Getting your music performed

Berlioz wrote a book defending his new style of orchestration. --This book became a textbook, studied by Wagner, Brahms, and many others of the subsequent generation.

Leonard Bernstein gave 6 lectures at Harvard on his musical style, advocating a musical unity worldwide, allowing much more legitimacy of style in art music.

Both Claudio Monteverdi and Artusi, in the 1600s, wrote articles and books defending their musical styles, as well as attacking the other's - Artusi (a theorist and amateur composer) attacked Monteverdi and other composers who 'broke harmonic rules' for destroying harmony. Monteverdi counterattacked saying that in "prima prattica," harmony is the ruler, and the composer, (and by extension the piece,) the ruled, while in "secunda prattica," the modern practice, the composer is the ruler, and rules can be broken where doing so accentuates the text. This idea revolutionized music and led to vibrant vocal traditions in secular music.

The point of all this is that almost all composers at musically revolutionary junctures in history will write books and essays defending their points. And I could be wrong, but I believe Monteverdi, Berlioz, and Bernstein can all be considered truly successful.

Furthermore, I would submit that Schoenberg, when he began to break into 12-tone music, became truly successful. As I mentioned in a different post, he began as a Wagnerist, imitating Wagner's style of leitmotif and tonality. As a Wagnerist, he was virtually unknown. I'm curious as to how 12-tone music in itself can be alienating when it gained a strong composer more following than that composer's tonal music.

As far as music as a philosophical or academic pursuit, think of Debussy and Faure. Faure was an academic composer, using near-perfect or perfect voice leading, strongly major/minor tonal music. And I would, cautiously, submit that Debussy, because his ideas of polytonality and modality were the more revolutionary, is a better-known, and more successful composer. When Debussy was at school, his teachers would chastise him for his poor voice leading - tons of parallel fifths - to which Debussy responded that he didn't care, because what he wrote worked for the meaning and image of the piece. Debussy's revolutionary and less-tonal work is better known than Faure's academic music. Ergo, academic music is not always alienating, new, or different.

Now, I'd like to clarify what I meant by the lack of compositional skill induced by the teaching of contemporary techniques without caveat. What makes Dallipiccola's serial piece so non-alienating is the refinement of the 12-tone row and the structure that the composer uses to create sound. The skill I refer to is not composing, it is refining.

Jazz is [in it's last throes].

I take issue with this statement too. I agree that jazz as a popular art form is certainly not where it was 20 years ago, or even 10. But that doesn't mean it's in its last throes, not by any means. Nearly every college with a music program has a co-existant jazz studies program. Jazz has gone through many permutations and changes over the course of the last 100 years, and while post-20s it has never really had a huge audience, it has had a steady audience.

According to the Nielsen BDS 2003 Year End Music Sales Report, Jazz records sales jumped from 22,642,000 units sold in 2002 to 23,060,000 units sold in 2003. The number 2 best-selling album of 2003 is jazz: Norah Jones' "Come Away With Me." Classical music sales, by contrast, fell over the course of the year. If we want to say anything is dying, it might be classical music - note that classical music includes not only new atonal and 12-tone serial compositions - it is also old standards and new tonal music. In fact, I would guess that it is MOSTLY old standards and new tonal music, because the number of recorded atonal compositions disseminated through record companies is very small. Jazz is anything but dead and dying.

Nielsen Soundscan and Nielsen BDS 2003 Year End Music Sales Report; updated Dec. 31, 2003

http://www.businesswire.com/webbox/bw.123103/233655222.htm

After looking at these statistics, I should like to amend my comment from a previous post; it appears that modern audiences ARE looking for something new, and given that, I'd say to this community that it's our job, as the next generation of composers, to find that.

Dear Christopher,

those people you mentioned have careers outside of serialism and they wrote books explaining their approach, not trying to justify it.

Another point along the serial line is that finding players who can and want to play the music is another huge hurdle. For the majority, both performers and audiences just don't want or need it. Yeah, one or two people made inroads but those roads lead back out of the forest which is where we find ourselves today.

I studied jazz bass at my university and taught it to junior high school kids but even seasoned players will tell you that it is becoming increasingly irrelevant. You can see pictures of me teaching a jazz combo on my website. Consider the Norah Jones example. Is that really jazz or some kind of easy listening ballads with jazz chords and pop form? Your call. I know it's not anywhere near the level of desperation that classical music if the price of cds is any indication but jazz's voice is being buried for good or ill. That's my opinion.

Gongchime

it appears that modern audiences ARE looking for something new, and given that, I'd say to this community that it's our job, as the next generation of composers, to find that.

I'd rather give them something new in an old way. I still don't believe there remains anything really new to be said in music, and nothing I've heard lately has changed my mind.

In Toronto, one store started playing classical music to drive the rowdy teenagers away. They were replaced by a whole bunch of other teenagers who loved the stuff. Including, I admit, a member of the original board.

And have you been to an opera lately? How many people in full dress did you see, as opposed to how many people with mohawks?

I've complained about this before, but every so often while browsing the classical section of the main music store downtown back home I get asked whether I work there. Why else, after all, would a - gasp - teenage girl be looking at the classical music?

Still, it was a lot worse when I was younger. As in fourteen or fifteen. As in too young to work in the store, period.

If one steps back a bit from embracing or rejecting this or that, then serialism/atonality can be redeemed. If we avoid making a work dissonant in it's entirety, then serialism becomes a tool which can be exploited to build tension in or between sections. This appears to be a more sane approach from where I'm standing. It can be incorporated like spice in an entree. You don't just eat a bowl full of spicy peppers is the problem.

Gongchime

Well I geuss it would take a while to develop a hunger for a bowl of spicey peppers.(though at the moment, that seems pretty good)(literally)

Wow, I just got done scanning through these pages of materials and the topic seems to have really strayed from Getting your music performed...lol.

Excellent.

Well I geuss it would take a while to develop a hunger for a bowl of spicey peppers.(though at the moment, that seems pretty good)(literally)

Have you seen the way some Indonesians eat? One bowl of hot peppers for each bowl of rice! (Same size bowls!)

Right, let's get down to business :D

I believe that opera is not dead. Alright, it's not played as much nowadays as it was a few hundreds years ago, but it's still going. Some of the best composers came out of opera, e.g. Wagner or Bizet.

As regards instruments. I always find that if you've had a go on a certain instrument and discover it's range and capabilities, it's always better than sitting back and reading a book. Because I'm a strange person :D I've now conquered the strings section. I can play the violin, viola, cello and bass (only 16!) and it's helped so much in string writing. I've also managed to get my hands on a flute, oboe and clarinet and that too has helped in orchestration.

Now the piano was my main instrument (I'm sure there are many others like me) and initial compositions from a piano player are very piano-istic especially in orchestral terms. I've seen countless compositions from others who write constant arpeggios and alberti bass lines with the cellos and double basses. When you play an instrument, you get to learn things that a book won't tell you. For example, a few months ago I was in the middle of rehearsing Mussorgsky's Night on Bare Mountain on the cello and came across a double stop trill (open C and trill on the C an octave higher). Now, as a composer for a year and a bit, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind and if I hadn't had seen it then, I probably wouldn't have until some time later.

I agree that most composers write concertos for instruments that they either can't play or can't play to that level but that's the point really, you're writing it for something better than you. What a way to boost esteem ;)

Now back to the point of performing (which has widely diverted to instrumentation and spicy peppers). I'm a member of two orchestras and after two years of being in there, I had enough experience and knew more or less everyone, to ask the conductor if he would be interested in premiering a new work. I have to say that most orchestras are usually interested in new works from people within the orchestra because firstly, they're not commissioning it and therefore no money needs to be paid out and secondly, no one else has heard it before. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not sure!!!

Also, get contacts! Wherever you can, get contacts. Go to concerts of other orchestras, send e-mails to orchestras in your regions or around your region (don't spam!), ask teachers to look out for info for you, look into composition competitions and have a go.

It's all worked for me. This year, at the lovely age of sweet 16 (I'm more stubborn 16 but anyways...), I'm working with three different orchestras around Ireland and have two other professional orchestras interested.

Motto for today (and for many other days): oppurtunitues won't land on your doorstep, you have to get off your bum and go looking for them! :(

It's great that you've got all those opportunities... however, should all of that fail (and it already has), the result is that it becomes hard to continue composing large-scale works knowing that the chance of performance in the next few years is basically nil. My own experience is that I've never seen an orchestra even slightly interested in performing new works that it didn't commission, even if composed by a member of the orchestra. It may have something to do with starting later - youth orchestras may be more interested in their members' compositions?

(And you can tell I'm getting very bitter about it and sounding like a broken record already, can't you?)

Here's the thing, Nico - if you (as the more-than-averagely-gifted composer) applied to a composition program for college... you might not be a starving composer - you might have a shot at being a non-starving composer.

Nico does bring up a good point... when you're younger you have the chance to be recognized as a brilliant composer for your age. However, it's difficult to make the step from that to being a serious composer, without making continuous improvement, because once you get past age 18 or so, you lose "prodigy" status and people start to lose interest unless you're writing music that makes them sit up and pay attention. That said, "prodigy" status gets you a foot in the door, and you need to take advantage of it.

I sometimes wonder if the music world puts too much stock in youthful talent, while ignoring the fact that those who start late but do extremely well in a short time are just as talented as those who started early in life. That may actually be the main source of my own difficulties: I started too late, so the only thing that I can use to draw attention is the quality of my work.

I'm fortunate enough to have had 4 of my works performed :D Nothing big (orchestral) yet. Unfortunately I've not been able to attend any of them as they were kind of in different parts of the world.

2 were arrangements - Mozart's Linz Symphony (third movement) for wind band, and 'A whole New World' (from Aladdin) for string quartet.

2 originals - One oldish piece for a small brass ensemble march called 'Attack!' and 'Clockmaker' for piano and violin, although this performance was actually done on euphonium. I have a CD of it :D

All these have come from my sibeliusmusic.com website.

Yeah I do find that as well. Being young is kinda of a good and bad opportunity. People do remark you as being somewhat gifted but always, don't want to take anyone on too young :D

I'm trying to write as much as I can before I get to college so I have something to hold in my hand and wack around the professor's head :D I think it's a case of writing what you can that is good work - and I mean good work. There's no point trying to amuse yourself with boring stuff, it just doesn't work.

Get it and try and get people interested. Like in the author's world, you're going to get many rejections from publishers but there will one (or more if you're lucky) who would be interested. I'd say to keep an ear out for composers in your area and try and meet up with them, just so you have a contact of someone who is a bit higher up the ladder. In Ireland, we have the Contemporary Music Centre (www.cmc.ie) which is a help for established Irish composers. Is there anything like that over where ye are?

Probably something like that exists in the United States... but knowing just about no composers other than those on YC makes it hard to meet more, and now that I'm already in medical school (and having started composing halfway through college) there's little chance of even seeing composition professors unless one shows up as a patient at some point. I might have to rely entirely on YC to make connections, which could mean waiting until some of the better-connected composers here get noticed.

I'm starting to find that being somewhat prolific can help - few people are interested in a composer who's currently working on his third and fourth pieces in his lifetime, after composing pretty continuously for more than 3 years. Basically I write everything for performance, but taking forever on each piece makes it more difficult to convince anyone to perform my music...

Are you quite done stalking me? :(

lol that's too good...