Demystifying the Composer

Our culture has a long tradition of having a deep love/hate relationship with artists of all types. It often seems that the composer, be him idolized or scorned, is very rarely taken seriously as a normal human. Moreover, people will sometimes create a compositional mystique by encouraging stereotypes, being Romantic or evasive about the creative process, etc. Unfortunately, none of these behaviors do any of us any favors. I think it’s incredibly important for all of us to remember, if we don’t already, that the composer is—gasp—a working human who has flaws.

I'm going to share two anecdotes of ways in which composers and/or authority figures unnecessarily create some sort of composer “mystique.” I will then explain why I think these anecdotes offer examples of why such a mystique is fundamentally detrimental to the compositional process.