves through evolution, with each attempt slightly different from its predecessor. The thing's a mess until it isn't, and only some songs ever manage to become anything more than an insight, eventually eroded into nothing by an incessant wind. The moment a lyric refuses to try at least to replicate itself, it's gone. If it's not an earworm, it's nothing. Each takes on an identity all its own, none that similar. It comfortably accompanies activity.

All I know might be summarized in this one insight: I'm a songwriter in my heart and a lyricist in my mind. I approach my work differently than other writers might. I received no training other than the kind itinerant musicians might. I scribbled phrases on scraps of paper and then later attempted to resurrect them into something. I always began with nothing influenced by insight or inspiration. A flash might catch my attention, and I'd start scribbling, thinking that I was, at that moment, connecting to something sacred, something timeless and unique. I'd try to repeat whatever inspired me and inevitably miserably fail, but I'd often manage to bring form to it instead. Form proposes structure and structure, completion. What was born formless became something. In the early days, I did a lot of walking. I found that I more readily found the rhythm of something if I considered it while walking. I walk with my fingers now while seated at my desk overlooking the center of the universe from the edge of the familiar abyss.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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