Why Beethoven Counted His Coffee Beans

I’m part of a small group who meet once a month and discuss what it means to be creative and why we do it.

In our last meeting, we discussed mantras, meditations, and “rituals” that help you get in the creative zone, and we were challenged to make our own.

That got me thinking about rituals you hear people doing that aren’t necessarily based on anything, but they do it anyways.

For example, you see it all the time in the world of sports.

Legendary tennis player Serena Williams ties her shoes a specific way before every match, and throughout the entire tournament, wears the same pair of socks.

Baseball player Wade Boggs ate chicken, then specifically did batting practice at 5:17 and ran sprints at 7:17 before every game.

NBA Basketball player Jason Terry slept in his opponent’s shorts every night before a game.

You see it in the music world too.

Some people have pre-performance rituals where they make sure to specifically NOT have a wee before going on stage, another always eats a quarter pounder with cheese before an audition, and Keith Richards from The Rolling Stones eats a shepherd’s pie before every performance and HAS to be the one to break the crust, or else he refuses to go on stage.

This made me ask the question: what were some weird rituals used by composers, and do they actually work?

I found quite a bit, and I want to test them out.

Here are just a few:

1. Count 60 coffee beans every morning - this was allegedly a habit of Beethoven’s, something he did every morning to make his coffee. Did it have eanything to do with his writing music? I don’t know, but I’m going to test it and see if it has an effect for me. Unfortunately I detest coffee, so I will be opening tea bags and counting out 60  pieces of herbs to make my tea each morning.

2. Perform headstands - this was a habit of Stravinsky’s. Some say that he used it when experiencing writers’ block while others say he did it at the beginning of everyday to start his creative brain going. I guess I’ll use it for both!

3. Wear the same color everyday - Satie had multiple pairs of the same suit that he’d wear over and over again, so I’ll be choosing one color to wear the entire week to see if it has an effect.

4. Wake up at 6:30am and shave - many artists and composers woke up early at the same time everyday. Haydn woke up everyday at 6:30 and shaved. I don’t need to shave, but I’ll come up with my own version of doing the same thing every morning.

5. Go for an afternoon walk - there are quite a few composers who did this, and I fear it’s something we’ve to abandoned in our day and age of go-go-go. Beethoven would take a “vigorous afternoon walk”, and Tchaikovsky made sure he always did a two hour walk exactly to the minute, and each one took manuscript paper and pencil to jot down any musical ideas. I’ll be doing both.

My plan is to test these rituals out for 7 days, recording the process and my thoughts in a video.

If you have any other rituals you’d be interested in seeing tested, send them over to me!

Watch out for the next newsletter where I’ll record my findings and include the video so you can see how it goes.

Until next time,

Nadia