A distilled map of books to keep within reach, for when the music eludes us
Not summer reading, but soul reading.
Creating is living in a strange place: making, yes, but just as often searching for nourishment. Not only inspiration, or technique and craft, but also something else — other voices, past and present, that remind us why we make anything at all.
When I see lists of “esoteric inspiration” (Hermetic secrets, or shortcuts), I understand the interest, but feel they skip over the surface of mystery without touching it. What follows is my own alternative: a distilled selection from the shelves in front of me. It would be absurd to try to cite every book that matters. These are the ones I actually keep within reach, the ones I return to when I need to recalibrate. There are many others I could cite, but that is not the point here. Just the ones I think of first... and recommend often.
Later, I may expand by theme — Harmony, Flux, Craft. But for now, here’s a late-summer map of companions that continue to shape my listening, thinking, and composing.
Because they don’t offer shortcuts or slogans. They are slow-burning companions. Some are difficult, some are poetic, some are surprisingly plainspoken. All of them remind me that being a composer is not just about sound waves — it’s about being alive, attentive, open to mystery.
This isn’t a “reading list” in the holiday sense. It’s a map of voices I return to when the music eludes me and I need some advice.
Perhaps they’ll be companions for you, too.
Pythagoras – (6th century BCE) – The man of ratios, intervals, and the tetractys. We can laugh at the “music of the spheres,” but the idea that number and harmony underlie everything still feels true. Archive
Boethius – De Institutione Musica – (6th century CE) – He divided music into three levels: musica mundana (cosmos), musica humana (the harmony of body and soul), musica instrumentalis (the music we play). For me, this triad still resonates whenever I think about sound as more than sound. Archive
Heraclitus – Fragments (5th century BCE) “The hidden harmony is stronger than the obvious one.” Flux, fire, tension. (James Dillon often returned to Heraclitus in our conversations; his recommendation has stayed with me.) Archive
Marcus Aurelius – Meditations (2nd century CE) Stoic calm: how to stand inside the fire from someone who has. Archive
Hildegard of Bingen – Scivias (12th century) Visions that became music. Listening to her chants while reading her writings feels like stepping into another cosmos. Archive
Marsilio Ficino – Three Books on Life (1489) Renaissance humanist and healer: he believed singing and playing could literally realign the soul. I’m still discovering him. Archive
Arthur Eddington – The Nature of the Physical World (1929) Physics with wit and wonder; the sense that the universe itself might be playful. Makes you feel smart... and kind of small. Archive
D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson – On Growth and Form (1917/1942) A masterpiece: how mathematics and proportion underlie the living world. To read it is to see patterns everywhere. I picked this one up from a long list of references found in Chaos by Gleick. I have acquired it several times as it keeps being lent out or given as a gift. Vital. Archive
Trịnh Xuân Thuận – The Secret Melody / La mélodie secrète (1988) A cosmologist who writes like a poet, turning equations into melody. His writings make the most confusing concepts simple, until you try to describe them to someone else. But you get the gist. A place to wander off in the most primordial creativity, before coming back from daydreaming about using cosmic measures for your next melodic interval theory... Archive Français
Werner Heisenberg – Physics and Philosophy (1958) Where the limits of science begin to sound like music. Not just quantum mechanics, the matrix, and the uncertainty principle, but also a classical pianist with a way of explaining atomic structure that has inspired my imagination. Archive
John Cage – Silence (1961) – The invitation to listen, to be surprised. Still radical. One of the first books recommended by my composition teacher. Archive
Iannis Xenakis – Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition (1963) – Structures, probability, architecture in sound. Reading him is like staring into pure form. The English edition renders an already complex French text even more so, but the ideas expressed — even partially understood — provide rich food for thought. Archive
Paul Valéry – Eupalinos or the Architect (1923) – A dialogue on architecture that doubles as a meditation on music, art, and the creative act: how form shapes experience. English
Sometimes we need reminders not just of ideas, but of practice:
Twyla Tharp – The Creative Habit – Discipline as freedom. I love dance, and I have always enjoyed what Twyla Tharp does. Twyla
Rick Rubin – The Creative Act – Not technique, but the practice of openness and approach. Useful as a book to pick up and randomly read a few passages. This will be enough to spark the next creative act or create a bonfire... B&N
Stephen King – On Writing – Part memoir, part handbook: art as craft and survival. As a young man, his books kept me occupied — and sometimes out of trouble. He will tell you that if you want to write, go read. But he also has some enduring insights and advice. Archive
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.