"Younger" composers biting off more than they can chew

There is this guy here who has arranged Yesterday for string quartet, combining it with Mozart's "Ein Kleine Nachtmusic" (or whatever it's called). And it sounds pretty fun, although I think there's too much Mozart in it..

The point was that I don't think he's going to succeed, at all. It's a Theory I final exam that he chose. He's big on jazz and everything, but yikes, he's only been composing for how long? six months? That's the epitome of this large ensemble, over-ambitious projects for young composers thing I'm hearing about.

Not to say I'm not guilty myself. I've done a fair share of holy crap projects that just didn't turn out great. BUT they definitely did help me as a composer, seeing how everything worked together.

I'm confused precisely what the value of 17th and 18th century counterpoint is, and what people are suggesting. I absolutely for an appreciation of these styles, and this entails practical dabbling and doodling and working out ways you can make something sound good (I enjoy writing fugues, chorales, dance pieces in the style of Bach). More importantly, I enjoy playing his fugues, chorales, dance pieces etc. It is the appreciation and understanding of these things that is good.

But tonality died 100 years ago. We have an unlimited pallete of colours and an unlimited range of expression to explore it with. If anything, I would want any young composer to do as much listening to as much music as possible, perhaps read some books, certainly look at as many scores as one can and figure out how they work at the piano, have a go at conducting along to recordings, and most importantly: figure out what they want to say, musically. This process, for me, will take a long time. But I'm getting there.

And instead of knowledge of renaissance and baroque counterpoint, I might suggest these things that would help:

Knowledge of instrumental capability: talk to musicians, look at the instrument, get them to play for you, understand the different ranges and timbres, understand extended techniques, look at any given instrument as a dynamic and vibrant force for rendering notes on a page - it will never do the same thing twice.

Knowledge of interplay between different instruments: how the string section in an orchestra works, the woodwinds and percussion, small ensembles etc. Talk to conductors, go to concerts and watch, listen and follow along the score to pieces to understand how the different instruments and groups of instruments can work together.

Knowledge of the practical nature of performance: pieces should always, always be written to be played by real people, understanding of the limitations of most performers, and average rehearsal time. Understanding the limitations of instruments: a marimba is not a piano, and cannot play the same things (they can, however, play wonderfully different things).

Knowledge of a range of expressive purposes and standpoints: understanding what the spirit of the piece you have composed is, why it is here, what it is trying to say, why it should be played, why the audience should listen, what the various parties involved should gain from a performance.

This last one is particularly difficult, and probably the one that would take the longest to realise.

I think someone said: "I've never learnt anything from a performance of my work". There is no way, no way that anyone can fully understand the dynamics of music without having their music performed. It is crucial that one sees how notes on the page are translated into physical processes, and what this means for your black marks. This is my opinion, but I hold it fervently. I'm a practical person - the goal for any music is a practical performance. It is not this abstract notion on a page, it is a living, breathing, mass of energy and life and human vibrancy. The only way any budding composer can understand this is to have his or her music performed.

L.

Edit: Most of this is of course excluding electronic compostion. Knowledge of a range of expressive purposes and standpoints should still be there however.

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

I have a fantastic recording of a jazz ensemble playing an arrangement of The Nutcracker Suite. It works because it's faithful to both genres.

Yeah, I'm sure this kid's no Duke Ellington though....(which is who that's by)

...tonality died 100 years ago.

No. Tonality's na

No. Tonality's na

Oh come on Robin, even Liszt and Wagner would probably disagree with that. Hell, even Monk ;-)

Perhaps...but Leroy Anderson and Kenny G would surely agree ;)

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

:whistling:

Amen brother.

Which comes first the piano sonata or the piano concerto?

Perhaps...but Leroy Anderson and Kenny G would surely agree ;)

Kenny G?? How could you.

You know, my dad says he doesn't like Jazz (the stuff Wynton plays, he says) but he owns 2 Kenny G albums. However, he does like Ella Fitz and Harry Connick Jr. I guess that makes up for it.

But hey, at least he doesn't like Chris Botti, I don't know what you think about him B-)

For my high school music theory final I wrote an arrangement of "Try to Remember" by Harvey Schmidt for a small instrumental ensemble... can't remember which instruments. It was pretty much a disaster. This could have been because I wrote it too quickly... *sheepish grin*, but the fact that I wrote it so quickly left me time to do another one, so I wrote an instrumental and vocal arrangement of Sondheim's "Not While I'm Around," which turned out very nicely. I did both of these almost entirely by hand, using the computer only at the end of my process, utilizing the handy "copy/paste" for sections I'd chosen to repeat, and admittedly cheating on the modulations.

Did I learn from my mistakes on "Try to Remember"? Yes, probably moreso than on my success with "Not While I'm Around." And I did think I was writing a great arrangement of "Try to Remember" at he time, which could be played by small ensembles all over the world! But in the end, it was an assignment, and I learned from it. Maybe someday I'll go back to that piece and try to fix what I did wrong... probably not, though.

My point is that there are all different ways to learn, and maybe someone will have an idea for an arrangement that won't work, and that's okay. But only if you learn from it! Anyone who's not willing to listen to the advice that more seasoned musicians have (and I hardly count myself as a terribly seasoned musician) will not be able to improve their own work. Even if the advice is "Start smaller," heed that for what it is. It's probably not someone talking down to you, but someone talking from experience. Anyone who thinks, "Maybe he had that experience, but not me! I'm the next Mozart!" is going to have a very difficult time. That's a person who can't look at his own work critically, find the flaws or accept what other people see as flaws, and try to find ways to improve.

Failure's fine, it happens to all of us. But we use it to do better next time.

Originally Posted by robinjessome

No. Tonality's na

Where'd you get that from?

And learn to use quotes :P

Where'd you get that from?

And learn to use quotes :P

Someone said that tonality died 100 years ago.

Yes... the quotes... I know. :whistling:

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say: "the constraints of tonality died at least 100 years ago".

I also object to the idea (that wasn't stated, perhaps implied; this isn't directed at anyone in particular) that there are two distinct categories for music - tonal and atonal. Sure, many musics fall into these groups, but many musics do not. Gamelan tradition follows rules that could be argued to be tonal and could also be argued to be atonal from a western standpoint. Music for percussion is neither tonal nor atonal, but does involve organisation of relative pitch.

Music is merely this: the organisation of sound (most of the time, relatively pitched sound) events in time.

Most musics involve a set of rules for the organisation of sounds that have a discernable fundemental frequency. In the western art music tradition,

this set of rules is called tonality. In the past, this set of rules was key for music of this tradition - if music stepped outside of these rules it was

frowned upon (and also seen as interesting by some), as if it were outside social norms. Now, we have the freedom to not have to abide by any set of rules put on us by music society. We may do what we like, or as many composers do, create our own set of rules.

As far as I can see, if you choose to work inside the rules of tonality, your works will not be unoriginal (that is a completely different concept, one

that I hastily avoid). The only thing that they will be is tonal. That is it. The difference I see is that composers now have a choice: they can choose to work outside of tonality, in different scales or pitch structures or anything. In the past, composers didn't have this choice.*

L.

*The creation of tempered scales created the opportunity for a composer to choose to work in a just scale or a meantone scale, but arguably the rules of tonality applied to each.

So one can still be original and tonal?

I quite agree that "tonal" and "atonal" are not two distinct musical categories. I might even go further than saying that some music does not fall under this term, by asserting that those terms are stupid in the first place. There, I said it.

I haven't heard any definition of "tonality" that is at least somewhat clear. Tonal centres? Sch

I agree. I'm only 12 and wouldn't even consider trying to write a sonata yet, much less a symphony. I think developing contrapuntal and developmental skills before attempting anything like that. It really gets me going when people at my level call there one-minute-long string crap a "Symphony".

Dude..you're 12? I thought you were 20 by the way you conducted yourself in the box..even more mature than me. Ahh well I was like that..I'll rot you before the year is out for sure, ok? LOL.

I completely agree. One needs to learn the general principles of music before having to orchestrate on top of that.

I disagree. So what if it doesn't sound like a professional symphony. Someone mad early on in this thread said something like "If you're a first year physics student, why not look at a quantum-physics textbook." It's not a perfect analogy, but it holds enough.

Nothing wrong with writing big if that's what you're going for.

And **cough** what are the general principles of music, exactly?

^The thing is a beginner won't learn as fast trying to write an orchestral work and screwing it up or not getting anywhere, just like one won't learn very fast trying to do the problems in a grad-level physics textbook without any physics background. Sure, you'll have more mistakes to learn from, but chances are you won't actually find as much out from those mistakes.

As for the general principles of music:

The principles of music that are general.

I don't choose my words carefully, but you know what I mean.

Of course, this depends on what you want to write. If you want to write music that doesn't follow any the rules of, (as an example) common-practice tonality, you probably don't need to know much common-practice tonality. But you should know the rules of the system you're working with, even if you make them up. Don't get all Ferkungamabooboo-ish on me.

^The thing is a beginner won't learn as fast trying to write an orchestral work and screwing it up or not getting anywhere, just like one won't learn very fast trying to do the problems in a grad-level physics textbook without any physics background. Sure, you'll have more mistakes to learn from, but chances are you won't actually find as much out from those mistakes.

But orchestration and "everything else" aren't just "different levels" of the same stuff. They are totally different topics. You don't need to know how to build a sonata form before you can learn to orchestrate nor vice versa. And even if we're just looking at instrumenation, you can't say writing for an orchestra is like writing chamber music, just harder, so you need to start out with chamber music first. Writing orchestrally is something quite different than writing for small ensemble (as has been mentioned several times in this thread). All those things are not actually "building up on each other". It's quite impossible to establish a "scale of difficulty" to define where one should start out and where one should continue.

And of course I agree with Ferkungamabooboo that the use of the term "general principles of music" in today's times is quite questionable at best. Well, you said "knowing the system you are working with", which is a fair point, if you are working with any system. But how many composers knew what system they wanted to compose in in the long term, before trying out stuff? Or even just "stumbling into stuff"?

If someone feels for some reason that they "bit off more than they could chew" - fine, I suppose they will try another route on their own. And I bet they still have learned a lot. But as long as they feel fine about it, why not let them go on and make their own experiences?

I agree that there are forms of composition that may be more "complex" (i.e. demand attention to more parameters at the same time) than others, but the exact nature of this distinction is highly personal and depends mainly on what your demands of yourself are, what your "standards" are. Brahms may not have felt ready to compose a symphony until quite late, but that was his subjective judgement. Other composers were much more "easygoing" in that respect. Is that necessarily better or worse?

I agree that there are forms of composition that may be more "complex" (i.e. demand attention to more parameters at the same time) than others, but the exact nature of this distinction is highly personal and depends mainly on what your demands of yourself are, what your "standards" are. Brahms may not have felt ready to compose a symphony until quite late, but that was his subjective judgement. Other composers were much more "easygoing" in that respect. Is that necessarily better or worse?

The problem with the whole position on "walking before you can run" assumes that walking will better equip one to run when one reaches that point. In music, this just isn't the case in every situation, or even most situations. Learning how to write a massive orchestral work is entirely different than learning to write a small chamber work. The one truly connecting thread to both is that you're dealing with multiple voices or sounds from instruments/voices/electronics. When it comes down to it, though, one will only have to "re-learn" how to compose all over again when one goes from writing smaller works to writing larger orchestrations.

It's a silly argument to make to say someone should learn how to write a large-scale work only by writing smaller works. There's no reason to think an individual cannot learn how to compose by creating multiple, large-scale works. With a larger soundscape to work from, it almost seems someone could better learn to write larger-scale works from doing it repeatedly, experimenting with different sound combinations and textures. Smaller scale works can be orchestrated for larger ensembles as it is. Look at Ravel, for example. Such lessons in composition can and often do present themselves in the creation of larger works anyway. I don't see any problems with taking it to the next step if it opens us to more possibilities in learning how to compose.

If it's an issue of time or quantity of works, well, that's another issue entirely. Even still, what's the point? I had a professor say the best way to compose is to write as much as possible and just see what sticks. I wholly disagree and think that it's not really something we can quantify either. It's a learning process either way, and no way is really any better than the other.

I agree with everything there.