Composers Forum

Back when I worked at the Lincoln Center Tower Records, one of my colleagues, a former administrative employee at Manhattan School of Music, told me how it was not unusual for alumni of the school who had studied composition to come in looking for letters of recommendation for law school or business school or some other practical endeavor unrelated to music.

Of course you can still compose after you have given up pursuing a career in music. But I’m curious. Are there any doctors, lawyers, bankers, or what-have-you out there who once wrote music but who no longer compose?  What made you stop?  Are you happy you did? Regretful? Philosophic? Let’s hear about it.

I was hoping to take a time out from composing after completing my second string quartet this June. Since I also teach two classes, work part-time at RILM, and am writing a dissertation, I thought my time would be better spent trying to grow some legs for some already written pieces. Then the opportunity to write a large-ensemble piece presented itself, and, naturally, I took it.

The piece is for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trombone, piano, two violins, viola, cello, and double bass. Called “Arcades and Mirages,” it’s about eight minutes long and goes pretty fast. (The score is over 300 measures.) The difficulty has been incorporating the bassoon, horn, and trombone into the jumpy, homorhythmic texture. Right now, I’m cutting a lot of notes from these instruments. Also, due to logistical problems, I can’t use mallet percussion. So I’m converting what were parts for vibes, marimba, and xylophone to piano.

Premiere’s in December, rehearsals begin early next month.  Then maybe more “career building” time will be available.  Then again, there’s this solo piano piece I want to write…

What are you working on?

As a music theory teacher, I think a lot about why musicians need theory. Certainly some of my students will forget everything I’ve taught them and yet somehow manage to do what they need to do anyway. Others will retain and put to use the techniques I have imparted in class in a very direct way. Probably the largest group will fall somewhere in between.

These thoughts have led to a few provisional decisions about the relationship between music theory and music practice, the latter being, as I see it now, the spectrum of activities from composition through performance to listening. As one moves along this spectrum, the need for theory becomes less urgent.

Consider composition: While an uncontrolled analytical impulse can bottleneck rather than free ideas, music theory can open the road for composers facing, in the midst of work, the inevitable question, “what next?” by asking, “what has been done?” The more analytical tools one brings to music already written or conceived, the greater one’s knowledge of this music will be, and the more likely ways of moving forward will come to light.

Performance: Here I’m thinking about those who play music composed by someone else from memory or a score. Analyzing a piece of music is a wonderful aid to memorization, certainly more reliable than just memorizing where your fingers go. But sometimes musicians develop a memory gifted enough not to need the assistance intellectual knowledge of a piece can provide. When memorization is not an issue, theoretical knowledge helps musicians contextualize the moment in which they find themselves. Sometimes, though, a gifted ear will discern musical context innately.

And listening: Certainly one can enjoy a symphony without knowing what sonata form is. But the more background one brings to any experience, the richer the experience is likely to be. Knowing more about the sorts of things that happen in compositions helps make listening a more active, engaging process. And yet, the consequences for flagging attention and ignorance on the part of listeners are small compared with the same coming from performers and composers.

I tell my students that music theory is ear training, and ear training is music theory. Even if students don’t find much direct application for the knowledge imparted in theory classes, students should take from these classes a better ear and, with it, the increased ability to appreciate any music they encounter.

Being a 25 year-old musician is a lot different from being a 15 year-old one. At 15, playing an instrument is one of the things “smart” kids do. At 15, there are any number of competitions into which your parents can throw you. At 15, you don’t have to make a living. When you’re 25, the competitions still exist, but, all of a sudden, you’re not the center of attention anymore. All of a sudden, you’re not the best. All of sudden, you have rent. Is this really what you wanted to do with your life?

We all have to figure out what we like doing for its own sake, rather than for the attention it gleans us. The college years are an optimal time to explore different studies and immerse oneself in activities that not only broaden horizons, but also kindle a whole new idea of what we may want to do with ourselves once we leave school. Conservatories, being vocational schools, do not offer these opportunities so much.

Barring extraordinary circumstances, I would urge any student not to attend a conservatory for their undergraduate years. The conflicts between musical and other duties sure to arise at a traditional college will help clarify a young person’s relationship to music: were all those hours practicing Chopin Etudes spent for the adoration of others, the satisfaction of myself, or a mixture of the two? Given appropriate self-discipline, no college workload will absolutely preclude one from practicing or composing adequately to develop one’s skills. Furthermore, colleges transmit more intensely than conservatories skills of broad importance – the ability to communicate well (writing and speaking) and to be communicated to (reading and listening) being the most salient among them.

Should after this stressful time the young musician still desire to pursue music professionally, then surely he or she is more likely to have made the right decision for themselves. A conservatory-based masters program could be the next logical step. But maybe the interest in more mainstream professions will have been developed instead. Or perhaps the Chopin Etudes will have gathered dust as the midnight oil was burned reading about archeology or physics. Should one decide then to leave music behind, surely in this leaving one has learned something important about oneself.

These thoughts come to mind as I prepare syllabi for my (conservatory) courses this fall. I love teaching where I teach, and I love my students. I just hope they’re making the right decisions.

The great Samuel Vriezen addresses this credo from across the pond. 

If Schoenberg emancipated the dissonance, did Debussy emancipate the consonance? 

Even if the answer isn’t yes, this strikes me as an interesting question.  Schoenberg took dissonanct sonorities from late 19th-century German composers and, instead of continuning to treat them as elaborations of standard harmonies, he treated them as sonorities in their own right — without need for “resolution.”   Is this not what Debussy did as well — but with unaltered sonorities like dominant sevenths, ninths, open fifths and so forth?

More importantly:  is this a good enough question to wake up this sleepy page.  Here’s hoping. 

To whatever genius wrote this: Hello, I owe you a beer.

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A Composer Makes Himself Perfectly Gliere

You can Telemann by where he likes to live. I just Toch a trip Orff into one of the Wilder areas Faure Wieck, and to be Verdi Franck, it nearly drove Menotti.

I know opinion Varese, but even Vivaldi urban noises, the Bizet traffic, De Falla engines, as well as knowing there are Mennin the streets Callas enoughto knock your Bloch off, I couldn’t resist the urge to Galuppi home early Satie, and I Haieff to say I Still prefer the Mitropoulos.

The Boyce were Sor that I had Gibbons up and succumbed to the Riegger of the Field so easily, but I don’t give a Schuetz.

I was practically Krein from my Severacs and Pains brought on by that brief time in the countryside! Even the sounds got my Dandrieu up; let me Liszt some of them: the Rorem of the wind, a constant Birtwhistle, the Menuhin of the Katz, the Lipatti-Patti-Glinka-Poulenc of the Reiner on the roof, theGluck-Gluck of the hens, and every morning a woodpecker or some Byrd Chopin holes in a Tree. My only company was a Thorne Busch,
a Partch of poison Ives, a Braun Babbit, and sometimes a Wolf, nothing Moore. For a Forrest Grainger it may be Fine – it may be the Katz Milhaud — but I could have died of
Borodin. A friend suggested my making this Tureck; “Abegg” his pardon, but I will never go Bach to those Gotterdaemmerung Hillis. They Suk!

No, I don’t care for the Ruggles life. I like a good Mehul – a little Suppe, some Szigeti, maybe some Salome at my local Taverner with a little lime Schubert after (even if they don’t always clear the Crumbs off the table). And I like to Locatelli while I’m Eaton Maderna at night. Is that asking for Egk in Meyerbeer?

Nono! So many people Berio themselves under a Holst of problems they know they can’t Handel. Their answer is too Offenbach to nature – into Haydn, it seems to me.
I Karajan a d’Indy life in the Berg for the most Paert. Maybe it isn’t Perle Bliss for everybody, but it’s

Godunov for me!

Okay folks. Let’s talk some shop. We all know beaming over the barline looks way cool. And there are some way cool composers who do it. But the word’s been out for a while that beaming over the barline does nothing but drive performers nuts. And a friend of mine who’s worked at Schirmer says beaming over the barline drives music publishers nuts as well: do what you need to do with phrase marks, or just change meter. But there are beaming believers out there. Let’s hear from both sides. Some of us are facing these issues at the moment . . .

I’ve been preoccupied the last few days with this idea about composing music. The idea is that, before a composer starts a piece, he or she needs to determine what constitutes a wrong note in this particular piece. When a musical idea comes, composers ought to work with it so that it sets up a musical space that favors some notes over others. This system of “right” and “wrong” notes ideally leads to an approach to consonance and dissonance within a work.

So how do you write your “wrong” notes?