Too often we tend to play it safe when we compose. Sometimes we do this accidentally--we may have discovered several techniques or strategies that we know will "work" and we rely on these while expanding our ideas somewhat conservatively. Alexandra Gardner recently wrote an excellent article for NewMusicBox in which she called on all of us to be willing to take greater risks and to accept greater challenges, with the idea that our compositional skills will grow in leaps and bounds if we do so.
I absolutely agree with the importance of risk-taking--it is, I think, one of the most necessary aspects of compositional education and growth. Sometimes I worry, however, that our institutions, ensembles, and pedagogical tactics operate in ways that are actually antithetical to risk-taking.
The way that new music orchestra readings are handled in conservatories and music schools is perhaps one of the clearest examples of a situation that almost demands a "safe" approach to composing. Composers have one brief opportunity to hear their orchestral works sight-read (not rehearsed) by a group of musicians. As a composition student, I have to admit that I am often much less excited about orchestra readings than I am about my chamber music projects. I know that with chamber music the musicians will rehearse my piece, that I will get to give them a significant amount of feedback, and that if my piece crashes and burns I won't have a whole mess of people acting like I've wasted everyone's time. With orchestra readings, the most "savvy" attitude is to compose something that will manage to come off well with zero rehearsal time and only thirty minutes (or so) of "polishing." No wonder contemporary orchestral compositions tend to be much more traditional and conservative than music for other ensemble sizes!
Additionally, because so many orchestra readings are so flippantly run, a flippant attitude toward new music is often fostered in the minds of many performers. Of course many of the musicians do care about getting the music right, but there are also many who would rather be playing Beethoven. And can you blame them? With Beethoven the musicians are given more rehearsal time to really dig into the music and are rewarded with a more nuanced, musical, and appreciated performance. Too often this seems to leave musicians (and audiences) with the impression that new music is inherently devoid of nuance and musicality, which is absolutely false. I think we all can agree that few people would want to listen to an orchestra (made up of musicians who had never seen the music before) sight-read Beethoven's Fifth with only thirty minutes of rehearsal time.
I've noticed that the orchestra responds much better to new music readings when the conductor is excited about them. Unfortunately, many conductors often act as if they are doing the composition department a huge favor. But are they really doing us a favor when we end up either writing safe music that we know would work anyway or writing complex music that fails in the reading (yet still get zero information about whether or not tricky musical ideas would work if given real rehearsal time)?
In an economic time when many view music academia as a glorified Ponzi scheme (I intend to blog about this topic in more detail soon...), I think it is important that the opportunities that we do give to composers are opportunities for real musical growth (growth through risk-taking). I am not sure that orchestra readings are the best solution for this. Instead, I wish that institutions would really work with the orchestral departments to encourage more serious rehearsal time for composers' pieces. This would be doing us a real favor and would also foster a better understanding and appreciation of new music in orchestral musicians--musicians who, more and more, must be able to perform new music if they want to stay competitive in a world with fewer and fewer traditional orchestra jobs.
Posted by Natalie
I think this is a really though topic with many institutional problems. I'd like to bring up two points that might be of interest.
ReplyDelete1. I think this conversation really should be two different ones - new music rehearsal/performance in professional ensembles and in college orchestras. The goals and constraints are VERY different in each.
2. I don't think risky and complex need to be synonymous. Taking orchestration, registral, timbral, or structural risks can be just as effective as taking (often more difficult) rhythmic, pitch, and tempo risks. It's not to say that young/learning composers shouldn't have the opportunity to experiment with all different kinds of risks, but it seems like a common and unnecessary understanding for risky or edgy music to be super complex. I think it's something important to consider (or at least be careful of) in this conversation.
Great topic though!
Thanks for your comments!
ReplyDeleteJust to clarify--I am writing this from the perspective of a graduate music student and therefore am referring to the reading situation in music schools. I should have made that more clear. Although I do agree that the goals of college/university/conservatory orchestras are different than the goals of professional orchestras, it is my understanding from composers who have had professional readings that there are some similarities. For the sake of this post, however, I am focusing on the situation in academia.
You are right--complex and risky don't have to be the same thing. But I think often these two concepts are linked, which is why there is this confusion in the first place. As a composer, I have many things that I know will work. Often the things that I want to "try out" (or take a risk on) are more complex ideas. There are many exciting things that composers can try, as you say, with orchestration, register, timbre, and structure that allow for compositional growth within, perhaps, "safer" bounds. But I worry for the future of orchestra music when young composers aren't given the rehearsal time to take risks in terms of what you say are more difficult aspects of music, such as rhythm, pitch, and tempo.
Thanks again for your thoughts!
--Natalie
Yeah, you should make that more clear in the post, just by adding a sentence at the beginning -- I spent the whole post going, "Huh? Where are these readings by ensembles that don't want to be playing new music?" Most people reading this won't be thinking from the academic perspective. Excellent topic, though, especially the Beethoven example. Readings are a very tough environment not just for technically demanding pieces but also for pieces like mine that have low technical demands but really depend on nuance for their effect.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments (and please let us know who you are! Sarah and I are always curious about our readership)!! Sorry for the confusion---I edited some stuff above to make it more clear.
ReplyDeleteHappy reading!
-Natalie
So much of this post resonated deeply, just coming out of a master's program, for example:
ReplyDelete"With orchestra readings, the most "savvy" attitude is to compose something that will manage to come off well with zero rehearsal time and only thirty minutes (or so) of "polishing." "
I resented the pressure I felt from the majority of students and faculty to be "savvy." The indifference from the conductors, who did a good job technically given the limited time available but who were focused on professional and neutral demeanor, didn't help.
In retrospect, I feel lucky to have had the encouragement of my teacher not to run away from risky writing. I felt like I did have to manage others' perception of me as pretentious or unwise at best for doing so. In discussions after the performances, the recording was the window into the score, not the other way around. So the question was, "why did you do this, it didn't seem to work?" Or, "how could you have achieved this is an simpler way?" which is an essentially important question to ask. But not helpful in the way your post suggests orchestral readings have the potential to be.
-Michael
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your response!! I'm really glad the post resonated with you. Your comments remind me a lot of how I feel with some of these things--particularly this idea of having to manage the perceptions of others. I find myself thinking about this idea a lot--not only with readings, but also with composition in general (works in progress, comp recitals, etc.).
I think composition students (and performers and audience members) are often judgmental of risk-taking. Additionally, we're also often inclined to judge someone else’s piece as if it's in its final form, even though we really ought to know better. We might forget that a reading (or even a performance!) could be the first time a composer really gets to hear a well-rehearsed version of the work. It’s always possible that the composer might want to make substantial edits afterward, now that he/she has more information. Yet so often you hear someone immediately pouncing and declaring, “That piece really didn’t work…” We’re all guilty of this…well, maybe not all of us. But I think it’s pretty common. Still, it would be nice if we could, as one of my professors used to say, keep our ears open, rather than shutting down as soon as we hear something unusual, something that we didn’t like, or something that maybe didn’t come off as well as we think it could have.
Sometimes in order to manage perceptions, I will emphasize that what I am working on with a current piece is an “experiment.” I find that if I own this idea of taking risks my peers will put it in a different category and will be less judgmental (or at least will be less likely to instruct me on how to fix it). On the other hand, sometimes I feel weird doing this…like I am apologizing for doing what we’re all doing when we compose, anyway. After all, isn’t every piece an experiment?
That’s fantastic that your teacher was on your side. It has also been my experience that having a supportive teacher can make a world of difference. Upping the ante with risky composing is a gamble if you think about it in terms of short-term success. But I would bet a lot of money that composition students learn at least as much, if not more, from their mistakes than they do from their successes.
Thanks again for your comments and happy reading!
-Natalie
I think it's interesting to talk about composition students being judgmental of risk-taking, since as Natalie says, every piece is an experiment (and I think every piece is also a risk, albeit some more than others). I actually found the opposite where I did my master's- the composers judged each other if we WEREN'T taking risks (but not all risks were judged equally).
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wish I had taken more risks while completing my master's. At the time I felt that I was taking risks when compared to what I had written previously, but I think I could have pushed myself (or been pushed) further. I felt so much pressure to always write a great piece, but I feel that way now, too. At least when I was a student I had a better excuse if a piece turned out to be a flop, and (hopefully!) it wouldn't have been judged that badly in a recital, since we were all students. But I only feel this way in retrospect...
One anecdote, on the topic of readings: many of us composed pieces for wind ensemble one semester, with the understanding that the ensemble would do a reading of the pieces at the end of the semester. I thought my piece worked rather well at the reading, if I do say so myself, but it was certainly not risky at all. Several of my peers wrote much riskier pieces than I did, and they didn't all "work" very well- but I respected them more for trying. And, as others have said, the majority of the performers did not like the risky pieces very much- so did those pieces not turn out as well because of the writing, or because the performers weren't as interested in practicing? I still learned a ton from the process, but overall I think the risks that were taken by the other composers may have been the way to go. We really had nothing to lose in that setting.
- Sarah