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.

---

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?

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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.

---

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:

Recommendation Letters – How Students are Evaluated

At the end of last semester, from about mid-November to mid-December, it seemed to me that I was writing more student recommendation/reference letters than usual — which is fine, of course — but, as I was doing so, it occurred to me (as it does every year) that, although every student is unique, they tend to fall into different categories:

1. Those that are good at everything; 
2. Those that are good at some things, and pretty good at others (e.g., good at composition, okay-but-not-great in theory and history);
3. Those that are pretty good at 1-2 things, but fairly weak in others (e.g., pretty good at composition, but rather weak in theory, aural skills, writing skills, etc.);
4. Those that are really good at one thing (e.g., composition), but really weak at others (e.g., theory, history, aural skills, and writing); and, of course,
5. Those that don't fit into any of the above categories, such as students who are just average or even weak at everything, or almost everything. 

If I am asked to write a letter, the academic areas on which can I comment are the ones that I teach, namely music theory  and composition. But, as you can see in the list below, professors are often asked to rate students in a surprisingly-large number of areas that go far beyond specific academic disciplines, and so I thought it might be useful to list these areas, and, more generally, provide information on the evaluation process for anyone that may wish to request such a letter at any point in their future.

If you are in a Bachelor of Music programme and there is even a remote chance that you might apply to graduate school upon completing your degree, today's post may have some useful information for you. However, if you have no interest in this topic, just ignore it; I promise to get back to composition-related topics in my next post!

---

Asking for a reference letter
 • Don’t be shy about asking a professor to write reference letters; it is a part of our job, like correcting/grading, office hours, extra help for students that seek it, committee work, research/composition/performing, and of course, teaching. We do not have to write a reference letter just because you ask for one – sometimes, a professor might decline your request – but most of the time I don't mind writing these letters, as long as you were a good student.

• Be aware, however, that it takes time – for me, typically about 2 hours – to write a thorough reference letter.  

Why does it take so long?
→ Part of that time is spent going through a student’s transcript carefully (which I request from the student), reviewing how the student did in my courses (which involves opening the spreadsheet files for every course taken with me in order to see the student’s results in all parts of the course evaluation scheme), and ranking that student’s final mark in relation to the class (e.g., 3rd out of 34 students), because some graduate schools ask for that information, and if they don’t, I usually provide it anyway.

→ Time is also spent listing all of the positive attributes I can think of for that student, particularly those that I believe would be relevant to studying composition or theory at the graduate level.

→ I also list any weaknesses or concerns I have about the student, because admissions committees want a balanced and honest assessment; if I describe a student in only positive terms, but the transcript reveals that the student has a 75% average over the most recent 1-2 years, then it seems unlikely that an admissions committee would take my letter seriously; a B+ average is nothing to be ashamed of, but it’s not an A average, and, in my opinion, a professor's recommendation letter should expand on the evidence found in a student's transcript without making claims that are unsupported in the transcript.

What Student Attributes are Evaluated?
→ Professors are often asked to rate, and comment on, specific personal attributes or character traits, such as (these are taken directly from various evaluation forms I have seen):

• Ability – All around
• Ability to complete tasks on time (i.e., by a deadline)
• Ability to work under pressure
• Ability to work independently/Willingness to take responsibility for learning
• Academic potential
• Academic preparation/Demonstrated academic ability
• Achievement
• Attendance
• Communication skills – Oral
• Communication skills – Written
• Curiosity – Willingness to explore new approaches, ideas, particularly those that may fall outside the student’s comfort zone
• Focus (does the student stay focused on the task at hand, or are they easily distracted, which can lead to failure to complete tasks, or failure to complete them on time)
• Industriousness – Capacity to work hard
• Initiative
• Intellectual capacity
• Leadership
• Likelihood that my institution would accept the student, if we had a comparable programme (this is a strange category; do some professors write, "we would not accept this student into our graduate programme, but I think they'd be perfect for your institution," which implies that our standards are higher than yours?)
• Likelihood that the student will complete the degree
• Organization - Planning
• Originality/Willingness to “think outside the box”
• Creativity/Talent
• Persistence 
• Problem solving
• Punctuality
• Research ability
• Response to constructive criticism
• Teaching ability (if known) 
• Teamwork (work well in a group)

The rating system varies, but it often consists of a series of clickable boxes assigned to percentile values, such as top 5%, top 10%, top 20%, top 50%, lower than top 50%, and "no basis for judgment." The professor clicks on the appropriate box, in their assessment, for each category.

Universities typically ask for a letter, in addition to asking the professor to rate the student in a number of categories, as above, but no university with which I am familiar asks that the student be assessed in every  category listed above; the above list is compiled from a variety of different universities' lists. Also, some universities have comment boxes in their on-line recommendation forms that allow professors to add a sentence or two explaining our rating in that particular category.

So What?
I have no idea how much weight is placed on this aspect of the evaluation process – I suspect that the above categories matter, but probably not as much as the student’s transcript, composition portfolio, and recommendation letters. At the very least, however, these categories tell us something about what graduate schools value in prospective students.

→ How would you assess your level in each of the above categories? Most people have at least a few weak areas; if you can identify your own, I encourage you to work at them so that they become strengths.

---

How to request a letter
When requesting a letter from a professor, give them lots of lead time, and provide all necessary information. More specifically:

• Make your request at least two weeks in advance, because of the time it takes to write these letters. If this is not possible for some reason, then make your request at least one week in advance, but be aware that professors are generally pretty maxed-out in terms of demands on their time, and if you don’t give us enough time, we may not be able to write the letter you request. 
• Make your request in writing, as well as in person (if feasible). The reason for this is that I don’t necessarily remember every request, but if you put it in an E-mail, then I have something to remind me. Confirming this request in person is mostly a social nicety, but it may also give you a sense of the degree to which the professor is willing to write you a positive letter.
• If you are asked to include a composition portfolio, ask your composition teachers for their opinions on what to include, and make as many of the changes/improvements suggested by your instructor as possible. If applying for a theory master's and they require the submission of a theory essay, ask your theory teachers for suggestions and corrections on any essay you plan to submit.
• Provide the professor with an up-to-date transcript, for the reasons cited above. The transcript can be a series of screen shots taken on your computer from your “university self-service” portal, or a PDF of the actual transcript.
• Provide a list of every course you took with the professor, and the semester in which you took that course.
• List any relevant achievements that might strengthen your case, e.g., Senior Rose Bowl Winner, Kiwanis Festival of (what region or city), Gower Band Terra Nova Competition Winner, etc., with the date(s) of the awards. You could include non-musical achievements as well, e.g., cycled from St. John’s, NL, to Victoria, BC, April-August, 2014... If I think they reflect  strengths in your character, I might mention them. And yes, one of our students did this, which I feel said a lot about the type of person they are (tenacious, able to achieve difficult goals, etc.)!
• Indicate in writing every school to which you’d like a letter sent.
• Include the submission deadlines for each school.
• Indicate in writing the specific graduate programmes to which you are applying (e.g., MA in music theory, MMus in composition, etc.).

Electronic Submission?
Most schools allow professors to submit their letters electronically; I much prefer this, so if that’s an option, please choose it. I would guess most professors find E-submissions most convenient, but double check with the professor to see if they prefer to submit the old-fashioned way (i.e., a hard copy via "snail mail").

On the pros and cons of “Gentle Reminders”
To the best of my knowledge, universities automatically send applicants an electronic confirmation message every time they receive a recommendation letter for that student (UPDATE: Maybe it's a glitch in their systems, but they occasionally don't, according to a student who just contacted me… However, I think they are all supposed to do this). If the deadline is near, and you have not received such a notice, here’s what I suggest:

Send the professor a “friendly reminder,” or “gentle nudge” a few days before the submission deadline . For most professors, the workload tends to be heavy and incessant all semester (I take no days off from before the start of a semester to the point when we submit final marks for each course), but particularly so towards the end of a semester. Also, if you have, say, eight students who each want three reference letters, that’s twenty-four references; that's a lot of references, and it is possible to miss some. Not only that, but E-mail is a somewhat inefficient way to communicate, in that every day our inboxes are bombarded with SPAM and “noise” (messages that are not SPAM, but clutter up our in-boxes), so it is easy for the occasional legit E-mail (one that requires a response) to get buried among the debris.

I know that not everyone appreciates reminders, however – When I was an undergraduate student, I saw a professor in the hallway one day and reminded him as politely as I could that the deadline for that letter was that day, only to have the professor blow up at me and proclaim, in an outdoors (not indoors) voice, “Look! If I say I’ll write you a reference letter, I’ll write you that g**d*** letter!”

It occurred to me that I might have destroyed any hope I had of going to graduate school, which I found rather daunting at the time. In today’s world, however, this kind of situation can be mostly avoided, because a thoughtfully-worded gentle reminder via E-mail is unlikely to elicit such a rude response. Speaking only for myself, I don’t mind gentle reminders at all; in fact, I often appreciate them.

Trust the Process; How do you know the professor will write a good letter?
Speaking of daunting, it can feel a bit scary to request a letter and then trust that the professor has written a good letter. But, once your request has been made and the professor has agreed to recommend you, I would suggest trusting the process. A conscientious professor should tell you if they can’t write you a good letter, rather than agree to write a letter, and then write only negative things about you. I suspect that most professors adhere to this ethical code, but you obviously can't assume that every professor does.

I have turned down requests to write recommendation letters on very few occasions — when I do, I always suggest that the students find other professors to write recommendation letters —  for one of three reasons:

(i) The student's request came too close to the submission deadline. This is just a practical matter, not personal — requests often come at the busiest time of a semester, and there are times when I cannot set aside all the other work I have to spend two hours writing a letter that is due the day after I got the request. On the other hand, if I have recently written a letter for you, and you ask me to send it to more universities a day or two before a deadline, this is less problematic. It still can take a little more time than you might expect, particularly when the original letter needs to be modified in any way (such as if the original letter needs to be updated due to new information), but if I can do it, I will. But I'd still prefer 1-2 weeks notice, of course;

(ii) I don’t know the student well enough to say anything really positive about her/him; e.g., they only took one course with me, and it was a few years ago, and the student did not get a very good result in that course. Or perhaps they were an average student but they never came to see me at an office hour, and they never said much in class, so I don't feel like I know the student very well;

(iii) I know the student pretty well, but what I know about them is not positive… Perhaps they took several courses with me, but did not do very well in any of them, or they were rude/disrespectful on multiple occasions, or they skipped classes and/or were late on multiple occasions, or they did not complete  assignments or quizzes on multiple occasions, or they committed academic dishonesty (the most common example of this is students collaborating with each other on assignments), or they generally disregarded my compositional advice and suggestions, etc. If a student has shown little indication that they are willing to be taught, why would anyone else want to teach them?

To be clear, I’m not talking about an occasional disagreement; these are not unusual in teaching, and I don't mind them as long as the discussion is respectful. I’m referring more to an on-going and troublesome pattern of behaviour, which is extraordinarily rare; I think I have encountered only about three such cases in thirty years of teaching.

The only time I recall declining a recommendation letter request for reason (iii) above involved a student who was extraordinarily sullen and rude. Don't get me wrong — I have encountered occasional instances of rudeness over the years, but this particular student really stood out from the rest (and not in a good way!), so much so that other students complained to me in private about the student’s behaviour. I was therefore surprised when the student asked me for a recommendation — did they think they were somehow accumulating karmic good-will credits while engaging in blatantly-disrespectful behaviour? — and so I suggested that the student would be better off asking someone else for a recommendation.

I don't hold grudges, or try to undermine students in any way. Had I decided to write a letter for this person, I would have found positive things to say about her/him (no matter who you are, I can usually find positive things to say about you, and this student was definitely smart and talented), but I would have also had to mention the problematic behaviours that I felt would sabotage their chances of succeeding in a graduate programme, which is why I suggested they ask someone else.

Not sure about applying?
If you want to go to graduate school but are thinking that perhaps you ought not to apply because your marks aren't great, or your composition portfolio is not strong enough, I would suggest applying anyway, because you never know what the outcome will be. Sometimes, average students (IMO) have been accepted into master's programmes, while stronger students have been rejected. You don't know the circumstance or criteria used in the evaluation of your application; in some years, and in some universities, you might be in competition with sixty other students for six spots, while in other years or different universities you might only be in competition with eight other students for six available spots. I was at a graduate admissions committee recently in which we rejected a couple of the applicants because they had 72-75 averages and below-average audition scores. We then learned that they had both been accepted at a larger (and better known, frankly) university, presumably because this university had admission quotas to fill, and these applicants met their minimum admission standards.

If graduate schools reject you, and you are not willing to give up on your dream, find a way to turn this into a positive experience: Identify your weaknesses, work hard on improving in those areas, and then apply again. For composition, this might entail writing more pieces, perhaps longer and more substantial, perhaps for larger ensembles, or written more idiomatically for the instruments involved, or exploring new techniques, or providing more score detail, or better recordings, or just writing better pieces; most of us acknowledge that our early compositions are not as good as later compositions. If you want to do a Master's in composition but you had some weak results in music theory classes, explore the possibility of taking some of them again, this time working harder or more consistently than you did previously, in order to gain a better understanding of the material, and demonstrate that you are capable of getting good marks in theory.

List of Positive Attributes
It is easiest students to write strongly-suportive recommendations for students with the following qualities:

1. At or near the top of every composition course they took with me;
2. Developing into very good composers — this is slightly different than #1, because a student's course grade can be near the top of the composition class by getting full marks in all the extra-compositional assessment areas — excellent preparation, excellent contributions to class discussions,  making the required number of thoughtful composition blog comments — while producing compositions that are pretty good (B+, A-), but not extremely good (A, A+);
3. At or near the top of every theory course they took with me;
4. Actively curious about new music; they seek out new scores to study and new music to hear, and are excited by new discoveries;
5. Respond well to compositional suggestions, which means they are willing to try new things without pre-judging them, and to embrace at least some of them;
6. Do all their work on time with a minimum of excuses for gaps in productivity;
7. Do more work than most other students;
8. Are ambitious – I ask for a short character piece, and they write three; or, they write a piece for orchestra with zero training in orchestration; or, I ask for a string quartet of at least 4-5 minutes, and they write a 15-minute string quartet;
9. Have a great attitude; and
10. Participate regularly in class, and, in particular, they are skilled in giving constructive criticism to fellow students in our composition seminars.

If I were assigning a score of 1 (= terrible!) to 10 (= whatever is better than excellent!) to each of the above qualities, I feel confident in saying that I have never had a student who I would have rated as a 10 in every category.

However, I have had occasional composition students who are strong in all of these areas, meaning I would perhaps rate them as an 8 or higher in every category. Such students tend to be accepted into graduate programmes, provided they didn't only apply to the most selective universities, like Indiana or Yale (but some of our students have gone to Indiana University and Yale, for example, so why not you?).

What do you do if you are pretty good at composition, but pretty weak in, say, theory?
 Most students are strong in some of the areas, but not all, and in many cases such students have been accepted into graduate programmes. Some students are very good at composition, but very weak in music theory; this can be a deal-breaker for some universities, since a graduate programme in composition usually requires music theory courses as well. I still suggest that such students apply to graduate schools (because you never know what might transpire), and, if not accepted, then consider doing extra work in music theory (like re-taking music theory courses to try to obtain better results), and then applying again in the following year. Realistically, however, this does not give students much of an opportunity to improve their standing in theory courses, since applications are often due by the end of the fall semester, which would give a graduating student only one semester in which to demonstrate an improvement. But, if you didn't get in to any Master's programmes and you are average to weak in music theory (at least according to the marks you got), then it's worth a shot.

---

If you are reading this in the early years of your academic studies, the clear conclusion to draw is to become as strong as possible in every possible area. It starts with taking every course seriously, and not falling into the trap of making excuses for poor results in, say, theory courses, such as, "this is nothing but a set of rules for OLD music; I want to make NEW music, and break any rules I wish!"

This, strange as it sounds, accurately describes my mindset in my early years of music study. When I started taking music theory, I didn't see the point of it, and thought it had nothing to do with the music I wanted to write. Consequently, I failed grades 3 and 5 harmony at the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM), and didn't do very well in grade 4 harmony either. After about two years of poor results at the RCM, I started studying privately with an excellent composition teacher, Dr. Sam Dolin, who made me re-do music theory all over again, from the beginning, and, while I resented it a bit at first, he made it interesting, fascinating, and relevant for me, and my love for music theory – which is, basically, learning how music works – began at that point, and has never abated. And yes, I got better at it.

You can get off to a bad start in something, and end up becoming very good at that thing; in my case I just needed a combination of a good teacher and an attitude readjustment.

What not to do!
Do not ask a professor to write you a recommendation letter, and then change your mind and, basically, fire them because you have suddenly become worried that they might say something negative or even lukewarm about you. If you ask a professor to write you a letter, and if they say yes, then just continue to work hard and be productive and respectful, and trust that the professor will advocate your behalf. I realize that not knowing exactly what a professor will write about you can trigger insecurities, but, again, you have to trust that, if a professor agrees to write a letter on your behalf, they believe in you have your best interests at heart.

This actually happened to me once. A student I knew very well because I had taught them in numerous courses, asked me to write various recommendation letters for them, so I did, and as I always do, I wrote very positively about the areas in which the student was strong. This student belonged to category 3 or 4, from the listed categories at the top of this post, meaning they were good in one area – very good, in my opinion – but average or even weak in some others. The student was not accepted anywhere.

Although I was disappointed on the student's behalf, the rejections did not come as a big surprise to me – for the most part, you have to be good or very good in many areas (including composition and theory) in order to be accepted to a graduate programme in composition (although I know of a few students who were accepted to graduate schools when they were strong at composition, and only slightly above average at theory) – because I know that, no matter how positive a letter I write on your behalf, the transcript, which admissions committees always see and weigh heavily, does not lie; if you did poorly in cognate areas like music theory and aural skills, graduate committees are likely to be concerned about it.

The student decided to retake some theory courses and reapply a year later, and this impressed me tremendously. It further supported my opinion that this was someone who deserved to be recommended for graduate studies.

The flaw in this plan was in its execution, however; the student did not do particularly well in the courses taken for the second time. In at least one course they got a lower mark. I mentioned to the student that s/he might not have improved their theory marks sufficiently to impress graduate committees favourably, which, from my point of view was just a reality check – if you take a course and get 68% the first time, and then retake it and get 72%, it seems likely that an admissions committee will be convinced that you have made significant improvements in that area.

It was not intended as a signal that I would now be writing a lukewarm letter on their behalf, but I gather that is how it was interpreted, and I received a formal note from the student that evening informing me that I had been removed from the student's reference list.

Ouch!

The most unfortunate part of all of this is that the student then asked a colleague of mine to write a letter for them, and the colleague (a) had not taught the student in many courses and thus did not know them very well, and (b) taught a course that the student re-took but did not do particularly well in the second time, and so there was no way that this other professor was able to write a strong letter. for the student In fact, I am pretty sure that the letters I had written on the student's behalf were the most supportive and positive of any of the letters written by other professors, simply because (a) I knew the student very well, (b) I strongly supported their candidacy for graduate studies, and (c) I knew that the student was not held in high regard by some of my colleagues.

Unfortunately, the student was not admitted to any graduate programmes after re-taking the theory courses. And, despite what happened, I wish for a bright future for the student, who I continue to believe is a good composer.

So the moral of this excessively-long blog post is: Work hard in every course, even ones you may think are useless or stupid, and demonstrate that you are a good student. Perhaps you will never need reference letters from your professors, but you might; you don't know if your ambitions will change in the future. If you do , pick professors who know you well, and who have been supportive of you, and trust that they will advocate on your behalf.

The Value of Accolades, and a Personal Anecdote…

In my previous entry (Winning and Losing as Impostors), I wrote about the competitive aspect of composition — namely commissioning and composition competitions — and suggested that success as a composer can be measured in many meaningful ways that go far beyond the binary options of "winning" or "losing." Measuring your value as a composer by how many prizes or commissions you have won or not won seems an unproductive strategy; better to focus on making every composition as good as it can be, and getting your music performed, both of which are within your control. Think of any further accolades earned by your music as a bonus.

That said, I do not suggest that accolades are without worth for composers, however; "winning" can bring significant cachet to a composer. Like it or not, having other organizations or individuals stamp their seal of approval on your work can be very beneficial. Here are just a couple of reasons:

1. The Official Sanctioning / Emperor's New Clothes syndrome.
   
   There are no absolute measures by which to judge a composition. We like it or we don't, a lot or a little. It moves us, sometimes to tears, or it leaves us cold. It angers us, or brings us joy. It makes us think about stuff, or it lulls us into a trance… and so on. Why and how it does any of these things is a bit of a mystery; if it were simple, then any composer could move audiences like a puppet-master pulling the strings of a marionette, and the fact is that even the best composers do not always achieve success when composing a work [good topic for future blog post: Famous Composer Flops].
   
   Given this, if a prestigious organization gives its "official" sanction to a composer by awarding a prize or a commission, it can make a favourable impression on people who can facilitate composers' careers by programming, recording, or broadcasting their music, or hiring them, in the case of composers who do what I do (teach at a university). A music director (someone who programmes music for concerts) might not love a particular composer's music, but if that composer has recently won some really big prizes, that music director may be more likely to programme a new work by that composer on their concert series.
   
   It has also been my experience that awards, prizes, and commissions are factors (among many others) in ranking applicants to academic positions. Very intelligent people who probably self-identify as critical (i.e., independent) thinkers are not immune to the charms of "official sanctioning" (i.e., winning prestigious prizes and awards). Whether this is right or wrong is irrelevant; the point is that many people in positions to boost the careers of composers by performing, recording, broadcasting, commissioning, etc. their music, or hiring them, or giving them positive reviews in the paper and electronic media, are impressed by prizes, awards, and commissions. This makes them desirable and valuable to composers.

The "Emperor's New Clothes" part of this syndrome (as I am calling it) is simply this: If some "powers that be" declare something to be true (e.g., this composition is great), it doesn't necessarily make it true (e.g., the composition isn't necessarily great).  I have heard "wonderful," prize-winning works that I didn't understand, or didn't like; I have heard works that received few or no accolades that I thought were really good. But whether or not we feel a composition is worthy of the prize it received, if the "emperor" (prestigious organization that awards prizes) decrees that it is excellent, then, in the minds of many who can facilitate composers' careers, it is excellent.


2. "Winning," in any sense of the word, provides external validation for what we do as composers. It is essential that we as composers believe in ourselves — external validation ought not to be necessary — but let's face it: For most of us, there are times when we doubt ourselves, and for times like these, some external recognition of our work is great positive reinforcement.
   
   Here's a personal anecdote (for which I apologize in advance!): I was a relatively late-starter in classical music, and only began studying music composition in my mid- to late-twenties.  When I turned thirty, I had, unsurprisingly, not won anything, and I thought I would no longer have an opportunity to win anything, since any composition competitions that I knew about had an age limit of thirty. This depressed me; I felt like my ship had sailed.
   
   A few years after that, a new, much hyped competition was started by the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, part of their mid-winter, massive new-music festival, and the age limit for that was thirty-five. This gave me new hope, and I entered, but didn't win. The following year, I spent more time on my application (more on this soon… possibly in my next blog), and submitted one of the movements of my doctoral thesis. This was my last shot at it, since I had just turned thirty-five. As it turned out, luck was on my side, and I was picked to be one of five finalists. Being picked was a big deal; they flew finalists out to Winnipeg, put us up in a fancy hotel, gave us tickets to all music festival events, fed us (I think), involved us in interviews and numerous other activities during the week, and we were guaranteed a nice monetary prize just for being a finalist. Oh, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra played your composition in an evening concert, which was broadcast nationally in Canada. It was all very exciting.
   
   At the time, I had been hired on a one-year contract by this university, and I knew there would be a tenure-track position in composition open for the following year, to which I would be applying. Knowing that I would likely be competing for this job against applicants who had won multiple prizes, and that this was my last shot at winning something, the timing of this news was amazingly fortunate.
   
   I remember getting the phone call from Winnipeg, which came late one day while I was in my university office, probably doing what I spend about 50% of my waking hours doing (slight exaggeration, but only slight!), which is correcting student work in music theory. In my usual understated way, I responded with something like, "oh, that's great news," but apparently without sufficient enthusiasm, because the guy I was talking to said at one point, "you don't sound very excited by this… you ARE excited, aren't you?"
   
   Well, gentle reader, take my word for it, I WAS excited — I was over-the-moon excited, but I just don't usually gush around strangers — so I politely assured him of my enthusiasm, and, after ironing out a few more particulars, we hung up.
   
   And then… What to do? How to express what I was feeling? After a lifetime of looking in from the outside, was I finally getting a shot at being on the inside?  I burst out of my office door, looking for anybody with whom I could share my news — didn't matter who — literally jumping for joy as I bounded down the hallway of the School of Music, noticing for the first time that I was able to jump high enough to touch the ceiling tiles with my head. I resolved to curtail my enthusiasm somewhat, lest I damage the ceiling.
   
   As it turned out, there was nobody at work. Back then, my colleagues went home in the evenings, presumably to enjoy a meal with their families, but I was without family, and most of my time was spent at work, and thus I was alone in the building. So, after completing my crazy hallway sprint, I just shuffled back to my office to return to my marking, no longer jumping like an excited puppy with spring-loaded legs, but still very, very happy.
   
   But why was I so happy? Well, that's easy; in addition to thinking that this news improved my chances of getting the tenure-track professor job that I really wanted, it was the first time I had received external validation for my music beyond an occasional comment by a teacher to the effect of, "well, I guess that's okay…," and, while I maintain that one ought not to need this sort of thing, I wasn't exactly getting it anywhere else (no parents or loved ones to say nice things about my music), so it sure felt great to get it!
   
   As a postscript to this tale, another Canadian competition began that year for composers aged thirty-five and under, run by the Hamilton Philharmonic. It was surrounded by considerably-less hoopla than Winnipeg's competition, but they offered a desirable prize nonetheless: Four composers would have their music workshopped and performed by the orchestra. Once again, luck was on my side, and a piece of mine was picked. I have no idea whether or how much these two events influenced the decision to hire me as a tenure-track professor at the end of the year, but I got the job, and I'm still here, twenty-two years later. Still marking student theory work a lot of the time…

So, don't let winning or losing define you as a composer, but be aware that accolades can be very valuable to your career, in large part because they can open doors for you. Know also that there are many successful composers who have never won anything, so fight discouragement (or, better yet, pick yourself up and dust yourself off!) if you do not win.

And finally, lest it seem that I am suggesting that winning prizes is some kind of panacea for composers, there are many prize winners who have not parlayed their winnings into long careers — it takes a lot more than prizes to become a successful composer — and there are many living composers who became successful without winning any major prizes. At best, prizes can boost careers, but more commonly, I think, they are a pat on the back, and that's something we could also use from time to time.

In my next post, I will write about some experiences I have had as an adjudicator, and offer some advice as to how to improve your odds of doing well in competitions.

Winning and Losing as Impostors

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster,
And treat those two impostors just the same…

(Rudyard Kipling, "If—" 12–13)

I have won a few prizes and awards, and it's always a good feeling.

I have also seen enough award-acceptance speeches to know how happy and validated people appear when they win something. An extreme example is American Actress Sally Field's acceptance speech for Best Actress in a Leading Role at the 1985 Oscars, in which she infamously gushed, "I can't deny the fact that you like me. Right now, you like me!"

Losing is an experience I also know very well — losing and I go back a long way! — and it can sting.  I have been close to winning a couple of competitions where I was one of five finalists and the winner's name was announced in front of a large audience, and those have been particularly (and surprisingly to me) disheartening experiences.

Surprising, because in both cases I had been smugly confident for weeks that I would not win, and then, at the last minute, as some long-winded person was about to read out the name of the winner, a little voice in my head suddenly hijacked my powers of reason and began whispering (more like shouting, actually) to me that maybe, just maybe, this would be my lucky day — the day I could finally gush in public, just like Sally Field did in 1985! And me without a speech! What should I say? Should I joke my way through it, like I do pretty much every time I speak in public? Should I shed the comedian facade and speak from the heart? How the hell does one do that??? Should I thank my dog, who is perplexedly and inordinately fond of me (and I have the pictures to prove it), for believing in me when my other pets didn't?

---

"If—", a poem by Rudyard Kipling, was written as fatherly advice to his son, counseling stoicism (or its British equivalent, "stiff-upper-lip-ism") as a response to life's ups and downs, and the lines above explain how to do this: By regarding "Triumph and Disaster" as impostors. They are not real!

It is an interesting concept to react with equanimity and stoicism to life's gains and losses, but it is a difficult thing to put into practice unless you happen to be hard-wired that way. I'm not even sure that it's a desirable thing to put into practice; do we really aspire to be in a position one day to say, upon winning our Academy Award, Pulitzer Prize, or a significant accolade of somewhat-lesser magnitude, "I am unable to give thanks for this, because it means nothing to me; it's not real. Oh, and FYI, in the long run we all die."

To me, stoicism would be a useful attribute upon which to draw when faced with disappointment, because (a) disappointment can hurt like hell, and (b) it can be counterproductive to allow negative feelings to overtake you.

The good advice most of our moms probably gave us on this topic can be succinctly summed up by the lyrics to this wonderful Jerome Kern / Dorothy Fields 1936 song (Pick Yourself Up), which even quotes the last line of Kipling's poem ("You'll be a Man, my son!") at the end of the chorus:

Nothing's impossible, I have found
For when my chin is on the ground
I pick myself up, dust myself off
And start all over again.

Don't lose your confidence if you slip
Be grateful for a pleasant trip
And pick yourself up, dust yourself off
And start all over again.

Work like a soul inspired
Until the battle of the day is won
You may be sick and tired
But you'll be a man, my son.

Again, easier said (or sung) than done, but picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and starting again seems like pretty good advice for when life knocks you down.

The reason I didn't write, "it's always bad to allow negative feelings to overtake you" above is that I wonder if there may be benefits to feeling upset about disappointing results, as long as you don't allow yourself to be down in the dumps for too long (and no, I don't know how long too long is, unfortunately).

Dissatisfaction over not winning a composition competition or not getting a commission or achieving some other desired goal can be discouraging and make you feel like quitting, which of course is not good (unless you want to quit for other reasons too, which may be fine!), or it could motivate you to improve the quality of your work when future opportunities arise. Improving the quality of your work may not be sufficient to win prizes and commissions, but it is its own reward and is an objective we should always have, no matter how old we are or how successful we become. Would we be as motivated to improve if we considered winning and losing as "impostors," to be regarded with with equanimity?

Possibly, but possibly not… only a stoic could tell us for sure, if such a creature (a stoic) really exists.

---

Perhaps more to the point is this: "Winning" and "losing" are, in most cases, not very useful terms to describe outcomes that are meaningful to us as composers. It is great to win a prize or get a commission, but there are many other indicators of success for composers, such as:

• Finishing a piece (believe me, this is a big deal!);
• Feeling like the piece we finished is, at present, as good as we are capable of making it;
• Feeling like the piece we finished represents a step forward in terms of our compositional development;
• Performance(s) of our composition(s), even if part of a student recital;
• Getting positive feedback on our composition(s) from audience members, friends, or family;
• Getting useful feedback on our composition(s) from anyone;
• Getting feedback from performers that helps us to write better for their instruments, or improves the composition in some other way;
• Getting performers to play our music, and having them do a good job, in part because our score was very clear, we picked good/supportive performers, and we coached rehearsals;
• Having performers ask you to write a piece for them, irrespective of whether it is a paid commission or not;
• Submitting our music to a competition, and receiving a "runner-up" prize, or an "honourable mention," or having it selected for a reading/performance;
• Submitting our music to an organization that provides a useful critique of our composition, such as the Newfoundland and Labrador "Arts and Letters" competition (2013 deadline: Nov. 22, BTW), irrespective of whether it wins a prize or not;
• Having our music recorded; or
• Having our music broadcast.

These are all meaningful indicators of success for composers.  Reducing the outcomes of writing music to the binary options of "winning" or "losing" is an unnecessary oversimplification, and it can make us feel like we are failing when in fact we are making great progress.

Furthermore, winning and losing are dependent to some degree on factors beyond our control, such as the stylistic preferences of judges, what they had for breakfast, and even back-room shenanigans. The success indicators listed above, on the other hand, are mostly within our control.

In this sense, "winning" and "losing" are indeed impostors, and you don't have to be particularly stoic to recognize this!

In my next blogs, I will write about the value of accolades, and experiences I have had as a competition judge and commission jury member.

---

Judge Me By My Composition, Do You? (Part One)

Today's title is a reference to Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), in which Yoda famously says, "Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm?"

Indeed, while many would probably agree that it is unfair to judge people by their size, and as Star Wars viewers knew, Yoda's mastery of The Force meant it was clearly a mistake to dismiss him based on his extraordinarily-diminutive stature (not to mention his peculiar sentence constructions), it seems to be a fairly common practice in the world.   Basketball and North American football coaches routinely consider size when choosing players for their teams, although they presumably take other factors into consideration as well, such as speed, and sport-specific skills.  According to some studies, in American presidential elections, "candidates that were taller than their opponents [usually] received more popular votes."  Other studies have suggested it is a factor in mate selection, and advancement in the corporate world.

Judging people based on their height is clearly unjustified in most instances (even in sports there are numerous examples of great athletes that happen to be shorter than average), but judging people based on other factors is a frequent practice that can often be justified.  Picking the best candidate for a particular job entails evaluating numerous factors specific to the execution of that job.  Selecting the best university for you, choosing friends, clothes, books to read, and music to hear — these all involve an evaluation process of some kind, even if we are not consciously aware of it.

In music, we routinely make judgements.  We do this if we prefer one performer's recording of Beethoven over another's.  Some people love Bob Dylan's voice; some people can't stand it.  I recently met someone who claimed to dislike all songs by Paul McCartney, but many regard him as the most successful songwriter in history (Google "the most successful songwriter in history" and see what you get).  I have participated in numerous performance "juries" wherein a panel of faculty members assess student performances, but I have always been aware that there is some subjectivity involved in giving a fair and balanced assessment of what I heard.  Different people can evaluate the same performance in slightly (or sometimes greatly) differing ways.

That said, I suspect that evaluating a performance of a two-century-old sonata by Beethoven is a more objective exercise than evaluating a brand new composition.  People familiar with a particular work notice immediately if wrong notes are played, and judge the performance to be flawed, even if it was otherwise very musical.  A performance lacking in "feeling" or "expression" — which may mean that the performance lacks dynamic nuances, subtle tempo alterations such as rubato or rallentandi, or the shaping of phrases — is usually judged to be weaker than a performance with these qualities, although too much of them may be said to be "in poor taste."  But how does a listener judge the performance of a new composition?  How does the listener of a new work know which are the right notes, and which are wrong?

The question is rhetorical; if the listener is unfamiliar with the work, they can't know.  However, the listener may be able to guess that some notes don't seem right based on an understanding of a composer's style, or even based on inconsistencies within a work.

How does a composer know which notes to use, and when to use them?  We make thousands of decisions during the composition process, and we don't always know why we make some choices and reject others, beyond liking or disliking them.  One way to justify compositional choices is to adopt a systematic approach, such as motivic unity, motivic expansion, using existing forms (such as sonata), any of various "-isms" (serialism, spectralism, minimalism), tonality, free atonality, polychords, or any of Messiaen's techniques such as modes of limited transposition, non-retrogradable rhythm, and added-value rhythms.

But whether you adopt a more-systematic or less-systematic approach, all of these approaches involve choices, or judgements, and good composers presumably make better choices than less-good composers.  The composition process involves continually evaluating the music we write, ideally until we reach the point where in our estimation we are unable to make it any better in the time allotted; at this point, the work is done.

To revise or to let it go?

A quick digression:  If we never review and revise the work we do, we are unlikely to write the highest quality music of which we are capable.  If we constantly revise, then the composition will never be finished.  Somewhere between those two extremes is the happy medium that every composer needs to find.  Deadlines help us in finding this happy (or at least practical) medium…

And so, to answer the question posed in the title of this blog, I don't know the degree to which people are, or should be, judged by their compositions; judging a person's compositional abilities based on their compositions seems fair enough, but judging a person's character based on their compositions seems more problematic, although it could be argued that a person's compositions tell us something about that person's character.

In part two, I will suggest twenty specific ways of critiquing compositions, particularly your own.