Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.


Regular Contributors


Adrienne Albert
Beth Anderson
Larry Bell
Galen H. Brown
Cary Boyce
Roger Bourland
Corey Dargel
Lawrence Dillon
Daniel Gilliam
Peter Gordon
Rodney Lister
Ian Moss
Tom Myron
Frank J. Oteri
Carlos R. Rivera
David Salvage
Stefano Savi Scarponi
Alex Shapiro
Naomi Stephan
David Toub
Judith Lang Zaimont

Composer Blogs@ Sequenza21.com

Lawrence Dillon
Elodie Lauten
Anthony Cornicello
Everette Minchew
Tom Myron

Alan Theisen
Corey Dargel



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Jerry Bowles

Pierre de France or Pierre Lapin?
Jerry Bowles

Read the List
Jerry Bowles

re: theory
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What's New is Old Again
Galen H. Brown

the unfamiliar
David Toub

If You See Someone, Say Something.
Corey Dargel

The Academy Has Accepted Your Music
Corey Dargel

The Award
Lawrence Dillon


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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
At Least We're Not Better Off Dead

Elodie Lauten’s Ten Reasons To Stop Composing was a shock. “Are we better off dead?” I am very happy to hear that her answer is “No.” I was afraid that I was going to read “Suicide is painless…”

It is not that I disagree with her facts, it is just that I’m not willing to stop composing just because the world isn’t paying me for it. And she isn’t either, even though she has not yet discovered the logic to support her activities.

In fact it has been liberating to be ignored most of my career. When no one is listening there are no inhibitions. It is encouraging to be heard from time to time and to be koshered by the NEA and paid by a wonderful ensemble. But those things do not provide a living. For that you have to find your own way. Certainly my music has wandered sufficiently away from the mainstreams of music (off into the swales…) that I can’t expect to be a major grant/prize winning composer. The people that make those decisions are usually riding a wave, way beyond rivers and swales.

I think we need to focus on writing the music itself and stay healthy, make enough money to live, love, and try to live to be old. I think they may start celebrating us after we hit 80, Elodie. Oh yeah, positive thinking..that could help!

 



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