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You need not calculate, but surely at least consider your listeners. Audience popularity a great gauge of emotional and spiritual connection at any particular time for a particular work. And those attributes are surely important to "musical worth." We don't call Beethoven's 9th one of the greatest pieces every written because it didn't have emotional and spiritual connections, because it does, to audiences of all ages.

To the one of the most influential film composers of all-time, I salute you. You have inspired so many people to become composers. You introduced many of us to leitmotifs in film, and interpolated the melodies of Holst, Strauss, and Wagner in your music. Your 1977 film score is ranked as the Greatest American Film Score ever. http://connect.afi.com/site/DocServer/scores25.pdf?docID=222 You have inspired me to become the composer I am today! Happy Birthday John Williams!

*gets out violin and plays a sorrow tune while weeping*. Then again you seem to be very fond of calling others ignorant and non-sensical as many times as you run into them. And next you'll deny you ever did and play the victim. Now this is integrity. Thanks for your confession. Would you please name the other individual? Obviously you'd like us to assume you are the Chosen One who does know what he's talking about :jedi: . This trick is getting old too. Anyway, due to these "debate tactics" (?) Phil's already becoming sort of a "known quantity" here in YC, so I'm giving him another free pass. Let's get back to the intelligent discussion we were having.

Never mind...I'm not a mod here anymore to ask, request and control, so really never mind. _________________________ The idea is that, yes, we compose on what we feel and not on requests by the audience. Yet again some branches of music creation do exactly that: Film music, media music, etc... All compose to very specific requirements. And some (Williams for example) create masterpieces! None the less it makes sense that you should not reduce your art in order for the audience to understand it and like it. How about the performers then? Do we give a dime for the performers and to understand what they're playing? Cause otherwise it can get a bit tricky... Not only because you won't get any performances (unless you expect performers to hoe out and play what YOU want them, but you compose what YOU want and not someone else...), but also because if you do get a performance it will probably be... weird (due to the fact that the performers won't like it and won't care, and certainly won't understand). Why on earth be so aggressive on things like that? Nobody's saying to hoe out, but if you want to compose for yourself, stick to yourself then: Nobody cares about myself, I know that. I'm no genius, I'm no prodigy, I'm no philosopher... So I will either say something that clicks to the audience (or the thread reader...), or I will just shut up!

Trick's getting old, Phil. I think it's time to return it to yourself. You say some of us "take flight on the wings of presumption" (which of course you never do :P) and form (or spread) "fallacious ideas about the intent of composers whose works we don't understand", which can pretty much be translated as "you dislike their works because you're unable to understand them". I get a few main arguments from your posts: a) Anyone's dislike of some particular "modern music" is based exclusively on ignorance, prejudices and fallacious assumptions on the part of the audience - the composer is never, ever wrong, and there's no possible way his works can be flawed or disliked at all. b) The expression of such a dislike tantamounts to an admission of ignorance in itself. c) The composers' intent is never to confuse, outwit or mislead their audience, much less to avoid criticism by going hyper-abstract and blame their failures on a). It's your chance to back up your own assumptions. Then you might point fingers at others.

You answered your own question. Its about money. Classical Radio stations are almost invariably public radio. As a result, they rely on member contributions to keep their antennas broadcasting. Accordingly, the music that is programmed is tailored to those members. If they started playing modern works that the membership didn't like, the membership would pull their contributions. The same applies in orchestras. They will only program works they know the audiences will buy tickets to see. In some leading orchestras (NY Phil, LA Phil, CSO etc.) there is leeway because their audiences are more "educated" (if you buy that reason, I don't) and will accept some modern works. But it is never even a plurality of modern music. Why won't people buy it?!

A bold statement indeed. I think the main point in composing is to try and say what we really want to say. But if we're self-referential or autistic and don't really want to communicate anything, what's the point anyway? I'm not saying this is bad in itself. In fact it's OK, we might do whatever we deem proper, as long as we're being authentic and true to ourselves, rather than jumping on a senseless vogue or playing the smart guy. Only that we must temper our expectations. If we don't care about the audience (and performers!), why should they care about us? If we don't give them a worthy experience, they won't give us a second of their attention.

This is not bad to say, but don't you feel just a little bit satisfied if somebody likes your music? ;)

I no longer believe in 100% originality: every composition nowadays is at least in some point eclectic. I think the originality is not so important as it is a artistic power one posesses. It' hard to explain, you simply feel it when you hear it. I am happy though, there are less composers thinking about inventing sounds instead of writing music. I am also a firm believer in not inventing things, but making already invented material into musically accessible art. There were times when somebody invented something, (s)he immediately abandoned this, without searching the available resources of this invention. The audience never really accepted these novelties because there was no time to get used to them.