I had a good composition lesson today -- my teacher says I'm off to a good start on my thesis and tossed out a few names to look up and listen to for inspiration. I also talked with him at length about the possibility of this being my last year as a student of music, and it'll be interesting to see what pros and cons he can come up with this semester.

"In art . . . as in letters, what makes success is talent, and not ideas . . . The public understands the idea later. To achieve this 'later', the artist's talent must manifest itself in an agreeable form and so ease the road for the public, not repel it from the outset. Thus Auber, who had so much talent and few ideas, was almost always understood, while Berlioz, who had genius but no talent at all, was almost never understood." - Georges Bizet