– British journalist and author Ray Connolly, interviewed in It Was Fifty Years Ago Today! The Beatles: Sgt. Pepper & Beyond (2017; documentary)
Has anyone has ever reached the pinnacle of their profession without these qualities? The answer probably depends on how you define them, of course, particularly the last one.
And, if it is true that no one reaches the top without these qualities, does that mean that aspiring composers should become egomaniacs?
I'd like to explore these questions, but I'll start with ambition.
Ambition
Ambition is a strong desire to achieve a goal, typically requiring determination and hard work. The goal is usually at least somewhat lofty – I think that is how it is used in the above quote – but it need not necessarily be so – one's ambition might be to get married, start a family, be a good parent, teacher, or friend, etc. Examples of loftier goals are fame, fortune, power, higher status, or excellence.
I'm not sure there is such a thing as a human being with no ambition at all, although people are sometimes characterized as such, being labelled slackers, lazy bums, deadbeats, goldbricks, or goof-offs, amongst other strongly-negative terms.
But even if a person wishes to go through life doing as little as possible, that in itself is a kind of ambition, is it not? 😸 I once asked a guitar student of mine what their ambitions were, and the student said their main ambition was to win a lottery. He has thus far not achieved this, but he subsequently spent many years studying in Germany to become a brewmeister, and is now making a very good living as such, I understand.
I am not sure if anyone reaches the top of their profession without a strong ambition to do so, but perhaps some people get there by simply aspiring to be as good as they can be, and if that gets them to the top, so be it.
Aspiring to be as good as you can be has the advantage of being a motivational goal – everyone can aim to become as good as they can be, although no one really knows where that point is. Perhaps if we begin to feel like we are as good as we can be, we are probably not. The aspiration to self-actualize (which is related to being as good as we can be) is like the figurative carrot at the end of a stick, motivating us to pursue it, but remaining forever just beyond our reach.
Aspiring to reach the absolute pinnacle of one's profession is, in art, a difficult objective to define. If you're a boxer, and you are the undisputed champion of the world in your weight class, then congratulations; you've reached the top of your profession! Tennis and golf have ranking systems that determine who is number one in their sports. Track athletes become number one in the world when they break world records.
For composers, however, while there are various ways of measuring success, there aren't any universally-recognized criteria that clearly establish someone as "the best of the best," the "Queen" or "King" of the composing world. Incidentally, the word "King" has been applied to Elvis ("the King of Rock 'n Roll"), LeBron James of the NBA ("King James"), and Babe Ruth ("the King of Crash," although he was more widely known as "the Sultan of Swat," and "the Bambino"). No one has applied it to classical composers; there is no King Bach, or King Beethoven. This is good; it means the title is still up for grabs! 😸
A challenge in aspiring to reach the absolute pinnacle of one's profession is dealing with factors beyond our control. Becoming as good as you can be is something to which anyone can aspire and work toward, but becoming better than everyone else is not, simply because, even if you attain your peak level of achievement, there will nevertheless likely be a lot of people who are better than you.
Some people in both the real world and fiction have opted to cheat or otherwise commit crimes in order to eliminate or gain an advantage over the competition, but, to quote Shakespeare's King Lear, that way madness lies. 😳
(Okay, I will stop it with the emojis now. Apologies to those annoyed by them!)
Shakespeare seems to have been particularly prone to creating characters who committed vile acts for personal gain, such as Claudius killing King Hamlet, and Macbeth killing King Duncan, but there are many examples of similarly-motivated regicides and otherwise dastardly deeds committed throughout actual history, such as physically or verbally attacking one's competitors (cf. U.S. figure skater Tonya Harding, many politicians (for whom ad hominem attacks appear to be the norm), and business people (e.g., hostile takeovers, crushing one's competitors)).
Less extreme, perhaps, but still wrong is cheating for personal gain, such as the long list of athletes who have used performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) or blood doping to gain an edge over their competitors. Swindlers, "confidence men" (which became shortened over time to "con-men"), and some forms of telemarketing also fall under this category.
But, happily, somewhere between wanting to be the best you can be, and Machiavellian (or Shakespearian) schemes to eliminate those that stand in your way, lie other, more honourable (and less mad) options, which brings us back to composition.
Let's say your ambition is to become an excellent, and well-regarded composer. The first part is hopefully something you are always working on on (and something about which I write frequently), but the second part can be something of a mystery for many, myself included.
Start by being clear on your motivation; why do you want to be a well-regarded composer?
The motivation for me is practical; if many people like your music and think highly of you as a composer, then you are more likely to get commissions, performances, and recordings of your music. And if more people are performing and recording your music, the odds improve that the performances and recordings will be of higher quality. These in turn will better reflect how good a composer you are, and more people will have opportunities to hear your music, which in turn can lead to more commissions and programming of your music on concerts. If performances of your work are infrequent, and by weak performers, then the opposite is true; you are less likely to get good opportunities for commissions and performances. Therefore, in my view, becoming a well-regarded composer is just as important a goal as becoming a good composer.
Once you have identified a goal and become clear on your motivation, the next challenge is figuring out what it takes to achieve that goal; in this case it would be:
Make a list of strategies to become better known as a composer.
For most composers, I suspect that this is the tricky, or at least potentially uncomfortable part. Take all my suggestions below with a grain of salt; after all, if I were really good at this, I would be better known.
Here are some ideas:
- Build relationships with performers (1). Start by taking a friendly interest in performers you already know, such as fellow music students, but make sure you don't come across as someone interested only in what others can do for you.
There are different ways to proceed; if you want to write for a specific instrumentation, such as clarinet and piano, you could approach a clarinetist you know and ask if they'd be interested in playing such a piece; if they say yes, then try to line up a pianist (or ask the clarinetist if there's a specific pianist they like to perform with). It helps to have a specific performance opportunity in mind, such as an upcoming student composer's concert. If you are no longer in school, you could organize a concert of new works by young composers, or better yet, involve a bunch of your colleagues in the organization of such a concert (see #7 below). If you already have a completed work, such as a piece for clarinet and piano, you could offer scores and parts to performers of these instruments and ask if they would be willing to have a look at them, and let you know if they would be willing to perform the piece.
- Build relationships with performers (2). Attend recitals and try to meet the performers backstage afterwards to congratulate them, and let them know how much you enjoyed the concert. Do this sincerely! if you come across as insincere or otherwise disingenuous ("I loved your concert! Here, take some of my music! See ya!"), you can be pretty sure that the performer(s) will not only never play your music, but they may speak badly of you to others. If you did not enjoy the concert, I do not recommend doing this approach.
If, at some point in the conversation, the performer asks about you, then you can let them know you are a composer, and, if they ask if you've written anything for their instrument, then you can say yes, and you just happen to have a score you'd like to give them, which hopefully you brought to the concert with you. Just in case.
All of these things don't usually happen, by the way, so, if they don't, use your judgement as to whether the performer might be interested in having a look at a score of yours. The main thing, it seems to me, is to express interest in them, because without it, they are unlikely to be interested in you.
I don't do this much, but when I did, I would often meet performers backstage and not give them my music, because it just didn't feel right, and I didn't want to come across as a huckster. Occasionally, however, we would seem to hit it off and I would give them my music. In a few cases, it worked out spectacularly well for me.
The absolute best-case example of this approach working out for me was meeting guitarist Daniel Bolshoy backstage after one of his concerts, and then heading out for a post-concert beverage with some mutual friends, and getting to know him better that way (and vice-versa, which is without question more important! A performer is much more likely to be interested in your music if they like you). At some point he asked about me, and asked if I had written for guitar. Sure enough, I "happened" to have a copy of a long, solo guitar piece with me, which I gave to him, and he seemed interested. I sent him an occasional E-mail follow-up, again saying how much I had enjoyed the concert (which was true) and asking how things were going in his life. Do not bombard the performer with E-mails! one E-mail every few months is plenty. Eventually he had a look at my piece, liked it, learned it, and started to perform it.
The upshot is that he recorded it onto a CD named "McGillicuddy's Rant," which is the title of my composition, and performed it close to 100 times around the world. He subsequently commissioned a new guitar piece with string quartet from me, which he performed with the Penderecki Quartet. As a result of his performances, other guitarists have heard my music and written me asking for copies of the score, which in turn has led to more performances of this piece. So, this approach can work! - Contact performers and music directors you don't know. This is a crap shoot; most won't even listen to or look at your music if they've never heard of you. Frankly, I'm not sure how useful this is, but, unlike in the old days when you'd have to print and bind a large quantity of scores, and then send them to people who don't know you with the likely result that they'd toss your score directly in the trash, at least nowadays you can E-mail PDF copies of your scores to as many prospective performers as you like, along with audio links, which is a lot cheaper and easier. "Cold calls" presumably sometimes produce positive results, or else we wouldn't be bombarded with calls from telemarketers, but the success rate is probably extraordinarily low.
- Win competitions. Enter often! Sure, it's a lottery, but if your music is really good, and it looks really good (something we spend a lot of time talking about in composition classes and lessons), you might win something. This does not necessarily lead to anything, but it might, especially if you make it work for you.
- Try to get your music played on the radio. This is obviously a challenge, especially in an era in which the CBC, in my country of Canada, plays significantly less classical (and especially contemporary classical) music than they used to. But all radio stations have air time to fill, and they need to fill it with something, so why not your music? This only works if you have professional-level recordings of your music, of course, but even then it's a long shot that it will actually work.
- Make your music readily available on the Internet. Start your own website, and post scores and recordings of your best compositions, along with programme notes in each case. Once search engines find your web pages, musicians searching for, say, "music for clarinet and piano," may land on your website where they can look at and listen to your piece for clarinet and piano. Make it obvious how to contact you, should they wish to perform your music.
- Organize concerts of your music, and invite other local composers to participate. Basically, make things happen, and get others to help. This involves a fair amount of work, especially if you want to do a good job of it and get people to show up. But it's potentially an extremely valuable way of getting your music performed.
When I was a graduate student in Toronto, my fellow students and I formed an organization called "Continuum Contemporary Music" back in the mid 1980's, and we became very successful, eventually having many of our concerts picked up for broadcast by CBC radio. I recommend paying your performers, and hiring the best musicians available, because a concert of poorly-performed contemporary music is not anything that anyone wants to sit through, not even your family. - Perform your own music – this was common practice for almost all composers throughout music history – or even form your own ensemble, like Tim Brady's "Bradyworks," and organize concerts, or explore possibilities of performing on others' concerts.
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