Welcome to WLP's first "Behind the Music" session, featuring Kathleen Demny. 

1.       Some kids, they dream of being a firefighter…or a doctor…was composer / musician always your dream?
Somehow I always knew music was my calling- not so much a dream as much as a fulfillment of something inside that was driving me. Those childhood dreams ran the gamut of potential careers throughout my life, but the core field was always music in some form or fashion- from concert pianist to famous singer, to musical theater director, to composer. I can remember organizing back yard concerts for the neighborhood as young as 7 and 8 years old, performing my own music, with a shower curtain on the clothes line for the stage curtain, and charging a dime for entrance. Can't believe people actually came! Also remember coercing my three siblings into modified performances of the musical du jour. I was in love with Beethoven by the second grade and began writing little songs somewhere around that age also, which was when we got a piano. My dad insisted I teach myself to read music and made me learn his favorite song before he would grant me piano lessons. He was pretty stunned when I met all of his criteria just a few months later. So, bottom line, yes I've always known I'd be a musician. Although, in high school there was a short stint in which I wanted to be an architect or psychologist.
 
2.       Which comes first for you?  Lyrics or music?  Can you walk us briefly through your process of writing a song?
Wow, that's a toughy. I say that because sometimes it's one and sometimes it's the other and sometimes it's all together. It really depends on what I'm writing. If I set out to write a song for a specific season or purpose, then I usually start with text. On the other hand, if I'm at the piano just being creative, I might end up with a whole song musically and then have to find the right text to work with it. Sometimes the text evolves as I work through the creation of the music at the piano. If you were to ask which comes easier to me, it would most certainly be the music. So I do much better if I have a text to work with before I start composing the music. Oh, how I love the psalms for that very reason! So, either way, once I get a melody and text together, I'll play around with chord progressions and harmonies and set about the process of choral arrangement. By this time I usually have a pretty good working idea for the keyboard part. Any ancillary instruments come last-they're like the cherry on top of the ice cream.

3.       Can you describe the feeling you get from finishing any musical work?  Is it joy?  Relief?  Miller time?  (ha ha)
Did you say "finish"? Hmmm.... finish. I have a hard time accepting anything I write as "finished." I have to force myself to stop, otherwise I'd never be done. To me, the music is an evolution of sound -sort of a living, breathing creature-and each day it takes me somewhere else. It's hard to not want to add or change something from day to day or experiment with a different musical path than yesterday's. However, when I finally do call it "soup," it is a great feeling of satisfaction as well as excitement. If it is to be published, when the final editing process is done, then I do feel more or less a sense of relief in a way- I feel I can let it go- like a child out the door. At that point, I mostly feel a sense of being blessed to offer my gift back to God through the whole process. It is a sense of "sending it out" like a child into the world, to do what God wills for it in the lives of those who hear it. And I'm completely humbled.

4.       What emotions do you go through when you put your music “out there” to be heard (and maybe critiqued) for the first time?
Well, as I said above, that is the first emotion- feeling humbled. However, in a purely artistic sense, putting your music "out there" does mean becoming very vulnerable to the tastes and critiques of others and is a bit like baring your soul on the chopping block! I think it's normal to have a certain amount of nervousness as to how it will be received. When you create something, be it a gourmet meal, a beautiful quilt, or a piece of music, part of who you are is built into that creation. Therefore, it's only natural to want for that part of yourself to be accepted and appreciated. However, being such an eclectic musician myself, I am fully aware that not everyone will like what I compose and I'm OK with that. I am very grateful for the experience of attending the Liturgical Composer Forum for the last several years, where we have the opportunity to anonymously submit and critique each others' music. I have learned so much from other composers' comments through those sessions, and I have hopefully learned to accept critique graciously.
 
5.       If you were an instrument, which instrument would you be?
Wow, all these hard questions! Since I'm a pianist, it's easy to say I'd be a piano. The piano has the capability to express such a wide range of emotions, feelings, and sounds, making it very versatile. It can produce a single line, as soft and delicate as silk, or a full chordal harmonic sound, as deep and strong as thunder. I've always seen the piano as the reliable instrument-the one that's always there. I think this versatility and reliability represents my personality quite well. However, I don't think anything can replace the expressiveness of a violin or cello. To me these instruments are an extension of the purest instrument-the human voice; capable of beautiful expression in ranges the voice cannot traverse. There is something about the expressiveness of these instruments that just reaches down into me, grabs my soul and engages the passion for music that resides within.

6.       Tell us something about you that you think would surprise / shock us. 
I'm sure many things would shock you-I surprise myself most days! But to narrow it down-can you imagine me on a tractor cutting hay? Caring for and owning race horses? Goats, chickens, cows, cats and dogs? Tilling a massive garden? Designing and building my own house?  Country and Western dancing? I'll stop there- I love to Country and Western dance- especially Two Step and Waltzes.

7.       Free word association:
I say “harmony,” you say _______...
John Cage. Haha!  Just kidding.  
"I'd like to teach the world to sing..." Ok, ok, ok. 
Seriously: Heaven. 

Read more about Kathleen.

Check out Kathleen's Revised Mass of Joy.