Form in Post-Tonal Music (Questionnaire answers: #1)

Inspired by a presentation by Jocelyn Morlock at this year's Newfound Music Festival, I asked several questions about musical form in my previous blog post, in part to engender a dialogue on the topic — I am genuinely interested in learning how other composers think of this — and in part to get my students to think about it. Musical form is a topic of interest to all composers.

Because of my propensity towards long-windedness, I have decided to answer the questions posed in my previous post in separate blog entries.  Here is the first question:

1. On a scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), how important is form in musical composition, and why?

It's tempting to enthusiastically jump up and shout "10," with at least three exclamation marks (of critical importance, ladies and gentlemen!!!), and then wait for the applause to die down, but, when both great and not-great composers used the same forms, such as sonata, and rondo, is this justified?

Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven all used sonata form extensively.  So did virtually all European composers, good or bad, from about 1770 to 1900, including Fernando Sor.

Fernando who, you may ask? If you are not a guitarist, you have probably never heard of him, and for good reason: Sor was a competent composer of mainly guitar music, who lived from 1778 to 1839. 

His life overlapped with Beethoven's (b. 1770) and Schubert's (b. 1797), but, to use a baseball analogy (because spring training has now started!) if Beethoven and Schubert were major-league all-stars and first-ballot Hall-of-Famers, Sor was a useful guy to have on the team, ready to contribute if any of the A-listers became injured or needed days off, but who probably spent a lot of time on the bench. If you don't follow baseball and have no idea what I'm talking about, my point is that history has been kind (deservedly) to Beethoven and Schubert, but not so kind (deservedly?) to Sor.

He was reputed to be an excellent guitarist, however…

I mention Sor because, as a guitarist, I played some of his music during my youth. It is well-written for the guitar, and it has pleasing moments, but it never came close to moving me as profoundly as the music of Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Charlie Parker, The Beatles, and many others. 

Here's an excellent performance of Sor's Sonata in C, op. 22, first movement. In my playing days, I practically — nay, definitively owned this piece! Yeah! (By this I mean that I purchased a copy.) I also performed it, although of course I did not play it very well… Have a listen, and see what you think:

An excellent performance, is it not? (I fail to understand the decision to repeat the exposition, however; once through strikes me as plenty!) But as a composition, I am not sure that any theorists or musicologists would suggest that it is at the level of the three classical-period "greats," Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. I certainly don't.

Why is that, you might ask? Well, I will suggest that the weakness is not the large-scale form, which does all the things a good sonata form composition is supposed to do. To wit:

• It opens with a declamatory, attention-grabbing, first theme, and
• follows it with another tonic-area theme. 
• The transition modulates to the dominant, as is the norm, and 
• even has a clever, unexpected tonicization of the chromatic mediant (Eb) along the way. 
• This tonicization of Eb sets up a dominant pedal point on D, but it hints at the dominant minor (Gm), not the major minor (G); this (hinting at the dominant minor) is fairly common in Mozart and Beethoven, but nevertheless a clever thing to do.
• The second theme-group includes several themes, each of which is pleasant enough, and it concludes with a codetta. All good!
• The development is skillfully handled, and is neither too short, not too long, finishing with a dominant pedal point in the home key, as most developments do. 
• The recapitulation is also handled competently, but has no surprises (which isn't inherently problematic; Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven wrote many recapitulations that held no real surprises).

In short, Fernando Sor clearly knew what he was doing when it came to form. Despite this, history has relegated him to minor position in relation to the "great" composers.  

This suggests to me that there must have been more to the greatness of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven than their handling of form, and that [DISCLAIMER: PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE SEATED BEFORE CONTINUING TO READ] form is perhaps not the most important aspect of a musical composition!

However (he added, back-pedaling quickly!), one of the reasons we love to study Beethoven is that he did things with standard forms that were often unexpected, or even unprecedented (c.f. "Waldstein" Sonata, op. 53, I)!  

One of the best ways to evaluate composers as "musical architects" (a term sometimes used in reference to a composer's structural design (i.e., form) in a composition) is to compare the following sectioins of their sonata-form compositions: 

•   Transitions in the exposition and in the recapitulation; 
•   Development sections; 
•   Codas; and
•   Any other aspects of form that are unexpected.

Haydn deserves huge credit for the development of classical sonata form (influenced in part by C. P. E. Bach), and both Mozart and especially Beethoven often did some surprising things in the sections listed above. I would love to teach an upper-level course on just Beethoven's codas, or, more generally, classical transition sections; these offer an abundance of fascinating procedures, which reinforces the point that form is indeed important.

However, not all sonatas by the classical "greats" are examples of ground-breaking musical architecture; the first movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata no. 1 (op. 2, no. 1), for example, is not remarkable or unusual in terms of its form, and yet it is a highly-regarded composition for other reasons (motivic unity ranking high among them). That said, I if op. 2, no. 1 represented the pinnacle of Beethoven's artistic achievement, I doubt he would be considered one of history's greatest composers.

And so, after this long-winded preamble, my answer to the question on the importance of musical form is that form is certainly important, but so are a lot of other aspects of musical composition, some of which are arguably even more important, such as motivic unity and organic growth, the play between expected and unexpected elements, and the music's ability to powerfully move listeners. It may be in this last category that Beethoven distinguished himself the most, and if you compare Sor's op. 22 sonata to, say, the transition from the third movement to the final movement, and the entire final movement itself, of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, there is no comparison; listening to Sor's music is a pleasant experience, but listening to Beethoven's is mind-blowing, at least some of the time.

Given this, as well as the fact that (a) lesser composers generally used the same forms (e.g., binary, ternary, sonata, rondo) as great composers in a given historical period, and (b) great composers sometimes wrote excellent music whose form was not particularly remarkable, I guess I would have to say that large-scale form gets about a 7 or 8 in terms of compositional importance on my scale of 1-10.  

Ah, but why am I only discussing large-scale form, you may ask? Because to be fair, it is important to note that "form" exists on multiple levels simultaneously in a composition, from the very small scale, such as the intervalic content in a motive, the way in which a theme is constructed, motivic breakdown, the functions of each phrase segment, thematic structure such as period, sentence, phrase group, "auto-generative," fortspinnung, etc., to increasingly larger scales such as the structure of sections, movements, and entire multi-movement works. If the question is, how important is form in every sense of the word, meaning on every level, then my answer is easy: it's a 10.

It is essential to think about form on multiple levels as we compose; if we leave it to an afterthought, our music will likely suffer for it. And by "suffer" I mean that our compositions can sound confused, disorganized, inorganic, etc.

You don't necessarily have to adopt an existing form, or even know what form you are using in the early stages of writing. At many points during the composition process, however, it is good to step back from the the small-scale focus on notes, motives, lines, contour, harmonies, textures, etc., in order to assess what is going on in terms of structure, and work out what the overall form is, or will be. 

I virtually never plan the form of a piece before I start writing; I begin, see where it takes me, add or take away bits, see if I like it, and continue until a section of the music is written. While doing this, my mind is simultaneously trying to make sense of my musical ideas, through analysis, trying to get a sense for how they are structured, and how the structures can make better sense.  When I feel I have a pretty good understanding of the materials with which I am working, I begin working out a tentative overall form for the composition, but this usually changes as I continue the piece.

Many times, when I am not 100% satisfied with a piece I am writing, it is because the form just does not  work for me, and so I play around with the form until the piece makes more sense. Sometimes, in "playing around" with form, I realize that some sections are too long, too short, or even unnecessary, and I wasn't fully aware of this until I did a structural analysis.

On the other hand, some composers, like to begin with an exact, well-planned form, and that obviously can work well too.   

My advice would be to try it both ways (pre-planned form, vs. figuring it out as you go) and see which works best for you. I would also suggest, if you go this route, to try both approaches several times before deciding if one works better. 

Answers to the remaining questions in my previous blog to follow; hopefully they will be shorter!

Experiences as an Adjudicator — Part 2

My previous post (Experiences as an Adjudicator) generated a couple of comments about the frustration of not getting feedback from competition judges. If you don't know why you lost, or even how close you came to winning, then how do you know what needs improvement for the next competition you enter?

I can certainly understand feeling this way — there might be some consolation in being told you came close to winning, even if no reasons were given as to why you did or did not win — but it is a complicated issue, provoking questions such as,

• should competitions provide explanations for their decisions?
• should they provide critiques of all submissions?
• is it feasible to do either of these things, and,
• if the feedback or rationale provided is superficial (which seems likely, given the little time adjudicators have to spend evaluating each composition), is it beneficial to do either of these things?

Here are my thoughts on these matters, and more(!):

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1. Some Kinds of Competitions Provide Feedback

I was on a Manitoba Arts Council jury once, and the music officer (i.e., administrator in charge) took detailed notes on every decision we made in order to be able to explain them to unsuccessful applicants, should they call or write. The officer was impressively diligent; if an adjudicator said, "I vote against this because it's a very weak application," the officer would ask for clarity — what exactly was weak about the application — in order to relay useful feedback to the applicant. I think all applicants may have been given some reason for the decision, but further information was only provided when specifically requested.

I suspect many composers don't realize that you can do this, when it comes to commission, project, or travel grant applications — I certainly didn't before then — but I would highly recommend that anyone turned down by an arts council request further information on the decision in order to find out why they were turned down, and what they can do to improve their chances of being successful next time they apply.

I had never done this in the past because I didn't want to come across as "whiny," or "difficult." Plus, I am not a fan of confrontation… However, politely requesting clarification or explanation as to why you were turned down is neither whiny nor difficult if your objective is to learn from the experience ("how do I make a stronger application next time?"), and not to challenge the decision ("you elitist SOBs had no right to turn me down!").

Remember that when dealing with an arts council officer you are dealing with the messenger, not the people who actually made the decision on your application, so be polite, and chances are they will appreciate it and be very helpful.

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2. It May be Possible to Challenge a Decision

Many years ago, when I was president of Continuum Contemporary Music in Toronto, our grant application to the City of Toronto Arts Council was turned down because only "professional" organizations could receive funding, and we had been deemed a student organization.

I had spent hours carefully preparing what I thought had been a very strong application, and had read all the rules carefully. We had several doctoral composition students in our group, but we also had non-students, and the only stipulation in the rules on this point was that applicants should have completed their basic training in their area, and have been a practising artist for some minimum period of time, perhaps a year, in order to be considered for a grant.

All of the doctoral students had completed bachelor's and master's degrees, which surely constituted completion of basic training, and we had all received commission grants, had numerous premieres, and many of us had won big prizes. We were mostly in our late twenties or early thirties, and we worked for a living in addition to being doctoral students. I felt strongly that all of this was sufficient to establish that we were active composers who had completed our basic training.

I felt sufficiently indignant that I mustered up the courage to call the arts council (and I am profoundly uncomfortable about talking to people I don't know on the phone!) and politely explained my objections to the stated rationale in the rejection letter. The arts council officer seemed sympathetic, and said he would look into it.

I was subsequently invited to make my case to the top brass of the arts council, and I took my friend and fellow group member, Omar Daniel, with me, and the upshot was that we convinced them that we should not have been turned down. This did not mean that our application could be retroactively funded, since all grant money for that deadline had been spent, but it did mean that our future applications would be eligible for funding, and in fact they did get funded.

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3. Is it Feasible to Provide Feedback in Composition Competitions?

Composition competitions are a different kettle of fish; judges must review all submissions in order to identify a winner (or sometimes first, second, and third-place selections), and since there may be over 100 submissions to evaluate, writing a critique for every non-winning piece would be very onerous.

If you are familiar with Kiwanis or Rotary Club music festivals, you know that contestants each receive a written critique from the judge, but these are produced "in real time," meaning the judge engages in "automatic writing" (not really… they just write quickly!) while the performance is taking place, all of which might take just a few minutes. There is an assumption that the critique is aimed at someone in the training stage of their artistic development, and so judges write comments with this in mind. They probably write a lot of the same things over and over again.

One could apply the music-festival model to composition competitions and provide quickly-written critiques of submissions (if the submissions were performed live), but, as mentioned above, this would be very onerous, and quickly-written evaluations might not actually be very helpful to composers, since they are unlikely to be very insightful.

As an example, I have seen a few of the critiques written by the Newfoundland Arts and Letters Awards judges, and they did not generally strike me as being particularly deep. This is not a criticism of Arts and Letters judges; I have been a judge for this competition, and I found it challenging to write constructive critiques, in part because there were so many and so little time, but also because it is a composition competition for all categories of music (folk, pop. rock, jazz, country, world, contemporary classical, etc.), which makes selecting the "best" works across radically-dissimilar categories kind of a silly exercise.

In order to write a meaningful critique of a composition, you need to spend a significant amount of time with it, and there is simply not enough time to do this in most competitions.

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4. Getting Past Nuts and Bolts Issues…

"Nuts and Bolts Issues" refer to score-related aspects that are not primarily a matter of opinion, such as clarity of notation, sufficient and logical score details, logical accidental spellings, unidiomatic writing for the performers (although this can be a matter of contention), etc. I wrote three blogs on this topic, if you are interested in reading more:

On musical detail (1)
On musical detail (2)
On musical detail (3)

A challenge for judges in composition competitions, as mentioned in an earlier post (The Value of Accolades…), is that, once you get past nuts-and-bolts issues, there are no absolute measures by which to judge a composition.

I might tell my students that there are too many ideas within one composition, or that ideas are abandoned before reaching their full potential, or there is no climax, or not enough development, because these are values that are common to several centuries of classical music practice, and they are values I would like my students to learn. But that doesn't make them absolute values.

A composer might respond by arguing that the objectives of a particular composition were to write music with many dissimilar ideas, with no development, and no climax, and, if she achieves these goals, then how do you argue that there is anything wrong with that piece? I might not care for it, but not liking something is not an objective basis for judging that thing.

And so we face a dilemma. If there are no absolute measures on which to judge a composition, what value would there be in receiving a critique of your work from someone whose aesthetic tastes differ from yours?

Going back to the practical issue of feasibility for a moment, this is one reason that it takes considerably more time to meaningfully-critique a new composition than it does to evaluate a performance of a work in the standard repertoire. Put another way, it takes more time to process your thoughts about something you have never heard before than it does to adjudicate a work you have heard many times, have probably performed, and taught to your students. This makes the music festival model (writing a stream-of-consciousness evaluation in the few minutes it takes to hear the performance of a work) more challenging for music composition, but not impossible, by any means.

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5. For Deeper Insight, Please Call…

For deeper insight into your compositions, don't be shy about asking composition professors or other successful composers you know (or even ones you don't know, if you are willing to summon up some moxie!). You might get turned down, but if we say yes, the feedback you receive may be more meaningful than comments from adjudicators who only have about 5 minutes (if that) to spend evaluating your piece. More time spent appraising something usually results in more meaningful insights than otherwise.

If feasible, try to get in-person feedback on your compositions, as opposed to sending a score to someone and requesting comments (which I don't recommend, unless you made an arrangement ahead of time with someone to do this). This allows the evaluator to interact with the student, and not just issue a pronouncement from on high, as it were. Meeting with a student affords the opportunity to ask questions about the composition, which helps the teacher to understand the composer's mindset and intentions, such as:

• How satisfied are you with this piece? (If the answer is, "Extremely!", perhaps why are you asking for a critique?).
• What sections of the composition are least satisfying to you?
• What were the overall goals for this piece? 
• Did these goals change in the course of writing the work? In what way? 
• What are the formal functions of different sections of the piece (e.g., initiation, continuation, contrast, closure, expository, transitional, developmental, conclusive)?
• Why are there so many distinct musical ideas, or character changes? Do they all belong in the piece, or would removing some strengthen the piece?

When requesting feedback, it is helpful to both the evaluator and yourself if you specify aspects of the piece that are troubling you; this shows you are open to suggestions on how to improve those sections. I have had people ask for feedback on their compositions, only to discover that what they really wanted was a pat on the back and some positive affirmation of what a fine piece they wrote. Most people, in my experience, are open to honest criticism, if it can be delivered in a gentle and thoughtful way.

Fine-Print Disclaimer: Just to be clear, I am not suggesting that composers are out there waiting for you to call requesting a critique of your work… Your best bet is to approach someone you know, which, for students in a university music programme or conservatory, would be someone who teaches at your school. If you are not enrolled in such a programme and want to get feedback on your work, I strongly encourage you to seek composition lessons. I don't usually give compositional feedback to people I do not know, mainly because I don't have time for it, but partly because not knowing someone makes it difficult to know where to start when critiquing their composition; I could be using terminology they have never heard of, or I could be making assumptions about what they already know or don't know that are incorrect.

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6. Kindly Disregard… Or Regard… Your Choice!

As with any opinion, of course, it may not be what you want or need to hear, so just take all advice, including this, with a grain of salt.

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7. "Too many notes"

You may have heard the story of Emperor Joseph II's reaction to Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio, in which the Emperor, when asked by Mozart if he liked it, said he did, but it had "too many notes." Whether this really happened or not (it has never been authenticated, but it was in "Amadeus," so it must be true, right? ;) ), this oft-repeated tale illustrates the difficulty in articulating a precise rationale for what is ultimately an emotional response.

I suspect that a big reason composition competitions do not typically explain their decisions is that it is really tricky to articulate defensible, intellectual justifications for what are, to a large degree, emotional reactions to a composition. Some people can do a pretty good job of explaining some reasons behind their emotional responses, but, when we like or dislike something, we are often unaware of all the reasons we react that way.

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Summary, and Suggestion

• Arts councils usually offer rationales for at least some of their decisions (I don't think they normally do for commission competitions, however), so if you get turned down, don't be shy about asking for more information; that's something most arts council officers are prepared to provide.
• If a composition competition is aimed at students, especially those at an undergraduate university level or younger, I think offering a brief critique to all entrants could have value, albeit limited (see #3 above), but it would be an onerous process for judges.
• If a competition is aimed at composers who have finished their basic training (e.g., with no age limit, or age limits of under thirty or thirty-five), providing a cursory compositional critique (how's that for alliteration!) seems of questionable value to me, and it might actually annoy some people.
• For "deeper" insight into your compositions, it may be best to request feedback from someone who does this for a living, like an active composer (who may or may not be a professor). Just remember the advice in point #6 above, if you do this.
• Suggestion: Since it seems unlikely that composition competitions are ever likely to offer explanations for why every submission was ranked the way it was, I think it would be wonderful if, in addition to the usual prizes awarded, competitions added or expanded an "honourable mention" category, thereby offering encouragement to composers whose compositions were highly-regarded, but just not sufficiently-so to have earned a prize.

How Important is Originality in Art?

I think many people would suggest that originality is an essential ingredient in art. As an example, an excellent copy of the Mona Lisa, virtually indistinguishable from the original, might be valued at a few hundred (or a few thousand) dollars, whereas if the actual Mona Lisa is as close to priceless as is possible for a painting. Two identical works of art; one original and iconic, the other a reproduction, but the first is much more highly-valued than the second by virtue of its originality.

This looks like the Mona Lisa; the actual painting, however, is in the Louvre behind bullet-proof glass.

But there are cases where a lack of originality seems less crucial to the value ascribed to a work of art. Many artists have created numerous variants of the same, or similar, things — consider Monet's approximately 250 paintings of water lilies (as well as his series of paintings of Poplars, Haystacks, Rouen Cathedral, Mornings on the Seine, and the London Houses of Parliament), Degas' extraordinary penchant for dancers as a subject (more than half of his vast output of paintings, drawings, and sculptures is devoted to the activities of the ballet dancers and dance students), or Georgia O'Keefe's paintings of flowers — all highly regarded, but, thematically, not particularly original.

Two of the 19 paintings from Monet's "The Houses of Parliament" series. All are the same size, and from the same perspective, but show changes in lighting and hue at different times of day, and in different weather conditions.

If you enjoy visiting art museums, there is a reasonable chance you may have seen Rodin's "The Thinker," his most famous work, and one of the most-recognized (and most-satirized) sculptures ever. The original was 27.5 inches high, but there are over 20 additional casts of the work in various sizes, most of which were executed by his apprentices, as I understand it. Their lack of originality does not prevent them from being prominently displayed (and hence valued) in museums around the world.

"The Thinker," Rodin. At least 20 casts were made of this sculpture.

The paintings in Monet’s Houses of Parliament series are similar – each is of the same subject, viewed from the same vantage point, and on the same size canvas -- and dissimilar – each view represents a different time of day (which alters the lighting), and different atmospheric conditions (hazy, foggy (or smoggy), and different cloud formations). The point, as it relates to originality, is that Monet did not attempt to paint a series of completely different (and therefore highly original) paintings; he wanted to paint the same thing repeatedly in slightly different ways, and we value each individual painting highly nonetheless.

These examples, and many others, suggest that the role of originality in evaluating art may sometimes be relatively minor.

Stravinsky is supposed to have said “good composers borrow, great composers steal,” ^{[ 1 ]} which is itself an adaptation (or theft?!) of T. S. Elliott’s “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal,” from Elliott's essay on English dramatist Phillip Massinger (1920). It is a clever line, the merits of which are of course debatable, but for me the point is that artists frequently influence one another; part of the way many artists discover their own voices is by emulating, or appropriating, to varying degrees, aspects of the work of others.

Music is filled with elements common to different composers within an historical period, and sometimes across periods. When we study tonal harmony, we learn that in the "common-practice period" (roughly 1700-1900, in Europe), there were guidelines governing the way in which chords progressed. These guidelines have numerous restrictions as well as some freedoms, but the fact that there are guidelines of any sort means that originality in chord progressions was not highly valued.

Composers in the "common-practice" period made widespread use of a limited selection of musical forms, chief among them sonata form, as well as rondo, binary, ternary, and theme and variations. When we study sonata form, we marvel at the many nuanced differences we find in different compositions, even though the big picture form is the same. Other common elements include the use of Alberti bass accompaniment figures (although it had numerous variants), an extremely-limited selection of cadence types (virtually every composition from that period ended with an 'authentic' (V-I) cadence), common phrase lengths (especially 4-bar phrases) and phrase-structures (although numerous exceptions can be found), and writing for commonly-found ensembles such as the string quartet.

And yet, despite the restrictive nature of these common elements, thousands of wonderful works were written. There is originality to be found in all great (or even good!) works to be sure, but, as with Monet’s parliament paintings, the differences are often fairly nuanced.

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¹ Although there are numerous attributions of this quote to Stravinsky all over the web, I have not come across any that cite a source for it. It seems entirely possible that he said this, but I would like to find out if he actually said or wrote this… If anyone has a citation for this quote, please let me know. Of course, it might also be a sentiment that hacks the world over like to attribute to a famous composer in order to justify theft of intellectual property.^↩

Composition Issues (1)

[From a 9-part series for my introductory composition class.]

1. Originality and Quality of initial musical ideas

Everyone who has ever played a musical instrument or sung has probably come up with their own musical ideas (a melody or melodic fragment, chord progression, rhythm, etc.) at some point. Sometimes, this gives rise to the impulse to create a complete musical composition, but I have heard people say that they did not follow through on this impulse because they felt their initial musical idea was 'not good enough,' or 'unoriginal.'

If you have ever felt this way, I would like to suggest two possibly radical concepts to consider:

1.1. The quality of musical ideas does not matter very much in determining the quality of the complete composition that can emerge from them; and

1.2. The degree to which these ideas are original may not matter as much as you think.

While it would probably be a better plan to start with a high quality, original idea, a good composition can start with an uninspired, not-particularly-original idea!

• Consider both of these ideas; can you think of any examples of good music with uninspired or seemingly mundane initial musical ideas, and/or or ideas that are not particularly original?

What I would suggest is:

→ The way in which your musical ideas are extended and developed into complete compositions matters more than the quality/originality of the ideas themselves.

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Composition is a craft. The harder you work at developing your craft, the better your ability to compose the kind of music you'd like to hear.

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Tags: compose, composing, music, how to, thoughts on composing