Monday, April 4, 2011

The 40 Hour a Week Composer

As I lay on my bed this afternoon after I got home from work, exhausted as usual, I thought about what it would be like if my full-time, 40 hour a week job was actually composing. Think about how much work I’d get done!  Does anyone actually compose as if it’s their full time job? 

You’re probably thinking, “yes, a lot of people do.” And then I will challenge you. “Who? Who ACTUALLY composes for 40 hours a week?” And you will meekly say, no one.  And you would be right.

Okay, maybe some people actually have the time and luxury (and money) to compose for 40 hours a week.  If you know any, please tell them to post their secrets below.  But when I say compose for 40 hours a week, I don’t mean that your full time job is being a composer- because that involves a bunch of tasks that aren’t actually composing, like applying for grants or competitions, copying parts, setting up performances, and going to rehearsals- the business of composing.  I mean that you actually spend 40 hours a week doing nothing but composing. Scary thought, isn’t it?  Could any of us actually do that even if we were given the opportunity?

When I went to grad school I thought, finally, this will be the time when I can actually get some real composing done, have the time to sit and think and compose and be merry.  Ha. I quickly learned that grad school is about teaching, grading, going to classes, complaining about being poor, and then when you have some free time, composing. Well, I thought, maybe when (if) I become a professor, that’s when I’ll have the time to compose.

But why do I want to become a professor (well, I’m not sure I do, but now is not the time to discuss that)?  While I do enjoy teaching and some of the other professorly duties, part of the reason I'm potentially interested in this career path is because it would provide an opportunity to get paid for a full time job in which part of the job description is actually composing.  Or is it?  While I’m not a professor, I know that in some ways, the job description for academia is pretty similar to the above grad student description, with more responsibility and that little thing of trying to get tenure.  So, at the end of the day, again: not much time for composing. Although perhaps there is a little more time for composing than in a non-music related job- at least when you're a professor you can close your office door and block out time in your schedule for "research" (i.e. composing), and you get a summer... when you're not preparing for next year's classes.

So what are your other choices, if you still want to have a career where you devote much of your time to composing? I suppose that there’s the non-professor-composer, who runs their own new music ensemble or organization, or the composer with multiple part-time jobs, giving her enough time to compose and scrape together a living.  And then there’s the Charles Ives model- having a job completely unrelated to music in order to support yourself, while composing "on the side", which I suppose is what I'm doing. I guess if he did it, that means there's hope for me, even though at this point I'm still usually so tired when I get home that I barely have the energy to make dinner, let alone compose. Are those the only options?  How can we create careers for ourselves where we actually have enough time to compose, deal with our “business,” and also somehow make a living? Any suggestions?

I suppose I can take solace in the fact that none of us are actually composing for 40 hours a week, anyway.

Posted by Sarah

2 comments:

  1. Dear Sarah,

    I think if I HAD to compose 40 hours a week I would quickly grow to procrastinate it and possibly wish I could do something else. Of course, this is me and I am a person who enjoys the variety of performing *almost* as much as composing. I don't think I could survive as Ives did with a job completely unrelated to music. I do agree that even if my "second" job is musical, it is very difficult to find a balance between "making a living" and being too tired to compose.

    On that note, do you think if you actually composed 40 hours a week you would have enough time/energy to deal with the business of being a composer?

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  2. Hi Charlotte!

    I don't think I could actually compose for 40 hours a week either, but it certainly would be an interesting exercise. I'd like to see how much I could actually accomplish (and maybe it wouldn't even be that much more than I do now! Who knows?).

    I'm surviving with a job that's unrelated to music now, and while it's definitely not something I want to do forever, it's been working out pretty well for the most part. It's really all about discipline- whether my day job is musical or not, either way I'm still going to be tired when I get home from work and have to make an effort to not just zonk out in front of the tv. It's a balancing act and obviously we all have to figure out our own ways to deal with it... as long as you love composing enough then it shouldn't be too much of a burden, but I definitely know that some days it's hard. I guess that's what we get for choosing this crazy profession. :)

    Thanks for posting!

    -- Sarah

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