Why compose??

Started by c#minor, November 08, 2007, 10:44:19 AM

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c#minor

While attending my music class today we were going over Bach and Handel. Before the professor walked in the entire class kept talking about how much they hate the class. Quotes like, "Why do we have to listen to this crap", "I hate coming in here because we have to listen to this old stuff." While i will leave out the more negative resposes, i believe you all can understand what was more along the lines of what most said. Then in class while listening to Bach's St. Matthew's Passion the entire class looked as if they were getting tortured. I have never seen such hatred for any other kind of music. Everyone looked like they would rather be dead.

Then it began to dawn on me, why compose? I have always loved composing and it has been my greatest joy for many years but why write it if only .5% of people want to listen to it. I would love to have a career in compostion, but that would require lots of schooling (which i would love to have), lots of money (which is hard to find), and lots of time. All of this effort put towards something that so many have no care for at all. So why even try to do it professionally?

locrian

A reason to do it would be if you can't help not doing it.

sidoze

Quote from: sound sponge on November 08, 2007, 10:47:06 AM
A reason to do it would be if you can't help not doing it.

Exactly. Why take a shit?

c#minor

Well agreed, i know that i will always do it.
but
is their any point in these days to pursue it at a professional level?

Cato

C# Minor: I assume you have seen my topic "Why I Am Not A Composer"!

Your disgust at the narrow-mindedness of your peers is understandable: I once had public high-school classes in German I and II in the early 1980's nearly go into a revolt for having to listen to Schubert's song of Goethe's Erlkoenig.

At my Catholic high school the experience was quite different: there the open-mindedness was a relief, and to be sure there were some who would rather have leapt into Lake Erie in January, rather than hear e.g. Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, which I used every year in German II or III.  But the majority enjoyed it, and some actually became interested in it.

So that .5% per cent is perhaps not entirely accurate.

You will have to decide if dedicating your life to composing is worth it to you personally: if so, whether the audience is .5% or 5% or 50% will be therefore irrelevant.
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

karlhenning

Quote from: c#minor on November 08, 2007, 10:44:19 AM
While attending my music class today we were going over Bach and Handel. Before the professor walked in the entire class kept talking about how much they hate the class. Quotes like, "Why do we have to listen to this crap", "I hate coming in here because we have to listen to this old stuff."

And you've left out the more negative resposes?  8)

c#minor

Cato,

Well in high school i had the same experiences and it didn't bother me but i am now at a community collage so i can help around the house for a year or two till i head out to a university. But i figured at a community collage where people are older and more mature (hopefully), and at that signed up for the class themselves would at least be a little open minded and at least "bare through it" without uproarious complaints. I'm talking 18-50 years olds, all the same complaining. It astounded me after thinking about it for a while.

And i really would love to compose for a living. To have the education, that i could not justifiably have if i were a "weekend composer." It is honestly the only thing i have ever been good at and enjoyed so much. Music is a part of me, without it i would be a radically different person. But the more i have to seriously contemplate the decisions in front of me, i see, well... what i have described.



I am glad you have exposed music outside of the pop-culture world to your students. There is so much to learn from realizing that you can live outside of the cultural norm. And at the same time you might have recruited some new fans to our art, which will hopefully gain acceptance by culture outside of the highly educated, which it is known for.  

locrian

Quote from: c#minor on November 08, 2007, 11:15:12 AM
I am glad you have exposed music outside of the pop-culture world to your students. There is so much to learn from realizing that you can live outside of the cultural norm. And at the same time you might have recruited some new fans to our art, which will hopefully gain acceptance by culture outside of the highly educated, which it is known for.  

If it hasn't gained acceptance by now, will it ever? Doubtful.

Cato

Quote from: c#minor on November 08, 2007, 11:15:12 AM
Cato,

Well in high school i had the same experiences and it didn't bother me but i am now at a community collage so i can help around the house for a year or two till i head out to a university. But i figured at a community collage where people are older and more mature (hopefully), and at that signed up for the class themselves would at least be a little open minded and at least "bare through it" without uproarious complaints. I'm talking 18-50 years olds, all the same complaining. It astounded me after thinking about it for a while.

And i really would love to compose for a living. To have the education, that i could not justifiably have if i were a "weekend composer." It is honestly the only thing i have ever been good at and enjoyed so much. Music is a part of me, without it i would be a radically different person. But the more i have to seriously contemplate the decisions in front of me, i see, well... what i have described.



I am glad you have exposed music outside of the pop-culture world to your students. There is so much to learn from realizing that you can live outside of the cultural norm. And at the same time you might have recruited some new fans to our art, which will hopefully gain acceptance by culture outside of the highly educated, which it is known for.  


I have mentioned Albert Jay Nock before on the Forum in similar contexts: please read his essay from 1936 entitled Isaiah's Job and you might feel better!

Here are 2 salient excerpts:

[Isaiah] preached to the masses only in the sense that he preached publicly. Anyone who liked might listen; anyone who liked might pass by. He knew that the Remnant would listen; and knowing also that nothing was to be expected of the masses under any circumstances, he made no specific appeal to them, did not accommodate his message to their measure in any way, and did not care two straws whether they heeded it or not. As a modern publisher might put it, he was not worrying about circulation or about advertising. Hence, with all such obsessions quite out of the way, he was in a position to do his level best, without fear or favour, and answerable only to his august Boss.

If a prophet were not too particular about making money out of his mission or getting a dubious sort of notoriety out of it, the foregoing considerations would lead one to say that serving the Remnant looks like a good job. An assignment that you can really put your back into, and do your best without thinking about results, is a real job; whereas serving the masses is at best only half a job, considering the inexorable conditions that the masses impose upon their servants. They ask you to give them what they want, they insist upon it, and will take nothing else; and following their whims, their irrational changes of fancy, their hot and cold fits, is a tedious business, to say nothing of the fact that what they want at any time makes very little call on one's resources of prophesy. The Remnant, on the other hand, want only the best you have, whatever that may be. Give them that, and they are satisfied; you have nothing more to worry about. The prophet of the American masses must aim consciously at the lowest common denominator of intellect, taste and character among 120,000,000 people; and this is a distressing task. The prophet of the Remnant, on the contrary, is in the enviable position of Papa Haydn in the household of Prince Esterhazy. All Haydn had to do was keep forking out the very best music he knew how to produce, knowing it would be understood and appreciated by those for whom he produced it, and caring not a button what anyone else thought of it; and that makes a good job.

In a sense, nevertheless, as I have said, it is not a rewarding job. If you can tough the fancy of the masses, and have the sagacity to keep always one jump ahead of their vagaries and vacillations, you can get good returns in money from serving the masses, and good returns also in a mouth-to-ear type of notoriety...


(My emphasis above)

...in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those – dead sure, as our phrase is – but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness; and this, I should say, is just the condition calculated most effectively to pique the interest of any prophet who is properly gifted with the imagination, insight and intellectual curiosity necessary to a successful pursuit of his trade...

See:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/nock3b.html
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Larry Rinkel

Quote from: c#minor on November 08, 2007, 10:44:19 AM
While attending my music class today we were going over Bach and Handel. Before the professor walked in the entire class kept talking about how much they hate the class. Quotes like, "Why do we have to listen to this crap", "I hate coming in here because we have to listen to this old stuff." While i will leave out the more negative resposes, i believe you all can understand what was more along the lines of what most said. Then in class while listening to Bach's St. Matthew's Passion the entire class looked as if they were getting tortured. I have never seen such hatred for any other kind of music. Everyone looked like they would rather be dead.

Unless the class was a requirement, the students could have taken something else more to their liking. Perhaps it's a subject for another thread, but I would really like to hear some speculation as to why this "crap" is hated so much. In addition: are the students as candid about their "hatred" in the professor's presence, and if so, does the professor make any attempt to address their uncensored feelings?

And please do include the most negative responses; they would be fun.

greg

Quote from: sound sponge on November 08, 2007, 10:47:06 AM
A reason to do it would be if you can't help not doing it.
that's the reason i compose.

mikkeljs

#11
Quote from: c#minor on November 08, 2007, 10:44:19 AM
Then it began to dawn on me, why compose? I have always loved composing and it has been my greatest joy for many years but why write it if only .5% of people want to listen to it. I would love to have a career in compostion, but that would require lots of schooling (which i would love to have), lots of money (which is hard to find), and lots of time. All of this effort put towards something that so many have no care for at all. So why even try to do it professionally?

5%, thats too optimistic. ;D

I think composing is something everyone has to do, but most people does never realize that. You has to make your day and earn money and get a career in your live, literally speaking. If you never compose, why live? Music is not only the hearable waves for our ears, but finding a girlfriend is music too. 
For most music, it´s the same, often the composer is the person, for whom, its most important.

Actually it´s a huge priviligium that we can take the composition education payed by the state! (Or at least in Denmark). Because it doesn´t serve the state, especially not my music.

Norbeone

Selling out has to be one of the most sickening of all acts. Write what you want, not the (MTV 'cultured') majority.

greg

Quote from: Norbeone on November 11, 2007, 02:57:43 PM
Selling out has to be one of the most sickening of all acts. Write what you want, not the (MTV 'cultured') majority.
that would be really hard, to sell out
it'd be like living a huge lie  :(



Quote from: mikkeljs on November 11, 2007, 12:48:32 PM
If you never compose, why live?
i've thought about that, too....... being a composer is one thing that can seperate me, or you, from any other regular person who just lives, reproduces, works, eats, sleeps and then dies and then is just forgotten.... there's not much meaning in that. Composing is one way to sort of extend yourself past the time you die.


Quote from: mikkeljs on November 11, 2007, 12:48:32 PM
Actually it´s a huge priviligium that we can take the composition education payed by the state! (Or at least in Denmark). Because it doesn´t serve the state, especially not my music.
lol lucky

mikkeljs

Quote from: G...R...E...G... on November 12, 2007, 06:02:09 AM

i've thought about that, too....... being a composer is one thing that can seperate me, or you, from any other regular person who just lives, reproduces, works, eats, sleeps and then dies and then is just forgotten.... there's not much meaning in that. Composing is one way to sort of extend yourself past the time you die.



What I meant was, that basic living, eating, sleeping etc. is also a kind of composition.

greg

Quote from: mikkeljs on November 12, 2007, 06:15:10 AM
What I meant was, that basic living, eating, sleeping etc. is also a kind of composition.
that's an interesting thought.... i guess if i thought of it like that, it'd be more exciting  :D

karlhenning

Quote from: mikkeljs on November 12, 2007, 06:15:10 AM
What I meant was, that basic living, eating, sleeping etc. is also a kind of composition.

No, it isn't  ;D

mikkeljs

Quote from: karlhenning on November 12, 2007, 06:25:42 AM
No, it isn't  ;D

Could you tell the difference?  ;D

I just think the musical behavier is always there somewhere.

karlhenning

Quote from: mikkeljs on November 20, 2007, 04:37:17 AM
Could you tell the difference?

Yes, and I will borrow Stravinsky's metaphor.  Even a duck eats, sleeps, basically lives.

johnQpublic

I suppose I could mentally compose while eating, sleeping, etc, but I think it would be in everybody's best interest if I focused on one thing at a time.   ;)