SSC

So you said: That sounds to me like you dropped out of college. So, if what I said is not wrong factually, are you just getting insulted because of the way I worded your same statement back at you? Also, "ad hominem" is when a personal insult is used instead of an argument. As in: "Your argument is invalid because you're fat" or something. In this case, I made the case that your bad experience is not indicative of the experience of other people. So, nope, no "ad hominem" at all, specially not if I'm not saying anything you didn't say yourself. As for the resentment part, well, that's just my interpretation considering how you basically threw everyone with a degree under the bus due to your bad personal experience. You got some cynical opinions and you got called out for it. Nothing more, nothing less. Lucky for you I decided to quit that as it seemed way more trouble than it was worth. Now I get to say whatever I want, which is frankly a lot more important to me than being an unpaid janitor.

Good recording and the score looks quite nice, so props on that. I think this has the sound of the second movement of a sonata-type work. Like, it could very well be a part in a multi-movement work. Here, clearly, the star of the show is the chord on the second half of measure 2, looks like a G minor 9, but it really gives it character. I like that you make liberal use of chromatic movement throughout, so it feels consistent. However, the thing that drags this down for me is that the accompaniment is only a single figure throughout the entire piece and you don't really modulate much, or develop the material beyond a few variations here and there on the theme. The overall effect is that it feels a little long and static, which given the slow tempo, is kind of a little much, in my opinion. Still, I wonder what the other movements would look like, if this was the 2nd, eh?

So everyone with a degree is either a teacher or a "mere" critic or whatever "something down the food chain" means. I mean, it's too bad you're a college drop-out with clearly a bunch of resentment, but that's not fair to people who had good experiences with their educations.

Well, the idea for the discussion guidelines is to give people an idea of what happens regularly in discussions. It's not meant to keep anyone away from discussing things or away from the forum, per se, but rather inform what is the ideal best practice. If someone thinks it's not for them, they can decide then and there and not engage, and that's fine. They can keep posting music and commenting on other people's work all the same, as well as participate in other parts of the forum too. I would like it, however, that as many people as possible participate in the community subforums in general (out of which the discussion subforum only one of them.) And, well, it's a difficult balance having the place be free enough that people can say whatever is on their mind and making it feel welcoming to everyone. You can't have both things to the same degree, and while I think the music posting part is a lot more welcoming in the sense that you engage on an individual level with people and music, the community part does require a little bit of filtering, or we end up with chaos, as is often the case on the internet.

I'm sorry you feel that way, we're trying to steer things in a better direction lately. I want people to feel like they can engage with other members without the danger of it just getting into an uncontrolled shouting match. Additionally, I do recommend people use the report post function if you think it's necessary or appropriate. Again, at least on the moderation side, we're doing our best at the moment with the limited resources we have.

And speaking of shmups! A classic!

100% agree. My teacher used to say: Education isn't up to taste and you don't get to just skip things because you don't like them. I'm glad I was able to cover so much stuff in my studies, because, like you said, it prepares you for being a professional regardless of what you end up doing. Specially true with the logistics and rehearsals and so on. That part was very important for me.

Let's see now: Yes, you're a real diplomat. And as the cherry on top, implying I have aspergers? Stay classy dude and remember: We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

This is why I do hope people read and attempt to follow the spirit of guidelines as much as possible. I think composers discussing music has always been serious business (for example Wagner's super harsh critique of Brahms) so that threads getting heated is inevitable. I also think that this discussion forum has an important role to play, specially for younger composers. It's why it's here. But like I said before, it's important that we are all civil to one another and that we are able to recognize when things are spiraling out of control. It's not necessarily a bad thing if the thread derails into a different discussion, but it's how and why that matters.

That's a really good question and I think we should address it seriously. To me, one of the best telltale signs of this happening for the worse is when there's a student concert and the students sound like discount copies of the teacher. I've seen this happen in a few conservatories myself, and it's always kind of sad to see. Granted this can happen for a number of reasons, not all of them necessarily bad. One is that the teacher is famous and people who already want to write like he does gravitate towards him, and two is that they may voluntarily also choose to write in that style because they like it. Those are two benign reasons I think are fine. However, what you mention about manipulating is clearly got a negative connotation. I've also seen teachers basically throw students' ideas in the trash because "they've been done before," or "they're not interesting enough," or whatever. I've met composition students who were dissatisfied with their teachers often because they clashed on aesthetics, which is not uncommon. Sadly, since becoming a composition teacher normally has no attached pedagogy study, a lot of people who become professors normally don't have that kind of background. Moreover, they may or may not be heavy on the ideology side of things, specially these days. I think that's also a potential point of friction. So, I always liked the approach my teacher had where he would not tell students what kind of language they should use, but he'd criticize them within their own parameters, if he needed to. For example: If you were writing something more traditional, he'd criticize it from a historical perspective. He was very adamant that everyone should be free to select the musical language of their music on their own, for their own reasons, and I agree with this. So, the question is, if it's unavoidable that a composition teacher may influence someone in their music, is this necessarily a bad thing? I'd argue that no. It's not always bad and specially if the relationship between teacher and student is built on respect and understanding. What teacher does isn't so much "corrections" as allow for discussion so the composer can see a different POV on an issue. Well, my teacher's stance was that there focusing on uniqueness or "personal style" is not a worthwhile thing to do when you're studying. The idea is that you should write as much music as possible, hopefully try out all the stuff you're learning while you're at it. If there's such a thing as a style, it will happen to you as a result of your experience, not because you "tried" to do it. That kind of organic development, to him, was a lot more interesting and rewarding than just arbitrarily picking things because you want to stand out or "be different." Your music will represent your tastes and ideas regardless if you want it or not, so just trying to do it artificially seems like a waste of time in my opinion. Additionally, people change over time, as do their tastes and ideas. It's obvious that this also affects their musical output and this is also why it should be an organic thing. Mind you this is also applicable if the teacher is trying to force their ideas and tastes on their students. This often doesn't work because the student will just write what they want to write anyway and simply not show the teacher, at which point studying composition becomes and exercise in futility and frustration.

Well, if it's something like Xenakis where he himself admitted that some of his music is only basically 80% (or sometimes even less) possible to play, the main argument is not that the performance itself is the most important part, but the actual system to write the music is. Like, if the mechanism you used to write the music ends up making unplayable music, then it's just bad luck for the performer that has to play it, if you want to keep it as authentic as possible. Naturally that's a rather extreme position to take, but I understand the reasoning, since it has to do with the integrity of the composition by itself first and foremost.

Well, I think I'm quite the control freak when it comes to my music. I once canceled a performance because we were unable to get the harpsichord I needed tuned properly to perform my piece, so I just pulled out from the program entirely. So, this is to some degree common, I bet. Also, you do need to be driven and passionate about your stuff to get anywhere, specially if you intend for people to play your music. And often this also manifests in getting stuff "just right" as well. I don't think any of this is necessary to write music you like, but once it comes to performance and dealing with musicians, if you're driven and detail oriented, in my experience, people tend to actually respect you a little more because you show that you really care about your music. And if you can communicate that level of care for your work, people pick up on that and they'll also tend to care as well. But like I said, that's just in my experience.

It depends entirely on the people participating and their willingness to separate themselves from their own ideas, so that attacking an idea isn't attacking THEM, as an individual. This also helps to just admit when you got something wrong, or more importantly, when you misunderstood someone's position, which is a lot more common. The thing is, there's also the type of people who think that the discussion forum is their personal blog, which makes things really hard since they have no interest in, well, discussing. It's parroting a position, or being highly combative. This kind of zero-sum mentality ends poorly for both the thread and the community in general. There's a reason why in the guidelines I wrote 12 years ago there's this bit: This is a reference to an actual dude who showed up once and that was his main argument. He'd basically invade miscellaneous threads and post about how it's all garbage except for music written before 1740 (or some other highly specific date, I don't remember exactly.) He got banned shortly after for being disruptive. We've had this, and we've had all sorts of stuff over the years. But in the end, like I said before, if we're civil and nice to each other, we can get over all that stuff and have a good community that values and respects its members, even if people disagree on things. Back then we had quite a variety of different people holding different view points, and besides some banter, we were all still there. And for the few of us who remain, I really wish we can get something like that going again.

I don't think so, and I hope people do read the guidelines for the discussion forum. 🙂 The issue is this: there are things that are up to people's own experiences and taste, and there are things which we can observe and measure, things that are either true or they are not. If my entire argument, say, hinges on the fact that Mozart was born in 1954, it becomes key to actually establish this to be the case with some degree of accuracy. The point of having a discussion and a conversation is to try to find out what's the case, if it's something that can be even found out. We can discuss things, pool our opinions together and figure out what is best by talking it out, hopefully. And everyone is free to disagree or agree, of course, but as mentioned in the guidelines, if you aren't willing to discuss things, then the discussion subforum isn't for you. If you state out an opinion or fact and someone challenges it, or comments on it, that's the nature of the forum and it's up to you to decide if it's worth your time and effort to argue back. Having just people drive-by with their opinions is fine, but I'm sure you can understand that's not very conducive to a conversation. I like arguing, talking and discussing things, and I know that's not for everyone. However, I think that the most important thing is that we respect each other and don't allow any discussion to devolve into personal insults. If we can't be nice to each other, there's no chance to even start talking about anything, let alone get anything meaningful out of the discussion.

Why don't you open a thread on the discussion forum on that topic? Maybe other people have something to say to that!