Living Famous Composer's Bizarre Rituals for 7 Days

I lied to you. I told you that when you singed up for this newsletter, you’d receive an email every other Wednesday.

I won’t be so arrogant as to assume you noticed I missed a couple weeks of sending it, but that does mean I lied to you. I’ll do my best to not let it happen again.

But don’t worry! I’ve been working on a very special video that I think you’ll find quite interesting.

In the last newsletter, I laid out an experiment that I wanted to test for 7 days, living famous composers’ rituals to see how it affected my creativity and composing.

Well, the results are in, and if you’d like to watch it all unfold, click below:

First, here are the rituals I followed:

1. Woke up at 6:30 am and brushed my hair: This ritual belongs to Haydn, who would shave his face rather than brush his hair. He followed this routine every single morning, and so did I for 7 days.

2. Counted 60 scoops of tea: This ritual belongs to Beethoven. He would actually count out 60 coffee beans, but seeing as I have a strong dislike for coffee, I chose to count out 60 scoops of tea.

3. Wore the same color every day: This ritual belongs to Erik Satie. He wore the same gray suit (he had 7 pairs of it) every single day. The color I chose to wear was tan.

4. Compose for a four hour block: This ritual belongs to Stravinsky. He would shut himself into his writing room and close the windows to make sure he couldn’t get distracted, and forced himself to do 4 hours of composing - even on days he really didn’t want to.

5. Do headstands: This also belongs to Stravinsky, who would do a headstand any time he needed to get over a creative block.

6. Wash hands and face with cold water: This is another ritual that belongs to Beethoven, who would even go so far as to pour entire pitchers of cold water over his head.

7. Two hour afternoon walk: This belongs to Tchaikovsky. He was obsessed with his two hour walk being EXACTLY two hours, or else feared misfortune would find him.

8. Play piano in the dark by candlelight: This belongs to Chopin, who preferred to play piano in the dark. Even when playing at venues or performing for small groups of people, he would ask to have the lights dimmed.

9. Hum while improvising and playing piano: This belongs to the famous pianist Glenn Gould, who can be heard in recordings of his playing.

Now, let’s get into the results.

What happened? Did I succeed? Was it easy? Was it hard? Did it help my composing super powers?

Let’s find out:

6:30am & Brush

I’m not someone who loves waking up early. Making the decision to wake up at 6:30 purely for the pleasure of doing so brought me no pleasure at all.

But this experiment changed me.

Waking up at 6:30 was challenging, especially on days I didn’t get quite enough sleep.

However, hearing the birds sing and enjoying the stillness of the early morning was magical. Because it was early, I had plenty of time to wake up, make breakfast, and feel completely ready to start my day.

It also made me sleep better at night, because I was genuinely tired when I went to bed.

Another thing I loved about this was the routine of it. I made the choice the night before to wake up at that time, which eliminated my need to decide whether or not I’d get out of bed the next morning, and I knew exactly what to do once my alarm went off: go brush my hair.

This gave me a focused task that got me out of bed immediately, which helped me actually wake up.

I now understand why people are so obsessed today with morning routines. I don’t think they need to be 37 steps like you may see on social media - they really can be as simple as get up and do one thing. But having it in place helps you just do it when you’re in a zombie-like state.

60 Scoops of Tea

As an extension of my ‘morning routine’, I went to the kitchen to count out 60 scoops of tea.

This was an easy task that required little to no thought, and allowed me some time to wake up, think, and take my time in the morning.

Thinking back, it wasn’t about counting 60 scoops itself and making the tea, but rather having an action planned for the morning that I didn’t have to think about, similar to getting up and brushing my hair.

This has led me to reflect on what kind of morning routine I can construct for myself that would allow me to do simple tasks to help me wake up.

Wearing Tan Everyday

Why did I choose tan? It seems like a very random color. Well, I didn’t want to wear black, which is probably the color of clothing I have the most of. I wanted to choose something that was more colorful to bring me energy. Tan seemed like the next color I had the most of, so I went with that (which is funny thinking about it, because it’s probably the most bland color after black).

Wearing the same color everyday didn’t do much for my creativity, in my opinion.

It did force me to get dressed which is something I don’t often do while working at home, and it again eliminated the need to decide what to wear, but those kinds of things bring me joy, so I think I’ll ditch this one for now.

Composing for 4 Hours

I thought to myself, “All I have to do is force myself to keep going. That’s it.”

It was as simple as that, but that doesn’t mean it was as easy.

Unlike Stravinsky, I didn’t force myself to stay in one room until the four hours were completed. I would take small breaks to get snacks, stand up, and move from medium to medium. Sometimes I’d work on my computer, sometimes at the piano.

I found that when I lost myself in a specific composition, the time went by fast. But if I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired that day, the time crawled by.

I did just forced myself to keep going, and it was well worth it.

My compositions were being completed, and small ideas I’d recorded years before were finally being built upon because I made the time to do it! The amount of music I was able to write in that week was more than I’ve been able to do in a long time.

This is something I would love to continue doing. 4 hours may not always be possible, but even committing to at least an hour and a half each day to allow creativity to flow would make such a difference.

Headstands

I did do a headstand on the first day, but quickly decided to do handstands instead, because I’m a bit out of practice with having that amount of pressure on my head!

However, I kind of loved this weird break in composing. It was active and silly, always made me smile, and it felt good to stretch out my body.

Handstands won’t necessarily become a permanent part of my routine, but doing something silly to shake things up definitely will be.

Washing Hands & Face in Cold Water

Constantly washing your hands with cold water will dry them out - fair warning.

And having something cold on your already cold hands in cold weather is not pleasant in the slightest.

However, washing your face… that’s refreshing, and something I will definitely continue to do.

It woke me up when I felt sluggish, and helped me feel refreshed.

2 Hour Afternoon Walk

Luckily for me, unlike Tchaikovsky, I didn’t have an existential dread that something horrible would happen to me if I didn’t make my walk exactly 2 hours down to the minute.

But I did put a timer on for 2 hours, and wouldn’t step through the door until it was finished! (Except one day, okay? I’m human.)

To be completely honest, this was so much harder than I expected it to be. I loved being outside and in nature - I would take my dog with me most days and felt like I was setting off on an adventure, exploring new paths and seeing new neighborhoods for the first time.

I thought 2 hours would go by too fast because of the excitement of it all, but I ended up being shocked every single time that it had ONLY BEEN ONE HOUR!

It was a mental game of pushing myself to keep going after the hour mark was met, and every 10 minutes that followed would go by slower and slower.

However, I learned through performing this ritual that being outside connected me with people, with where I live, and made me feel happier. And I’m positive that it in turn affected the music I wrote because of how well I slept and how good I felt physically.

This is something I will definitely continue doing, but in moderation. 2 hours is a bit too long for me, but 1 hour is absolute perfection.

Piano by Candlelight

Each night before bed, I improvised something at the piano with the lights down low, and it was magical.

I was usually so exhausted from the day that I didn’t care what I played, which made it even more therapeutic.

Being enveloped by darkness honestly made it easier to let go of concerns of how I looked or watching my fingers playing the ‘right’ notes, and allowed me to just listen to what was being played. It was such a lovely exercise and it reminded me of the importance of enjoying music, even when it’s a job.

Humming While Playing

Along with improvising, I challenged myself to hum a melody that I would attempt to match with my fingers. I loved this exercise.

It felt a bit like meditating, because my mind was concentrated on the task without worrying about the perfection or constructs of how I was doing it.

That concludes the findings of the experiment.

It was so fun to see where my limitations were and push myself in ways I hadn’t before, while also laughing at myself for some of the weird things I tried.

On top of that, I absolutely loved documenting it as I went, so be sure to check the video out of the whole thing below:

Thanks for supporting The Composer’s Life, and keep an eye out for more fun musical experiments and thoughts!

Until next time,

Nadia