No Great Women Composers? (2)

This is part 2 of a series; I encourage you to read part 1 before reading this.

Here's the backstory:

In 2015, Jessy McCabe, 17, petitioned one of Britain’s biggest exam boards to include female composers in its A-level music syllabus.

Ms. McCabe found that Edexcel’s A-level Music Syllabus featured 63 male composers and no female ones. She also observed that on 8 March 2015, BBC Radio 3 managed to programme an entire day of music by female composers to honour International Women’s Day.

“Surely, if BBC Radio 3 can play music composed by women for a whole day," Ms. McCabe wrote, "Edexcel could select at least one to be part of the syllabus alongside the likes of Holborne, Haydn and Howlin’ Wolf?”

Edexel was initially unwilling to acquiesce to Ms. McCabe's challenge. Its head of music wrote: “Given that female composers were not prominent in the western classical tradition (or others for that matter), there would be very few female composers that could be included.”

After a Change.org petition subsequently launched by Ms. McCabe received 4,000 signatures, Edexcel apparently bowed to public pressure and changed their 2016 syllabus to include works by five women: Clara Schumann, Rachel Portman, Kate Bush, Anoushka Shankar and Kaija Saariaho.

You can read more about this story here:

• The back-story about the petition, before the changes were implemented (The Guardian)
• Story about the success of the petition, which led to a slightly more inclusive changed syllabus (The Guardian)

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The inclusion of female composers/songwriters in the 2016 syllabus was celebrated by some, and criticized by others. Among the critics was Damian Thompson, who, in a 2015 article in The Spectator (a conservative British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs, according to Wikipedia) entitled There’s a good reason why there are no great female composers, asked the question: How good is [women composers'] music compared with that of male composers? 

He discussed works by several women composers – Clara Schumann (1819–1896), Fanny Mendelssohn (1805–1847), Amy Beach (1867–1944), Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994), and Thea Musgrave (born 1928) – to support his conclusion that women composers were not as good as their male counterparts, and therefore their music did not merit inclusion in the list of composers to be studied by British A-level students.

The counter-argument proposed by Ms. McCabe was that the inclusion of women composers in the Edexcel A-Level syllabus was important, “so that girls are freely able and inspired to become composers, to enrich the A-level syllabus and to ultimately ensure that women’s works are valued, as they should be.”

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Here are a few thoughts further to this episode, and Mr. Thompson's response to it:

• As I pointed out in my previous post on this topic, the article's title, There's a good reason why there are no great female composers, is completely unrelated to the actual article. At no point does the author propose or discuss a reason, good or otherwise, why “there are no great female composers.” 
• Further to the previous point, an unbiased and well-researched article exploring reasons for the extreme gender imbalance among composers of the common-practice period (roughly 1650-1900) would perhaps be enlightening to those that blithely assume that women and men competed on an equal playing field throughout history. They didn't, and, some argue, still don't, although the situation has improved significantly since the 1960's. Historically, the roles available to women were severely restricted, and, within this, the roles of women in any field within music were even more restricted. Yes, Clara Schumann managed to develop a career as a concert pianist, but women were barred from European orchestras; the Vienna Philharmonic did not accept a female member until 1997; The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra did not hire its first female musician until 1982 (violinist Madeleine Carruzzo). I would be curious to know how often these all-male orchestras performed works by women prior to 1900; if it occurred at all, I suspect it was extremely uncommon. 
• Only one of the five women composers selected for criticism by Mr. Thompson was included in Edexcel's syllabus: Clara Schumann. He therefore spent the bulk of his article arguing against the inclusion of women composers whose music was not subsequently included in the revised syllabus, but perhaps Edexcel's syllabus was published after Thompson's article.
• All works discussed in Mr. Thompson's article were selected by him. It seems possible that musicologists with expertise in the music of the named composers might have been able to find other, stronger works by these composers for discussion; when one's intention is to prove that music by women composers is not very good, it can hardly be a surprise when the examples chosen to illustrate this point do so rather well.
• The threshold for inclusion in the Edexcell Syllabus is clearly not "all-time greatness," as in "equal in quality to the best music of Bach, Beethoven, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, and The Beatles." Ms. McCabe's letter, quoted above, mentions Anthony Holborne (late renaissance British composer of music primarily for lute, 1545-1602), and Howlin' Wolf (much-acclaimed blues singer and guitarist, 1910-1976). A quick perusal of Edexcel's 2016 syllabus reveals names such as Courtney Pine (British jazz musician, b. 1964), La Familia Valera Miranda (A family of musicians from the Oriente region of Cuba that play a mid-tempo form of ‘son’, a Cuban traditional musical style), as well as Vivaldi, Vaughan Williams, and Berlioz. The initial exclusion of works by all women from the Edexcell Syllabus sends a clear message that no women in the history of composition were as worthy of inclusion as any of the male musicians on the list, a position that is indefensible. Popular music artists are on the Edexcel list, but despite decades of great music by Kate Bush (subsequently included), Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Nina Simone, Taylor Swift, Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, Memphis Minnie, Laura Nyro, and countless others, not one was initially included. Film music composers are another category, and here again no females were initially chosen (Rachel Portman was included following Ms. McCabe's successful petition), despite the successful careers in this field of Sofia Gubaidulina, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Lesley Barber, or any of the other names on Wikipedia's list of female film composers.
• I'm not sufficiently familiar with Edexcel's history to know if they make a special effort to include British composers in their syllabus, but I noticed quite a few British musicians in the 2016 syllabus. If they do give British composers/musicians any kind of preferential status, which they have every right to do, why not make the effort to be inclusive of other groups within British society as well, such as women composers? Thanks to Ms. McCabe and a successful publicity campaign, the 2016 syllabus now does, albeit to a limited degree.
• As I mentioned above, Ms. McCabe argued in favour of the representation of women composers on the Edexcel syllabus, “so that girls are freely able and inspired to become composers, to enrich the A-level syllabus and to ultimately ensure that women’s works are valued, as they should be.” This in itself is an interesting argument – I don't know if there are any studies that prove that exposure to music by members of a target population empower or encourage other members of that target population to pursue careers in music, but it certainly seems possible. And if it is possible, then it seems worth doing. But mostly it's worth doing based purely on artistic merit.

That's all for now, but please leave a comment if you agree or disagree with any of this. If there are women composers in any genre to which you would like to draw our attention, please do so, ideally with a link if possible.

Once again (I posted some recordings in my previous entry as well), here are a couple of recordings of music by Clara Schumann, with scrolling scores:

No Great Women Composers? (1)

I recently came across a provocative article from 2015 in The Spectator, called "There's a good reason why there are no great women composers," by Damian Thompson, who is described in Wikipedia as an English journalist, editor and author with a Ph.D in the sociology of religion from the London School of Economics. He writes a monthly column about classical music for The Spectator.

Not familiar with The Spectator? Here is an excerpt from its description in Wikipedia, which I've abridged slightly, indicated by the ellipses (…):

"The Spectator is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828... Its editorial outlook is generally supportive of the Conservative Party, although regular contributors include some outside that fold... The magazine also contains arts pages on books, music, opera, and film and TV reviews."

If you align yourself ideologically as a liberal or progressive, you may be reluctant to pay much attention to a conservative journal, but I believe in making your own mind up about things on a case-by-case basis, and not simply based on the degree to which others are expressing views that align with your own – so let's examine what the article actually says.

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For starters, the article's title is misleading; at no point does it propose "a good reason why there are no great women composers;" it does not explore that question at all. In many publications, an article's title is not written by the article's author – there are others whose job it is to write headlines – so perhaps the author is not to blame for the misleading, "click-bait style" title.

Here's what the author writes:

"Last week a 17-year-old girl forced the Edexcel exam board to change its A-level music syllabus to include the work of women composers. Jessy McCabe, a sixth former at Twyford Church of England High School in London, started a petition after studying gender inequality. Good for her, you might think. But is it good for A-level students?

"A delicate question lies at the heart of the subject of female composers, and it’s not ‘Why are they so criminally underrepresented in the classical canon?’ It’s ‘How good is their music compared with that of male composers?’"

Is this a legitimate question? It is, as the author acknowledges, a "delicate" one – simply asking the question might offend some – but is it fair game to ask questions such as this? Before answering, consider whether it is okay to ask other similar questions involving comparisons, such as the following:

• How good is British music of the 18th and 19th centuries, compared with that of German and Austrian composers?
• How good is French music of the 18th and 19th centuries, compared with that of German and Austrian composers?
• How good is American music of the 18th and 19th centuries, compared with that of German and Austrian composers?
• How good is Salieri's music, compared with Mozart's?

And so on…

We tend to assume that the canonical works of classical music history are the result of a Darwinian meritocracy – we perform and study Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, etc., because they represent the artistic pinnacle of human achievement within their periods in the art form that is classical music.

So, you might ask, why not ask questions such as those above?

I have no objection to any of these questions, but I wonder (a) where they get us, and (b) what the motivation is behind them?

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Where do these questions get us?

Let's propose for the sake of argument that the answer to all of the above questions, is "less good." That is, Salieri's music is less good than Mozart's; American, British, and French music of the 18th and 19th centuries is less good than that of German and Austrian composers; and women composers of these periods composed music that did not rise to the level of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, which I'll group as "A-List" composers.

So what?

Does that mean we jettison the music of "lesser" composers – Berlioz, Bizet,  Borodin, Bruckner,  Dvorak,  Elgar,  Grieg, Holst,  Liszt, Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn, Rossini,  Saint-Saëns,  Schubert, Robert Schumann, Sibelius, Smetana, etc. – from the repertoire?

Well, of course not! Each of the "lesser" composers listed above wrote wonderful music that has moved generations of classical music lovers, and the musical landscape would be considerably poorer without their contributions.

But wait, you might shout! The "lesser" composers above were still excellent composers!

I agree! They were indeed excellent composers, whose only misfortune was failing to achieve the exalted artistic heights of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms.

So, let's make a list of composers whose level of artistic achievement does not come very close to the level of the "lesser" composers above; these are composers I have heard of, and in all cases, whose music I have actually heard, and I selected them from lists of classical composers found in Wikipedia (List of Classical-era composers).

For every name listed below, there were probably about 10 other names on the Wikipedia list I did not include because I was unfamiliar with them. These might be considered "C-List" composers because they are a level or two below the composers on my previous list (Liszt, Mendelssohn, Mahler, etc.), who themselves might be considered "B-List" composers, because they were a level (or so) below the all-time greats – Bach, Mozart, & Beethoven, at least in what I suspect is the opinion of many people, but I recognize that some would not agree with this assessment.

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710–1784)

William Boyce (1711–1779)

Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713–1780)

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714–1788)

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714–1787)

Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz (1717–1757)

Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721–1783)

Antonio Soler (1729–1783)

Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach (1732–1795)

Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet Charpentier (1734–1794)

Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782)

Michael Arne (1740–1786)

Samuel Arnold (1740–1802)

Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816)

Carl Stamitz (1745–1801)

Joseph Quesnel (1746–1809)

Domenico Cimarosa (1749–1801)

Johann Nikolaus Forkel (1749–1818)

Muzio Clementi (1752–1832)

Josef Reicha (1752–1795)

Vicente Martín y Soler (1754–1806)

Anton Stamitz (1754–1798 or 1809)

Luigi Cherubini (1760–1842)

Johann Ladislaus Dussek (1760–1812)

Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841)

Anton Reicha (1770–1836)

Sophia Corri Dussek (1775–1847)

Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778–1837)

Fernando Sor (1778–1839)

Anton Diabelli (1781–1858)

Mauro Giuliani (1781–1829)

John Field (1782–1837)

Niccolò Paganini (1782–1840)

Louis Spohr (1784–1859)

Friedrich Kuhlau (1786–1832)

Carl Maria von Weber (1786–1826)

Carl Czerny (1791–1857)

Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791–1864)

Gaetano Donizetti (1797–1848)

Incidentally, those listed above all had active compositional careers, and they all wrote works that have been recorded and performed frequently by many performing artists. In the case of the guitar composers on the list (Carullil, Sor, Giuliani), I have played their music, and professional guitarists continue to play their music regularly.

They may not have reached the lofty heights of Brahms and Beethoven, but they nevertheless accomplished much in their compositional careers.

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Making lists such as those above is a bit of a silly game, perhaps – if I have Brahms on my B-list, and you have him on your A-list, it doesn't matter much, does it? – but there are potentially interesting/instructive aspects of debating these questions, such as the following:

1. They might lead us to discover works with which we were previously unfamiliar, some of which we might enjoy hearing;
2. They might challenge us to reconsider composers whose music we had previously dismissed or not valued highly, with the potential benefit of discovering good music that we previously did not know, or not know well, or discovering that a piece we had previously dismissed is actually a pretty good composition;
3. They force us to examine the basis on which we evaluate music, and that seems like a beneficial exercise to consider, at least periodically. Why do I like what I do? Why do I think less of some pieces than others? Am I a musical snob? Am I truly open to new composers and new styles of music?

As composers, I believe the third aspect above is essential to improvement. If I can identify some of the attributes that make music great, then perhaps I can incorporate those aspects into my music.

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I wrote a post about five years ago on Form in Post-Tonal Music (the first in a series of three on this topic) in which I mentioned the guitar Sonata in C, op. 22, by Fernando Sor, a piece I used to play. I regard it as a pleasant piece, but not up to the level of repertoire by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven that we study in my musical form class.

Having played and heard a fair amount of his music, I think of Sor as a C-list composer, someone who made a career from composing and performing his own music, someone who knew what he was doing in terms of composition, but ultimately, someone who did not manage to reach compositional greatness.

What was interesting to me was that while I am quite clear about my views on Sor's music, it was surprisingly difficult to come up for reasons to support my opinion. Anyone can have an opinion, but articulating the reasons behind that opinion in an intelligent and considered way can be very challenging.

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Returning to The Spectator article cited above, the author asks the question: How good were women composers in comparison with their male counterparts? He then provides examples of works by several women composers – Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn, Amy Beach (1867–1944), Dame Ethel Smyth (1858–1944), Elizabeth Maconchy (1907–1994), and Thea Musgrave (born 1928) – to support his conclusion that – surprise! – women composers were not as good as their male counterparts, and therefore their music does not deserve inclusion in the list of composers to be studied by British A-level students.

To me, a more pertinent question is not whether women composers were capable of writing music that matched the quality of the greatest male composers, but whether the best women composers wrote any music that compared favourably with the music of any of the composers from the lists above.

Everyone can come to their own conclusion on this question, but if you were to suggest that Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn failed to match the artistic level of Paisiello, Stamitz, Carulli, et al, I would suggest otherwise, and yet the music of Paisiello, Stamitz, and Carulli, et al, continues to be performed and recorded without any extramusical justification (e.g., "we're performing music by composers based in Milan from 1750-1800 on tonight's programme!), whereas I suspect some people feel that the only reasons Clara Schumann and Fanny Mendelssohn get performed nowadays are (a) they shared the same last name as more famous composers, and (b) they were women, and if they were men we would have forgotten about their music long ago.

And I would suggest that while (a) might have some validity, (b) does not; had they been men, I don't think anyone would question why their music continues to be recorded and performed today, any more than people question why the music of many of the "C-List" composers above gets recorded and performed.

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What is the motivation behind these questions?

So, in the case of the article from The Spectator mentioned at the outset of today's post, the motivation seems pretty clear: To discredit women composers. They were not, the author argues, as good as the great male composers, so we should therefore stop all this political correctness nonsense and not include their music on the Edexcel exam board A-level music syllabus.

And yes, this is my own summary of the Spectator article, but you should read it yourself to see if am being unfair or overly harsh.

This motivation, if I have represented it fairly, is not in itself bad – if I were motivated to write an article about why the first movement of Beethoven's Waldstein sonata is considerably more sophisticated than the first movement of his first published sonata, op. 2 no. 1, I would like to think that the motivation is fine, as long as I were able to support my conclusion with clear and unbiased evidence.

Where this kind of motivation is problematic, however, is that the writer is starting with a conclusion that is largely dismissive of an entire group of composers, and then hand-picking evidence to support the conclusion. This is the level of discourse you see on phone-in sports shows on radio or television ("I think Mike Trout [major-league baseball player, considered by many to be the best of his generation] SUCKS! I watched a game the other night where he make an error and struck out TWICE! Hell, I could have done that!"), or in bar discussions by drunken folk (I still remember one such discussion from many years ago between two people I knew, about whether dogs were better than cats, or vice-versa. At first it was mildly amusing, but it became very stupid very quickly, and the opponents almost came to blows).

Ideally, we'd all find a way to look at evidence objectively and then write and/or talk intelligently about what we learned from the experience, but, as a society, we appear to be far from any kind of ideal when it comes to discourse on anything, especially on controversial matters.

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As so often happens in my blog posts, I have gone on much longer than planned… I was going to look at and listen to some of the works by women composers and see if the author of The Spectator article was being fair or not, but I will save that for another post.

In the mean time, here are a couple of recordings of music by Clara Schumann, with scrolling scores:

Music Notation Software – Pros and Cons for Composers

There are several music notation programmes available for computers and tablets, but the brands that I suspect most composers use are Finale and Sibelius. Another excellent notation product is Notability Pro (for Mac only), which some composers I know swear is the best product out there, and is now free.

In today’s post, I will explore how the use of notation software can affect the composition process, in ways we may not realize, both positive and negative. The first seven points below list many of the unambiguously-positive aspects of using notation software, and the remaining points concern some of the potential challenges that can arise from its use, some of which we may be unaware of.

If any readers can think of pros and cons not listed below, please let me know via the "comments" area, and I'll add them to the list if merited.

Music Notation Software
Pros								Cons (or commentary on pros)
1. Can produce polished, publication-ready scores.								1. This is indeed true. However, it takes considerable skill, and the knowledge of all the minutiae of notation conventions, to produce publication-ready scores, whether one uses notation software or not. Because a score produced with notation software generally looks far better than a hand-copied score (although some highly-skilled hand-copyists can also produce beautiful scores), we may be seduced into thinking our score is as good as it needs to be, when in fact it may need a lot more detailed work to reach a point of being truly publication ready.
2. Scores look better than hand-copied scores.								2. This is generally true. I doubt that many students are trained in the art of hand-copying music any more (I was, which reflects the period in which I was trained (cretaceous)) – but it isn’t always true; a sloppy computer-notated score looks far worse than a beautiful and meticulous hand-copied score. Again, this is more a product of the user's limitations than of the software, however.
3. Pitches and accidentals are notated clearly and correctly.								3. No disadvantages! Here are some of the reasons this is such a valuable advantage for notation software: • Sometimes, in hand-copied scores, pitches are less than 100% clear because they are notated in such as way as to "spill" into the territory of an adjacent pitch. • Notation software also notates 2nds correctly. Sometimes, in a hand-copied score, students attempt to vertically align notes that are a second apart, which looks very messy. • Notation software also aligns accidentals correctly (again, students sometimes try to fit them on top of each other, causing collisions and all manner of visual mayhem).
4. Other score information, such as text and articulations, is clear (hand-written text can be somewhat challenging to read if a composer has poor calligraphy skills).								4. This again is generally true, unless the composer uses a font or font-size that is difficult to read.
5. You can remove or add bars without recopying entire pages. • It is also easier to change/add/remove notes and any other score information (such as dynamics, slurs, articulations, text, etc. • Software also lets you do A/B comparisons, listening to a version with bars added, and then comparing with a version with those bars removed.								5. This is a huge advantage of notation software; having to recopy an entire page by hand in order to add or subtract a few bars is such a hassle that it can become a disincentive to make such changes. Anything that gets in the way of making even small improvements in your compositions is a significant problem. •And yes, the possibility of doing numerous A/B listening comparisons is a tremendous advantage in using notation software.
6. Parts can be generated automatically. • This is a huge advantage in using notation software.								6. Generating parts can still involve some work, however, because you may need to adjust the layout, number of bars per system, fix any new collisions that may have shown up, plan page turns, do any necessary last-minute edits (you sometimes notice problems in parts that you didn't notice in the score), etc. But there's no question that generating parts is a much faster process with notation software.
7. Transpose, Invert, Retrograde, and other commands, as well as plug-ins. • Did you know that Finale has commands for melodic inversion, and retrograde? These (particularly inversion) can be useful when considering possibilities of how to grow/extend/transform a melodic idea. • There are also third-party plugins available, such as Patterson Plug-Ins for Finale,  which are designed to speed up and generally improve workflow.								7. Composers can obviously do these things without a computer, but the computer does them much faster. Plus, having these options so readily available makes it easier to try them in order to see if they can be used in your composition.
8. Dynamics look as they should, and are usually well positioned.								8. Notation software does indeed produce dynamics that are beautiful. • They are not always well positioned however; in Finale, you have probably found many cases where a dynamic collides with something else, such as an accidental, note, or slur, which requires the user to re-position the dynamic, or the other objects with which it collides; I'm not sure this happens as frequently in hand copied scores. • One potential issue to be aware of is that in some software programmes, a dynamic intended for one instrument (e.g., below the flute staff) in an orchestral score can show up in an adjacent instrument's part (e.g., above the clarinet) when parts are generated. When positioning a dynamic, Finale uses a temporary dashed line to indicate the note to which the dynamic is attached, which reduces the likelihood of misplaced dynamics. • There are potential playback issues in the use of dynamics, described in section 9.
9. You can hear what you write as you write it, performed at the indicated tempo, or at a slower tempo if you prefer, which allows you to listen repeatedly, carefully, and critically. • You can also hear and evaluate any indicated tempo changes (including rit. and accel.), and dynamic levels (including cresc. and dim.). • You can also listen to the composition, or a section thereof, repeatedly, tweaking it until it sounds as good as you can make it, no matter what time of day you play it, and no matter what your mood is.								9. Being able to hear an approximation of what you write in real time is a huge benefit of notation software. • There are, however, significant issues or limitations in relying too heavily on MIDI playback as a realistic indicator of what your music will sound like; these include: Unwittingly writing parts that are either extremely difficult or even unplayable, because the computer plays them without any problem whatsoever (!). A computer plays unidiomatic lines flawlessly, while a performer might struggle in attempting to play them, or even refuse to play the piece. The computer can lull the user into thinking that the line is perfectly idiomatic, when in fact it is extremely difficult or even impossible. I am not sure how much different this would be in a hand-copied score, but in producing a hand-copied score, a composer usually spends hours playing each line, usually on a piano, which might flag any such issue; Balance problems: The balance in a MIDI ensemble is often not very realistic;  Further to  balance problems, sometimes, in an attempt to bring out a line that is insufficiently prominent, we may temporarily give it an extreme dynamic boost, such as marking it fff instead of f, so we can hear it better in the MIDI playback, but then forget to change the dynamic to its correct value (fff back to f) before giving the parts to the performers, resulting in performers blasting the heck out of that line in the first rehearsal, when all we intended was for it to be more prominent than the lines around it. Or sometimes, an inexperienced composer may use an extreme dynamic boost (e.g., f to fff) intentionally, thinking it necessary to bring out the line to the desired level, perhaps not realizing that if a line is marked  f, while the other instruments are marked mf, the performers and/or conductor will make sure that the f line is heard more prominently than the others. It is also possible that the previous example (extreme dynamic boost) might be the result of poor orchestration; if a musical line is insufficiently prominent in MIDI playback, perhaps it needs to be reinforced in some way (e.g., octave doublings, or the addition of other instruments to that line), or perhaps the material around it is too busy and needs to be thinned out in some way. Unrealistic representation of the nuanced colour and dynamic changes in different registers of an instrument or voice;  MIDI playback is only as good as the quality of the samples  in your computer's sound-bank.  Glissandi, heard through MIDI playback, usually elicits a chuckle from class members, presumably because it often sounds so unrealistic or even ridiculous. The computer will play any glissando, even impossible ones, which may entice composers into writing impossible glissandi. We need to be aware of the possible glissandi for different instruments; always show your work to a performer of that instrument to be sure.
10. Copy and Paste. • Musical material, from the smallest ideas to entire sections, is often repeated, either immediately or brought back later; the Copy & Paste functions let you do this with great ease.								10. Again, a very useful tool. I recommend exercising some restraint in its use, however. • One of the most wonderful attributes of great classical compositions is that ideas are often altered in some way when repeating or recapitulating them. This provides both the comfort of familiarity, since we recognize the ideas, but also an element of surprise, if we recognize that some aspects have been changed. • You can make such modifications when repeating ideas in notation programmes, of course, but, at least in student work, it seems as though the ease with which the paste command can be executed often leads to not making modifications. • My advice to students is to explore modification possibilities when re-using (pasting) an earlier idea into a later section.
11. Other limitations and challenges.								11. Using different metres in different staves simultaneously, and having bar lines that don't necessarily line up with each other (vertically).
12. Other limitations and challenges.								12. Using a time grid at the top of your score (e.g., a grid in 5 second increments), with no bar lines. • You can hide bar lines, of course, and create a graphic to represent the time grid, but this involves more work than it would if done by hand.
13. Other limitations and challenges.								13. Graphic notation can be difficult or even impossible. • Again, you can create graphics on a computer, but it takes some skill to do this well, and doing it by hand is often faster.
14. Other limitations and challenges.								14. Oversize metres in orchestral scores (e.g., a large 4/4 that spans the height of the entire woodwind section) are either impossible or very tricky. Oversize metres are generally much appreciated by conductors, because they can be easily read at a glance. When my orchestral music has been played, I often get the score back with oversize metre changes written in by the conductor.
15. Other limitations and challenges.								15. Unless you invest in an expensive sample library that includes extended techniques in all instrument families, your MIDI playback will probably not be able to reproduce such sounds. This is not necessarily an impediment to using extended techniques, but I suspect they would be used more if we could hear a reasonably-accurate reproduction of these techniques during playback of our scores. These performance techniques include: col legno, col legno battute, sul pont., sul tasto, different mute types for brass instruments, hand-stopped notes (for horn), play with bells in the air, multiphonics, flutter-tongue, harmonics, harmonic gliss. ("seagull effect") for strings (particularly for cello), senza vibrato, scraping sound created by heavy bow pressure and slow bow speed, a myriad of sounds available by slapping, scraping, muting, picking (with a guitar pick) strings inside of a piano, prepared piano sounds, etc.

Have I missed any significant advantages or disadvantages in my list? Are there times when you feel the notation software is pushing you to notate an idea in the way that it wants, as opposed to the way that you want? Please let me know in the comments section below, and thanks for reading!

On the Value of Living Composers

Sound and Music, an English organization "committed to supporting new music and developing the audience for it," published results of its Composer Commissioning Survey, conducted during June-July of 2014. Three quarters of the respondents were based in the UK. Here is a summary of their findings, in (mostly) their own words:

Commissions are not a significant income source for a lot of composers.

• 66% of composers stated that they do not find commissions to be a significant proportion of their income. Given that the respondents had an average of 2.65 commissions in 2013 with an average fee per commission of £1,392 it is easy to see why. 

There is a lot of a variance within the pay scale for commissions.

• Annual income for 2013 from commissions ranged from £1 to over £100,000 including the single highest paying commission at £60,000. 
• The best-paid 1% of composers received over 25% of all commission income; once we excluded them from our sample, average commission income fell from £3,689 to £2,717.
• Over 40% of composers stated that they had earned no income at all from commissions for 2013.

The conditions for commissions are worse than before.

• 49% of composers feel that there is less rehearsal/preparation time for new works. 

Although there appear to be more commissions available, they appear to be paying less well.

• 74% of composers received an equal or higher number of commissions in 2013 than they did in 2012, but only 15% earned more income.

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What does this mean?

The Guardian, a British national daily newspaper, did a story on this survey, and this was their headline, followed by a couple of excerpts from the article:

The future of new music is at risk if we continue to undervalue composers
— Professional composers are being asked to create new pieces for ‘shockingly low’ fees, Sound and Music report finds

"If we believe that music is a living artform then it stands to reason that the creation of new music is vital to its current and future health. However, professional composers are being asked to create new music for very little money in conditions that are too often inadequate. As a sector we have some hard questions to ask ourselves about our priorities. Being commissioned to create a new work (and getting paid for it) is a vital part of life as a professional composer. At Sound and Music, the national agency for new music, we continue to receive anecdotal evidence about the worsening environment for the creation of new music."

"What the evidence implies is that the work of composers (and composing as a profession) is valued far less by the sector than that of performers, conductors and administrators. How can that be right when it is the music itself that communicates with audiences? With a new generation seeking out beautiful and unusual new sounds and experiences, audiences for new music have never been more enthusiastic."

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What are your thoughts on any of these points? More specifically,

1. The above excerpts suggest that living composers, as a rule (although there are very famous exceptions), are undervalued. Do you agree?
2. Is the future of new classical music "at risk?"
3. Is the creation of new music vital to the "current and future health" of classical music?
4. Why are 99% of composers paid so poorly? 
5. Within the 1% of top-earning composers surveyed (the 1% that garnered 25% of the total commissioning fund pool), how many of them do you think are able to support themselves entirely from composing?
6. Why are most professional music administrators, orchestra musicians, and conductors paid so much more than almost all composers?
7. Does any of this matter? Should composers just "suck it up" and be grateful for any remunerative crumbs that come their way? 
8. Should composers take a pragmatic, "it is what it is" attitude, accepting that they are unlikely to earn a sustainable living from composing alone, and therefore find other means of employment?
9. Should composers engage in advocacy to create better working conditions? Are there any organizations that advocate for composers?
10. If composers are undervalued, what are the reasons for this? Do composers bear any responsibility for finding themselves in this predicament?

Finding Time to Compose — 5 Tips

   Is finding time to compose or write a challenge for you? I suspect it is for most people, at least some of the time, and so I offer some thoughts and suggestions on this topic:

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Why?

   First, it helps to understand that composing is a skill, like playing piano, shooting a basketball, or public speaking. As a general rule, the more time spent developing a skill, the greater one's level of achievement. 

   Also, skill development proceeds more efficiently if done on a regular basis. This is why music teachers usually advocate practicing daily to their students, even if the period of practice is short, rather than cramming all of your practice-time into one extended period per week. Studies, such as this one, have confirmed this.

   The one caveat to these general rules is that mastery of a skill is not just a matter of accumulating, say, 10,000 hours of practice (see 10,000 Hours May Not Make a Master After All, for example); the time spent developing skills must be done intelligently.

   For example, if you practice a Beethoven sonata every day for two hours, but never pay attention to fingerings, dynamics, phrasing, structure, or even wrong notes, you will likely not progress very quickly, if at all.

   If, on the other hand, you practice the sonata for twenty-five minutes a day, work out good fingerings, work on difficult passages slowly until they can be played cleanly, stop when you make a mistake to figure out what caused it and what will correct it, and experiment with different phrasings and articulations until you find ones that make good musical sense, then you will will assuredly learn to perform the sonata more quickly, and much better.

   Applying these principles to composition, this suggests that your development as a composer will proceed more efficiently if you can compose on a regular basis, even if for a relatively short period of time (such as 25-30 minutes a day), if done intelligently. And if you can fit in two composing sessions a day, that would be better still!

   For what it's worth, my experience has been that daily or near-daily composing does not necessarily make the process flow smoothly, but it flows considerably more smoothly than otherwise. I think this is because the music keeps "simmering" away in my mind on an ongoing basis (including when I fall asleep and wake up), and not just when I am sitting at my computer actively trying to compose.

   Regular and ongoing engagement with your work-in-progress makes it easier to resume composing next time you are in your workspace. On the other hand, when I go through periods in which I don't compose for days or even weeks at a time and then try to return to it, I often struggle, feeling like I have no idea what I am doing (more so than usual, which is a lot!), making for a slow and angst-ridden process.

   Are you convinced yet? If so, the next challenge is finding time to do this!

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How?

Five suggestions; other suggestions welcome in the "comments" area below!

1.    Q: How many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb?
      A: Only one, but the bulb has to really WANT to change.
   
      Just like the old lightbulb joke, you must start by genuinely wanting to find more time to compose. It has to be a high priority. I'd like to become a better guitarist and pianist, but until I am convinced that these goals are really important, I am not likely to spend much time pursuing them.
   
   
2.    Make a schedule that includes regular times for composing and try to follow it. If you find it difficult to follow, modify your schedule, and continue adjusting it until you come up with a schedule that works most of the time. Remember that all you need is about 25 minutes of composition a day to experience the benefits described above, at least until more time is required in order to meet a deadline.


3.    Try to compose at roughly the same time every day. Our bodies work in natural rhythms ("circadian rhythm") that can affect us to varying degrees and in various ways during the course of daily life.  If you can train your body to be in "composition mode" at a particular time every day, you will probably find that your creative impulses will be primed and ready to go at that time. And if mornings (for example) aren't working for you, try setting aside a different time of day for your daily composing.
   
      Composing at the same time every day is something that a great many composers seem to have had in common. Maynard Solomon's 1998 biography of Beethoven states, rather enigmatically, that the composer's "daily routine reflected his adherence to an exemplary standard of behavior” (Solomon 51), which perhaps supports Anton Schindler's description of Beethoven's daily routine in his largely-discredited Life of Beethoven (1840):

   "Beethoven rose at daybreak, no matter what season, and went at once to his work-table. There he worked until two or three o' clock, when he took his midday meal. In the interim he usually ran out into the open two or three times, where he also 'worked while walking.' Such excursions seldom exceeded a full hour's time."

      Erik Satie, in his A Day in the Life of a Musician, claimed, probably with tongue in cheek (but possibly not), that he was "inspired" daily from 10: 23 to 11: 47 AM, and again from 3:12 to 4:07 PM. He would also walk 10 kilometres from his apartment on the outskirts of Paris to Monmartre every day.
   
      Morton Feldman described his routine as follows: "I get up at six in the morning. I compose until eleven, then my day is over. I go out, I walk, tirelessly, for hours." It was a revelation for me to discover how common it was for great composers to compose at a specific time every day.
   
      A fixed routine seems to be true of other creative people as well, such as writers. This article in The Guardian tells us that Charles Dickens wrote from 9 AM to 2 PM every day, "after which he would walk incessantly, and put his mind in neutral." Others find their best time of day to write is in the evening or late at night.
   
      Esther Freud, a novelist whose work I should probably know but don't (although most people are familiar with her famous great-grandfather), has offered this advice about writing (from The Guardian):
   
      Find your best time of the day for writing and write. Don't let anything else interfere. Afterwards it won't matter to you that the kitchen is a mess.
   
      Mason Currey, author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, writes
   
      There are certain behaviors that cropped up over and over again in my research. A large number of novelists and poets, for instance, wake up early in the morning and try to get some words on the page before other obligations kick in. Composers, I've found, almost invariably take a long daily walk. (www.slate.com)
   
      This habit of taking a long walks is, by the way, one I recommend highly! 


4.    Another great suggestion from Esther Freud (also from The Guardian article cited above), but one that has been expressed by many creative people, is this: 
   
   
   Don't wait for inspiration. Discipline is the key.
   
      If you make it a habit to compose at a regular time every day (say, from 8AM to 11AM ), you will likely find that your brain provides you with all the inspiration you need during that time.  Inspiration can occur at other times, of course, but if you sit around waiting for it, you may find yourself waiting for something that never arrives. 
      As Charlotte’s Web author EB White told the Paris Review in 1969, A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.


5.    For those times when inspiration strikes while you are away from your piano, computer, or other composing aid, always carry manuscript paper or a manuscript sketch book, and a pencil around with you, and jot down ideas when you get them. Beethoven apparently always carried pencils and sketchbooks around, and it seemed to work pretty well for him! You can also record your ideas on your "smart" (sic) phone or tablet (e.g., iPad, Samsung Galaxy, etc.), using GarageBand (Apple), Symphony Pro (Xenon Labs), or other app.
   
      If, on the other hand, you consistently ignore the inspired thoughts that jump into your head at various times of day, you are in effect training your brain not to be inspired, which is obviously not a good habit to develop.  Now, before you get too hard on yourself, know that everyone ignores their inspirational impulses at least some of the time; there are times when it may be impractical to stop what you are doing and record your inspired idea. But just jotting down one inspired idea per day is enough to keep those thoughts coming.

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   Among the difficulties of composing, writing, or any time-consuming solitary pursuit, are that it takes time, it can be frustrating to the point of psychological pain (something I know well), and it takes tremendous discipline.  The positives, for me, are finishing a piece knowing that it is as good as it can be at that point, hearing it performed well, and receiving favourable or constructive feedback from performers and listeners.  But I don't do it because of the positives; I think I do it because I need to.

   Finding the time to compose on a regular basis does not make composing easy (although some days it can be), but it does make it easier than composing sporadically.

   Please let me know your thoughts on this, if you feel so inclined!

Music is Everywhere; How Can Composers Benefit?

I am struck by the significant role music plays in important events.

During the CBC coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 (which I was watching when I began this blog entry over a year ago… and then abandoned it 'till just now), there were musical performances by a children's choir, bagpipes and drums, cello and flute, solo cello, and others. For a while, the CBC had two sound sources playing simultaneously in a split screen, creating a strange cacophony between a live performance by the NAC orchestra in Ottawa and the background music that accompanied the reading of victims' names in New York. This cacophony was taken to an even greater level of sonic chaos when a CBC studio anchor started talking over the reading of names while the two competing musical soundtracks played. It was all very Charles Ivesian, except that I'm not sure Ives would have endorsed the notion that the public needs a gabby news anchor interpreting what we see and hear as we see and hear it.

But I digress. The pervasiveness of music at public events, be they solemn (memorials, funerals, religious ceremonies) or celebratory (weddings, coronations, inaugurations, olympic opening/closing ceremonies, or milestones of any kind), suggests that there is a widespread view in our society that music has an important role to play in such events.

All of this music had to be created by somebody, and that's where composers come in. There is a plethora of music commissioned for religious functions that has made it into the Western canon by a multitude of composers, such as Machaut, Lassus, Palestrina, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and many others. Palestrina is one of my all-time favourite composers, but if you were to remove church music from Palestrina's list of works, you would have very little left over; the church was his patron for his entire career.

Handel was a prolific and highly-successful composer during his life time, writing numerous operas, oratorios, hymns, concerti, concerti grossi, solo and trio sonatas, suites, works for orchestra, and more, but had he not written The Messiah, by far his most popular work, his place in history would likely have been greatly diminished (he wrote other good compositions that are often played, such as Water Music, Music for the Royal Fireworks, the Largo from Xerxes (3 minutes of absolutely exquisite beauty), and the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from Solomon (3.5 minutes, very stirring!), but none come close to matching the reverence with which The Messiah is regarded, or its popularity).

Music has traditionally had a significant role in weddings, be they royal or commoner; in Great Britain, Prince William and Catherine Middleton's wedding service (2011) involved two choirs, one orchestra, organ, and a fanfare ensemble, which may have actually been modest in comparison to some royal weddings of the past. All of this music had to be written by composers, and in many cases (including William and Kate's wedding), some of the music was commissioned expressly for the occasion.

Governments, both democratic and totalitarian, and political movements have long believed that music could be used as a tool to sway the masses in some way.  According to Lenin:

Every artist, everyone who considers himself an artist, has the right to create freely according to his ideal, independently of everything. However, we are Communists and we must not stand with folded hands and let chaos develop as it pleases. We must systemically guide this process and form its result. (Lenin, O Kulture i Iskusstve (About Culture and Art), Moscow, 1957, pp 519-520)

In the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin enacted numerous restrictions for music which limited content and innovation. Classicism was favoured, and experimentation was discouraged (Soviet Music and Society under Lenin and Stalin: The Baton and Sickle, edited by Neil Edmunds, Routledge, 2009, p 264).

For example, Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was denounced in Pravda as "formalism" and soon banned from theatres for years. This, and the fact that people close to him were disappearing, never to be seen again, understandably terrorized the composer and made him fear for his own life. To learn more, I highly recommend reading, Testimony: The Memoirs of Dimitri Shostakovich; it is a disturbing but controversial (due to a dispute over the degree to which the words and sentiments were Shostakovich's own, or those of the Solomon Volkov, the book's editor) account of the composer's life.

 Here are some interesting articles on this topic:

• Music and Politics (Wikipedia)
• Soviet Music (Wikipedia)
• Formalism in the Soviet Union (Wikipedia)
• Strange article on "The Government-Sponsored Music Festival" in China 
• The Government-Sponsored Music Playlist (YouTube video; humorous and disturbing)

And, as we all, know, the role of music is not limited to public events; we hear music in commercials, television shows, MP3 players, radio (including talk radio, where it is used to fill time between segments of shows), video games, while on hold on the telephone, movies, airports, street corners, theme parks, parades, parks, stores, elevators, other people's cars, at the gym, etc. For most of us, I suspect, it can be a challenge to go an entire day without hearing any music!

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Music is powerful, and it is everywhere! How can composers benefit from this?

• If we realize that there seems to be a never-ending demand for music of all kinds for different purposes, we can aim to become skilled at writing music in a variety of styles and for a variety of functions.


• If we can figure out where music is needed, and write high-quality music quickly that fits the bill for different needs, we might be able to make a successful career of composing, although, like any competitive career, there are many other people trying to do the same thing, so perseverance, flexibility, discernment, smarts, chutzpah, luck, and, oh yeah, high-level skills, are all necessary.


• Another important factor is "who you know;" a lot of opportunities — perhaps the great majority — come to composers based at least in part on who we know. This is a topic into which I may delve at greater length in a future blog, but we need to be to be aware of it. In my view, the first priority in your development should be to become really good at composing, but it is also important to get to know people who are in a position to programme/use your music.


• More generally, and from a purely practical viewpoint, it is useful for aspiring or established composers to consider the many roles that music has in society, and the many kinds of music needed for different purposes. What kinds of music would you like to write? Are there types of music you would be unwilling to write?

Kim's Composer's Kitchen Blogs

Kim Codner, who just finished her fourth year here at the School of Music and is heading off to McGill to do a Master's in Composition next year, is participating in a programme in Montreal right now called "Composer's Kitchen," with the Quattor Bozzini and composers Linda Smith and Michael Oesterle. Click on the link if you wish to find out more about this programme, but briefly, their website describes it as follows:

This unique event revolving around the string quartet is a combination workshop, laboratory, playground, and master class. Over the course of a week, the Quatuor Bozzini and two experienced composers will observe the work of six up-and-coming composers. Their compositions will be read, played, assessed, analyzed, worked on, played again, and performed in the closing concert. This gives young composers a unique opportunity to perfect their craft with professional musicians.

Kim has been posting blogs on her experiences there, and they are a great read! They also have a lot of useful information on notation issues, and the kind of feedback she's been getting from both the quartet and the "mentor" composers.

Here are the links to her Composer's Kitchen blogs:

Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010 (recordings!)


Check 'em out, and say "hi" to her via the comments area if you do!

Odds and Ends

Wrapping things up...

1. All blog comments and student journal entries must be made by Monday, April 19, in order to be credited for them.

2. Final scores and recordings were due yesterday, although I have told some people that they could get me their recordings today. If you have not submitted your score/recording yet, let me know asap.

3. Most of you have picked up your scores/comments from the first project, although I still have a few. I also still have a few from last term that were never picked up (!). Please drop by to pick yours up asap.

4. Tuesday evening's composition seminar went well — we had a great listening session and discussion, and Andrew Staniland and I were joined by composer Rob Teehan, in town this week for the Junos (check out his website: http://www.robteehan.com/) and Shawn Bostick, Regional Director of the CMC Atlantic Region. Some of you have expressed interest in continuing these meetings in the summer; if you think you'd like to do this, please leave a comment to that effect below, and I will follow up on this in a later blog.

Musical Influences - 1

If you were asked to name the composers who have had the most influence on your music, what would you say?

I am sometimes asked this question, and I never quite know what to say... It is relatively easy to list many musical creators in a wide variety of genres whose music I love (although there are so many that it would be a challenge to make a comprehensive list), but I have never taken the time to figure out how much of an influence any of them have had on my music.

Until now. I recently received an E-mail asking me this question from a music teacher who had heard my music in the Northwest Territories, of all places(!), and while I was thinking about my response, it began to dawn on me that yes, a quite a few composers have influenced me to varying degrees in a number of my compositions.

I will spill the beans and reveal my answer later, but in the mean-time, what are your musical influences?