The Potentially-Hubristic Folly of Planning

"Creativity is very messy," writes Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman in a Scientific American article entitled, The Messy Minds of Creative People (December 24, 2014).

Well, yeah…

The process that leads to the completion of a composition, or indeed anything you create, is, at least in my experience, rarely linear.

• There are ideas that don't go anywhere.
• There are ideas that go somewhere, but not where you want them to go.
• There are sometimes too many ideas.
• There are sometimes no ideas, or at least none that seem to be any good.
• Finding regular, uninterrupted blocks of time in which to compose can be challenging. Kind of like searching for the Holy Grail, or finding matches for all those single socks that modern dryers produce.
• When you finally find a block of time in which to compose, the creative well sometimes appears to have run dry. This can lead to…
• Frustration. And in such large quantities!
• Every now and then, however, something goes right, which is sweet indeed! However…
• We may come to believe that what we considered brilliant, or at least pretty darn good, is neither, and in fact may very possibly be complete garbage. To be clear, it is unlikely to be garbage, complete or otherwise, but the brain sometimes turns on a person. If that should happen to you, smack the brain smartly (but figuratively) with a rolled up newspaper and tell it that a non-brilliant idea is not necessarily garbage. Here's a little inequation to help remember this:
• Non-Brilliant Idea ≠ Garbage
• There can be positive feedback from others, encouraging you to keep doing what you're doing. So you do, but it may turn out to be bad advice if you don't like the direction your piece is taking.
• There can be conflicting suggestions from others, such as:
• The piano writing is unidiomatic, vs. Nah, the piano writing is fine… A good pianist should have no trouble with it.
• A single motive that permeates every bar of the entire piece? That is PURE GENIUS, my friend! vs. That pervasive motive is fine for a while, but you get pretty sick of it after about the twentieth time you hear it, and by about page five it makes me want to jump off a building! Seriously, dial it back a notch or six; less is more.
• That middle section makes no sense to me, vs. That middle section is my favourite part!
• There can be a little voice in the back of your head suggesting that you really have no idea what you're doing, so why keep doing it?
• There can be self-flagellation. Figuratively, ideally. Otherwise, it would just be weird.
• There can be happy, joyous times. Oh, what a splendid idea this is! This peppy little minuet will surely get the powdered-wig set dancing! La!
• There can be self-shaming: Oh, why did I ever think that a peppy minuet was a splendid idea? Hipster kids nowadays are mostly into the bourée, while emo kids are all about sarabandes, at least when they're not listening to the Pavane pour une infante défunte… I feel so ashamed!
• On good days, there can be the briefly-held and hubristically-based belief that the composition process is really quite straightforward, as long as you focus on executing the plan.
• There can be a growing sense that your plan isn't working, accompanied by a feeling of increasing dread.
• There can be creative paralysis upon realizing that not only does the plan not work, your entire piece is basically dead in the water, gone belly up, defunct, bankrupt, demised, passed on, is no more, has ceased to be, expired, gone to meet its maker, a stiff, bereft of life, resting in peace, pushing up daisies, its metabolic processes are now history, it's off the twig, kicked the bucket, shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain, and joined the bleedin' choir invisible; basically, what you've got is the compositional equivalent of an EX-PARROT!! [adapted from Monty Python, Dead Parrot Sketch]
• There can be complaints and seemingly-unrealistic demands from performers of your music.
• Upon completion of a composition, there can be a sense of accomplishment so profound that, incredibly, you decide to put yourself through this messy process again and begin a new project. 

All of which brings us to the idea of a plan. Here is a cautionary tale based on a true story of someone I taught some years ago, but with abundant and egregious liberties taken:

Chapter One

Once upon a time, there was a student named Sammy (not her/his real name; if you are a student named Sammy, this is not about you. Sorry).

Now Sammy had always composed fairly intuitively, and, while it had often been a frustrating process, it had worked out reasonably well, and s/he was making slow, steady progress.

One day, Sammy got a notion that it would be a good idea to work out a plan for her/his next piece.

Most composers start with a plan, some of which can be really detailed. Insanely detailed! Milton Babbitt, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Pierre Boulez: I'm looking at you, dudes!

A detailed plan could provide many benefits — it could smooth the composition process, since you would always know where to go next within the piece; without a plan, we often struggle when we finish a section because we're not sure where it should go from there. Lots of times Sammy had started pieces intending to take them in a particular direction, only to have the piece go in a different direction! Compositions, like cats, often do not go where we want them to go. A plan would definitely help put Sammy in control of her/his composition, and not the other way around!

Not only that, but a plan would likely result in a work that was well designed, consistent, and organic. No more of this ten-different-ideas-within-the-same-piece nonsense!

A plan could be the key to taking her/his music to the next level.

Chapter Two

And so Sammy began work on the plan. S/he used set theory to work out a pitch system that produced beautiful, non-tonal sonorities. Actually, it took a few attempts before Sammy was satisfied with this, but the eventual result was most satisfying indeed! When Sammy played arpeggios from this pitch-organization system for her/his composition class, they were impressed! Sammy's composition teacher was impressed, and immediately thought of cool and wonderful things that could be done with Sammy's system.

Chapter Three

 Sammy worked out related pitch worlds for different sections of the piece. Sammy also worked on the structure of the piece, eventually (again, after several unsatisfactory attempts) arriving at a series of overlapping arch shapes that were a thing of beauty. Approximate durations were assigned to each section, and as well to each subsection. The vertical axis represented intensity, which rose and fell in a series of cascading waves, eventually reaching a climax at the golden mean (61.8% of the way through the structure).

Chapter Four

There may have been more additions/deletions/modifications to the plan after that. Sammy's composition teacher does not remember.

Chapter Five

But Sammy's composition teacher does remember feeling increasingly uneasy as the weeks rolled by and no significant work on the actual composition was presented to the class. Semesters are about twelve weeks long in Canada, the land where Sammy and Sammy's composition teacher both live, and with about half the semester gone, all Sammy had to show the class each week were further tweaks to the plan. To be fair, however, Sammy had sketched out bits of several sections as well. This in no way reflected any malingering, dallying, dawdling, or dilatoriness on Sammy's part; constructing a detailed plan takes a lot of work, and Sammy's teacher understood this, having read about it in a book once.

Chapter Six

Sammy was beginning to feel the crunch, what with the semester half gone and all, and decided to take the leap. The first section took longer than expected, because Sammy wasn't satisfied with the results s/he was getting. The first section! And already it was starting to feel like herding cats! Why must cats and compositions be so willful? Sammy wondered.

That's the age-old question, mused Sammy's composition teacher.

Chapter Seven

Well, friends, I gotta tell ya, Sammy was (and probably still is) a diligent and eager beaver. Literally. No, not literally… the other one… figuratively? Yeah, that's it. But you already know this, because a good portion of chapter five was devoted to Sammy's general lack of dillydallying.

And so Sammy, ever keen, put her/his back into it and herded those figurative cats! Which is to say, s/he completed the first section, and was satisfied with it. As were all those who heard it, and they praised Sammy.

From on high.

The semester was now about two-thirds complete.

"Hmm," thought the composition teacher, nervously. 

Chapter Eight

The process continued as previously, which is to say that it was considerably less smooth than anticipated! Aspects of the original plan — which was quite lovely! — were modified, or even scrapped. The existential angst that Sammy had hoped to avoid was not avoided, and, what's more, it now grew from "I'm not sure where to take my piece in the next section," to "There are aspects to my plan that don't work, and I am stressed – desperately – over this!"

And indeed, Sammy was in a very dark place. Her/his composition teacher, having been in very dark places on occasions too numerous to enumerate, felt very bad for Sammy. Offers of help were made.

Chapter Nine

And so, for Sammy, it came to pass that time marched inexorably on, as is its wont despite our best efforts to the contrary, and small compositional triumphs were mixed with periodic setbacks and occasional blows to the psychic solar plexus, which means that some setbacks were worse than others.

Sammy stuck with it, however, and eventually pulled the rabbit out of the hat, which is to say s/he finished the piece, more or less, by the end of semester.

"More or less" in this case means that Sammy was not fully satisfied with the finished product, as its completion involved numerous compromises along the way — sections that didn't quite turn out as hoped, but with no time to make them "tickety-boo" (this means "just so," in case you were unaware) because it was necessary to move on to the subsequent section in order to finish by the deadline.

The Moral of This Story

Were the challenges faced along the way the product of a faulty plan, or are such challenges simply inherent to the creative process?

Undoubtedly you, as a perceptive reader, already know the composition teacher's view on this, because the title of today's blog kind of gives it away. 

That, plus opening this blog with, "creativity is messy…" and then following that opening with a list of examples that illustrate ways in which creativity can be messy .

However, the composition teacher hastens to clarify his position by saying that while the creative process can indeed be messy much of the time, even for so-called geniuses, this doesn't obviate the potential benefits of a well-constructed plan. Should Sammy write more plan-based compositions, it seems likely that Sammy's ability to craft functional plans, with built-in contingencies for when things get messy, will improve, and will help her/him improve as a composer.

One key to making plans that work is to understand that most plans have to be changed once the actual work of composition is underway. They are more a guide than a strict road map, usually.

That said, however, it is probable that for any substantial creative project, things will get messy along the way, with or without a plan, and part of being a composer involves learning to accept this, deal with the inevitable difficulties as they arise, and push past them.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry 

(Robert Burns, the Bard of Ayrshire: "To a Mouse," 1785).

Portrait of Robert Burns by Alexander Nasmyth, Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Spin Doctoring 101

According to Merriam-Webster, a spin doctor is "a person (such as a political aide) whose job involves trying to control the way something (such as an important event) is described to the public in order to influence what people think about it."

"Spin doctor" may also refer to a member of the 1990's eponymous band, but today's post is not about them (spoiler alert: There is an excellent likelihood that I will never write a blog about them; sorry); it's about the value of creating good publicity for your music or for an upcoming concert, particularly during interviews, where the ability to "stay on message," or to "spin" your story, can come in handy.

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A Cautionary Tale, or How Not To Conduct Yourself During an Interview

Composers are sometimes interviewed. Gather 'round, kids, to hear how I sabotaged my first such opportunity!

When I was an undergraduate student, I submitted two short movements for chamber orchestra to a "call for scores" by the Canadian Contemporary Music Workshop (CCMW), a Toronto organization that "workshops" (i.e., provides a rehearsal and recorded read-through of your submission, with feedback from the performers) new works by "emerging" Canadian composers, some of which are given the additional honour of being featured on an evening concert.

I had not yet "emerged" at the time this took place. In fact, I'm still working on it, but I digress. My submissions were selected to be workshopped, but they were not selected for performance on the evening concerts.

Oh well, I thought. Better than nothing. And certainly better than the figurative donkey-kicks to the rear that are commonplace when attempting to emerge as a composer!

The workshop/rehearsal went well, thanks to both the quality of the musicians, who were excellent sight-readers, and (he added, boastfully) the staggering beauty of my parts, over which I had slaved for over a month, using a nifty, plastic music stencil, a device that ensured that all noteheads, stems, accidentals, articulations, etc., were uniform in size, producing a result that was as close to published music as possible with a pencil. So painstaking was the process that I never used the stencil again.

The musicians reacted positively to my music and asked the administrator why it hadn't been selected for an evening performance. "Why the hell is this not on the programme?" the first violinist demanded. "Yeah!" somebody else said, possibly in response to an unrelated question. Or possibly it was me; who can remember such things? Demands by first violinists must be taken seriously. The performers' endorsement was communicated to the CCMW artistic team, who were sufficiently impressed that they added my pieces to the evening concert programme. Either that, or they were desperate, perhaps having just realized that their concert was too short.

Either way, I was, of course, pleased.

To clarify, I had obviously hoped that my compositions would be chosen for an evening performance when I submitted them, but when they weren't, I was not particularly upset. That's the way things go in attempting to become a composer, or indeed an artist of any kind; you accumulate many more rejections than affirmations, and I didn't look at this as a complete rejection, since it gave me the opportunity to hear my music rehearsed by professionals in a workshop setting.

So, when I learned the good news that they had decided to programme it on a concert after all, my reaction was, "nice!" or "cool!" or something similarly moderate, not "OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS HAPPENING! I CAN DIE A HAPPY MAN NOW!"

Not Sally Field at the 1985 Oscars, in other words. Who was awesome, in case you didn't catch her acceptance speech.


Opportunity Blown

The CCMW administrator decided that this story would make a great publicity angle — "Musicians' Endorsement Spells Boffo Break for Deservedely-Obscure Local Composer" or something like that — and got someone she knew at CBC radio to do a segment about it on the national "Arts Report."

A CBC  reporter subsequently telephoned me to have a pre-interview chat, presumably to determine my suitability as an  interview subject (although I did not realize this at the time). She asked several questions that clearly communicated the reaction she wanted from me, such as, "you MUST be REALLY excited to have this opportunity land on your lap like this!" and "It must be so AMAZING to have had HUGE break at such an early stage in your career!"

I, being obtuse, gave some lame response, such as "Well, yes, I’m really looking forward to hearing a good performance of my music."

This may seem like a perfectly reasonable response to you — at least it does to me — but the sad fact is that this response was sorely lacking in the enthusiasm department. An enthusiasm-fail, if you will.

My general policy on gushing (effusive or exaggerated enthusiasm) is to avoid it unless the situation unequivocally calls for it. Examples of such unequivocal situations would include (but are not limited to) the following:

1. A snow day resulting in school cancellation;
2. My wedding day;
3. The birth of my children;
4. All achievements by my children, or, for that matter, the children of people I care about;
5. Achievements by my students;
6. Achievements by my cats, or any cats, for that matter;
7. Winning an Academy Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, despite the fact that I have never acted in my life, beyond pretending to know what I am doing when I teach or compose;
8. Winning a large sum (in excess of $10 million) in a lottery; or
9. The consumption of 2-3 jars of excellent mead. I have never actually consumed any mead, but my understanding is that it is made from fermented honey, which sounds quite yummy, and I strongly suspect that it would lead to expressions of tremendous enthusiasm on my part. About anything at all.

In any event, with a restrictive policy like this, and without any mead at hand, you can probably guess that I responded to the reporter's questions with insufficient enthusiasm for her liking.

What I realized after the fact was that the reporter wanted a "feel good" story about a nobody (i.e., me) getting the opportunity of a lifetime, and she wanted the hapless schmuck (i.e., me) to gush about it. She wasn't trying to report news; she was trying craft an interesting "human-interest" story for her listeners.

Whether she SHOULD have been trying to craft a story that basically followed a script she had already constructed beforehand is immaterial; this was one of those "it is what it is" situations, meaning that this is the way she was operating (and it is probably the way many journalists often operate), and I ought to have recognized that and used the opportunity to my advantage, thereby gaining a modicum of publicity for my music, which it had never had.

Perhaps the following level of enthusiasm was what she was after, and yes, I am in a silly mood:

Q: "How do you feel about this wonderful opportunity landing in your lap? You must be very excited!"

A: "OH MY GOD, I WAS 100% CONVINCED THAT THEY WERE KIDDING ME AT FIRST! I MEAN, IT WAS LIKE THE THREE MAGI ANNUNCIATED TO NORMALLY-HAPLESS ME THAT MY INSIGNIFICANT LITTLE COMPOSITION WOULD BE PROGRAMMED ON THE WONDROUS C.C.M.W. EVENING CONCERT THIS SATURDAY AT 8PM AT THE ROYAL CONSERVATORY!

"I SAID, 'PLEASE TELL ME THE TRUTH: ARE YOU PULLING MY LEG? BECAUSE I MOST CERTAINLY COULD NOT BEAR IT IF YOU WERE!" BUT THEY WEREN'T! THEY WERE NOT! NO! FOR THIS REASON, TODAY I FEEL LIKE THE LUCKIEST YOUNG SCHMUCK IN THE 13.798 BILLION-YEAR HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE! I AM HAPLESS NO LONGER! PLEASE PINCH ME, ‘CAUSE I AM QUITE CERTAIN THAT I AM IN THE MIDDLE OF A WALTER MITTY-ESQUE DAYDREAM!
OH MY GOD, I SWEAR I’M GOING TO BARF! SERIOUSLY! COULD I GET A MOTION-SICKNESS BAG HERE PLEASE?"

Okay, so perhaps it was good that I didn't go as over-the-top as the above, but, nevertheless, I could have responded more enthusiastically. Alas, I did not know how the spin-doctoring game was played.

The reporter was clearly getting frustrated with me. "You don't sound like you're very excited by this," she exclaimed at one point, berating me for not playing this game very well.

No? Perhaps this was because I WAS NOT VERY EXCITED BY THIS. Yes, in retrospect, I think that was a big part of the reason I sounded as I did.

I mean, I was pleased of course, but come on! We were discussing a new-music concert! We'd be lucky to get about 30 people to show up, most of whom would be there because their child or friend was having a composition performed, and this did not strike me as a hugely exciting proposition. I looked forward to having a good performance of my music, which virtually never happened in those days, and that was about it.

The reporter chatted with me a little longer, and said she would drop by my apartment the next day with recording equipment to interview me in person.

After I hung up, I reflected on our conversation and swiftly (but not swiftly enough!) deduced that she had wanted me to demonstrate greater excitement, and I resolved to do this the next day during the actual interview. I practiced on my cats, which only served to alarm them.

Secretly though, I think they were nonetheless impressed.

By the next day I had actually worked myself up to an unusually-high (for me) level of excitement in anticipation of the interview, although my cats were still eying me guardedly when they weren't napping. My first interview! And on a national radio show! It would be very cool if my relatives in Alberta heard this! I got up early and donned some non-hobo attire for a change, and waited patiently for the reporter to show up. Or call. Then I waited some more, less patiently… As I continued to wait, the anxiety level started to elevate…

Well, I hung around my apartment all day in an increasingly nervous state, but the reporter did not show up. Or call. Obviously, this was a a perplexing (initially) and depressing (subsequently) letdown. No call, no message; she just decided to ditch me, but neglected to let me know. To quote Jar-Jar Binks, a well-known-but-dangerously-incompetent diplomat, how wude!

A big reason I try not to get too excited about things that fall short of those listed under my very sensible "gushing policy" above is that when I do, and they don’t work out, it can be devastating. Such was was the case here.

The day after that, I was listening to the CBC "Arts Report" in the morning and sure enough, they had a story about the CCMW, but they had interviewed another young composer for their CCMW story, and this composer seemed very excited by the whole thing; she was gushing impressively. I was not mentioned in the story. Opportunity blown!

Well, of course that further rubbed salt on my already-wounded psyche, which, unfortunately, is the way we learn many of life’s lessons. Another way would be to read this blog, but there were no blogs at the time.

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And the Moral of This Story is…

What I learned from that experience, and subsequent ones, is that when reporters or publicity people talk to you, they may or, more probably, may not care about you or your music, but they do care about constructing a story that will interest their audience. You should therefore try to give them something that will make for a good story, ideally delivered with some enthusiasm or at least a strong sense of conviction, while at the same time making the points about your music that you feel are important. Have an agenda, in other words.

Politicians do this all the time during interviews, and it can be really annoying. They respond to questions by making short, prepared, self-aggrandizing speeches, irrespective of what they were asked, like this:

Q: How do you plan on resuscitating the stagnant economy, which has basically ground to a halt during your first term in office? 

A: Nothing is a higher priority than the economy, because the people of this great nation want to work, and they want a government that is accountable, a government that listens to people, and a government that cares about ALL people! Fiscally responsible spending, combined with prudent cuts to outdated  programmes, will produce HUGE gains for the economy, which means more money in EVERYONE'S pocket, but especially, the MIDDLE CLASS! I LOVE THE MIDDLE CLASS!

Impressive that so many words can add up to a bunch of meaningless platitudes that basically say nothing at all! And yet it happens all the time.

However, when an artist is interviewed, no one expects blow-hardy, meaningless platitudes. I'm not sure people expect much of anything, frankly, so you basically have carte blanche to make whatever points you wish, if you can skillfully weave them, however tenuously, into actual responses to questions asked. Like this:

Q: You must be very excited to have your music performed on this concert!

A: I was blown away by how good the musicians sounded during rehearsals — they are fantastic performers, fully committed to these exciting, brand new compositions, and I'd be excited to be at tonight's concert even if my music wasn't being performed! I've been at rehearsals of the other works on the programme, and the people who come to the concert are going to hear some exciting, amazing, and profoundly-moving music. So yeah, I'm definitely excited to have my music included on such a great programme, but I'm equally excited to hear everyone else's music as well!

I recommend thinking carefully about the story or “angle” that you want to communicate before you do an interview, and then doing your best to communicate these points succinctly. Try to keep it simple; what’s the main thing you want people to know? If there is an opportunity to make a second point, what would that be? What do you think would captivate the attention of a potential concert-goer? What image of yourself would you like to project?

Have an awareness that, in most cases, most of the audience for this interview will be lay people who will probably not be very interested in technical jargon (for hilarious examples of meaningless gobbledygook, check out The Contemporary Classical Composer's Bullshit Generator Javascript).

Here's an example of meaningless-techno-babble-with-extreme-attitude that I made up:

“I commenced by constructing a scale based on the familiar 014 trichord, which I don't expect you or any member of the general public would understand, but who cares, because I don't give a damn about idiots. Of course, when cleverly transposed three times, the 014 trichord forms a hexachord whose possibilities were recognized by ancient (albeit pedestrian) composers such as Liszt and Schoenberg to be very fertile in terms of generating a rich but startlingly original (which I mean in a quasi-literal sense) sound palette. The sonic possibilities inherent in this neo-stochastic rationalization exercise are revealed in my third, sixth, and nineteenth "movements," or should I say, "stagnants," because really, that's what they are, in ways that have heretofore only "scratched" the surface, historically speaking. Or should I say, "marred," because that is another word for "scratched." I am not able to reveal more than that, because my competitors (who, without exception, are both scurrilous and unscrupulous) would steal my ideas (and therefore my glory), and I would then be compelled to initiate litigation against them in order to protect my highly-intellectual property. I have sued hundreds of composers in the past week alone! I am not to be trifled with, obviously. Before dismissing you, I will make one final point: I would rather have my masterworks performed in an empty concert hall than have a single fool show up expecting to "understand," or "relate" to the music. Nay, I say let them visit the hardware store, or go bowling, or some such pointless activity. I will take no follow-up questions at this time. Now be gone before I feel compelled to strike you!”

Disclaimer: The long, run-on paragraph above does not represent my views in any way. I like visits to hardware stores. I like bowling. I do not knowingly use the 014 trichord in my music. I like it when people show up at a concert that has my music on it. I know I shouldn't, but I do…

Most people think of music as a form of emotional expression, and yet composers often seem uncomfortable about describing their music in this way, preferring to use jargon to describe their composition process instead. So, don't be afraid to show some enthusiasm as you talk.

It is useful to know something about your audience; if you are speaking to fellow composers or composition students, then use as much technical jargon as you want. If you are speaking to an audience of new-music fanatics, you can probably get away with describing your process in this way as well. But if you are speaking to a more general audience, such as radio listeners or people at a symphony orchestra concert, it might be good to describe the music in a more programmatic way, perhaps sharing some personal tidbits along the way.

But what if your music is without programmatic content? Well! Then you must find something else to talk about, ideally, something that will capture the imagination of someone listening to you speak. Either that, or start giving your music programmatic titles…

Actually, I must confess that it is for this very reason that I decided to start using programmatic titles for my music many years ago, after being a firm believer that "Chamber Piece No. 3," "Overture," "Prelude and Scherzo," etc., were perfectly good titles for compositions; Beethoven mostly avoided programmatic titles, and it seemed to go pretty well for him, so why not follow his lead?

However, after a few interviews and conversations with audience members who frequently wanted to know what the music was about, what it represented, what it meant, it occurred to me that by not having more imaginative titles I was creating barriers between my music, which I mostly tried to make as expressive as possible, and the audience, and thus I think almost everything I have written for about twenty-five years has a descriptive title, or subtitle, as in "Interlude for String Orchestra: La Muerte Me Está Mirando" (Death is Watching Me; note the clever use of the Spanish language. Which I happen to speak, since I grew up in Venezuela).

Of course, this can be a difficult challenge when, as is often the case, I am not thinking of any particular programmatic content as I write the music… In cases like these, I listen to the music many, many times, trying to figure out what emotions are triggered in me by the music. I also play the music for my test market (i.e., my wife and kids) and ask for their thoughts and reactions about the music. Sometimes even the cats contribute to the process, although their ideas usually centre around food, or replenishing our supply of catnip-stuffed toys. So if one day I write something called, "Get me Some Damn Catnip Toys NOW!", you'll know where I got the idea.

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To Summarize…

To summarize, it is useful for composers to be aware of the benefits of communicating well with the public, if we want people to show up at our concerts and listen to our music.

This is perhaps obvious, but communicating in this way, connecting with an audience based on your ability to describe your music, is not always easy to do, which means that it would be a good strategy to plan your talking points, and maybe even try them out on people that you know and ask them for honest criticism and suggestions.

To some degree, I think that audience members just want to know something about you, perhaps to know if they can connect with you as a person or not, and hearing you talk candidly about your music from the stage before a performance will give them that, irrespective of what you say. But what you say matters too, which is why it is good to work out the way in which you want to "spin" your story.

This is something you can practice in composition class (or with friends and family), by the way; your instructor can give everyone a limited time period (perhaps two to three minutes) to discuss their music, and then class members can give feedback and suggestions to each other. Or class members could interview one another, again followed by feedback from other classmates.

Now I feel compelled to write some catnip-themed chamber music, and so I will finally end this post! Hope you enjoyed it!

Form in Post-Tonal Music (Questionnaire answers: #4, 5, & 6)

Question 4 from my "Form in Post-Tonal Music (1)" post is this:

4.  On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), how important is form in your compositional process? (Be clear on what you mean by "form.")

This is pretty similar to question 1, the main difference being that this question allows for a more subjective answer than the first question. Because of this, I'll keep my answer short, starting with what I mean by "form:"

Form: Structure. The way in which a composition is organized, from a large-scale, bird's eye view (e.g., sonata form, or ABA, or rondo) to every subdivision beneath that, all the way down to motivic relationships, thematic structures, sections within a transition or development section, texture… anything at all in a musical composition that is organized, which is to say, everything.

So, no surprise here, but, taking this holistic, organic meaning of form, then on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rank it about a 20 in my compositional process. Or, if that number is unavailable, then perhaps a 10…

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That was so short that I'll try answering questions 5 and 6 from my "Form in Post-Tonal Music (1)" post, which are:

5.  Is it better to work out a form before composing a work, or do you prefer to create the form as you go? 

6.  Are you actively engaged in thinking about the form of your music as you write it?

Let me draw an analogy to something about which I know nothing (!), which is the way that a building gets constructed. I understand (from reading about this in Wikipedia) that it goes something like this:

1.    It starts with a a design team, which includes surveyors, civil engineers, cost engineers (or quantity surveyors), mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, structural engineers, fire protection engineers, planning consultants, architectural consultants, and archaeological consultants;


2.    They make drawings and set specifications for the building's design. They probably make lots of changes to these along the way, because so many people are involved;


3.    I would guess that the plans need to encompass every aspect of the building, from the overall design, to floor plans, plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, elevators, stairs, etc.;


4.    Probably some excavation takes place;


5.    Probably they lay a foundation;


6.    Probably they construct a frame using steel girders (or whatever one uses these days);


7.    And so on, and so on, until all of the other things necessary to make a finished building are added, including exterior, interior, plumbing, electrical, windows, doors, inner walls, carpeting, and probably a whole bunch of stuff I know nothing about, but it's all part of making the building safe, functional, comfortable, and nice-looking, inside and out.

The compositional equivalent to this would perhaps be:

1.    Create a plan, live with it and tweak it for a long time until (a) it contains as much information about the composition as is possible in a plan, and (b) you are happy with it.  The plan can include any aspect of your composition, such as large-scale and smaller-scale form, harmonic language, rhythmic aspects, dramatic aspects (sections can be characterized by their mood (i.e., the mood you hope to elicit in listeners), such as lyrical, aggressive, chaotic, sad, exuberant, confusing, etc.);


2.    If you were an architect, you would probably run your plan by a whole bunch of engineers and other people, as described above. Since you are a composer, there is no need for this — the consequences of a bad plan in composition are considerably less dire than the consequences of a bad plan in the construction of a building (!) — but it wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea to ask a few people you trust for feedback, especially if you are fairly new at this.


3.    Following your plan, start by composing smaller sections, combining and expanding them until they become larger sections. Tweak as necessary. Remove sections that no amount of tweaking can help; they may come in handy later, but if not, have them take a time-out by concealing them in your piano bench, or, if you lack a piano bench with a handy lid, garden shed. If you don't have a garden shed or a piano bench with a handy lid, then place these sections neatly in bottom of your cat carrier, and pray that your cat doesn't mind;


4.    Add any bits necessary to connect the sections, and then tweak some more;


5.    Put the finishing touches on the work, making sure all dynamics, articulations, bowings, wind instrument slurs, pedal markings, etc., make musical sense.  [You should have been putting these in as you composed each section, by the way!]


6.    Write programme notes using the most enigmatic language possible (if struggling with this, consider using computer-generated programme notes from this handy site: CCCBSG);


7.    Design a cover page using a cool font — If you haven't thought of a title yet, now would be an excellent time to do so;


8.    Write a three-volume edition of performer instructions in single-digit font sizes;


9.    Print and bind multiple copies of the score;


10.    Prepare parts, make sure page turns are in good places, proofread them, print them, and tape them together;


11.    Get people to workshop it, if possible, and then make any changes necessitated by this, and then reprint score and parts, and try to get people to play it again;


12.   Think of something profound to say about your composition at the première. If this is impossible, as is always the case with me, say something witty instead. Try to avoid saying, "… and I hope you like it!" at the end of your speech; this will be seen as a sign of weakness on your part by some.  Instead, say, "and I hope the experience of hearing this magnificent work does not render you senseless, doomed to spend the rest of your days unable to function on any level but the most basic. I really do, because, and I mean this with all of the sincerity of a washed-up Las Vegas entertainer, I ABSOLUTELY ADORE ALL OF THE FINE PEOPLE IN… [insert name of town or village you believe yourself to be in here, taking care to pronounce it correctly]!!!" This is how you make a name for yourself.

[Possibly I got carried away there; I will attempt to rein myself in now.]

Starting with a well-formed plan is a fine way to go about composing. Of the composers I have talked to or heard from on this topic, the great majority have indicated to me that they approach their craft in this way. I highly recommend it!

I do not start with a plan, however, so you may wish to take this advice with a grain of salt. ;)  I start with a general idea of how long I want the piece to be (but this can change radically once I get further into the composing process), the instrumentation, the type of piece I want to write (atonal and pointillistic, expressive and moving, light-hearted, virtuosic, accessible to young performers, etc.). I also keep the deadline for that composition in my thoughts; basically, I need to know whether I can compose at a leisurely pace, or if I need to become manic about it and write as quickly as possible.  I virtually never have any idea about the overall form of a piece before I start writing it, so my answer to question 5 is that I like to make it up as I go.

[My "make it up as I go" method, explained:  I start with a small idea, and work at expanding it. I try to figure out where it "wants" to go. If it seems like it wants to go in a direction I don't like, then an argument ensues. When the dust has settled, I continue expanding it, but at various points I begin to wonder where the heck this particular composition is going, and so I analyze, in every sense of the word that I know, what I have composed thus far.  In the course of doing this, I usually get ideas of possible large-scale structures that might be feasible for that composition. As I move forward, I revisit large-scale structure possibilities frequently, essentially asking, "is this working?" frequently. If the answer is no, I attempt to fix things before moving on.]

This works for me, but many (probably most) successful composers prefer to start by drawing up a fairly-detailed plan, and, frankly, their approach makes more sense to me, at least intellectually. I guess I like relying on intuition, while visiting the rational part of my brain periodically (which is where analysis and planning come in), but basically, all composers need to figure out an approach that works best for them.

My answer to question 6, then, is yes, I am very much engaged in thinking about form during the composition process (that's part of "making it up as you go"), albeit at some points more than others.

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.

I love it when a plan comes together...

The title of today's blog was the weekly catch-phrase of John "Hannibal" Smith, a character on "The A-Team," a popular television series that ran from 1983 to 1986 on NBC, and a 2010 film of the same name. You don't need to have been a fan of "The A-Team" (I was, mainly because I'm a foreign television buff), however, to agree that it can indeed be wonderful when a plan comes together.

This, friends, is what John "Hannibal" Smith looked like:

Notice the "thumbs up" sign, as well as the well-chomped cigar, and generally-roguish demeanor. This is part of what made the show popular. The other big reason was Mr. T, but this blog is not about him. Sorry.

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What got me thinking along these lines is that I work at the Memorial University School of Music, and, as with any music school, when you walk down the hallways you get to hear random musical fragments of whatever students and faculty are working on. Some might find it disconcerting to be exposed to brief excerpts of completely different repertoire in quick succession, but not me; I have always enjoyed this aspect of my work environment.

In fact, I don't even have to leave my office to experience this, albeit on a smaller scale. I am surrounded by performance faculty offices, with piano studios on either side of mine, and trumpet and low brass studios across the corridor. Don't get me wrong; the soundproofing in our building is surprisingly effective, and when I am in my office I cannot hear sounds from my colleagues' studios particularly well, but, especially when my door is open, I do get to hear some of what my fellow musicians are working on.

Mostly, I never hear complete pieces; I suspect most teachers do just as I did when I taught classical guitar: You stop the student at various times during their lesson, and say, "let's work on that." Sometimes you spend a whole lesson working on a few notes, trying to find a strategy that will result in a better performance of those notes; small snippets of music are often played many times, and the student is often told to continue this small-scale repetition during practice sessions in advance of their next lesson.

→ That's they way we learn music. We break it down into smaller sections, practice them repeatedly until mastered, then gradually start reassembling these fragments into longer sections, which we practice numerous times, and repeat the process in ever-increasing sections until we can play the entire piece cleanly, with musical understanding, and hopefully with something personal in our performance as well.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been hearing complete composition performances in the studios around me. This stands to reason, because we are at the end of our school year (today is the last day of classes), which means that students will soon be playing end-of-year recitals and performance exams. This is the time of year when their performance levels should be peaking; this is the time of year when, hopefully, every student can feel as though months of planning and hard work are coming together, and, like John "Hannibal" Smith, feel pretty darn good about it. I love it when their plans come together!

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Well, this being a blog about composition, you might already have some idea of where I'm going with the preceding tale... There are at least two parallels with the composition process:

1. The repetitive aspect. You can spend hours trying to get a few notes "just right," tweaking minute details such as dynamics, articulations, pitch, texture, rhythm, and register, perhaps feeling that you're not making much progress along the way. Someone not familiar with the amount of drudgery involved in the creative process might be profoundly unimpressed by all this. Yikes! That sounds very much like a dog's breakfast! they might think to themselves (although, like most of us, they probably have little idea of what a dog's breakfast actually sounds like).

In short, hearing a small section of music played over and over might well leave the casual observer nonplussed.

But, hopefully, any musician would get it. I suspect that any good musician (or, for that matter, anyone who has reached a high level in any endeavour) knows that the creative process involves an extraordinary amount of drudgery. If your goal is to become a good or even great composer, I believe it is essential to accept and understand this. Your initial ideas may be fine, or not, but they very often go through hundreds of transformations until they reach the final product, which is the completed composition. You need to have the patience and tenacity to see the process through to the end.

2. Just as having a plan was vital to the success of The A-Team (every week, the bad guys would get blown up in spectacular fashion, and those lovable rogues on The A-Team would triumph! How awesome is that?), having a plan for your composition can be a very useful thing.

Now just hold on a sec! you might say in your folksy way (if you speak in a folksy way, that is). Since when do YOU [meaning me] have a plan, let alone follow it?

Here's the thing: Plans comes in many varieties. Some are very specific, and some are less so. Mine, admittedly, tend to be less so, but some aspects that are useful to consider before starting a composition include:

• Instrumentation (kind of a no-brainer, but it helps to establish this before you start!)
• Duration (again, fairly obvious, but the length of your composition has tremendous bearing on the kind of piece you can write);
• Performance difficulty level;
• Context (will people dance to it? Will it be "background" music? Is it for a recital?);
• Mood(s) or atmosphere you wish to evoke; 
• Genres you want to draw from, if any (e.g., blues, tango, minimalism, etc.);
• Specific techniques, materials, or processes you want to use (polymeter, mixed meter, compound meter, polytonality, exotic modes/scales, free atonality, a sequence of non-tonal chords of your own invention, stochastic music, etc.); 
• Compositional attitude (is this "serious" music, or playful? Or both? Is it "functional" (e.g., music for marching band, or music for a specific occasion like a wedding or funeral), or "art" music? Or both?  Do you care what people think of your music, and if so, how will that affect the kind of music you write? Who will the audience be?).

Perhaps strangely, I don't spend much time thinking of form before I begin, even though I believe that the structure of a composition is integral to its success. I think this might be related to three things:

1. I like the sonata principle.  I virtually never set out to write a sonata-form piece, however.  Instead, I find myself borrowing some of the concepts of sonata form in the music I write, such as:
   • A mix between sections of greater and lesser stability, where stability can refer to thematic identity, pitch centricity, mood, or anything else you can think of.  This is at the core of classical sonata form, and the concept can be applied to modern music too;
   • Some degree of the unexpected — one of the things I like about sonata form is its flexibility, and particularly the number of times composers introduces unexpected elements, such as a new theme in the development, no bridge, an unusually long bridge, unexpected modulations, etc.;
   • A return to some aspect of the opening material towards the end; and
   • Codas that may be lengthy and contain further surprises.  
2. I like the Fibonacci sequence, and the Golden Ratio, and these are often somewhere in my thoughts as I compose (and they can be applied to form, as well as many other parameters, such as rhythm and intervals). 
3. I tend to start thinking about the kind of form that would best suit a particular piece only after the composition is underway.  I do not argue that this is a good (or bad) strategy; I do it because it happens to work for me.  Some might say this is a bit like beginning to construct a building with no architectural plans, and only drawing up plans once the first couple of stories have been finished.  To that, I say this:  A composition is not a building.  It is, I think, very important to develop a plan for the form of your composition, but sometimes you don't exactly know what the possibilities are until you have worked with your musical ideas for a while.  Remember: One of the many things a composition is not, is a building.  But you probably already knew that... 

Some composers like to represent musical form on graph paper. I have tried this, and it is certainly useful. Some prefer to describe the structure they wish to use with words. Many use letters or numbers to designate sections within a form (e.g., A B C B D A B). There are many approaches to planning that work, and the key is to try different ones until you discover ones that work for you.

I don't tend to have very specific pre-compositional plans about scalar and harmonic resources, but, within any section, I generally aim to be consistent. There is no rule saying you have to be consistent in this or any other aspect of a musical composition, of course; I just happen to like what I write more when it is consistent. If you didn't start out with a plan for scalar, harmonic, and motivic resources, it can be useful to look at however much of the composition you have already written, and then try to deduce what sort of harmonic language you have been using.  Subsequent sections can then be consistent with the pitch collections of earlier sections, if you wish, or you may choose to use contrasting language.

I suspect that most composers devote a significant amount of time to pre-compositional planning, and I can understand why: It can make the difficult process of composing somewhat easier, and can result in a better composition. There have been numerous times when I have been stuck at some point in a composition, and wished I had a plan, because I believe it would alleviate at least some of the stress (and even helplessness) that comes when you feel as though you have absolutely no idea where your composition should go from a point of impasse.

My main caution on this topic is this: While it can be is useful to have a plan before you start composing, the plan needs to be flexible. If something is going according to plan, but not working, then it stands to reason that the plan must be changed. You could even build this flexibility into your plan; if option x doesn't work, then try y; if y doesn't work, then try z, etc.  I think this is what the adage, plans were meant to be broken, is getting at.

I recommend giving it a try, and, like anything, you may need to try it several times before you feel you are starting to get the hang of it. Then, if you have planned well, you may experience something of the smug sense of accomplishment conveyed weekly by A-Team's John "Hannibal" Smith... or if that is perhaps aiming too high, then perhaps at least some sense of satisfaction that your plan came together!

[This blog was only very loosely planned.]