"Younger" composers biting off more than they can chew

I have no animosity towards younger composers, as I am a younger composer, at least in my mind. I'm in my second year as a comp major at OCU, and it's given me such a different perspective on music, as well as the process surrounding its creation. We have such an emphasis on having your music performed here, and I thoroughly agree with that. There's no point, to me, in writing a piece without the intention of having it performed. Yeah, you're going to write some pieces that aren't great, and not everything is going to get performed, but it seems foolish to write something just because you CAN, without considering the ratio of time spent to benefit. I feel the same way with percussion - there's no point in tackling a piece that I'm not ready for yet. Yeah, I could have worked up Marimba Spiritual in high school, eventually. It wouldn't have sounded good at all, and I would have gotten very little out of it (without realizing it - younger composers and younger performers in general usually fail to see how bad they are. I certainly did (and I suppose you could say, still do (which isn't entirely true because I feel I've gotten more objective, but as you grow your perspective changes, and so do your standards,))) in addition to missing out on rep that usually helps you get to that level (such as the Creston.) It just seems like a waste of time to pursue something that's going to take more time than it should, and isn't going to be as good as it could.

But you're dismissing working on bigger things like composing them won't help you at all - which is wrong. Composing anything will always help you, no matter how much of yourself you put into it, how long it takes, how big the piece is, etc. Even practicing an instrument, as in your example - playing the instrument always helps, no matter what you play. Of course, neither of these examples (composing larger pieces/practicing hard pieces) is the most practical thing to do in some people's situations - but they still help. And if your situation is so that you can't get an orchestra piece read, recorded or performed, my suggestion is that you write them anyway - write 20! So when you DO get a commission for an orchestra piece, you are READY for it and you can totally blow everyone away with it. Haha! Maybe an exaggeration, but do you see the point I'm trying to make? You can't dismiss any kind of output in a creative profession like ours.

Learn to crawl before you walk, before you run, before you attempt the Boston Marathon.

:whistling:

What if people have learned already? So now you're making actual judgements on the quality of larger-scaled works posted here? Please explain your rationale, my friend.

What if people have learned already? So now you're making actual judgements on the quality of larger-scaled works posted here? Please explain your rationale, my friend.

:huh:

If they have learned already... then they've done exactly what I recommended. I made no judgments on the quality of ANYTHING.

What's YOUR rationale?

Ooo... Nice one :)

:huh:

If they have learned already... then they've done exactly what I recommended. I made no judgments on the quality of ANYTHING.

What's YOUR rationale?

Yes, but there must have been a reason you posted 'learn to crawl before you walk, etc.'. The reason you put that there refers to the main topic of this thread, which is what I was commenting on. If people have already learned, and followed your 'recommendations', then this thread wouldn't exist, there would be no need for it. But since people still seem to make judgements on younger composers for tackling large projects, this issue exists.

The fact that you said 'walk before you run' means you DO find people taking up projects that are out of their league, or whatever. But to assert that those specific people should stop, and change their focus to chamber music is absurd. Who are you to say how far they have progressed, and what will benefit them next? This is why I said you are making judgements on them, mainly because you are supporting the main poster's sentiment, which, in itself is a pretty tough judgement on some of the people here.

My rationale? To write whatever I want and let others do the same without being judged (or chastised maybe?) by people who think we are 'wasting our time'!! :D

touche

*concedes the point*

Fair enough.

But, I figure, if someone writes something ambitious, but bypasses the basics - it's either doomed to suck, OR, they've inadvertently learned something before this point. Learning doesn't necessarily have to happen through direct experience. Perhaps seeing enough mistakes in other younger writer's music is enough to 'teach' someone before they suddenly decide to write a Mass in C-minor for double orchestra, children's choir and jazz contra-bassoon soloist.

I dunno.

;)

I blame computers. Again, if people still wrote music the old fashioned way, there would be such an oversaturation.

I'm not sure if any comments have been directed at me, but if so, I would like to clarify that I don't judge other composers based on what they do. By younger composers, I generally think back to the time when I was 16 and thought I was writing decent orchestral music, but it was actually horrible. I don't think I was harmed from doing that, but I also wasn't writing music to be performed, I was just writing. Now that I've started to really take it seriously and I understand what's going on, I feel like it's a waste of effort to pour yourself into something that you're not going to get very much benefit out of. If I am going to labor on a piece and make it as good as I can, I want to actually make it as good as I can. Maybe that means waiting a while to tackle projects that I really want to do; I'm doing that presently. I will be arranging a steel drum solo piece for orchestra and steel drum, in concerto form; I will be writing a solo violin piece for a senior recital; I will be writing a piece for wind ensemble over the summer. But I'm not preparing for that by writing a piece for wind ensemble now; I'm writing a woodwind sextet. So instead of having a mediocre wind ensemble piece and a barely less mediocre wind ensemble piece, I will have a decent wind sexet and a pretty good wind ensemble piece.

This has to be by far the best post I've ever read on here. There are some very interesting points, I tend to agree with the original poster and I'll explain why. In my general experience in writing (which is far less than I would like it to be) I find that its more advantageous to start small and work up in the size of the ensembles. At the university I attend every composition student has to write a chamber piece for every group of instruments, brass quintet, string quartet, woodwind quartet, etc. I think the reason this is so advantageous is because you learn so much about the individual groups of instruments in these settings. Someone commented earlier about how the chamber literature is more difficult than the large ensemble literature. Well thats debatable. There are many modern symphonies that are just as technically difficult than chamber pieces, and vice versa. As it pertains to learning in a chamber setting, there is so much to be learned by it. Lets take a brass quintet for example (I'm in one and I'm writing a piece for one, trumpet player). There are five instruments (obviously) 2 trumpets, french horn, trombone, and tuba (you all probably know that). There are for the most part four completely different instruments with completely different sounds and completely different capabilities. When one writes for the smaller ensemble the composer has the opportunity to explore all of these differences, they have the chance to discover the abundance nuances available to the different instruments. If a composer goes about his whole career and just assumes that the brass section is incapable of anything other than fanfare type licks then they're totally oblivious to what those instruments have to offer. If a young budding composer takes the time to fully explore the characteristics of each instrument (in both chamber and solo literature) then that will better ready them for a larger ensemble. I've had the opportunity to ready several of the composition students brass quintet pieces and they've been open enough to listen to the comments we offer them. Its funny because depending on what instrument they perform on they tend to write for it. There is a violist (spelling?) who writes a lot of motifs that are angular in nature, which tends to be rather challenging on brass instruments, we can't just jump a string and be a fourth up or what not. We've made her aware of that issue. Can you all imagine if she had written that for a full brass section in a wind ensemble or an orchestra? Like I said earlier, chamber music allows you to focus on those things. When you're writing for a larger ensemble things are drastically different. Now instead of trying to write for five instruments with four different timbres you have this gianormous (yes I used it) palette of sounds to work with, to juggle, and to attempt to manage. Its daunting to say the least. If you want to work your way up in the size of the ensemble, write for one group of instruments, learn everything you possibly can about those instruments (I suggest a simple pocket orchestration book to learn the tendencies of the instruments and as a quick reference) and try to fully realize that group's potential. then write for another group and master that one. Then combine the two. Take into account the knowledge that you have of both ensembles and learn to manage both. Keep doing that until you've covered every instrument possible. And by the time you've covered everything, if you've put the work into learning everything about the groups and the instruments, when you go to write a symphony or a wind ensemble piece, the sounds available to you will be so ingrained in your mind that it will just be a matter of writing down what you're hearing. Thats my two cents.

Pretty much agree with the original post. I have barely written anything for a large ensemble setting mostly because there are so many instruments, I don't know what to do with them. I plan on writing something for a large group in the summertime, but first I'm going to start brainstorming exactly how it's going to work. Most of what I've written is for a chamber setting, or even smaller, mostly because that's what I'm familiar with.

I'm 24, and I have yet to write anything big and powerful.

I don't think there is such a thing as a progressive approach. It makes sense in theory to start small and later shoot for bigger ensembles-etc etc, but at the same time, it's not impossible to do it in reverse.

Writing for small ensembles, solo pieces, is not "easy", and in fact it can be much more of a catastrophe than writing something for a large ensemble. Working with least amount of elements, such as instruments, requires a lot from the performers and the composer since there's no way to mask a lack of knowledge of the instruments being written for.

Think of it like this, there's an opinion which states that singing Lieder is much more challenging than an entire Puccini/Verdi/etc opera or mass. Why? Because you have 2, 3 minutes at most of music, and if you mess up even one little thing, the piece is already finished and there's no way to "make it up" later.

Writing for a small ensemble, even if the duration is long, requires a VERY good knowledge of the instruments, that perhaps in orchestration isn't very necessary. Take for example extended technique, which is something chamber-music oriented. Sure, if in an orchestra you use techniques, it must be done through all the instruments for it to have any real audible effect, so there's always a sense of "padding". You can really get away with a lot of things in orchestra-writing that in an ensemble would seem completely dull or plain, or raw.

Plus, while it's true that starting with small chamber pieces can give you great insight into an instrument's color possibilities, in the large ensemble you learn how you can use the "padding" of having a lot more colors to do many things you can't do in a small ensemble. I wouldn't really pick one over the other in terms of order, they're both very important.

Moreover, it's easy these days to grab a good orchestration book like Korsakov's and get a good idea how an orchestra produces certain effects, how to write for it, etc. Sure, the book won't write the pieces for you, but you can get a lot of things done with such knowledge. A small chamber piece on the other hand requires much more than just a book if you want to explore what you can do, it requires arguably talking with the players, learning all the quirks of an instrument that most people have no idea of unless they play the instrument themselves. There's also many other factors you can manipulate in a small ensemble piece, which in an orchestra isn't a possibility, such as where to place the musicians on stage, the acoustic effects you can get out of a room, etc.

Though, if you aren't intending to write chamber pieces modern in character, you can learn a lot from orchestration as how to handle instruments. So in this case, it could be even argued that orchestration should come first.

It's in modern ensemble writing that it gets ridiculously complex. Writing for one instrument can be a nightmare if you're trying to use all sorts of techniques and explore what it can do, this just multiplies if you have more instruments. And a lot of the knowledge can't be applied to orchestration, as there are acoustic principles to be considered. A technique which on a solo instrument is clearly understandable and different from another technique in an orchestral environment perhaps gets lost in between the padding from either the other instruments, or multiple of the same instruments.

Penderecki's Threnody is a good example of string orchestra writing where techniques are used, though he precisely makes use of techniques which require a big ensemble, and can't be done with a smaller one as effectively such as the clusters and etc etc.

When writing, it's much wiser to know what sort of sound you want to produce, rather than be given an arbitrary instrument-requirement and go from there. Like Penderecki, what he wanted to do in threnody required the instruments he used, in such numbers.

In another modern example, take Berio's Sequenza pieces most of which are solo pieces. Can it be said that he did this because he set out just to write solo pieces? Of course not, it was an attempt to develop and look for new sound colors of a single instrument, and through them give pieces a structure and coherence (in different ways each time.) In this context, it's obvious that the pieces must be for solo instruments, as the focus is on the individual color possibilities of a single instrument.

Going back in time a little, it's easy to see where the "category" of instrumentation plays a big role in what the music actually sounds like. A solo sonata for piano won't sound like a string quartet, and so on and so forth. There are pre-established formations and these formations are always bound to some technical character on the side of the actual composition. Probably, it's also due to the fact that certain techniques, forms, etc make "best" use of a particular set of instruments' possibilities better than others.

So, before trying to establish a sort of pattern that every-composer must follow in terms of what to write first, later or finally, it's wise to think that it really doesn't matter as long as the proper research goes into it. You can start writing things for orchestra off the bat, but if you're using modern techniques and such, it'll take a while to research all what's been done. In this case, maybe taking the time to try out the instruments in a smaller ensemble may be beneficial, before engaging in full-orchestra writing.

It's all part of the research, really. I'm of the opinion that each piece must be a research, to so speak. Be it either of the instrument being used, or given composition techniques, or any of these aspects. Within this mindset, I believe that any given ensemble size can be approached with the safety that all the proper studies will be done so that the composition really makes use of everything that is available, or at least that the composer is AWARE of what these instruments he picked can do.

So when the piece is written, there's no "Well I had no idea the clarinet could do that" moment, but instead a much better "I chose to not use it, because it wasn't what I wanted" resolution.

Sorry for wall of text, but hey, someone needs to say this stuff.

In the short time I have been here, i have been amazed in how well expressed you guys are in writing... words that is...

I really enjoy just reading all the debates that happen on here :D

I would say that I am guilty of this "choking".

What I think this whole thing can be traced back to is the whole "eyes bigger than stomach (or mouth)" idea. A lot of us young composers who don't have a clue what we are doing see and hear all of this amazing music being produced and want a part of it. This in conjunction with the positive critiquing (which I support) gives us a sense of prideful ambition. We want to be able to do it and so-and-so just said he heard potential in my last piece, so i must be ready. This pride drives us to buy the 15 pound hamburger when all we have ever eaten is a 1/4 pounder. The sad attempt that follows (to keep with the analogy: the choking and/or near death experiance) should teach us that we shold try the 1/2 next or maybe just a large fry. (or maybe just a 1/4 still). Hopefully, however, we can still get an "A" for effort.

I did this, i tried writing something more "large" in nature. I didn't do so thinking that it would be the next greatest thing. I did it to experiment, to see if i could organize my thoughts enough to do it. When I "finished" it i posted here so that someone could show me some if not a everything i did wrong. I didn't totally drop writing for piano while doing this. I still want to write for piano, I think i can learn a lot of the theory i don't know using the piano as my guide. I mainly tried writing for a large group because that is waht i eventually want to write for and I wanted to get a taste for it. (In a sense, to keep my spirits up).

In regards to the composing with the aim of a proformance:

That is mainly why i write piano. I love writing a piece knowing that I can get my mother to play it on her grand piano at least once(I would play them but that isn't the same thing and i am not very good at piano). I don't think that anything i have writen is good enough for a concert, but her playing is the closest thing i can get right now so that is what i aim for.

All of you "old people" :) kind of saying that we kind of suck right now (not to put words in your mouths) is refreshing and brings things into perspective. I also think that as a whole we should let each other buy the 15 pounder and almost die becuase if the spectators (everyone but the victim of the monster meal) handle their attempts correctly it should be humbling and get everyone on the right track.

True, some willl refuse to humble themselves, but if they like choking and almost dying then by all means! let them eat cake. eventually they will learn... or die... mmm... I guess the problem would be gone either way... lol. jk.

my 76 cents

PostScript: I do hope my thoughts made sense.

Someone commented earlier about how the chamber literature is more difficult than the large ensemble literature. Well thats debatable. There are many modern symphonies that are just as technically difficult than chamber pieces, and vice versa.

Well, it is certainly not always the case, but it can be generally assumed that if you write for a solo performer, she or he will spend more time on practicing the piece than an orchestra musician practicing a part. Of course Ferneyhough orchestra pieces are also difficult, but most orchestra musicians don't even try to play it totally correctly, just play more or less what's in their part, being certain that the audience won't hear the difference anyways.

If you have a piece with 50 individual, independant voices playing at the same time, they generally become just a mass of sounds to the listener. A piece like Ligeti's "Atmosph

I think the biggest point that people seem to be missing is not that we're going from "easy" to "hard." It's that there are things that one will learn doing smaller scale pieces that will be of use when writing larger scale works. And it's unfair to compare Mozart to the majority of young composers, because Mozart was a prodigy and genius, and the majority of young composers are not. And to the people who retort with, "Well, I was writing music at age three," I promise you, you're in the minority. Good for you, really and truly, and if the pieces were good, even better. But the majority of us were not Mozarts at age 3. Or at age 8. Or even now. I include myself in that.

I do a lot of work in theatre, and in my experience, when you give younger people the chance to create something, they feel the need to create something "important." Very often they will tackle material that is beyond their scope or they will write it without the experience necessary to fully examine the subject matter. I don't want to say that all young people do this, but this is from my own experience. I've seen plays that young people write that are supposed to be about "important" issues and making some kind of "statement" in the end, when really the author has no experience whatsoever with the subject matter and comes across as pompous, while the piece carries little meaning at all. I know how harsh that sounds, but it happens all the time. What happens is, very often said author has not taken the time to look at basic things like character relations, steady exposition, plot arc, dramatic irony, etc. They've been so focused on the big idea of their play that the execution gets lost. Conversely, I've seen plays with stupid concepts, or sometimes to be fair less "important" concepts, which are executed brilliantly, and therefore make better plays.

I think very similar things can be said for music. A composer or would-be composer who takes on a huge task before having gone through the motions with smaller things may find himself in a position where his big idea is good, but his execution doesn't communicate the importance or depth of that idea to his audience. Of course, everything is part of a process, and every composer has music tucked away that no one will ever see, or that gets pulled out years later and reworked, but in the end, music is a performance based art. Everything is about communicating something to an audience. It's better to know why something works the way it does, and how one can use that to his advantage while writing, than to have something go right once and not be able to recreate that, or get the full effect from it.

I write pretty solely in the world of cabaret and musical theatre. Cabaret generally focuses on piano, bass and drums. And the music world in MT is getting smaller and smaller (the current revival of South Pacific is using the original orchestration and has 35 pieces in the pit, the current revival of Sunday in the Park with George is not using the original orchestration and has 5 piece in the pit). I've really "orchestrated" one piece--which I've attached--and that's still really small scale.

I've got a show coming up soon which will be very small scale, but which has the chance to transfer to a big theatre with a big orchestra. It's a bit terrifying. These are all songs that I've thought of as sounds and dynamics and harmonies, of course, but mainly in terms of piano and voice. Of course, they can all transfer to a larger orchestra, but that will take a good deal more, to figure out exactly which instruments to best do the job that the piano is doing now and how to mix the multiple sounds across the harmonies, etc. I know this will be quite a task, and I will have an orchestrator helping me, but I do feel confident in it, because I'm taking these songs from a place where they exist in small scale and that work is done, and transferring them over to something larger, where the work becomes deciding exactly how to make it work.

Here's the piece I have arranged, me singing a setting of an Edgar Lee Master poem.

I'm working on pieces for piano alone just now, orchestra is just beyond my capacity at the moment, and, frankly, I'm not terribly interested in orchestral pieces just now (except for Debussy-like pieces). I'll wait until I find out more of what my goals and objectives are, then write orchestra music for what it is supposed to be; a synthesis of mastery of form, texture, voices, and SELF, not just a playground.

That's too bad. My high school music program pushed a lot of people do district and state solo and ensemble events, not to mention our actual school concerts which featured performance of chamber groups. I do totally understand why it happens though, to some extent. Again, the over access is part of it too. If we didn't have Finale, and kids had to write...you know..the old fashioned way, it'd be a lot different.

WOW, you hit the nail over the coffin. That is soooo true, finally is such a detterent to real composition, I mean it works, but spending time on a piano or whatever instrument you play, and composing that way makes you sooo much more intiment with the piece you are composing.

WOW, you hit the nail over the coffin. That is soooo true, finally is such a detterent to real composition, I mean it works, but spending time on a piano or whatever instrument you play, and composing that way makes you sooo much more intiment with the piece you are composing.

It's so easy to just copy paste, shift some notes around and trick people into thinking you know what you're doing. Thankfully MOST people (and especially professors and performers) know better. I was in that camp too. I mean, when I was in high school I had no piano chops at all, I didn't start writing at the piano till I got to college, some of my high school compositions were succesful, usually chamber pieces though (and this one jazz combo I arranged came out quite well, but I transcribed the whole thing from a recording by hand and ear alone). But oh boy, I wrote a band piece, complete scraggy to me now. I wouldn't even dare show that thing to anyway. Looking back, I wish I'd had the guidance to put that energy into writing a piece that would have been manageable and played! There were many talented players at my high school, I could have done it. But hey, we live and learn.

With regard to the original post, I think it's best to start out small the progress on to larger forms with more instruments until you reach the point where you can competently write for an orchestra, but it wouldn't hurt to try out doing some of the large stuff.

It's also a big help to even try out first performing solo then with an ensemble or a band even so that get to have a perspective being a member of an ensemble, trying to read and play out parts so that once you test the waters writing for two or more musicians, you have a better idea and a more realistic approach.

Just some my thoughts on this issue.

It's so easy to just copy paste, shift some notes around and trick people into thinking you know what you're doing. Thankfully MOST people (and especially professors and performers) know better. I was in that camp too. I mean, when I was in high school I had no piano chops at all, I didn't start writing at the piano till I got to college, some of my high school compositions were succesful, usually chamber pieces though (and this one jazz combo I arranged came out quite well, but I transcribed the whole thing from a recording by hand and ear alone). But oh boy, I wrote a band piece, complete scraggy to me now. I wouldn't even dare show that thing to anyway. Looking back, I wish I'd had the guidance to put that energy into writing a piece that would have been manageable and played! There were many talented players at my high school, I could have done it. But hey, we live and learn.

No it's so true, I did the same. When I went to college I really wanted to apply myself to the music and have a more intimate understanding of what I was composing/ That's the reason I started writing on the piano instead of randomnly writing rhythms on finale and hoping they sound good.

I always have a plan. Usually I start with a rhythmic sketch then play around on the piano, and adjust the rhythm accordingly to what I think works, then harmony, then everything else, etc...

I know a guy who's currently attempting to arrange Mozart's 40th for jazz ensemble.

:D

I know a guy who's currently attempting to arrange Mozart's 40th for jazz ensemble.

:D

That has the potential to be very cool

[re: Mozart's 40th for jazz ensemble]

That has the potential to be very cool

Also the potential to be a complete disaster! :whistling: