I like the idea that one should be able to demonstrate flexibility in composing in everyclassical genre before qualifying as a modern composer ............You cant break rules without learning them. Rules need to be learnt so we can break them and create structure.
Hi Anand,I tend to agree with this. Any young composer reading this thread might want to consider what putting themselves through a rigorous technical training will do for them. Well I can tell you with certainty that it will help you find your voice and the more you learn, the more discerning you will be in defining said voice and the more powerful your expression will be. I say this as it was for me, obviously we are all different, but if self expression is your goal, learning comes highly recommended. Even if film scoring is your goal, learn what you can as it'll be to your advantage in so many ways.
I am more inclined to listen to atonality when I know the composer has technical prowess for the reasons stated above. Incredibly though, when I was studying at a well known institution, I met fellow student composers who did not know how to write fugues or even textbook counterpoint. Or had no real concept of competent 4 part harmonic writing, let alone any extended harmony. These very same composers where writing atonaly and being encouraged to do so. It seems as though the paradigm in institutions was (and perhaps still is) to encourage free thinking and divorce from common practice.I can understand this from a creative and contemporary perspective, but without technique, without some sort of practiced instinct from rigour, especially an instinct that gives you a footing on how music works as a language, a lesser expression is inevitable - unless of course there is genius!
The rejoinder here might be that rigour can be practised in dodecaphony and other contemporary procedures without prior knowledge of common practice, to which I might cede a point. However, right there will be the difference in aesthetic between me and others because I know that an intimate knowledge of the past has helped me create in ever expanding fields of sound with confidence.
Anand and Mike,
Yes, I agree, we cannot move forward from the past until we have absorbed the techniques, aethetics and forms of the past. I remember when I was working on my college degree in music composition how the professors seemed obsessed with dodecaphonic music, some even considered it the only "serious" form of modern classical music. I pointed out to one of my advisors that many outstanding composers from past eras drew freely from the folk and "earthy" music of their own time and place, so why should we, in the 20th century western world, not draw from the rich influences of rock n roll, folk music and jazz, as composers of the past freely did? He mumbled something about how this is how the bureaucracy works! ;>(
I think for many composers the task now becomes, generally speaking, to integrate the advances and innovations of chromaticism and dodecaphonicism into a tonal setting, in other words integration and fusion of ideas into a coherent gestalt of what past traditions have bequeathed to each of us. All my counterpoint students have to write a 2- and 3-part invention and a 3- and 4-voice fugue. However, there does come a point in most composer's lives where the desire to create something original takes hold, this is the point where the composer wants not only a craft, but a voice. And it is here, as Aaron Copland once pointed out when writing about listening to Chopin, that tradition doesn't give us a road map of how to proceed compositionally because 1) Copland isn't Chopin and 2) Copland doesn't live in the culture, time and place in which Chopin lived. There is wisdom and respect for the uniqueness of individuality in this way of thinking. Intuition, creativity and original thinking are required to progress from having a craft to having a voice and a craft.
I have thought more about my comments about plagiarism. It can be a harsh word as it implies some kind of moral judgement. I think a better term, that isn't so tied up with legal definitions is a "lack of ability to engage in original thinking".
The more comprehensively a student of music composition studies the music of the past, the more free they become to give expression to the new - IF genuine creative talent resides within that person. If not, they are going to merely repeat the past without originality, which says nothing bad about that person, other than the fact that their compositions are not authentic to the time and place of their life experience. Students must imitate to learn, composers must innovate to be relevant.
Jerry