The concert was presented by the New York Composers Circle. A video was recorded and I include it here.

The New York Composers Circle always asks composers to introduce their piece by speaking a few words about their composition; this provides the audience with some context and details to listen for in the music.

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Coincidentally, at about the same time the obituary was published, I was thanked (thanked!) by a singer for paying attention to words and writing music that allows the singer to best express art in a natural way. I was puzzled by this, and the singer explained that not every composer seems to be working with the voice.

So this quote of Hoiby really struck me:

“Singers, you can’t fool them,” he said. “When they hear a song, they can tell right away if it’s going to make them sound good. And mine do.”

One can appreciate the confidence with which such a statement is made! But it is also worth considering the merit behind this idea. Instrumentalists, especially in an ensemble, can simply play the notes in front of them and trust that there is some internal logic in whatever the composer has written. (That’s not always true, by the way.)

But there is so much more at stake for a singer. Singers are much more sensitive to the natural rise and fall of language and the inherent drama in the music. They have to “get it” if they are to stand in front of an audience and successfully offer a musical experience. When any of this fails, the singer is not likely to sound good, however polished the performance.

I would suggest that Hoiby should have taken the quote a step further: Audiences can easily be fooled, but are less likely to be fooled by a song.

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…how to rectify our training with our wild-card penchant for creativity? Artists anywhere will instantly recognize the theme of craft resting on the precipice of abandon, of the intellect versus emotion.

A central problem here is that our education tends to be built upon teaching the craft and the skill. This suggests that artistry itself is not teachable — otherwise, why wouldn’t we just be taught the “art” side of things? Instead, musicians are taught their scales, dictation theory, etc.

That next leap to artistry is a challenge to teach, and this is an interesting element of Black Swan. Natalie Portman’s character is repeatedly admonished to let herself go, to dance with abandon, to seduce, and to not be so (for lack of a better word) perfect. In short, she needs to inject her intellectual side with some passion.

But what’s so wrong with perfect? I found myself thinking of a Beethoven symphony — take the slow movement of his Seventh. There is not a wrong note to be found, it is architecturally sound, it is superbly crafted from the simplest of rhythmic motifs. Much the same can be said for almost all of Beethoven’s music. Where exactly is the Dionysian abandon? If it is there, it’s not something we can exactly pinpoint and then teach to another generation of composers.

So then, what does a teacher say? What does a practitioner of art do? Essentially, how is this done? Natalie Portman spends half of the movie flailing in an attempt to find an answer and cross that line. We, the audience, watch her crack under this pressure. The nearest advice she is given is to go home and touch herself, a salacious suggestion, but one that has a larger metaphorical meaning, too. Getting in touch with yourself is a crucial aspect of artistry, and if you think about it, all the very best artists are representations of a self-aware individual. It’s personality that is expressed; the craft is only a medium to do so.

But there’s an important corollary. Over the last year I have begun to sense that the very best art is that perfect blend of intellect and emotion. The intellectual structure is needed, or it is all just a mess. But without the emotional element, we have only robotic perfection. There’s a “just-so” balance to be found which touches our hearts and our minds equally.

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“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled”

The Kennedy Center Honors were broadcast on tv recently. This year the honorees were Bill T. Jones, Oprah Winfrey, Jerry Herman, Merle Haggard, and Paul McCartney. (Notice that three of them are songwriters!)

As Sir Paul’s music was being performed on stage, the camera cut to the audience and I noticed Renée Fleming in the audience, and she was rocking and rolling and looking like she was having a great time. In short, she was having fun. I thought, “that’s something classical music really needs– the ability to just have fun.”

You never see an audience at a classical music in united rapture of one sort or another, yet you see this in pop music concerts all the time.

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And what I mean is: what do I want to leave my audience with? Do I want to leave them happy, sad, excited, what?

This might help you get your composing pencil moving.

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For instance, here’s Murphy’s Laws of Songwriting, including this bit about aiming your songs especially to an audience of women. The idea is that men sing songs for women, and women sing songs for women. It’s much more rare in popular music that songs are sung especially for men. So why not do what’s popular?

One can argue this point, of course (“Hey Jude”?), but for the sake of the argument, I’ll take this at face value, because it really got my curiosity going.

Compose for…whom exactly?

Gendered perspectives of classical music has been a hot topic in the last 3–4 decades. I am reminded of Fred Maus’s excellent article, “Masculine Discourse in Music Theory,” which argues (amongst other points) that one reason music became so theory-based in the twentieth century was to be more scientific and less “feminine.” Male composers wanted to appear masculine for their colleagues. (See Perspectives of New Music,¬†Vol. 31, No. 2 (Summer, 1993), pp. 264–293)

I wonder if there is anything to all this. I also wonder what is would sound like if I wrote for just a female audience only… or just a male audience! A little thought exercise that might lead to something.

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Addressing the audience

Sofia Dimitrova

After the concert congratulations!

As is the habit of the NYCC, I was asked to say a few words about the piece beforehand. Instead, I couldn’t help but remark this is the second time the NYCC has asked me to open a concert with a piece that is rather dark in tone. (The first time was “Three Elegies” at Symphony Space, back in 2007, performed by Tiffany DuMouchelle and percussionist Stephen Solook.) It doesn’t seem like the best idea to open a concert with pieces along the lines of “Three Elegies” or “When Time is Over!” So I joked that if you want someone to open your concert with one of those slow, meditative, ruminative pieces about life and death, I’m obviously your go-to guy! Fortunately, the audience got the joke. Here’s some pics and, because of the low lighting, apologies for the quality! (Click images for larger size.)

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Bob Dylan cares about you

You have to have somebody in mind as an audience otherwise there’s no point.

Dylan also pokes fun at his own history of stylistic changes. When he became a rocker, the folkies complained. When he became a country singer, the rockers complained. When he became a Christian rocker, everyone complained. Dylan is ready to do away with all that now, stating:

Some people preferred my first period songs. Some, the second. Some, the Christian period. Some, the post Colombian. Some, the Pre-Raphaelite. Some people prefer my songs from the nineties. I see that my audience now doesn’t particular care what period the songs are from. They feel style and substance in a more visceral way and let it go at that.

What do you think Dylan is saying about the importance of style?

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I thought, “Who are these people sitting here waiting for food? Who would ever want to eat in this restaurant??” Certainly we would not sit still in a restaurant that couldn’t get its act together. We would move on to some different dining establishment.

Yet, classical music audiences are expected to sit still through all manner of swill. And audiences have become fed up with it and moved on. You’ve certainly been to a restaurant where the food was bad, or the service was bad, and you left vowing never to eat there again. This has certainly happened in classical music.

Of course, taste is in the mouth of the beholder–or the ears of the listener. Yet we must acknowledge there’s a reason why chocolate cake is more popular than broccoli.

“Ah,” the avant-garde will say, “but broccoli is good for you! Cake is nothing more than sweet, empty calories; we can’t live on only chocolate.” True. But the finer dining options out there –the Michelin three-star restaurants– are able to serve up complex menu items that are good for you and appeal to an audience. There’s a difference between The Four Seasons and Burger King.

The philosopher Theodor Adorno stipulated that composers are free to compose with no need to satisfy an audience’s hunger. That’s okay as far as it goes, but I, for one, do want my music to be consumed by audiences. So I aim to create in that same arena that a chef does: Something enjoyably nutritious and palatable, but complex, too.

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Alfred Hitchcock

Or is it humorous? Many of the techniques can apply to any good art, and that means music, too. Keep the audience in mind, frame for emotion, break cliches, remember to use humor, two things at once, surprise and twist — all are valid considerations when you sit down to compose a piece of music.

Thanks to Jeff Bays for writing this neat little web page!

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