Not necessarily terrible criticism but one of my recent professors was listening to a sax duo I was writing for a commission. She turned to me and said, “You know your music is really scary, right?” She didn’t frame it negatively but the feedback sticks with me. Had another professor eviscerate me for tricky rhythms in an organ piece. He asked me, “Can you speak the rhythms for this pedal part?” to which I absolutely messed up. Deeply embarrassing. But it was very grounding for me, helped me to develop a better consciousness about my writing.
I've had avant garde atonalists tell me that because I compose "tonal" music that what I'm composing "has already been done" even though my "tonal" compositions have nothing to do with "what's already been done", I just prefer less dissonant frequencies and a wider audience for music people like rather than just being intellectually "experimental" which has a very small audience and those composers are usually protected from "music people enjoy" in ivory towers and academia.
I had a guy comment on one of my best songs, "mad beginner vibes, wack" I thought it was so funny. I ended up posting it on the wall in my studio for inspiration and a good laugh
Someone once told me that my music was the worst thing he had ever listened to and that I didn't deserve to exist in this world if I didn't stop my music efforts and retire to a quiet life in the countryside where I could lead the peasant life that was my inevitable fate. I did just that and never touched an instrument or a sheet paper again.
As a fallen-away composition student myself (from 1972 to 1976), I think perfectionism and striving to be clever and original are serious dangers to the student. I think it is fine for students to learn by being bad, prolific, and stealing (as long as they are not yet publishing the result). We know that Bach had access to a library where he learned Italian style writing by copying and re-arranging works of Vivaldi. I also have the sense that even Stravinsky started out without really knowing what he wanted to eventually write, but became competent enough to capture what his ear told him when original ideas finally appeared (at age 28). I know a famous writer who started out by being severely criticized for writing "bad poetry" by his English teacher in high school. Severely discouraged, he showed his work to his hero, Ray Bradbury, at a school event, and after reading them, all Bradbury asked was "did you love writing this?" After the would-be writer answered "yes!" Bradbury said " then keep writing thousands more until you find your voice." The writer (who has written for Star Trek and Tyson's "Cosmos" TV series), then wondered why his English teacher couldn't have been as encouraging.
Very informative, encouraging, and helpful, as always. As a non-professional musician, my day job does a good job forcing me to focus on only the art that is most important to me, which is helpful.
This should always be where we start from. Rochberg is a mystery to me. Did he not have integrity to begin with? His violin concerto is tremendous. Is it before I re he went back to the ordinary,traditional. I think his process had problems. Schonberg or Takemitsu are not ruses?
"You can't necessarily choose to say 'I'm going to work in this direction because it will be good for my career'" -- but a lot of new-music and electronic-music conference concerts are full of pieces that sound just like that
Interesting as always, thank you. I especially appreciated your comments about the chase for "astonishing novelty" being antithetical to a "thriving musical culture" @36:40.
What if a composer's strong desire was to know that people enjoyed listening to their music? (though you have to write what you find most important, no ruining things for improving your chances with having others like it) What would be a good path to send people to your music on social media? Lets say, narrow it down to 2 4 movement CDs, Spirit Melody 1 and Spirit Melody 2? Is it sick to be so happy about others enjoying your productions? Har har har! That was a really fun video, it really helps to have an audience ask such very good questions. They never really stump you though!!
Excellent answers. Too many for me to comment on. What ways do you use away from the piano or score paper to inspire creativity? I use nature. Taking walks without teck as an example.
Creative people often underestimate the importance of physical motion. Going on long walks or runs. Nothing does more to stimulate the creative faculty.
@@samuel_andreyev Yes. I went to university with composer Dave Flippo. When he needed to take a break and stimulate his creativity he would fill up his mouth at the water fountain, then go into the courtyard of the music building spin around, and spit out the water from his mouth! Taking breaks is important for composers, musicians, and all creative persons. I am a nature boy and have hiked all over the world. it is important to find the best way to do this. Sports, meditation, Yoga, or just watching a movie for example.
My 2 cents on the question about influence vs. plagiarism...There's different ways to take inspiration. You can try as best you can to mimic the notes on the page or the musical end result if you will. And you can learn a lot that way but ultimately just because you can mimic the notes doesn't mean you can mimic the greatness of the original composer that made them so inspiring to begin with. Sometimes its better to be inspired by the spirit of the thing rather than the thing itself--it's not so much about mimicking other people's choices but understanding why they made those choices in the first place and in what context, and adapting the spirit of what they did in a way that resonates with you in your own context. So you can look up to your heroes and carry that forward even if your work doesn't directly resemble theirs at all.
Really an overall good talk :almost a primer on how to be a valid, self-realized composer. I love what he says about all us individually contributing to a giant palimpsesthuman. And how he explains originality &the roots of invention . Very clear discussion so rare at this level with hustorians,critics etc. And yes it's annoying and sad that people don't know or get the differences in periods (modernism,post-modernism).
Thanks for bringing up the modernism/post-modernism confusion. I find that the opposite happens especially in visual arts: viewers will call some vapid piece of post-modernism as "modern art." Would love to see a video in which fleshes out the meanings of these two terms.
I think the comment about the Chopin etude op 10 no 1 is a bit misdirected, lots of similar things are quite easy (for instance the op 10 no 8 arpeggios) but the waterfall is very difficult because you have to stretch the hand in quite awkward ways, without proper technique it could damage the hand and so on, it's not the usual movements. So I would say it's actually harder than it sounds, there are still worse things of course. A better example from simple and impressive gestures which is easy to play would be the op 25 no 12
Stravinsky retained the services of violinist Samuel Dushkin for advice on writing for the instrument in exchange for Dushkin first rights at premiering and recording the pieces (Violin Concerto, Serenade in A, ballet arrangements for piano and violin). In the Violin Concerto, Stravinsky showed Dushkin the multi-string-stopped chord that opens each movement, but was disheartened by Dushkin's assessment that it looked impossible to play. After their meeting, however, Dushkin tried the chord out at home and discovered that it was actually easy to play, and quickly relieved Stravinsky by contacting to tell him that the chord, a unifying element of the composition, was fine.
Are you familiar with Composer Barnaby Martin's channel 'Listening In' ? There are many overlaps in the material covered, though your channels both have very different stylistic approaches. I would love to see a conversation between the both of you.
On #11, there's a distinction to be made between knowing *theory* and being educated as a *listener.* The latter, I think, is much more important for appreciating music, especially a lot of 20th-century music.
Of course as to the question about African music, sometimes when Westerners incorporate elements of African music they may be called out for appropriating the music...I think I've seen some videos about this...David Bruce and Adam Neely. Interesting question.
It’s funny how it doesn’t work in both directions. I’ve had Japanese or Chinese students wishing to incorporate western harmony into their vocabulary. Are they criticised for ‘appropriation’? Of course this is nonsense.
Regarding the first question, improvising while composing doesn't necessarily mean you have to play an actual musical instrument - you could use any other tools /systems that allow for certain amount of indeterminacy or even randomness, so you could react to what the tool is providing in a creative way, which could be also considered a form of improvisation. Maybe you're familiar with a very relevant paper by Katya Davisson called "Improvisation as a Method of Composition: Reconciling the Dichotomy" - it rises some interesting points regarding the relation between composition and improvisation. Nevertheless, it's always refreshing and inspiring to listen to your thoughts.
This comment is intended primarily for classical composers - and of course is personal - but the several years I spent intensively going through Johann Joseph Fux's "Gradus ad Parnassum" and mastering species counterpoint were the best investment in time and effort I could have ever made. There's a lot more to an effective composition than that, but that provided the basic grounding skillset.
re: finding your voice, and when does a valid use of traditional techniques become plagiarism... I heard there'd been a criticism of Stravinsky's Movements for Piano and Orchestra which had said that that bit where quavers become triplets, become semi-quavers, become a quintuplet... (or whatever it was, you get the idea,) was on the point of plagiarism because some other composer had used that motif recently. Then Craft (or someone, probably Craft I guess,) refuted that by saying that it was a technique/motif/idea as old as music itself, and quoted examples from Renaissance times (or prior.) I tend to agree with the defence. Full disclosure: I love Stravinsky's work. But still, anyone who'd never even heard music before could come up with that, right? The point, for the composer, is, does it work in context? In my personal opinion it does in that case. Then again, I've listened to Movements like a million times, so it would feel "right" to me now...
What do you think of composers today who write in historical styles? Is it necessary for a work to be "choronologically correct" (so to speak) to be worthy; or is a good piece a good piece -- period?
What do you think of the 70s progressive rock bands like Genesis, King Crimson and Yes? I think it bridged the gaps between accessibility and the avant garde very successfuly but somehow we don't have this kind of music rn. It's either very uninterstingly accessible or totally unlistenable avant garde.
Yes. From the 1970s I would add loads of Eno's solo and collaborative music, Berlin-era Bowie and much else as examples of 'arty' music - for want of a better term - that came out of the rock world and - as you say - bridged the gap between accessibility and the avant-garde in their own very different ways. Would be very interested to hear Samuel's thoughts on this. And can I just echo what an earlier commentator said in praising Samuel's excellent and clear answers. I am relatively new to these videos and greatly enjoying them and learning a lot. Thanks.
I think its very unfortunate that the average person does not really understand the definition of improvisation and that they think it simply means just playing random music off the top of your head while they are playing an instrument. This is why I believe that most 'modern classical' musicians are just a cheap imitation of what jazz musicians do. You'll notice a lot of 'techniques' that modern classical musicians use are just about making strange noise on their instrument and have nothing to do with tonal theory. As to what improvisation actually means in regards to jazz, it actually means playing a song but giving the musicians leeway in how to interpret their parts in the song. There is usually always a base melody that a jazz tune works off of. Again, in contemporary classical this is usually just pre-planned noise and there is no real musical composition going on.
When I first started singing, after being a classical guitarist for many years, I was quite timid of the project and received lots of.... shall we say.... correction.
My music has received little to no criticism, the most criticism was a dig at the quality of the recording and a squeaky piano stool, in actual fact they seemed to have something against the construction of the music.
Thanks for the informative video. I play and write write jazz, fusion, contemporary classical and prog rock. As for the first question, improvisation is very important for composing my pieces. I usually record myself improvising on piano, sometimes with a trio (keyboards, bass and drums) and listen back and find the sections that I like. Once I find it I'll build from there by adding parts that relate. There have been times where I started out with a complex drum track recorded in a studio, scarped the song and wrote a new piece around the drums. Link to my second album: ru-vid.com/group/OLAK5uy_kgt-oZJEvO6zsFcTW0kiEnCjamus-FjAc
I guess most composers write the violin concerto as their music and then it is "corrected" by violinists to make it handy for the violinists. See, e.g., Brahms and Mendelssohn.
That's incorrect. Mendelssohn's violin concerto is considered to be so well written for the instrument that it basically plays itself. For Brahms, as far as I know, he had intimate knowledge of the instrument but disliked writting each bowing technique notation which prompted Joachim to do so for him. Many of the well-know composers either played the violin with different aptitude or studied it in detail. In Stravinsky's case, as he recorded, he's previous knowledge was not sufficient to solve all delicate technical problems and involved when writting a proper concerto, even if he had studied the instrument before for other forms of composition. Thus Dushkin assistence and motivation.
@@orpheus2883 Not really. Mendelssohn had the help of the violinist Ferdinand David for the virtuoso part. As to Brahms/Joachim: It really only concerned the bowing? I think I read something a bit different.
@@peterwimmer1259 Being corrected and receive advice are very different situations. What I said about Mendessohn stands as far as the composition is a finished and prepared object. About Brahms and Joachim, if I'm not mistaken, the major technicalities are concerned with bowing, especially marking. I would not say he corrected imperfeition if at all make suggestions. Nonethless, corrected concertos for the violin exists, Tchaikovsky's being the first one to come in my mind.
I'm sure you said likely some good things here, but not seeing a chapter that obviously aligns to the question in the clickbait title, I have no interest in listening to find out. I'll be sure to steer clear of your channel in the future.
Actually I think it would help some of us if you rattled off the obvious examples of composers who were not great at playing instruments but created great music.
In jazz improvisation, you really aren't doing it properly until you start learning some of the vocabulary and concepts of actual jazz players and having a convincing sound in the idiom. Improv is only as good as the vocabulary you internalize, assimilate, build upon.
@@DSteinman - You realize that jazz came long before rock or pop, yes? That's the dumbfuckest strawman I've read today. Now you're going to say "'dumbfuckest' isn't proper English!" Thanks for showing up to my jam. Now get the fuck out.
