The Importance of Being Sesquipedalian

We're all aware by now that there is a ludicrous number of composers out there; this has not phased Richard Zarou, who in his ongoing podcast No Extra Notes provides a great snapshot of one composer each week, with brief interviews and musical samples. A composer a week seems daunting, but when they come in the digestible form of a twenty-minute podcast, it seems so reasonable. This week he features Milica Paranosic, who delightfully made the rest of us look a bit foolish by sounding, in her interview, like an actual artist. Her response, for example, to a question regarding her music's influences: "people, stories, events, children, games, languages, and my brother." What sort of music does she listen to? "I like fun music, I like music that makes me want to scream and run." I'm sure not all would agree, but to me these responses suggest artistic self-confidence. The rest of us, by contrast, hewed close to the general academic tendency of justifying our work by trying to analyze it. It's not that we weren't being honest--we just dressed it up with our best witty, erudite musings, and as a result it doesn't end up sounding as honest.

But then, I wonder, if we were all as terse as possible in describing our love of music and the reasons we do it, would all of our answers to Richard's questions be the same? 

Something, perhaps, along the lines of George Mallory's explanation of why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest: "Because it's there."