Composers: Avoid this cliché! 

I like to think of a composition as the composer's child. It is brought to life and is guided by him, but also has a life of its own: during the composing process and after drawing the double barline. I am often troubled by extending a musical idea/section, so this issue resonates with me. But sometimes all the child needs is to play with you and be silly together. Thinking this way helps me break my mental block as well.

I think that we should be aware that "listening to the material" and trying to find out what the material "wants or needs to do" is a perception that is inside the artist. My perception of what a piece of musical material "needs" to do will most likely be different from what another artist would perceive for the same material. I think listening to the material and playing with it is the way to let the material connect within ourselves so that we can experiment and find a way forward that is satisfying for us. Planning is necessary to get us started, but it is impossible for us to know everything before we begin. The artist Chuck Close said "The best ideas come out of the process. They come out of the work itself." Playing around with our material can reveal ideas that we could not have had before we began. These ideas would not have been possible if we only followed a preconceived plan.

I think your first thought was correct. The best melodies are already alive and in existence below consciousness and all we have to do as artists is translate it without manipulating it, like planting a flower and letting it grow, not pulling it and trying to stuff it in a bouquet.

Thanks for addressing this question so forthrightly and candidly. This is something I deal with all the time and I think it entirely appropriate and revealing that the two quotes you used in the video are both from visual artists rather than musicians/composers. I have found that my own attitudes about this matter have been fundamentally influenced by my experience in doing collage. The sort of Beethoven/Cage-Feldman antimony you refer to, for me, has evaporated because the semi-improvisational aspect of collage making puts you in the position of either intentionally (or unintentionally) making stuff that you may (or may not) accept and forces you to recognize the force and opportunity of accident. Sometimes the tolerances are small a single millimeter either way destroys everything; other times, the tolerances are very broad and, if the arrangement of elements is strong enough, it’s so compelling that there is no other way to do it. At this point, for me anyway, the thing is listening, not to the material or any particular act of will, but to the experience you are having while you are doing it and what it is telling you about yourself. Ultimately, you are going to make some kind of decision anyway (even if it is a decision not to make decision) but you can go on from there always knowing that you can do it over, do something else, put it aside for a while or go on to the next section or the next piece.

"Duality is always secretly unity." ~ Alan Watts

Both of these answers are very philosophical and abstract; as a student I'd much rather have something concrete, practical, mundane - something to add to my toolbox, so that at a later point when i'm more experienced, i can also philosophise about how to use the tools in the box.

I love this idea that the passive and active approaches to the material are opposite ends of the same spectrum. The differing approaches across the career of Franco Donatoni presents an interesting case. Interestingly, it is the passive approach employed in his early works that sees the destruction of the material. The later works involve an active approach where he is able to intervene in the process, resulting in music that is vibrant and free. For me, great composition is about this tension between the two.

I like an idea of an artist being a "navigator". He has a general sense of direction but he's also reactive to the changing circumstances and incorporates all the happy accidents. At the end of the day, any creative thought was planted in our brain by some outside force (whether we're concious about it or no is secondary). And being attentive to the randomness of the "material", "fabric", "sound" etc paradoxically brings us closer to a true "creativeness". There are just more "forces" to play with in such approach, more opportunities.

I agree with Man Ray. When I let go of attachment to the structure and design of an underlying composition, my solo jazz piano improvisations attain their highest levels of vibrancy and originality. It's a thrilling journey every time.

Glad you mentioned oscillating between the two. Sometimes when I am spontaneous and follow the material I come up with something I never could have come up with deliberately, sometimes I come up with something utterly mundane. Sometimes when I impose my will it sounds forced, sometimes it's exactly what the piece needs. I sometimes avoid the latter because I can't be bothered to do the hard work!

Two additional comments: To listen to material I have composed, I need to let it sit for a few days. Another quote..actually a paraphrase from Stravinksy: The more you limit or restrict what you're doing, the more creative you become.

Rock band KISS followed these Beethovian and Man Rayan words of creation advice to the letter. The result was 1981's "(music from) The Elder". Their masterpice.

For me personally, I have a very top-down approach of deciding structure first and also having a strong idea of what message each piece is trying to convey and that is the guiding force for each decision I make about what to do with my material. I often find if I'm listening back to the material and trying to be "instinctive" what I'm actually doing is subconciuosly just replicating or stealing something that already exists. However, I don't think composing is a one-size-fits-all activity. I believe some think very consciously about what techniques they use to develop material, others simply let it flow out of them, and many more lie somewhere on a spectrum somewhere in between. I wonder with this student if your advice might be attemting to fit a square peg into a round hole, in that that simply doesn't align with their way of thinking/working.

Congratulations, you described the work of Deathspell Omega :) I expected this video to be relatively cliched and ordinary, but it ended up being mindblowing. I love your way of thinking, I'll definitely go and listen to your music, you are a genious.

So cool that Ray Liotta is a composition teacher!

Loved the inquiry into this duality. The most recent recording project I’ve done was 5 sessions of free improvisation as a duet performance. Afterwards the recording was manipulated in various ways to embellish the different movements of the pieces. In places, the original duet was orchestrated with additional instruments. And finally, the second edition of these were mixed down as a sound recording. So the two polarities of the duality are moving around at any given point in the process. Although care was taken in order to preserve the original spontaneous performance. It also is kinda funny that a composer wouldn’t listen to their own work and had to be reminded.

Interesting. It seems helpful not to be beholden to either, but to freely choose one, without needing to despise its counterpart. Dancing with both might offer a nice contrast.

This is a very interesting video and topic, thank you!!! Listening to the material means, in my opinion, first of all becoming as aware as possible of the qualities of the material itself and their behaviour. Secondly, when one indulges the material by 'letting it speak', it means allowing it to express itself in an inertial manner (thus derived from our cultural-perceptual training and education to which we are accustomed): that is when the composer must act, precisely to ensure that the inertia of the material does not lead to a cliché.

The thing that really impressed me when I visited Lascaux was that they had reproduced a simulacrum of the cave, to millimetre accuracy. And the reason they did this was obvious when the guide showed us that by holding the light in a certain way, the shadows of the bumps in the rock formed part of the animal figures. It made me realise that right from the birth of art, tens of thousands of years ago, it was a conscious dialogue with the material. Even the caves were not blank canvasses, but the animals were as much discovered there as imposed there. That "smells" right to me. I think I'm very suspicious of anyone who claims a god-like ability to impose an artistic vision on material because a) chances are that the material will resist more than they imagine, and so they'll end up with something awkward; and b) what they mistake for their own genius is just as likely to be some old clichés they internalised from their own education and aren't even aware of. An artist who is self-aware enough to know they are in dialogue with a material, at least has a sporting chance of doing something interesting, because they can find inspiration in that struggle with it, or can explicitly adopt new materials to expand their knowledge and techniques.

I am a student composer, I think it's important to recognize/diagnose rather is the resistance or inertia of a material, the mean of it is to gain a certain sense of control, so finally what you say about "listen to your material" and what you have quoted does not necessarily contradict to on another. For me, what it means of being inert, is that the material doesn't permit itself of achieving certain kind of penetration(if you know what I mean lol..), some other student composers without realizing it will be abusing their idea/material all over the place.

This articulates exactly the struggle I'm involved with. Polystrophism, my method of composition, has aleatoric aspects but I always retain an autuer perspective but it's hard to know which way to go sometimes. Genuine food for thought.

I was just about to paint you❤️

Thanks for this video! This was helpful to me as I haven't really composed major new material in over a year now and one of the major things that I feel holds me back is this feeling that the material is too important to sacrifice, and that I can't give it up and start over again. Sometimes admitting you started with a bad idea and reshaping it is the best way to move forward.

Very eloquently put, as always!

There are many ways to manipulate and transform the material into different shapes and things to come. Extending an idea or the section longer depends on which material (motif, theme, timbre, etc.) you're working on. Starting by planning the whole piece out helps get it done in some cases. But most of the time, things don't work out as on paper. That is when I start listening to the material, aiming to figure out how to put them to different uses. Analyzing the material is also recommended. Once you understand more of it, you'll find it easier to work with. Then, just let the music flow. A few adjustments may occur during the process, but the final result will stay mostly the same.

I tell my students "when god talks you must listen" which essentially means inspiration trumps all other considerations. I also tell them to follow whichever thread is leading them, whether it be rhythm, melody, or any other thing that might tug at your ear. I myself was raised largely in the Schoenberg camp (studies with Pat Carpenter and working with Jacques Louis Monod) so I'm all about "the material." But I also teach them about "process forms" a concept that can applied to both Cage and Babbitt, where a rule structure is set up that determines the outcome of the piece. And I also do a fair bit of free jazz, so improvisation is also encouraged. Coming from the Schoenberg camp, I teach a lot of formenlehre. I use two rubrics I got from Pat, "Something changes, something stays the same" and "beginnings, middles and ends." The first of these refers to the process of developing variation, and the second to structural functions. Also, I teach them anything they want to know in whatever style they are working in and if I don't know then we learn it together. I don't know how much of this is pertinent but I felt great sympathy for everything you described. Your comments about adaptability are spot on.

I agree completely with you when you said that both have their place. I recently came across a quote from Fauré: "Do not try to be a genius in every bar." I think that encapsulates the idea of this balance. Once one has material to work with - a motif, a melody, a whole section of a piece - something of that protean act of creation has already been accomplished, and that material has inherent tendencies arising from how we structure music and the internal relationships of the material (functional harmony, voice leading, the treatment of dissonances, and so on). Consistently and deliberately ignoring literally all of those tendencies would, I suspect, make it almost impossible to get a musical result. I like the idea of allowing the music to develop on its own, content in the initial act of raw creation that impels the whole process, while exerting will over the material to accomplish the remarkable, unexpected and inspired only when it can be done "with the grain" - i.e. when there's some conceivable connection, that makes sense, that can be induced stably and robustly, no matter if it's an improbable connection that the material is not probabilistically inclined to make on its own.

I think what we're dealing with here is part of a broader problem of creativity that has roots in multiple areas of our lives - education, artistic training, psychological work and growth over time, the nature of learning, etc. We typically approach questions of creative production from the production side - i.e., in the middle of some work. We effectively enough come to grips with direct questions about creativity itself - what is it, what is its phenomenology, how does creative practice change over time and with practice, what inner work can be done to enhance creativity, what does creativity mean in the context of a given genre, etc. So often it seems that we're arriving at this view of creativity from the beginning. We lack a common vocabulary, familiar models of artistic inner work and practice. It's not that these aren't available, but very few of us (myself included) have probably studied the inner life of creativity - creative problems, the self-analysis of one's creative inner workings, the nature of the new itself, how new thoughts get formed, the functions of divergent and convergent thought - in a sustained way. Few, possibly no, graduate level courses deal directly with the practice of creativity itself (the psychological study of creativity, yes, but the practice, not so much). If you think about it, it seems like an obvious and also odd oversight that we emphasize technique and theory, but don't directly address in a sustained way how to live, think, self-analyze, find sources of inspiration, and just generally and fully embody this faculty that we call creativity.

A few weeks ago I had a composition masterclass with Chaya Czernowin and I got a similar feedback, though more in the sense of not making the piece about what I want the music to sound like, but rather how it naturally evolved after I give it an initial input. Very much with the line of thought of "taking off the mental workload". The struggle I'm having with it is that both "artificial" and "natural" developments are at the end of the day both products of my personal thoughts and consideration (unless I go for an algorithmic piece), so it's sort of an impossible task.

Very interesting video, as always. You are pointing to the dialectic between the bricoleur (interiority, ready-made) and the engineer (exteriority, the new). Maybe the dualism is not unsurmountable: have you ever heard the neologism (coined by Joyce) "Chaosmos"? Engineering the relationship between ready-mades?

I think it's really the harmonious dance between both,the wisdom to know when to do which one makes all the difference .

Sometimes when you work on the material you realize that its life span is over, that it can no longer be kept alive. I mean, if you have this perception, it means that it is time to abandon it in favor of new horizons. This brings me back to the first option with a small addendum: pay attention to your material but also to the life span of your material. In any case, I would like to express my admiration for your position. You give up being right even though you are putting yourself forward as a teacher. This, for me, is the greatest lesson that a true teacher can offer. Congratulations.

Love it!! Very nice advise. Gives some ideas on the processes available. Thank you Samuel!

Whether you are attached to, or detached from the material, both positions seek to optimize a sense of creative freedom and control.

It's interesting you've chosen two visual artists to provide the "contempt for the material" viewpoint, but I'm not sure that music is created the same way as visual art, because music is something that transpires temporally, as visual art does not, and it requires one idea to follow another. Figuring out what comes next requires listening and re-listening to the potential possibilities. When I find myself uncertain or heading in a too safe direction or too predictable (that is, an easy to hear progression), it is then that I bring in the attitude that the idea needs to be thrown off it's axis a bit. The way I would apply the "contempt for the material" idea to music, is to say, don't be so in love with the last phrase your wrote, or the melody you wrote that you don't want to leave it behind in the developmental process. It's an act of faith, rather than an attitude of contempt that let's you believe the idea has the potential to build a 10 minute movement around. I see the organic creative process as one of the true acts of faith in life one can commit to. It says that if I follow my process, listen carefully and pick the very best possibilities I can imagine and I remain patient enough to pause and step back when they don't immediately come, then when I get to the end I will have done my ideas justice and created a good and interesting piece of music. A good example of a composer being too in love with an idea is the Notturno: Andante from Borodin's 2nd string quartet. It's a pretty melody but he loves it too much and keeps repeating it rather than developing it. Perhaps Sam, you are being too hard on yourself. Because music is aurally perceived, listening is the most appropriate way of speaking about the organic process of composition. I think maybe your choice of language may have been vague, but the idea behind it is still vital.

It goes without saying that both approaches are valid. I would only add that an improvisor who is perhaps over-reliant on the material to dictate the direction, I learn a lot from forcing myself to take the opposite tack. I assume that the same is true with an “idea first” inclination.

Thank you for the thought-provoking video. I would argue that the material comes alive only in the subjectivity of those who engage with it-composers, performers, listeners, researchers (etc.) But this isn't to say that it is an inert or dead substance upon which the composer imposes her individual will, as though conquering the material (this is an outdated Romantic ideology). For the composer (as a reified individual, a self or identity) is just as inert a substance as the material with which she engages. Insofar as it should be the goal of the composer to "shape" inert material, this should come about through a process of self-effacement, which explodes and informs that material. The life-bearing form of a piece is an almost chemical reaction, an encounter of self-effacing love, between two forces-composer and material-that, without their respective counterparts, are inert.

I'm pretty certain that, with any given piece that I write, both things happen... meaning some elements come from a great deal of thought & effort on my part, & some elements come from me getting the heck outa the way & letting things make their way with me being little more than a facilitator. I value both approaches. I'll have to try & pay close attention to see if I can get any sense of what the ratio is, which process leads to results that I feel more fulfilled by, & so forth. but this was a great little vid & it really got my wheels turning. thanks much.

This is a cool discussion, it really gets at the heart of why I find this field engaging! I studied with a fella who was pretty good friends with cage, and in the humdrum of all that, figured out that the trick for me is the artist as “magician” archetype! It’s a hybrid between getting out of the way of your materials and using will to nudge your material along, like “channeling” sound! I feel like I’m not doing this idea justice, but I hope folks get what I mean lol 😂

As a Hegelian I’d say that it’s not a question of letting the materials speak - they don’t speak. We are the only thing that speaks, has ideas, *composes*. But that shouldn’t be understood as us imposing on that which is not us, not in the Promethean/ Beethovenian manner you speak of, and even less in the Barnett Newman sense that the artist manipulates inert matter (which sounds like dualism/mechanical philosophy to me). What we do and are is a result of coming to a kind of accommodation with what is not us, turning what was sense into idea. But the process is not once and for all time. Our conceptions become out of date, they are no longer adequate to the challenge of our continuing encounter with the world. Perhaps that’s what your advice to your student was about. Listening to something again can possibly release us from the grip of now reified conceptions of the work. The mind gives up its idées fixes and hears the composition as an outsider would. A new perspective - perhaps - can be generated.

This is a fascinating topic. And I think your assessment that both "ends of the spectrum" are correct, even for the same artist, but in different situations. One thing that particularly intrigues me about that opening anecdote is the student's befuddlement at the idea of listening to the material. I know it'd be unfair of me to judge this person's thoughts without knowing exactly how the conversation happened, but I do have this growing suspicion, through my own interactions with aspiring composers, that people want to make music without *listening* to music. I even know some people who are hostile to the idea of learning music my listening to it and learning to imitate it. They believe all knowledge should be theoretical, and that it's "anti-intellectual" to simply listen and learn by example. So, when you say that someone was puzzled by the idea of "listening to the material", I think that could happen very literally. Some composers might be led to believe that music is the notes on the paper, and the actual sound is just an accidental byproduct. But as for the main point of the video, for myself, I like to think that most of my compositional process is unconscious and uncontrolled. I have no idea where things come from, they just come. I hate to think of myself as the "god" of my art. That notion might seem very alluring to people coming from imperialist countries who believe they have the divine right to be the "god" of other peoples, but me? I'm just a member of a community, I'm a result of society. I have no urge to "deform" the material, because the material of my music is ME. I guess this is something very peculiar about music: we don't really have a "canvas" so to speak. At best, our canvas is time, and the very process of making music is already a deformation of time. Does it make sense to have contempt for time itself? Isn't that pretty ridiculous? Can we be "gods" of time, when time is the true god of us all? With all those things said, I think that, ultimately, I do have the final word on the music I make. As far as the things I release, it's my ultimate decision to release it or not. So even if the entire process of composition were beyond my control, I can still "control" it by not putting it out. So, during the process, of course I make conscious, deliberate decisions, and nudge the process towards the path I want it to go. But my instinct is always to listen to the music and ask what it wants. The music lies outside and above me, I'm only guided by it. I make take the reins for a few moments, but only as a process of understanding what it needs. In the end, music is my goddess, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'm only a hobby composer, so I don't know how much that applies to music, but as a visual artist, I always ask myself what the painting wants to be. If I have a (relatively) clear answer, then the painting process is about conquering the idea on a technical level and getting there step by step. If I don't have an answer, then the process is more about letting it grow organically and just stopping at the right moment. Interestingly enough, the first case (at least for me) usually starts with a very strong, sometimes very emotional inspiration, while the second case usually starts with a technical curiosity.

super interesting vid ! today i'm setting up to record an improvised piece , featuring a couple of my friends to aid me in performing . we've arranged bells , singing bowls , chimes , triangles , cymbals of all sorts , for something very abstract . something atmospheric . and it occured to me watching this , i must be very close to the side of the spectrum whereby the artist sets up a situation rather than meticulously pieces together every pitch . i think it's just different types of music . it's fun to me personally when even the artists themselves can be surprised by their own spontaneous choices .

I agree with your first statement, but to take it one step further, what is the original intent, and what are the unexpected things that arrise and beign open to them. "kill your darlings" is attributed to Ingmar Bergman about not falling in love with your material to the degree that you keep things that should be discarded. But in a lecture with the writer Eskild Vogt, he said, (my paraphrase, not his exact words) for him it is About your darlings, allowing them to develop and to find a home for them. And there in "listen to your materials" what potentials do they have where cane they go and what can you make to develop them. That said, it is important to be open many methods and any methods. Sometimes in writing, when I am stuck in say a drama, I reimagine it as a camp-horror-comedy or a musical or anything that seems antithetical as a way to loosen up ones relationship to the material

I feel the 2 approaches are both valid, the question being how appropriate is each approach in the context of the piece being created. I guess that in itself is saying the material and/or concept of the work is demanding the more manipulative approach.

I always thought "listening to the material" has got more to do with staying in organic relation, in a dialogue with the piece in its progress, thus I wouldn't think of the attitude comming from the Mr Barnett Newman's words. He says about the temptation of the empty canvas facuture, its nostalgic connotations etc - this is not a about the dialogue that you can have with yourself while working on music, this would be about listetning to timbres of instruments etc, not about stepping out few steps from your intellecual and emotional process of music making/composition in order to meet the result in its current status. I do agree the best results can come from combaining both ways - rational and intuitive. After the concept let your imagination go,a nd than analize the result, and again let the intuitive thing happen - or other way around.

It's a mysterious mixture of many experienced aspects I would say. Steering and not steering, free wheeling and not freewheeling! Sometimes it seems it's all spelt out and sometimes it's a large struggle. But to keep things open really, go to the open door and peer through it. 🙂

When asleep, the creative powers are unshackled and limitless. I have dreamt of reading books where entire pages appear immediately at the turn of every page. I have dreamt of orchestras being played by invisible hands. Sleep on it, but with intention. The unconscious mind is an ocean of what was, what is and what will be.

Agreed, it’s a polarity, and therefore if one seeks balance in their work they oscillate between both. but if you want to be like Barnett on one side or Pollock representing the other approach there is also the false hope of purity of modernity.

Love your channel... Your comments recall Harold Bloom's about Shakespeare that he was such an artist as could create his characters and then pare his nails while his creation wasted itself from its own richness, with his characters basically acting out the arc of their persona and determining the plot (in the greatest tragedies anyway)... This is a profound and critical insight -- to listen to one's own material. Corollary to that of course is to discover and invent themes worth of introspection. For my favorite sort of music (baroque counterpoint), the question is more mathematical and about what subject generates (calls forth) useful counter-subjects. Here is a fascinating question for a future video btw... Are you aware of whether there are any algorithmic music generators using AI these days that are writing decent, convincing, emotionally appealing, complex counterpoint? I am aware of a lot of "ambient AI music", but I would think that robust counterpoint should in principle soon be doable. However I am not up on the scene, and have no sense of if this is being gainfully done... It would be fascinating to see neural nets applied to the problem of "organic origination of germs or genetic material" to write e.g. in the style of JSB.

Interesting. How about inspecting the material? modifying it’s parameters consciously and with less attachment. I think that Listening, as for itself ,does not imply what is our position. Are we listening to analyze it, or to come up with intuitive ideas ? I feel that the main point is what is our strategy, later the actions.

What is material? I would suggest it's a situation. For Beethoven that situation included tonality, time signature, a standardized notation system, a pool of available instruments and not least a system of well-established linkeage rules. For Man Ray on the other hand 'material' meant a quite different situation. Ever since Duchamp had introduced the paradigm change of the ready-made, there was no longer a preestablished art material, but in fact anything could be applied as material for creating a work of art. In order to establish this paradigm change, artists deliberately avoided traditional art material, and that also implied avoiding traditional artistic form procedures. The 'contempt' for the material, that Man Ray expresses, is also a contempt for those procedures, on which Beethoven still depended. He emphazised artistery over material, while Man Ray rejected both, material and artistery alltogether, in order to emphasize the idea, as an intellectual entity. The Cageian stance is somewhat related, but goes a step beyond. He withdrew from the traditional process of subduing the material to his own urge for expression, however not to eliminate the material's role in the creative act, but rather to support it in enfolding its inherent qualities. For Cage, of course, the 'material' was immediate sound, as opposed to 'musical material' which is sound pre-shaped by the tradition of music. Today, we're aware of the fact that there is no such thing as immediate sound. There is only hearing. What we hear depends on what we chose to hear and what we chose to ingnore (that choice being made consciously or unconsciously). That makes composition the art of shaping the attention to sound, rather than shaping sound itself.

One thing that immediately comes to mind is the obsession with material I see from many composers and composition teachers. They all want you to restrict yourself to just one or two ideas. That obsession I think is vastly exeggerated sometimes. While it is true that there is a danger in having too many motives, melodies and over-all ideas in your piece there is also a danger of being too much of a Beethovenish materialist, I think. Firstly, there is more than one way to let the music develop and it does not have to be the Beethoven-like approach. Secondly, music is not only about working with motives - it is also about inner formal tension of contrasting musical themes, melodies and ideas.

This is interesting. I was a composition major in college and had some reasonable success at it. But not long after graduating, I abandoned composition and went into conducting. I always found it terribly difficult to flesh out small scale ideas into longer forms. The results either sounded directionless or, on the other extreme, derivative and predictable. I realized that I would be better at advocating for composers I admired rather than writing works that weren’t as good as the pieces by the composers I admired. I do sometimes wonder though if I should have stuck with it or if, now decades later, I should try composing again.

This is an interesting topic that is not discussed enough. There a endless amounts of clichés in music education that, in my opinion, inhibit understanding and growth on the part of the student and give the teacher an easy out, without having to properly wrestle with the problem the student is facing. I think ultimately attitudes are tools, whatever works to get the job done and helps you reach your goal is useful, be it listening to the material or actively subjecting it to your will.

I've found more peace with my music when I disconnect from the product as being the goal and let the journey be the real prize, taking it's own shape relative to the music being written. As with most metaphysical conversations on art, I think the answer is likely some combination of 'both and' which makes either individual experience, regardless of objectivity, just as valid.

Sometimes composers lose that 'improvisational' aspect and the end result of their work can be theoretically interesting but 'dead' on arrival, an agglomeration of notes for instruments but nothing musical. Vice versa some have great flashes of ideas / spontaneity but lack depth of thought in their work and can't funnel music into a structure that serves it best. What helped me was 1. painstaking, obsessive revision process even after completion of a piece 2. not fixating on ideas or a pre-det. structure and 'filling it in' with notes, but allowing myself to edit my content if necessary until it satisfies me (repetition, truncation, reprises, correctly transitioning into another idea etc.)

One approach seems to be about the composer controlling the music, and the other is about the music controlling the composer (to an extent of course). I forget who it was that said that Josquin controlled the music, rather than that the music controlled him (Martin Luther?). Something along those lines. I think that quote is referencing Josquin's skill as a composer, but im not saying that being controle by the music means a conposer is unskilled. That would only be the case if the composer was only able to work in that approach. And sometimes its nice to let the music happen on its own. It can be freeing, and you can get misic that is different than if you were being a control freak. Both approaches have their benefits. I like to let the music develop organically, but I will throw out any ideas that don't fit, perhaps saving it for another occasion. Its like a hybrid approach. It certainly doesn't feel like I control the music, other than that I have the authority to burn it at will, and so I would like to be more a control-the-music type of composer so that I can more easily move between approaches at will.

I'm writing a simple waltz for string orchestra and in the beginning I was so happy with how beautiful it sounded. I now am hating the first 3 minutes of it and am considering trashing the beginning for material I feel is better in the second section. I've made it come alive and it's malleable now. Lol

I'm on the side of "we are only the medium, the receiver and shouldn't get in the way of the divine manifesting itself" and think of this opposite idea as a kind of blasphemy and human hubris. Though there are surely times when you kind of have to force it a little, no doubt.

Got me thinking.

Maybe it's about the difference between writing the music that we hear in our heads (or music our hands play that "sounds right") and music that is constructed via an abstract process(e.g. serialism, aleatoric methods, rules of counterpoint, augmentation, diminution, etc.); a sort of inspiration vs perspiration dichotomy.

Just have things to compose about (and I'm not just referring to titles or lyrics). Don't let any principle of form get you stucked.

I like to start very abstract and even use algorithm or some element of chance. At that stage the music has not yet come to life but remains on some conceptual level. Later I can "listen to the material" and go wherever it wants to go.

I'm not sure which side I embody. I'd almost say that within a session of writing I use both. I'm using my will to create an initial subject, and then I let it take me where it wants to go for a bit. If I like where it goes I'll keep it, if not, I'll either do one of two things (just repeating both of the concepts over and over), either let another instrument or concept take the reigns, or again impart my will into the subject. To be fair, I don't think I can really separate these two states. Your will is imposing upon the page and the page is simultaneously imposing upon your will. It's a dance, and when it flows naturally that is when I write effortlessly and for longer periods of time. That is not to say that it also creates my best work, but it does at least create content to reitterate and reform if need be, or completely discard as necessary.

I personally haven't had much luck with sticking to a plan for a composition. Usually, the more I try, the worse it gets. Most of my successful compositions have come from improvisation, either on an instrument or tinkering with notation/sequencing software.

it's all good.

Don't get in the material's way. The solution is in the material, not in the artist's head. The material can always be subjected to transformations. All these results can be put into sets or lists. From these, options can be weighed. The subjective is supported or grounded in what is objective. What do you think?

I can only suppose that you are correct that the two approaches are and ought to be picked up and put down during the creative process as needs be. Dispite the retoric Man Ray and Barnet Newman listened to the materials as carefully and any other artist worth attending to. A glance at their output will show you that. But they also needed that sensitivity to materials to be at a sub conscious level to maintain the macho Beethoven mode that was essential to their self image and creative process. With respect to your video it might have been fun had you defended one side and attacked the other with all your conciderable force then changed hats and roles leaving the synthesis unspoken. Thanks, all your content is completely interesting.

i like the comparison to beethoven because we could essentially translate the concept to other eras of music too, beethoven vs schubert, brahms vs chopin, and we could kind of imagine the former composers having a more direct influence with the material, by their preference for tiny motivic cells which undergo a series of manipulations. whereas with schubert and chopin we kind of feel like they try to leave themselves out as much as possible to let their melody reveal itself, even when a sort of development section happens it feels a bit unwilling and you never get monumental changes in the material like in beethoven's works.

I have to oscillate. It’s a spinning coin, an alternating current. I suspect that approach, in varying proportions, would be advantageous for everyone. If they get the proportions right, they no longer see heads or tails, they see a coin; they no longer see positive or negative, they see electricity.

Would love to meet up sometime this year when you're back on the french/german border!

Very interesting. I like the " listen to the piece", advice. I can't read music, but I do write it. Obviously I have a general idea of the overall sound , but I can't look at the score and hear it exactly in my mind. After immediately jotting down some notes, I can listen to what it sounds like and tweak the various pitches and durations. I would think that a trained composer doing this would add a little "playing by ear" factor to their music.

I treat my brain as part of the material- I'll allow some thought or improvisational recording to do what it wants to in the context of the music I'm working on. Similar to David Lynch in this way, I let what needs to happen, happen. I really like the idea of oscillation by the way! Sometimes I have in mind that only my instincts and perhaps some technique of some kind is enough. Other times, it makes more sense to actively and methodically plan it out.

I have a feeling that maybe this apparent opposition between two creative attitudes is not really an opposition and that the confusion might come from what is meant as "material". It seems in the Man Ray quote material refers to the "subject" (in the physical world) being represented, whereas in the Newman quote, material refers to "tools" (the canvas). In music I don’t think material refers to any of those two things. Here tools are instruments, pen, paper, computer software… I think subject in music is a more complex topic, perhaps because music exists only in time and doesn't point to something in the physical world. I don't think we can say that music "represents" physical things. When you advised your student to « listen to the material », I guess your were trying to say something like « listen to the sounds produced by what you have written » which is again something else. Or am I misunderstanding the whole thing ? Anyway I don’t see where the oppositon would be. It seems to me these are all complementary attitudes about different aspects of creativity. Thank your for your very interesting videos, best regards.

Never seen myself as a hero / godlike figure when composing. I think it's a bit outdated way of looking at art actually. For sure the fabric lives its own life and follows its logic, and there's a confrontational dynamic at times between me and the living silence in my hands that I mold my songs from, but I'd never look at this fabric with contempt. I have all respect towards it in fact, because what brings life to this fabric is a several-thousand-years-old context of sounds, melodies, songs, motifs - it is and will always be much bigger than me, I'm just humbly borrowing from this ocean of musical ideas, in hope to return to it something larger than the sum of those borrowed parts. If the material brings me somewhere, I don't resist, I follow it just to see what it suggests. My relationship with the material is more like partnership, I guess

Maybe we ought to be a little meta and say the artist has to listen into themselves and then play out the process of discovering the process they want to use

I have heard, in critiques of modern art, the opposition set up between artist-as-craftsman (the prevailing attitude during the patronage age) and artist-as-shaman. The power of the shaman is such that they can infuse everyday household items with their artistic intent, causing them to sell at auction for unimaginable prices. The example of Cage is an interesting one. The best defense of Cagean aesthetics I can see is that the instrument maker has spent their life perfecting the art of creating instruments that produce beautiful sounds, and the performer has spent their life perfecting the art of producing beautiful sounds on that instrument; at this point, the best thing for the composer to do is to get their intentions out of the way of the sounds as much as possible. Paradoxically, by disavowing artistic intent, Cage becomes ever more the shaman. By de-naturalizing the end result, Cage foregrounds the artifice. The craftsman paints a still life of a fruit basket, the shaman tapes a banana to the wall.

Please, where is the Newman 's quote taken from?

Oof, this hurts to think about. I am in a somewhat unique situation which this issue pertains to, in that I'm in a ten piece rock band (of sorts) where any member may compose a piece in its entirety, typically with more or less total control over every single aspect, and we're expected to go along with it. Without getting too much into "how the sausage is made" I can confidentially say that whichever tendency of the spectrum the individual composer operates under, if left unchecked, leads to a whole lot of misery and neuroses for either the composer or everyone else. Usually the remedy is for the composer to practice in the opposite tendency, and simply trust that their aptitude in the former will come through.

For me, the more I try to control the artistic/compositional process, the less control I have. The only way to have control is to realize that you don't have control, and to let go of that desire to control.

Upon second viewing I see that it can work. Normally I shy away from analogies between graphic art and music since I do both, but the Man Ray quote about having "contempt" for the material is delightful. Without efforts we have no reference point. What you have said is sufficient.

When I was 18 I approached painting in a Beethovenian manner but gradually in the past 7 years I become more and more interested in letting material goes the way it wants and I just react to it time to time

It seems to make more sense to have contempt for the matter that is being manipulated if one is a visual artist, since eyes can be so much more deceiving than our hearing, and how the visual arts (be photography or whatever) can induce us to idealized notions of beauty and reality that can enslave us. A musician that has contempt for his instrument? Wouldn't he be able to choose between so many? Would he hate the linearity of time? The spectrum that we can hear?

Thanks for this video! Before I read the other comments, here is my own. I am trying to compose Schubert-esque Ländler based on harmonic / melodic hybrids of his works. Homework from my composition teacher. This often requires listening to the material, again and again, but also distilling the spirit of the original compositions. The latter involves some research. At the same time, I need to listen to my own heart and what I want to add from my side to the hybrid product. In a way this sort of inner listening requires an aptitude like Beethoven's to be deaf to the sound of the music and fully devoted to its expressive potential. Not easy. The risk in my case is, of course, that the result doesn't sound like Schubert at all. But why am I composing anyway?

I think this has a lot to do with the idea of when a piece is ‘finished’. You can improvise a piece only up to a certain point, until you can no longer think of anything new to add to it. It’s as if you’ve reached the outer limits of the potential suggested by your initial idea. At that point, the piece is ‘finished’, but you may still be unsatisfied with it. That’s when you should treat the material as inert, and radically reorder or destroy it. When you render a piece ‘unfinished’ again, you get another starting point for improvisation in a different direction. So a good piece may be finished and unfinished multiple times until it is finally presented.

What's the practical outcome of the 'contempt' mode?

A lot of composers would only look to other composers for advice regarding the creative process. The fact that you are quoting visual artists is in itself a kind of advice: be open to inspiration from disciplines outside of our own.

The music should come alive in your head or inner ear and you coax it out through what ever medium you have. You might also need some inspiration to nudge it along a little (that might be a piece of music or composer you wish to -imitate- learn from), it may also be limited either by the tool or instruments you're writing with or for. Of course that might also mean being limited by your own performance skill. Following on with your painter analogy, there is a painter, Frank Auerbach, while painting some one live in his studio he may throw down a picture of a rembrandt onto the floor to stare at in lost moments while waiting from some creative impulse. When I am a lost, certainly I listen to what I already have and try to hear where it might go and as I come to composition as an improvising musician I use that as my medium.

If you think of both those methods as on a truly elaborated level, they are the same thing: basically not in the way of the expressive act. Through both the ego might step aside and the freudian self does the act of art. We do have to let it happen either way, which might be also an interesting view on discipline. Key lies in that developed mindset ready to take and let go, which couldn't otherwise be experienced as by some sort of amazement on the wonder of the artistic experience in the here an now. ...which by the way is an original state of mind where cliches are not even existent.

What would the lifeless lump, the canvas, be? Silence?

I tend to think that although the musician os this kind of creator, every material has a life of it's own and develops almost independently of our will. Maybe our role as composers is to control the internal flow of the object so it keeps coherent.

I am thinking how this applies to literature and poetry...

Tantôt libre, tantôt recherché

What if it has to do with the kind of piece you are creating? I mean, the final piece. The communicative aspect of it has to do with this process; if it’s been created with a firm idea of what it’s boundaries ought to be, that’s what the listener/conciever is faced with. If it’s written with a constantly changing registers and perspectives, it’s going to feel like that. I mean, as a conversation; some people love to be thrown off, falling in love with someone constantly changing the whole approach, and some people find deep joy with a architechtural conversation. Part of it is who you are, uncontrollably. Maybe?

As promised, here's my comment: I've always been partial to the idea that, to quote Charlie Parker "learn the changes and then forget them!" i.e. study, study, study every technique and method on the planet, exercise them, master them if possible, and then sit down and write purely by instinct! Using only your ears as a guide... However, speaking as a professional composer, sometimes to, meet a deadline, I must lean on technique to finish a work. This has led to the unfortunate result that I have too many pieces whose endings I detest...😜

I think a. I. shows that all material may have a life of its own and when the imagination is brought to "bear " upon it . Speaking into and from some other " dimension " will happen .When I first began looking at Pollock,Rothko,Barnett Newman whom you mention and so many other Abstract Impressionists and especially Stella . I realized what it meant to look at the materials itself. I never felt it was contempt; I think you have to have respect"objects" (objects as tabularasa DO SomeThing To Us . Nothing is Empty- because We are Here to think Upon IT! The medium and its content. Sentimentality vs. the ego of the creator . This idea I don't have faith in. I do not believe in . I think the material can have narrative potential ,philosophical,socialcommentary potential . The material is interactive because perhaps even objects ,everything that is present and material in existence have Integrity . Our minds maybe connected to something else if a gadjet of many supposedly inert dead parts like a computer can " think ?

I compose; Therefore, I am not.

I also detest cliches, but I didn't think the problem or solution actually were cliches; at least you didn't express them in the banal or obvious language that ordinarily qualifies as cliched. When visual or musical art, or even literary work, makes sense, then it has some power of rational continuity, the integrity of a whole entity. That's because, in part, it adheres to it's own internal logic. So "getting out of your own way" is actually a very expressive, evocative, meaningful message, in my estimation, and not a cliche. A persuasive work's integrity means, at the least, that it speaks for itself, stands on its own. Guide your creativity at first, I think, then saddle up, tentatively, as though it's been transformed into generativity, then ride it, honoring its own agency, wherever it gallops! But not over a cliff. That would be a cliche.

Artists need empathy - for nature, and also the for the creation medium. Without both we arrive at the tedious exercise in time-wasting that is the bulk of what passes for contemporary classical music. "what do you mean, listening?" Seriously!