What are we composing for?

I have been composing for ... eh, probably 6 years now. I've written some things for piano, haven't played any in recital yet, and I've written plenty enough for large ensemble. I've gotten one performance by a concert band, but that was when I was musically young, so I didn't have the control I have now.

I recently wrote a piece for a competition here on YC, and it was based off a German text so I put the appropriate markings in German to fit the theme of the piece. I went to the Shoutbox to ask if anybody knew what a certain indication was in German and QC asked me, "Why? Who are you writing it for? Who is performing it?"

... and the answer is no one. I would like to get the opportunity to perform one of my large ensemble pieces but those opportunities pretty much never come along. From what QC said, he makes me think that we should write for somebody or some ensemble and it has to be performed or else there is no point to composing it. I'm not saying that is what he is saying, but that is the impression I got. I get this impression from a lot of people, so I thought I'd ask... why do we bother? Do we HAVE to always write with somebody in mind and write specifically for them (the ensemble)? Must we always be queuing up our compositions for performances and tailoring them to the confines of what ensembles we have available to perform them? What is the point in composing if we aren't planning a performance?

Those seem to be the questions I wanna throw out at people when they say, "Well, who are you writing it for?" I'm writing it for my own damned enjoyment. I'm writing to let my creativity flow. I ALWAYS compose and prepare the orchestration and score such that it would be 100% plausible to perform, but I often write difficult figures, or use "extreme" registers. It's like a puzzle to me. Fitting things together in the most pleasing fashion and most playable fashion (if challenging or not.) I'm just trying to get the experience I need to do the job for real and so I have something to show when I want to apply for a school. Is a performance really THAT important? I don't think so. Do you think so? If you do, when do you think it starts to become important in a composer's career? Why do YOU compose? What are YOU trying to get out of it?

When I write something today I write it in mind that if I run across an opportunity to perform it five years from now that I'll have a few pieces I can pull out of the bag from earlier. I'm not vying for a performance immediately, but eventually would be nice. That's to answer one of the questions myself.

(P.S. Incidental composers who compose exclusively for computers... you're void of this. )
(P.P.S. However I know some of you still compose works intended more for performance as well.)

I write down ideas, for the sake of writing them down.

I don't compose for myself.

I compose to get a performance.

I have yet to do anything for the sake of creativity or anything like that.

I just have to hope opportunities come along. I write pieces that I think have the potential to be performed, so I usually write for instrumentation that I have available - I can write vocal pieces because I have a singing sister at my disposal. Although I did orchestrate my opera although I knew it would likely not be performed, but I will still be able to include it as a piece to send out to colleges when I apply. So I guess having to apply to colleges is sort of my M.O.

OK, you're composing to get experience composing. But having the music performed, seeing what the musicians think about their parts, hearing how well they manage to pull it off, and just actually hearing how effective your orchestrations really are--isn't that part of the experience? I think that's why some people stress the importance of writing for existing musicians, and with performance in mind. It's not some philosophical idea that it's not important if nobody performs it--it's just the very pragmatic notion that there's so much you can learn from going through the process of turning your dots into real, living music as many times as possible, that if you have the opportunity, why pass it up?

I ultimately compose for myself, I suppose. As vain as it sounds, I enjoy playing the music I write and I get a thrill when other people enjoy it too. I love compliments and criticism about my music, and love to see people's emotional response to it.
Music is all about communicating your feelings and ideas, whether it's with everyone here on Young Composers, in a concert hall in front of an audience, or at home with the family.
I'm aware that it's unlikely I'll get to play my pieces in front of a packed concert hall, but as long as it touches a few people, then my music has fulfilled its role.

I compose mainly for myself too, but that doesn't mean I don't want it performed or to be heard by others. Just writing down a piece can also be fulfilling, but never quite as much as getting an actual physical sound out of it, so I do try to get everything major I write performed. (That doesn't apply when I'm just doing something for a little non-serious exercise or something.)

The last few years I've mainly composed on commission, i.e. I wrote pieces of a specified duration for a specified instrumentation with a fixed deadline. This has the great advantage that you always get a performance, sometimes even a really good one or with a large ensemble (say, an amateur orchestra). And it also means that you are pressed into writing things that lay outside the scope of what you'd do otherwise, which forces you to expand your musical thinking into new areas, which can be quite exciting when it works.

But after the last such piece I've now finally started with a piece I wrote without any outside reason whatsoever. It's a piece for three pianos and the only reason I'm writing it is because I feel like it (and have wanted to write for that instrumentation for a couple of years already). I have no clue if or when it will be performed (I'm confident that I will get a performance though), or when it will be finished, and I'm loving it. It makes such a great change to write a piece for once where I can do entirely whatever I feel like, make it as long or short as I want and take my time, maybe three months, maybe half a year, maybe two years, maybe even longer, who knows.

I think all of these approaches have their merit. And I don't think you -must- get a performance, even though for me, I seem to need a performance to be able to draw a final line under the piece, to make it truly finished. Plus, I just love hearing my stuff performed. I'm vain like that

I think it's ultimately for profitable to see yourself writing for someone else rather then yourself. For one, you have incentive to get stuff done, secondly, if you decide to make a career out of it you'll probably end up composing for someone else anyway, and lastly, compositions you do for yourself usually don't get performances. At least that's what one of my comp profs told me.

Well I write music pretty much because I can say stuff in music that I can't say any other way. Not very clever or profound, but who cares.

Like Gardener said tho, when I've had pieces performed (commissions or otherwise) it does bring the piece to a "well, that's done" close moment. Though you can always tweak stuff on it and I usually end with a new and better score after a performance. Recently however the feedback I've gotten from performances hasn't been so new or important as when I first started, but you always learn a thing or two anyways.

But, by no means do I think performance is the end-all goal for me. I mean, I write a lot of shit that can't be performed. Like I said, to me it's just expression. Getting it played by people and such is a nice bonus and it's nice when others can hear it, but the important thing for me is that I externalize my internal musical thoughts and work on them so they're better than what I had in my head.

And for that it really is fine with just a well written score, even if it has no performance. Getting a performance is sometimes easy, sometimes it isn't so I wouldn't really put it so high on the list unless you're reasonably famous or like Gardener have a flow of work that lets your stuff get performed regularly.

There's also the "Well I also write electronic music" side. I'm writing something that will actually get a performance where I'm putting general midi instruments next to the real ones in duets and other situations and sort of messing with "well that sounds like shit" sounds in a way that focuses on, well, that sounds like shit is subjective.

But that piece is going to basically exist complete only once I get the actual performance recorded along with the electronics (and all works, lol.) So it's one of those half/half things.

And then there's obviously electronic music which doesn't need anyone performing it. I'm totally for that, and I love it. I don't honestly hold the traditional instruments in such high regard that I can't just replace them with square waves and noise. ... In fact I've recently began writing chiptunes using famitracker. So I guess it depends. To me a cello doesn't really sound any "better" than a something produced by a chip on an ancient gaming console. It just has to do with what I want.

I think because my objectives are so open, I'm also really open to using just whatever I can get my hands on to put together a piece of music. I also end up running into ideas I've never seen anyone do before, or where there's no reference literature and I have to make shit up as I go along which is fun.

Plus there's a second purpose to writing a score to me, depending on the piece. I have a series of preludes which are basically more important written than performed (though we did perform them, somewhat) and it's the sort of thing that reaches more into visual art and, well, poetry and such than music (though they're obviously playable as music too.)

I'm not too concerned, like I said, so long as what I have in my head ends up on paper regardless if anyone will ever see it or much less perform it.

... And I also have some more metaphysical reasons for composing, but I'm not getting into that as this is waaaaay tl;dr as it is.

I compose for other people.
In the sense that I compose from a need to communicate with the audience.
Once one of my pieces has been performed, if the public reaction was favourable, I do my damnedest to get more performances.

and of course, the paycheck doesn't hurt.

I guess at this point i'm assuming that by majoring in composition in college I'll have at least a little access to performing ensembles and will get some works peformed that way. After that it's basically if my first works were good enough, people will want more.

So I guess the answer is, I write to have a backlog of performable pieces to pull out if the opportunity presents itself, and I'm just assuming it will eventually.