Picking up from last time –
Edited! [Usually if I edit something later, I just put it in these brackets and say “edited to add: blah blah blah.”
But I’m just letting you know throughout the whole thing, I edited some stuff down for clarity and what have you, and also edited some stuff… up?… As in, details have been added…
In the original posting of this, I had not mentioned I was involved in an abusive relationship with someone at BMI. (That was something I wasn’t even reeeeally admitting to myself at the time, let alone the world – even though that was definitely my biggest issue with my first time through BMI!). So, anyway… here we go.]
So, to give an overview of the time – basically, I got in to BMI with 11 days notice. Originally, I was going to commute from California, but I (very happily) got a new, demanding job with no notice. I was working all day every day (and most nights), and I was using weekends to fly back and forth to California to wrap up loose ends out there.
And every available moment I had outside of that was used to work on a song for class. I was giving BMI everything I had. I would say I was burning the candle at both ends, but the candle was just on fire everywhere. And I was trying my best.
My first composer and I… Hmmm… I drafted, and re-drafted, and changed the words on the post below like a billion times because what is the diplomatic way to try to say a lot of this? (I never really found it.)
We couldn’t agree on anything. We couldn’t even agree on a concept. It was changing every few days, so we didn’t even know what we were writing to. It was just a mess.
I’m not trying to tear him down. I’m just saying that we didn’t go together. It was like trying to fit a square peg into a star in outer space – like, forget finding a round hole of at least the same material in the same room.
Train an astronaut, get the funding to put a rocket into space, get the engineers to do the leg work. Get that square peg inside a star – that’s how well we went together.
Outside of working with him, he was a really super nice guy. (Really! Very nice!) I totally think people should be friends with him if they can. He’s a very nice human. But he was kinda, in some ways, pretty much impossible to work with(?). It often felt very much just like he was the “real” musician – and I, the female lyricist, was along for the ride.
[I also debated whether even to say that part/bring this up (how he reeeeally wouldn’t listen to me/ (any) ideas I had), ’cause this dude wasn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of life, and I don’t want my blog to just be complaining about boys. However, my understanding is that this is something a fair amount of women in BMI deal with (though I guess it’s hit or miss as some classes (and partners) are better than others). But since my understanding is that it seems to baked in some corners of the culture there, I’m leaving it (though I will admit I’m unsure if that’s the right thing to do… Anyway!]
It was so frustrating to have someone who wouldn’t bend at all – At. All. to anything. Ever. No compromise. Just “this is what we’re doing. This is the song. This is exactly how it goes. Get on board.” “Oh… could we perhaps add one syllable so I can make this joke?”
“I hate jokes. That’s not serious enough.” (or something like that, and on and on and on).
[I remember once him asking me about something we were thinking of doing with our song. And he asked, “When does that happen in a musical theatre song?” I gave him examples from Avenue Q and Book of Mormon. He said, “I don’t want to write Avenue Q, or Book of Mormon.” That was the moment I really knew, “Oh, we are not the correct partners for each other (because those are 2 of my 3 favorite shows).” He’s allowed to have whatever taste he wants. He doesn’t have to like those shows – but for me, those shows are the pinnacle of what I want to do in musical theater.]
I’d never worked with anyone on musical stuff before. I’d always written both music and lyrics. So, to me, at the time, I just thought this would be my life as a lyricist…
We performed our song to dead silence. It was so quiet, it was literally like sound was being sucked out of the room.
Many of the notes we got were on things I’d begged and pleaded (and begged) to be able to do, but there was no budging on any of the things I wanted. It’s embarrassing to get something wrong, but it felt, to me, even more embarrassing to have gotten it ‘right,’ but have the note givers think I was a moron who didn’t understand some very basic concepts that I’d begged for (since they didn’t make it in the music). That was such a reeeeally terrible feeling/day in class.
[And I want to be clear that in no way do I think I’m sooooo brilliant, or like better than my collaborator in this assignment. That’s not true. He is smart and talented. I just didn’t like that I didn’t get to have anywhere near as equal participation… It’s not that I thought I deserved more, but I would’ve liked to have had the same, if that makes sense…]
So, thinking this is just how collaboration always worked (aye aye aye), I kept putting off our second assignment (with a different composer), ’cause I was so tired of fighting from before.
And this is where I’ll pick up next time.
[And/or for more on my experience with BMI, you can go here.]