"Spin doctor" may also refer to a member of the 1990's eponymous band, but today's post is not about them (spoiler alert: There is an excellent likelihood that I will never write a blog about them; sorry); it's about the value of creating good publicity for your music or for an upcoming concert, particularly during interviews, where the ability to "stay on message," or to "spin" your story, can come in handy.
A Cautionary Tale, or How Not To Conduct Yourself During an Interview
Composers are sometimes interviewed. Gather 'round, kids, to hear how I sabotaged my first such opportunity!
When I was an undergraduate student, I submitted two short movements for chamber orchestra to a "call for scores" by the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop (CCMW), a Toronto organization that "workshops" (i.e., provides a rehearsal and recorded read-through of your submission, with feedback from the performers) new works by "emerging" Canadian composers, some of which are given the additional honour of being featured on an evening concert.
I had not yet "emerged" at the time this took place. In fact, I'm still working on it, but I digress. My submissions were selected to be workshopped, but they were not selected for performance on the evening concerts.
Oh well, I thought. Better than nothing. And certainly better than the figurative donkey-kicks to the rear that are commonplace when attempting to emerge as a composer!
The workshop/rehearsal went well, thanks to both the quality of the musicians, who were excellent sight-readers, and (he added, boastfully) the staggering beauty of my parts, over which I had slaved for over a month, using a nifty, plastic music stencil, a device that ensured that all noteheads, stems, accidentals, articulations, etc., were uniform in size, producing a result that was as close to published music as possible with a pencil. So painstaking was the process that I never used the stencil again.
The musicians reacted positively to my music and asked the administrator why it hadn't been selected for an evening performance. "Why the hell is this not on the programme?" the first violinist demanded. "Yeah!" somebody else said, possibly in response to an unrelated question. Or possibly it was me; who can remember such things? Demands by first violinists must be taken seriously. The performers' endorsement was communicated to the CCMW artistic team, who were sufficiently impressed that they added my pieces to the evening concert programme. Either that, or they were desperate, perhaps having just realized that their concert was too short.
Either way, I was, of course, pleased.
To clarify, I had obviously hoped that my compositions would be chosen for an evening performance when I submitted them, but when they weren't, I was not particularly upset. That's the way things go in attempting to become a composer, or indeed an artist of any kind; you accumulate many more rejections than affirmations, and I didn't look at this as a complete rejection, since it gave me the opportunity to hear my music rehearsed by professionals in a workshop setting.
So, when I learned the good news that they had decided to programme it on a concert after all, my reaction was, "nice!" or "cool!" or something similarly moderate, not "OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING! I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN NOW!"
Not Sally Field at the 1985 Oscars, in other words. Who was awesome, in case you didn't catch her acceptance speech.
Opportunity Blown
The CCMW administrator decided that this story would make a great publicity angle — "Musicians' Endorsement Spells Boffo Break for Deservedely-Obscure Local Composer" or something like that — and got someone she knew at CBC radio to do a segment about it on the national "Arts Report."
A CBC reporter subsequently telephoned me to have a pre-interview chat, presumably to determine my suitability as an interview subject (although I did not realize this at the time). She asked several questions that clearly communicated the reaction she wanted from me, such as, "you MUST be REALLY excited to have this opportunity land on your lap like this!" and "It must be so AMAZING to have had HUGE break at such an early stage in your career!"
I, being obtuse, gave some lame response, such as "Well, yes, I’m really looking forward to hearing a good performance of my music."
This may seem like a perfectly reasonable response to you — at least it does to me — but the sad fact is that this response was sorely lacking in the enthusiasm department. An enthusiasm-fail, if you will.
My general policy on gushing (effusive or exaggerated enthusiasm) is to avoid it unless the situation unequivocally calls for it. Examples of such unequivocal situations would include (but are not limited to) the following:
- A snow day resulting in school cancellation;
- My wedding day;
- The birth of my children;
- All achievements by my children, or, for that matter, the children of people I care about;
- Achievements by my students;
- Achievements by my cats, or any cats, for that matter;
- Winning an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, despite the fact that I have never acted in my life, beyond pretending to know what I am doing when I teach or compose;
- Winning a large sum (in excess of $10 million) in a lottery; or
- The consumption of 2-3 jars of excellent mead. I have never actually consumed any mead, but my understanding is that it is made from fermented honey, which sounds quite yummy, and I strongly suspect that it would lead to expressions of tremendous enthusiasm on my part. About anything at all.
What I realized after the fact was that the reporter wanted a "feel good" story about a nobody (i.e., me) getting the opportunity of a lifetime, and she wanted the hapless schmuck (i.e., me) to gush about it. She wasn't trying to report news; she was trying craft an interesting "human-interest" story for her listeners.
Whether she SHOULD have been trying to craft a story that basically followed a script she had already constructed beforehand is immaterial; this was one of those "it is what it is" situations, meaning that this is the way she was operating (and it is probably the way many journalists often operate), and I ought to have recognized that and used the opportunity to my advantage, thereby gaining a modicum of publicity for my music, which it had never had.
Perhaps the following level of enthusiasm was what she was after, and yes, I am in a silly mood:
Q: "How do you feel about this wonderful opportunity landing in your lap? You must be very excited!"
A: "OH MY GOD, I WAS 100% CONVINCED THAT THEY WERE KIDDING ME AT FIRST! I MEAN, IT WAS LIKE THE THREE MAGI ANNUNCIATED TO NORMALLY-HAPLESS ME THAT MY INSIGNIFICANT LITTLE COMPOSITION WOULD BE PROGRAMMED ON THE WONDROUS C.C.M.W. EVENING CONCERT THIS SATURDAY AT 8PM AT THE ROYAL CONSERVATORY!
"I SAID, 'PLEASE TELL ME THE TRUTH: ARE YOU PULLING MY LEG? BECAUSE I MOST CERTAINLY COULD NOT BEAR IT IF YOU WERE!" BUT THEY WEREN'T! THEY WERE NOT! NO! FOR THIS REASON, TODAY I FEEL LIKE THE LUCKIEST YOUNG SCHMUCK IN THE 13.798 BILLION-YEAR HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! I AM HAPLESS NO LONGER! PLEASE PINCH ME, ‘CAUSE I AM QUITE CERTAIN THAT I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF A WALTER MITTY-ESQUE DAYDREAM!Okay, so perhaps it was good that I didn't go as over-the-top as the above, but, nevertheless, I could have responded more enthusiastically. Alas, I did not know how the spin-doctoring game was played.
OH MY GOD, I SWEAR I’M GOING TO BARF! SERIOUSLY! COULD I GET A MOTION-SICKNESS BAG HERE PLEASE?"
The reporter was clearly getting frustrated with me. "You don't sound like you're very excited by this," she exclaimed at one point, berating me for not playing this game very well.
No? Perhaps this was because I WAS NOT VERY EXCITED BY THIS. Yes, in retrospect, I think that was a big part of the reason I sounded as I did.
I mean, I was pleased of course, but come on! We were discussing a new-music concert! We'd be lucky to get about 30 people to show up, most of whom would be there because their child or friend was having a composition performed, and this did not strike me as a hugely exciting proposition. I looked forward to having a good performance of my music, which virtually never happened in those days, and that was about it.
The reporter chatted with me a little longer, and said she would drop by my apartment the next day with recording equipment to interview me in person.
After I hung up, I reflected on our conversation and swiftly (but not swiftly enough!) deduced that she had wanted me to demonstrate greater excitement, and I resolved to do this the next day during the actual interview. I practiced on my cats, which only served to alarm them.
Secretly though, I think they were nonetheless impressed.
By the next day I had actually worked myself up to an unusually-high (for me) level of excitement in anticipation of the interview, although my cats were still eying me guardedly when they weren't napping. My first interview! And on a national radio show! It would be very cool if my relatives in Alberta heard this! I got up early and donned some non-hobo attire for a change, and waited patiently for the reporter to show up. Or call. Then I waited some more, less patiently… As I continued to wait, the anxiety level started to elevate…
Well, I hung around my apartment all day in an increasingly nervous state, but the reporter did not show up. Or call. Obviously, this was a a perplexing (initially) and depressing (subsequently) letdown. No call, no message; she just decided to ditch me, but neglected to let me know. To quote Jar-Jar Binks, a well-known-but-dangerously-incompetent diplomat, how wude!
A big reason I try not to get too excited about things that fall short of those listed under my very sensible "gushing policy" above is that when I do, and they don’t work out, it can be devastating. Such was was the case here.
The day after that, I was listening to the CBC "Arts Report" in the morning and sure enough, they had a story about the CCMW, but they had interviewed another young composer for their CCMW story, and this composer seemed very excited by the whole thing; she was gushing impressively. I was not mentioned in the story. Opportunity blown!
Well, of course that further rubbed salt on my already-wounded psyche, which, unfortunately, is the way we learn many of life’s lessons. Another way would be to read this blog, but there were no blogs at the time.
And the Moral of This Story is…
What I learned from that experience, and subsequent ones, is that when reporters or publicity people talk to you, they may or, more probably, may not care about you or your music, but they do care about constructing a story that will interest their audience. You should therefore try to give them something that will make for a good story, ideally delivered with some enthusiasm or at least a strong sense of conviction, while at the same time making the points about your music that you feel are important. Have an agenda, in other words.
Politicians do this all the time during interviews, and it can be really annoying. They respond to questions by making short, prepared, self-aggrandizing speeches, irrespective of what they were asked, like this:
Q: How do you plan on resuscitating the stagnant economy, which has basically ground to a halt during your first term in office?
A: Nothing is a higher priority than the economy, because the people of this great nation want to work, and they want a government that is accountable, a government that listens to people, and a government that cares about ALL people! Fiscally responsible spending, combined with prudent cuts to outdated programmes, will produce HUGE gains for the economy, which means more money in EVERYONE'S pocket, but especially, the MIDDLE CLASS! I LOVE THE MIDDLE CLASS!Impressive that so many words can add up to a bunch of meaningless platitudes that basically say nothing at all! And yet it happens all the time.
However, when an artist is interviewed, no one expects blow-hardy, meaningless platitudes. I'm not sure people expect much of anything, frankly, so you basically have carte blanche to make whatever points you wish, if you can skillfully weave them, however tenuously, into actual responses to questions asked. Like this:
Q: You must be very excited to have your music performed on this concert!
A: I was blown away by how good the musicians sounded during rehearsals — they are fantastic performers, fully committed to these exciting, brand new compositions, and I'd be excited to be at tonight's concert even if my music wasn't being performed! I've been at rehearsals of the other works on the programme, and the people who come to the concert are going to hear some exciting, amazing, and profoundly-moving music. So yeah, I'm definitely excited to have my music included on such a great programme, but I'm equally excited to hear everyone else's music as well!I recommend thinking carefully about the story or “angle” that you want to communicate before you do an interview, and then doing your best to communicate these points succinctly. Try to keep it simple; what’s the main thing you want people to know? If there is an opportunity to make a second point, what would that be? What do you think would captivate the attention of a potential concert-goer? What image of yourself would you like to project?
Have an awareness that, in most cases, most of the audience for this interview will be lay people who will probably not be very interested in technical jargon (for hilarious examples of meaningless gobbledygook, check out The Contemporary Classical Composer's Bullshit Generator Javascript).
Here's an example of meaningless-techno-babble-with-extreme-attitude that I made up:
“I commenced by constructing a scale based on the familiar 014 trichord, which I don't expect you or any member of the general public would understand, but who cares, because I don't give a damn about idiots. Of course, when cleverly transposed three times, the 014 trichord forms a hexachord whose possibilities were recognized by ancient (albeit pedestrian) composers such as Liszt and Schoenberg to be very fertile in terms of generating a rich but startlingly original (which I mean in a quasi-literal sense) sound palette. The sonic possibilities inherent in this neo-stochastic rationalization exercise are revealed in my third, sixth, and nineteenth "movements," or should I say, "stagnants," because really, that's what they are, in ways that have heretofore only "scratched" the surface, historically speaking. Or should I say, "marred," because that is another word for "scratched." I am not able to reveal more than that, because my competitors (who, without exception, are both scurrilous and unscrupulous) would steal my ideas (and therefore my glory), and I would then be compelled to initiate litigation against them in order to protect my highly-intellectual property. I have sued hundreds of composers in the past week alone! I am not to be trifled with, obviously. Before dismissing you, I will make one final point: I would rather have my masterworks performed in an empty concert hall than have a single fool show up expecting to "understand," or "relate" to the music. Nay, I say let them visit the hardware store, or go bowling, or some such pointless activity. I will take no follow-up questions at this time. Now be gone before I feel compelled to strike you!”Disclaimer: The long, run-on paragraph above does not represent my views in any way. I like visits to hardware stores. I like bowling. I do not knowingly use the 014 trichord in my music. I like it when people show up at a concert that has my music on it. I know I shouldn't, but I do…
Most people think of music as a form of emotional expression, and yet composers often seem uncomfortable about describing their music in this way, preferring to use jargon to describe their composition process instead. So, don't be afraid to show some enthusiasm as you talk.
It is useful to know something about your audience; if you are speaking to fellow composers or composition students, then use as much technical jargon as you want. If you are speaking to an audience of new-music fanatics, you can probably get away with describing your process in this way as well. But if you are speaking to a more general audience, such as radio listeners or people at a symphony orchestra concert, it might be good to describe the music in a more programmatic way, perhaps sharing some personal tidbits along the way.
But what if your music is without programmatic content? Well! Then you must find something else to talk about, ideally, something that will capture the imagination of someone listening to you speak. Either that, or start giving your music programmatic titles…
Actually, I must confess that it is for this very reason that I decided to start using programmatic titles for my music many years ago, after being a firm believer that "Chamber Piece No. 3," "Overture," "Prelude and Scherzo," etc., were perfectly good titles for compositions; Beethoven mostly avoided programmatic titles, and it seemed to go pretty well for him, so why not follow his lead?
However, after a few interviews and conversations with audience members who frequently wanted to know what the music was about, what it represented, what it meant, it occurred to me that by not having more imaginative titles I was creating barriers between my music, which I mostly tried to make as expressive as possible, and the audience, and thus I think almost everything I have written for about twenty-five years has a descriptive title, or subtitle, as in "Interlude for String Orchestra: La Muerte Me Está Mirando" (Death is Watching Me; note the clever use of the Spanish language. Which I happen to speak, since I grew up in Venezuela).
Of course, this can be a difficult challenge when, as is often the case, I am not thinking of any particular programmatic content as I write the music… In cases like these, I listen to the music many, many times, trying to figure out what emotions are triggered in me by the music. I also play the music for my test market (i.e., my wife and kids) and ask for their thoughts and reactions about the music. Sometimes even the cats contribute to the process, although their ideas usually centre around food, or replenishing our supply of catnip-stuffed toys. So if one day I write something called, "Get me Some Damn Catnip Toys NOW!", you'll know where I got the idea.
To Summarize…
To summarize, it is useful for composers to be aware of the benefits of communicating well with the public, if we want people to show up at our concerts and listen to our music.
This is perhaps obvious, but communicating in this way, connecting with an audience based on your ability to describe your music, is not always easy to do, which means that it would be a good strategy to plan your talking points, and maybe even try them out on people that you know and ask them for honest criticism and suggestions.
To some degree, I think that audience members just want to know something about you, perhaps to know if they can connect with you as a person or not, and hearing you talk candidly about your music from the stage before a performance will give them that, irrespective of what you say. But what you say matters too, which is why it is good to work out the way in which you want to "spin" your story.
This is something you can practice in composition class (or with friends and family), by the way; your instructor can give everyone a limited time period (perhaps two to three minutes) to discuss their music, and then class members can give feedback and suggestions to each other. Or class members could interview one another, again followed by feedback from other classmates.
Now I feel compelled to write some catnip-themed chamber music, and so I will finally end this post! Hope you enjoyed it!
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19 comments:
This entry makes a great point! I had never really thought about how I would talk about my music - it's never occurred to me to do anything with it. As I get further in my bachelor's degree I'm thinking about what I hope to do with it, and it looks like further education is the route I'll be taking. I'll probably be doing some composition here and there, and for my chosen path I'll definitely be needing some experience in this area. I hadn't thought about the non-musical side to composing: how will other people perceive it? What if it doesn't get much recognition? What if it does? How will I defend my decisions within my piece(s)? As more of a performer than a composer I haven't had to consider music from this angle, but I guess the 'PR' (public relations, i.e, the professional maintenance of a favorable public image) angle is equally as important when you're writing and publishing music. I think another interesting question would be how to respond when someone attacks your musical decisions, or when a piece gets a bad review. If you're set on what you've written and you're certain that's how you want a piece to sound, how should you react when someone disagrees?
Thank you for addressing a topic that is far too scarcely discussed in classical music! Knowing how to package your product, whether it is a composition or a performance, or a discourse concerning either, how you present it and yourself can be the make or break in many situations. I myself have had a couple of radio interviews concerning performances and have been horribly unprepared, but somehow managed to stumble through unscathed. This post has inspired me to take more time to put serious thought into this aspect of my performing and composing. The aesthetic of our consumerist society is heavily artificial and great care is taken by many people to create the world that we see around us every day. If one is to be taken seriously, then a similar effort must be made to meet the expectations of the listener.
Also, much love for the jar-jar binks quote.
Thanks for your comments, Adrian and Sarah!
To respond to Sarah's question, one of the givens in putting yourself "out there" as a performer, composer, teacher, actor, etc., is that people will judge you and your product, which could be your performances, recordings, compositions, etc.
While most of us do not love this aspect of doing what we do, it's a challenge for which we have to figure out a solution, unless we want to be at the mercy of others' opinions of us and our work.
Most people that I know who compose or perform have figured out that the main person you need to be accountable to is yourself, and if you produce something of which you are proud, but someone else criticizes it, you can at least take satisfaction in knowing that you achieved something that has meaning to you. The only person whose opinion you can control is yourself.
A situation you never want to be in would be producing something of which you aren't particularly proud, and having others criticize it for weaknesses you have already identified. The main disappointment there would be knowing that you could have done better, and that you should have done better.
However, increasingly, this is becoming a moot point; music criticism seems to be in the process of "going the way of the dodo." You just don't see music criticism happening as much on journals or other media as was the case in the past, which means there is a reasonable likelihood that the music we produce will never be reviewed in a publication, or, if it is, that few people will pay attention to it.
Of course there are exceptions, like getting reviewed in a huge-circulation newspaper like the New York Times...
Anyway, thanks again for you comments!
I think I may be in the minority, in that I actually really enjoy talking about my music to non-musicians! As a composer, I want my music to be something my audience can enjoy and connect with, so I keep that connection in mind when I'm writing; otherwise, I feel like I'm talking to myself. Since this communicative aspect is at the heart of what I do, I rarely find I struggle to express it to others. However, I am liable to fall into the trap of over-enthusiasm! By nature of my temperament, I have to consciously tone myself down.
Responding to compliments and criticism with equal grace is always a challenge, but I think it is a skill on which I am improving. Having had extensive training in debate and public speaking, I have experience in speaking extemporaneously and politely defending a position. I find it always best to find some way to respond that casts a good light not only on one's self, but one's colleagues and the individual one to whom one is speaking.
I find that as a female composer, I am very conscious of my image in a male-dominated field. I often wonder whether I should present a bolder persona, or alternatively, a softer one, and if this would provide me with more credibility or make me more appealing, respectively. Ultimately though, I really feel that an honest but more polished version of one's self is the best policy for public appearances; anything else comes across as fake, which does not make a good impression.
I have been working for 4 years in the tourism industry and communication on TV and radio happened on a regular basis. It is a strategic game and it can be very dangerous when you are dealing with funds or political ideas… I think there are some strategies that I could still be using to talk about music like: before the interview, I write 2 or 3 mains ideas that I want to emphasize and talk about. For each main ideas, I write 4 or 5 impacting words that I'll be using to describe my ideas. This is funny, but I have learnt to not answer the questions and to take advantage of the time on the radio or on TV to talk about what I wanted. There are different ways to drift the sense of a question, and we have to keep thinking during the interview that we have the power of what we want to communicate. Now I find this exercise easier to do for business, but not so much for my own music. I had the experience of an interview before one of my recitals and I could not find my words… I was so timid… But in that case I taught people wanted to hear a positive energy… and so I started to talk as if it was someone else's recital… I am not sure it worked tough. How do we communicate on classical music in a very small community? I guess I will learn with time. As a last point, I would also say that short answers are the key, especially in recorded interviews. The journalist has to make some cuts and if the ideas are shorts he will have to create the interview with these short answers… don't let the journalist choose random ideas in your 10 minutes speech, because the result won't inspire you and worst, it will mean nothing to you.
This blog post touches on a very real fact about conversation. It is not just what you say, but also HOW you say it. After I finish my Bachelors, I plan on attending Law School and entering a field that LITERALLY depends on your ability to convey ideas and talk talk talk talk talk. I plan on going into Commercial Law, which does not require me to give long-winded speeches to convince the jury of my associates innocence, but rather convince individuals to hire me and draw up their contracts. This ability to talk, communicate, and persuade others is heavily dependent on spinning your words so that they are convinced by your prose. I think that understanding your audience is essential in giving a convincing performance (this applies heavily to music as well).
The instant I read the word "spin doctoring" it immediately made me think of Alan Bennett's play "The History Boys". The play is about a group of high school boys at a grammar school in England. These history students are studying for entrance exams for post secondary education. They have three main teachers that help them in their exam prep. These teachers have opposite teaching styles. The play explores the many different issues that face boys in their teenage years.
So why this play is relevant:
1. The amount of musical references and allusions made throughout make it of interest to musicians
2. Playwright Alan Bennett is brilliant
3. Most importantly the character Irwin is the ULTIMATE spin doctor.
Irwin is hired on at the school for the purpose of preparing the boys for their university entrance exams. Irwin is known for his approach to conversation and debate in the classroom. He adores rhetorical strategy. Irwin is a smooth talker. His character is capable of taking the contrasting less popular view on any subject and convince everyone to side with his perspective.
As musicians we need to have this skill in our back pocket! Regardless of the musical medium we are presenting, we need to know how to present it. (Even if we are not comfortable being put in such situations.) In my opinion you are only as good as your last performance. Our reputation is crucial to our craft!
Great story! Thanks for sharing your personal experiences. I appreciate your great advice. I have never gotten an interview. And until now, I have never thought about what approaches I should take or how I should conduct myself if such an opportunity would arise. I’ve definitely learned a few tips from your experience and from the additional comments to this blog post.
Your writing continues to prove helpful and hilarious. Knowing how to handle yourself is a useful skill for anyone not just composers. The point this blog made are some point I hope to never forget (and even if I do I'll know where to find it). I have made it through a couple newspaper interviews but It's a completely different story when your words can be edited. I had never thought about it as creating a good story for the interviewer but it certainly makes a lot of sense to approach an interview that way. Thank you for your post on this topic!
I really enjoyed reading this blog post, Dr. Ross. I have never had such an experience myself, but this past week, I met a very interesting man in the airport who asked me about my guitar. I began to tell him that I studied music, and as he asked more questions, I tentatively revealed that I was pursuing composition. It turns out this man has a great interest in new music, and though he is not a musician, seeks out music that "jars" him. I suddenly realized how differently I communicate with people I assume know nothing about what I do, and fellow musicians. In that short conversation, I transitioned from one register to another! So I can definitely relate to the difficulty of communicating with people about my music. I find that speaking about the emotional tone of the music is often hard to do for me, and I do tend to begin using jargon. I suppose that I don't translate very easily into words what my music is about. In fact, that's what I love about writing music—the fact that I can create something that needs no words to express emotions. But I also recognize that performers and audience members relate more easily to a piece with a descriptive title or text. This man even asked me to describe the aesthetic of my music, but I admit I was a little bit at a loss for words. I'll have to do some more thinking on this topic!
Just because someone is a good cook, doesn't mean they know how to run a restaurant. And likewise, just because someone can compose doesn't mean they know to deal with P.R. But as a composer you'd really being doing yourself a disservice if you don't know how to make yourself available and presentable to the public. Gary Kulesha is a perfect example, he is great composer, works for the Toronto Symphany, but it was damn near impossible to find his music on youtube for a long time. Being able to talk to an audience in person, humanizing the experience, being able to describe your piece/inspirations, are all great skills to have. But being able to get the "word out" might be, in my opinion, an even more important skill to have. Composers are really doing themselves a disservice by not networking properly.
As far as "spinning" your story goes, having an interviewesque video on youtube about your piece would not only make it a little more personable, but it also ensures your ideas behind your piece would be shared with the widest of audience (and probably in it's best format since you can take several takes).
I really enjoyed this post, and I believe that it illuminates something often not talked about in classical music. I believe that often times, the packaging in classical music is often forgotten (unlike popular music). I believe that as a whole, classical music can play more to the common denominator, be that discussing our successes (no matter how small or large) with enthusiasm, advocating loudly and happily for even the smallest of shows, or just plain taking the time to explain to someone what our music is about and how it works. I think a struggle many musicians have is not believing that the every opportunity, big or small, is an opportunity, and that in order to grow and network, we must embrace every opportunity equally, with the same enthusiasm. Large touring acts play the same show, no matter if the audience contains 10, or 10000 people. It's what they get paid to do. I believe that if we all approached every show with this same enthusiasm (be it fuelled by money or not) that we would all be much better off for it.
As I read your more silly posts, I often find your writing starts to sound like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is a huge compliment from me because I think it is one of the most entertaining books ever!
I don't often think about the way I'm representing myself until after I've completely embarrassed myself. Then I think about it a lot, usually when I'm in the shower, the warm water soothing the sorrow of my immense regret. When I'm standing in front of an ensemble playing my piece, all of my composure and knowledge of music seems to disappear. For this reason, the last couple of times I have been in a situation like this, I have really tried to amp myself up. It seems like a sense of authority and a lack of hesitation is important for the ensemble to respect your opinion... And that can be hard to display if you aren't naturally.. like that.
I agree that interviewing for radio/television is an art, and that you cannot just simply "be yourself," at least not everyday ordinary you, especially if you are relatively introverted/awkward (like me). I think the key is to find a representation of yourself that, as you said in the post, creates an interesting story for the consumers of radio/television but also at the same time communicating things that are genuine. The first, and only, time I was interviewed for radio I was thankfully with my quartet (i.e. the other three did most of the talking) and it was not live so they were able to edit out the ummmmss and awkward silences. However anytime I tried to say something I immediately felt a sense of having no idea where I was going. I completely lost my ability to plan what I was going to say. I got panicked.
I think it should be a part of our education to be interviewed. Pretty much any job/school application requires interviewing, and after you get a position you have to continue interviewing in other contexts, such as radio or television or news. It is such a vital part of our career, yet we get little to no training or experience.
This is one of my favourite posts of yours that I've read so far! I actually genuinely laughed at it for 2 reasons: first of all, I thought you should know my cat happens to be an extremely accomplished as he recently reached 150 followers on his personal Instagram account. Secondly, I relate too strongly to the story you've shared in this post, and I'm kicking myself for not reading this entry sooner! A month or so ago I received a really exciting musical honour. Although I was overjoyed, maybe because of my own self-doubt or an attempt to be humble, every time I was asked about it I would reply that I was "still in shock" and I "can't believe it!" Looking back on it, I wish I had simply been proud and excited about my accomplishment. This post was such a great reminder to do that. We make music every day, and it becomes so normal that we forget how exciting it all is. To come up with a tune or rhythm in your head one day and suddenly have talented musicians bringing it to life on a stage sounds like an amazing experience, one that we should speak of with all the excitement and magic that it truly is.
Disappointed that this was not a post about Spin Doctors (formal analysis of Two Princes?) but I digress. At the time at which you were involved in this concert and interview, the way which composers were able to present and publicize themselves was of course different. I would assume that this opportunity to be broadcast in an interview was quite large. Today, thanks to social media, composers have the ability to present themselves any way they choose online, and in many ways have much greater control over how the public sees them as figures. In a world prior to this form of self-promotion, I can see how an opportunity such as this could make it or break it for a composer. This is an interesting thing to think about and to consider the social differences between the world of composition in regards to the self promotion of composers of before social media and today.
Now and days, It is really easy to represent one's self and boost one's signal through social media,and mediums like twitter, facebook, instagram and LinkedIn. I find that although useful, one must be really careful when on social media about how one represents oneself, because what's put up often stays there forever. Also because tone is something that is hard to discern from electronic communication, and as a general rule, one is always perceived in a more negative tone through electronic communication. It is hard to show enthusiasm without saying words like "excited" and "enthusiastic" which at times can seem fake or cheap. But because social media is such an effective way to signal boost for a young composer it would be
a missed importunity not to use it to promote ones works. It must be used carefully to put forward the desired message and tone.
I have never done an interview about my music, but when I have been asked to talk about my piece, I do tend to talk in more technical terms. I have actually described a piece I wrote ONLY in terms of the tetrachords I used. But I cannot imagine how I would react in an interview setting. How am I supposed to know what the interviewer is looking for in my answer? Or, in more general terms, how do I answer questions about my music in a way that puts me in the best and most accessible light? I remember that after my wind band piece was performed at the Gower Band Gala last year, a couple of people came up to me and said that they "didn't get my piece." I didn't really know how to respond, so I literally restated the program notes for them. The criticism didn't bother me per se, but I was definitely not prepared for those kinds of comments/questions. I didn't have an agenda that I was ready to push. I will definitely be prepared with talking points the next time my music is performed. Like what Julianne said, music-making may be normal for us, but it's exciting in the eyes of the general audience, so we have to portray that excitement even if it's not our immediate reaction.
As a side note, I think that there were a lot of excellent points made in the article. But I was really intrigued by the plastic music stencil tangent. I even read the Life before Finale blog posts that were linked before continuing with the rest of post. I understand why the music typewriter became obsolete when we have software like Finale, but I didn't even know that the stencil even existed. I feel like a kid born in the mid 2000s who doesn't know what vhs is. Though doing entire scores and parts would eliminate any joy that would come from using vintage tech, the stencil should have definitely stuck around. It would have made my music theory homework WAYYY more legible and it would be cool to use when sketching music ideas on manuscript paper. I don't understand why my formal music history education has overlooked all advancements in music printing other than the printing press. We take music notation software for granted and we have no idea how people were printing music only a few decades ago. Alright, I will get off my soapbox now...
This is an interesting blog post! When Trump came onto the scene of US politics in 2015, it captured my interest because it was not clear to me at all why he was doing so good. I should have realized that at the end of the day, he is a businessman, and knows how to sell things. So many journalists today write stories from a biased perspective, and although biases are natural in life, sometimes they can be controversial, especially in prestigious news magazines and news websites. Sometimes, people just make stuff up, just for the fun of it! *Cough* FOX News *cough*. Anyways, after reading this article, it has become clear to me that when I am pitching ideas, it needs to be clear, concise, and most importantly, engaging, so that people don't run with something totally different.
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