How Successful You Actually Are As A Composer? Or How Big Are Your Ambitions?

My ambition is to do justice to my talent (no more, no less). And to be able to get across to an audience whatever original musical message I might be carrying. I don't care about fame or about writing the greatest number of compositions of a certain type. However, I would, I guess like every other composer, wish to have my pieces performed, if not for recognition then at least to be able to get better feedback both from the actual human and real-instrument performances and from the echos and criticisms about my pieces (a feedback that will surely enable me to compose better in the future).

lol, right. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Mozart being extraordinarily predictable to anyone with 6 months of theory training.

That doesn't make him less of a genius, does it? The reason is that at the time he composed, he wasn't predictable. And maybe it is his music (among others) that to begin with gave rise to most of what they teach in theory training?

By the way, is unpredictability a necessary requirement for musical genius or for a masterpiece? What do you think?

My ambition is to do justice to my talent (no more, no less)

Thanks, I needed that.

We have some people on this thread who obviously don't know how to listen to Mozart.

And Bach might be less predictible in many respects than Classical-era music, but most of the other Baroque composers might as well be prescribed listening for insomniacs.

We have some people on this thread who obviously don't know how to listen to non-bach Baroque composers.

I said most, not all, but even the better ones weren't always consistent and still weren't as compelling as Bach.

me love vivaldi.

Dude was a rock star! If he lived in the 1900s, he'd be writing those hard bass lines like nobody's business.

me love vivaldi.

Dude was a rock star! If he lived in the 1900s, he'd be writing those hard bass lines like nobody's business.

Amen!

Ambitions:

1- To be to the 21st century what Schoenberg was to the 20th

2- Make a fuckton of money

3- Write deep emotional melodies that make grown men cry

4- Fame + groupies

5- Be big in the art scene so I can finally be cool

6- Have the free track of the week on iTunes

7- A personal assistant to follow me everywhere and organize my papers

8 - Oreos for breakfast everyday

Yeah, Vivaldi's such a hack.

Not at all, but I don't consider this:

...the equal of this:

...or equal to or better than this:

I don't really see what makes his music any more exceptional from any number of other Baroque composers who aren't as popular.

Ambitions:

1- To be to the 21st century what Schoenberg was to the 20th

2- Make a fuckton of money

3- Write deep emotional melodies that make grown men cry

4- Fame + groupies

5- Be big in the art scene so I can finally be cool

6- Have the free track of the week on iTunes

7- A personal assistant to follow me everywhere and organize my papers

8 - Oreos for breakfast everyday

You realize your #1 wish precludes the possibility of achieving most of the rest of your list, I hope.

Yeah, Vivaldi's such a hack.

Vivaldi was kind of a hack. For quality non-Bach baroque music, look at Marini, Frescobaldi, Marais, Saint-Colombe, Schütz and Froberger for starters.