What are we composing for?

I would write music whether I thought it would ever be played or not. At the very least I can have a computer play it. Even if no one hears that computerized version of my music it doesn't matter to me because I still get to hear it. Composing for other people, or only when there's a likely performance, or only when there's money involved, all seem like bad reasons to me. Maybe it's not true but I've always felt that the people who make the best music are the ones who are doing it for no other reason than to put themselves out there no matter how likely it is that anyone will listen. It's like the difference between Morton Feldman and Backstreet Boys. One of these wrote to express something while the other wrote to make a buck and be famous.

Somewhat related to this whole topic, has anyone ever checked out Henry Darger? This guy was a janitor who wrote stories and created art for years and never even bothered to try and get someone else to check it out. He wrote one of the longest books in history even. I have a lot of respect for a guy like that.

At this point, I compose purely for my own enjoyment. But I do keep the prospect of actual performances in mind, and compose accordingly. Otherwise, it would be like writing a book which no one could read.

Sometimes I just can't fathom why I'd prefer to write something for some Orchestra or Ensemble to butcher and misrepresent my creative efforts. I mean, it may be shit, but it's MY shit, and MY shit don't stink, as the expression goes.

Maybe that's an unhealthy attitude. Maybe it's just the fact that I've had my works performed in the past and gotten mixed results depending on the ensemble. I, for one, think there's a bit of volatility in the arena right now. I can compose what I believe is an incredibly well-crafted, complex piece of art. It can be beautiful to me, and someone can come along and call it crap for reasons they don't even understand.

I had a well-crafted Wind Ensemble piece with playable parts and a lot of myself in the piece. It was one of my most successful works considering what I wanted to accomplish (healthy mixture of theme, extended harmony, and formal development). I put this piece in front of a professor when I was taking lessons as a Masters student. Without hearing the work or even thinking about what he was trying to accomplish with me, he said it was crap. I asked him why he thought it was crap. His response?

"It has a theme. It's tonal. It's rhythmically square, and it's not very interesting to me. It's crap."

And had I thought about it long and hard, I would have dropped the degree then and there, because it is painfully obvious to me that my philosophy of music blended with his (and the Composition Faculty's) about as well as oil and water. Too bad I stuck that one out, and I may be "better" for it for the experience. But it didn't do anything for my music, my inner voice, or my aspirations to create what I yearn to hear. It was his ideology he was interested in, not my goals or my best interests.

So when he asked me why I like to compose in a later lesson, I told him point blank, "I don't, not for you." He laughed. He thought I was joking. Idiot. And he gets paid to do this to people. It disgusts me.

Compose because you want to create what you want to hear, and never let anyone tell you different. You can experiment when you're comfortable doing that or desperate for new sounds and new ideas. Don't compose for the sake of music or for the sake of someone else's philosophy. It's your music. It's your life. Don't waste your time worrying about who's going to play it or who's going to want to hear it. Even if you are your only audience, then you've enriched the life of at least one person. The odds are against you that you will ever be your only audience. There's always someone out there ready to hear your work and love it. You just have to be creative enough to put it out there for them to hear.

AA,

That's a little unrealistic... unhumanistic and not gonna get you anywhere.

Well, maybe somewhat, but I do agree that you shouldn't just write the music your professors want you to write. I find it important that a professor gives honest critique (which certainly might be quite subjective) and encourages you to try out other stuff, but a composition teacher still should allow you to compose in your own fashion in the end. I find it ok if a teacher says "I don't like your piece because XYZ", but she or he still should be able to guide you along your personal musical path, even if it's not a path they personally enjoy. If they can't do that, I recommend getting another teacher, or if there are no alternatives at your school, going to a different one. Studying with a teacher who can't cater to your musical aims at all is pretty much useless.

But still, I don't think it's "wasted time" to think about who will play your music, where you place yourself in the "musical world" (i.e. what kind of music do others compose?), what your actual musical aims are, etc. That doesn't mean that these things have to confine you, but thinking about such fundamental things still shouldn't be neglected entirely. Composing what you want to compose might be the main goal, but I'm against doing so mindlessly. Be interested in what others write, think critically about it, think critically about your own musical aims and so on. A reflective process certainly does help ones music in the end, I think.

Originally Posted by Gardener

Studying with a teacher who can't cater to your musical aims at all is pretty much useless.

Well, it really depends on how much flexibility you allow yourself. A teacher is just a teacher, and you can write all the music you want without him knowing or caring in your non-study time. If you're in an institution it means that you can get the chance to perform stuff later on your own if you know enough people who are interested in your music, and the whole thing with making your own ensemble.

Like we've said in the other thread about composition teachers, there sure is an "ideal" for what they should be like. But, I find it's also good practice to do what other people say even if you don't personally agree with it, just like a good teacher will work even if it's against his personal preference. Trying to find preference and taste where there was previously none is a good exercise.

For example: Don't like atonal music? Well, I bet that if you wrote enough you'd end up writing atonal music that YOU liked. It's just like any technique and style, it bends to the preferences of the composer. But it's impossible to KNOW how that works or try it if "taste" gets in the way of education, something which I don't think should ever happen. That composition studies are guided by taste is one thing, but being crippled by it is something entirely different.

All true. There's certainly more than just your main composition teacher to profit from when studying at an institution. And I definitely agree that it's good to do exercises that lie outside your normal area of interest. But the point is that those are exercises. They -might- become more than that of course, but before that happens you probably won't accept them as meaningful compositions by yourself. If you want to write an "authentical" composition, it probably needs to be something you want to write, at least to a certain degree. But yeah, that doesn't mean you shouldn't also do other stuff and it may very well happen that sooner or later you'll find your own expression in foreign musical zones.

But to get back to the teacher question: While it is certainly right that your life doesn't depend on one teacher alone, if you -do- have a teacher you might as well try to get a good one. If you're spending your core class with a teacher with whom you can't reasonably communicate you might do better composing without a teacher and just make use of the other opportunities a music institution has to offer. And with that I don't mean a teacher who doesn't share your musical tastes or tries to open your mind to other musical realms (which is all good), but a teacher who's unable to pick you up where you are, understand your perspective and from there go onward.

And on further consideration, I probably wouldn't even call such a teacher bad, just inadequate for you. I probably would have problems too teaching a student whose musical aims are absolutely contrary to my own musical ideas. I'd ask the student to look for another teacher, I guess.

Originally Posted by Gardener

If you're spending your core class with a teacher with whom you can't reasonably communicate you might do better composing without a teacher and just make use of the other opportunities a music institution has to offer. And with that I don't mean a teacher who doesn't share your musical tastes or tries to open your mind to other musical realms (which is all good), but a teacher who's unable to pick you up where you are, understand your perspective and from there go onward.

Totally. That's just a failure to teach altogether if you can't work with the student on any basic level such as those.

Originally Posted by Corbin

That's a little unrealistic... unhumanistic and not gonna get you anywhere.

Well, I don't know what your background is, but I don't see why that should be unrealistic. Look, it's my money, and I have goals I want to accomplish in my music that I'm paying a professor, a PROFESSIONAL TEACHER OF MUSIC, to teach me. The problem isn't that they wouldn't teach me, it's more that many of the professors I've had (I've probably studied with six composition professors over seven years) don't remember how to compose tonal music.

I had a professor who showed us the very last tonal piece he ever wrote back when he was a bachelors student. That's pretty sad, but it's true. There's an ideology behind the whole movement from Romanticism to Modernism and later what we see in contemporary "art music" today that ties almost directly into our shift into the modern scientific age. It's not to say I don't think of the music as "interesting," I do, but I also find it repulsive that professional instructors today are preferring to teach one over the other instead of teaching all of it. "Students will get it in Theory Class, you don't need me to teach it to you."

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

Originally Posted by Antiatonality

"Students will get it in Theory Class, you don't need me to teach it to you."

Wrong. So very, very wrong.

It's true though. It's basically why any worthwhile composition teacher is going to prefer working on specific things rather than throwing "well learn 18th century counterpoint" into the curriculum. You're SUPPOSED to already know everything to a certain degree historically if you're shooting for proper composition education.

A composition teacher can't really "teach you counterpoint" so to speak, nor is it his job. He can tell you a little of a technique and modern/historical uses, but the traditional stuff must be learned outside on your own or in the other classes you're supposed to attend. It's a given that you have to master the old forms and harmony, etc etc, if you're going for a balanced composition education.

It's precisely because the traditional and classic forms/styles/bla are SO WELL COVERED that composition profs specialize in everything that doesn't get default covering, such as modern techniques, history, etc etc. Though some places do have courses on modern music and modern art history respectively, it's a branch of the study that doesn't have the same attention and emphasis as the traditional things.

You don't really need a composition professor if your goal is historical accuracy; you need a musicologist and a historian instead. A composition teacher/prof is only helpful if you'll be composing something that deals with what isn't found on textbooks and just simple traditions in practice. Or, well, with the personality of the student and the times we live in.

Though, a good composition prof will also master all the traditional/historical things as well for good measure and is expected to have an extensive knowledge of just about everything. But the actual work isn't centered around history or tradition but actual composition today.