Why I am Not a Composer...

[Cato]

couldn't you just write and not have your music performed? If the only fear is having other people listen, you could just listen yourself, right?

Yes, I still entertain myself at times with mental music, and can - in a compressed moment of time - sense the evolution of an entire work, the way one might sense an oak tree in an acorn.

Taking the time to write it out is therefore not really necessary.

In any case my artistic impulse has gone in another direction, so I am not essentially frustrated by the decision to say good-bye to composition.

As to the Glazunov catalyst: I was tempted to write "3rd-rate composer" but did not want to start a fight!    0:)

Lukeottevanger's comments in the large, middle paragraph are quite in line as an expansion of my thoughts, and JohnQPublic's as well.

It is daunting for a composer, or any artist, when one sees the mountains of "stuff" produced in all areas of our planetary civilization, to realize the odds against finding a spot where your Opus 1 might be heard.  Like I said, that was not the prime consideration: I enjoy a quixotic quest as much as the next Donnie, and as a foreign-language teacher that is about as quixotic as you can get these days!

Certainly a forum like this does help a budding or even blooming composer to find a little spot among all the blathering and blithering, the slathering and slithering of modern life.

One must admire Bach on this aspect: balancing the details of having a huge family, running the musical operations of a church in the 1700's, and tossing off a thousand or so compositions of genius! 

Composing today, however, has become devilishly hard precisely because one must still compete against Bach and other geniuses from the past.

[greg]

Yes, I still entertain myself at times with mental music, and can - in a compressed moment of time - sense the evolution of an entire work, the way one might sense an oak tree in an acorn.

Taking the time to write it out is therefore not really necessary.

In any case my artistic impulse has gone in another direction, so I am not essentially frustrated by the decision to say good-bye to composition.

ok, that's fine, as long as you're not completely denying yourself...
what language do you teach? German? (seems like i should know this)

[Harry]

Rank  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc.....................
Greatest,  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc...............

Obviously people have a in build need to make such lists...

[Cato]

ok, that's fine, as long as you're not completely denying yourself...
what language do you teach? German? (seems like i should know this)

German, Latin, Ancient Greek, as well as History (specializing in ancient, medieval, and modern European).

Research into ancient Greek scales decades ago is what brought me into the area of xenharmonic music.  

Harry Partch's music was being recorded for the first time back then, along with a few Czech records with things by Alois Haba.  So that was how I switched from using unusual half-tone scales to xenharmonic music, although I still created things with the normal 12-tones.

[karlhenning]

Rank  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc.....................
Greatest,  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 etc...............

Obviously people have a in build need to make such lists...

No, Harry;  rejecting the idea that greatness in music implies a neatly mathematical transitive property (Bach is greater than Elgar, Elgar is greater than Dittersdorf, therefore Bach is greater than Dittersdorf — though, wait a minute, that sounds pretty good!) does not therefore 'annihilate' the idea of musical greatness.

Nice try, though! 

So, yes, a short list of fallacies which we readily agree are fallacies, and yet whose rejection does not negate the idea of musical greatness:

1. It is possible neatly to compare composers of different eras/styles.

2. It is possible to arrange composers in a neat ranking of comparative greatness.

2a. It is possible to determine a single, greatest composer of all time.

3. There is only room for x great composers, everyone else is a mediocrity.

[karlhenning]

And anyway, even if Cato has for his own reasons set aside the regular pursuit of composition, this does not prevent him from frequent creative work which he executes (and I do mean executes  ) at a high level.

[Cato]

And anyway, even if Cato has for his own reasons set aside the regular pursuit of composition, this does not prevent him from frequent creative work which he executes (and I do mean executes  ) at a high level.

  Little inside joke!

[Mark G. Simon]

One thing about composition is that you have to be really driven to do it, in spite of all the frustrations, setbacks, inconveniences, performances that fall through, the whole hassle. It's a big pain, but also a great joy. It also takes some amount of exhibitionism. You have to enjoy putting your soul in front  of people. You've got to figure this is why people listen to music in the first place, for this kind of sonic voyeurism of hearing someone's soul. And you have to believe that your soul has something to offer that can be expressed as music. Composers tend to have big egos.

[greg]

German, Latin, Ancient Greek, as well as History (specializing in ancient, medieval, and modern European).

Research into ancient Greek scales decades ago is what brought me into the area of xenharmonic music.   

Harry Partch's music was being recorded for the first time back then, along with a few Czech records with things by Alois Haba.  So that was how I switched from using unusual half-tone scales to xenharmonic music, although I still created things with the normal 12-tones.

wow, three! That's impressive

[Cato]

One thing about composition is that you have to be really driven to do it, in spite of all the frustrations, setbacks, inconveniences, performances that fall through, the whole hassle. It's a big pain, but also a great joy. It also takes some amount of exhibitionism. You have to enjoy putting your soul in front  of people. You've got to figure this is why people listen to music in the first place, for this kind of sonic voyeurism of hearing someone's soul. And you have to believe that your soul has something to offer that can be expressed as music. Composers tend to have big egos.

(My emphasis)

Yes, not that I lack a kind of "big ego", but there are degrees: and ultimately I was not willing to practice "sonic exhibitionism" for an audience.

My soul will be expressed in different ways therefore!    0:)

[Cato]

wow, three! That's impressive

Well, thank you: I am probably the only teacher in the state of Ohio certified        (I will avoid the joke!) in all 4 areas!

[karlhenning]

I heard rumor of your multiple certification . . . .

[Lady Chatterley]

That's fairly typical of spouses/partners (like mine) who do not understand how an artist works.

Some of the wives of composers who were not typical spring to mind,Mrs.Wagner for instance,and Mrs.Dvorak,Mrs Mozart had the decency to spend weeks on end at the spa so Wolfie could write.Mrs Schumann,Mrs.Bruch,Mrs.Ives,Mrs Prokoviev,The two Mrs.Bach.Etc,etc.

[karlhenning]

The two Mrs.Bach.

Hah! I knew it! He was a bigamist! 

[Lady Chatterley]

Hah! I knew it! He was a bigamist! 

Oh Karl,not a bigamist,an ORGANIST!

[johnQpublic]

Here's a BIG-A-MIST:

[Josquin des Prez]

Composers tend to have big egos.

I think composers are generally an honest and sober bunch, it's the idiots surrounding them the drives them crazy.

[Mark G. Simon]

I think composers are generally an honest and sober bunch, it's the idiots surrounding them the drives them crazy.

I don't necessarily mean this negatively. It's just the way it is. If you don't have that confidence that what you have in you is worth people's attention, you're never going to go through all the hassle of writing this stuff down and struggling to get it performed and all the business that goes with it.

[Cato]

I think composers are generally an honest and sober bunch, it's the idiots surrounding them the drives them crazy.

You should have been in my Seventh Grade Latin class today!  


Muriel's litany of wives needs to include Alma Mahler, whose "big ego-ed" husband forbade her to compose anything...for a while!

And Prokofiev's first wife at least, like Schoenberg's, had some "issues."

I would not have married either of those two!  

Mark G. Simon wrote:

If you don't have that confidence that what you have in you is worth people's attention, you're never going to go through all the hassle of writing this stuff down and struggling to get it performed and all the business that goes with it.

True: I believe I could have done all that, which is what I found highly disconcerting!

[Lady Chatterley]

You should have been in my Seventh Grade Latin class today!   


Muriel's litany of wives needs to include Alma Mahler, whose "big ego-ed" husband forbade her to compose anything...for a while!

And Prokofiev's first wife at least, like Schoenberg's, had some "issues."

Oh yes,how could I forget Alma, I suppose the list of uncooperative wives could be headed by Papa's "Beast"