Ostinatos; making a lot from a little (1. Boléro)

An ostinato is a musical idea that repeats immediately (as opposed to returning later in the composition) and persistently (it usually is repeated more than once). It can be melodic or rhythmic, and is usually fairly short – one to four bars – but it can be longer. Kids love 'em.

And not just kids; it is widely used in many musical styles and periods.

The attractiveness of ostinati for composers is easy to understand; you can generate a lot of material from a relatively short musical idea, and, if you do it well, audiences may respond well to the music.

With the advent of computer-notation software, and, more specifically, the "copy" and "paste" commands in those programmes, it has become extremely easy to use ostinati in compositions. And, with programmes like GarageBand, which comes bundled with every Mac computer, you don't even need any musical knowledge to write loop-based music; in this context, "loop" and ostinato mean the same thing.

The downside of repetition, however, is that too much can make a composition overly predictable, unless the composer finds ways of varying, interrupting, growing, evolving, or otherwise adding interest to repeated patterns; music that is overly predictable can lose the listener's interest.

An example of how to successfully repeat an idea to an almost absurd degree is Ravel's Boléro. It uses the two-bar rhythmic ostinato figure below throughout the work; this two-bar rhythmic unit never stops repeating until the work's (very loud) conclusion, about sixteen minutes later:

There is even further repetition within this two-bar ostinato: The rhythm on beat one is used on the first two beats of each bar; four of the ostinato's six beats are identical. This is repetitiveness ad absurdum, and I won't stand for it!!! [Just kidding, of course; the piece is awesome.]

The above pattern is repeated 339 consecutive times in Boléro (yup, I counted), which means that the rhythm on beats one and two of each bar is heard 1,356 times.

That's a lot of repetition!

One can argue that the uninterrupted repetition of the same short rhythm for sixteen minutes in a composition is a bit much – or a lot much – but Boléro is Ravel's most popular piece, so clearly, millions of people have no issue with it. Indeed, its popularity may in part be due to this rhythmic ostinato!

So, the question I have for you is this: What makes it work? What does Ravel do to keep our interest despite the 339 ostinato repetitions? Why do audiences cheer enthusiastically following the conclusion of the work, rather like sports fans cheering an exciting overtime win by their favorite team, instead of standing up to boo the repetitiveness?

I once listened to a radio documentary on Ravel's Boléro in which orchestral musicians were asked to give their thoughts on the work. Many said that they don't look forward to performing it because they perform it so often, there is such a high degree of repetitiveness, and, in some cases, once the piece starts they have to wait an extremely long time before they get any notes to play. However, once  rehearsals begin, they gradually feel their resistance melting and become ensnared by the hypnotic power and beauty of the work, to the point where they feel like standing up and cheering along with the audience after reaching the triumphant final chord.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Here's a performance of Boléro, conducted by an unshaven man with a toothpick instead of a baton,  if you wish to have a listen:

Music Notation Software – Pros and Cons for Composers

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

Ars Longa, Vita Brevis

The expression, "ars longa, vita brevis," is a Latin translation of the first two lines of the Aphorismi (Aphorisms) by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who is perhaps most famous for the Hippocratic Oath. It translates as, "art is long, life is short."

Interestingly, the order of those two lines was reversed in the originally-published aphorism (I am using the Latin translation, because I know no Greek, except "papoútsia" which means "shoes;" I had to look this up when my shoes were stolen on an overnight train in Greece 40 years ago… end of digression):

Aphorism 1, Section 1, Hippocrates
Vita brevis, ars longa, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium difficile.	Life is short, Art is long, Opportunity is fleeting, Experimentation is perilous, (good) Judgement is difficult.

What does it mean?

1. Well, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, it apparently does not mean what most of us think it means. According to one source, it means that "it takes a long time to acquire and perfect one's expertise (in, say, medicine) and one has but a short time in which to do it". The Wikipedia entry suggests that it "most commonly it refers to how time limits our accomplishments in life."
2. The meaning that I suspect most people take from this aphorism is, "life is short, art eternal." •Today's post will explore both meanings, as they apply to music.

1. The clock is ticking.

We tend to have sporadic awareness of our impending demise; we know it's going to happen, but we just don't usually know when. The clock is indeed ticking for us all, which can be a little unsettling if you think about it too much. This is presumably why most of us do not think about it very much, even if we have experienced the death of a loved one. The first meaning above is not a suggestion that we obsess over our impending demise; quite the opposite, in fact!

Here is my composer-specific take-away from meaning #1: It takes a long time for a composer to develop a mastery of our craft, and, given that life has a finite time limit, it would be good to put whatever time we have to good use mastering these skills. Compose lots of music! Try to make each piece better than the previous one!

If Schubert (dead at 31) and Mozart (dead at 35) had been more casual about their desire to be great composers, they would not have achieved greatness. Ditto for Bizet (age 37), Gershwin (age 38), Chopin (age 39), and Mussorgsky (age 41).

The clock is ticking… Get busy!

2. Art is eternal. Or is it?

Some art has had impressive lasting power, sustained over hundreds or oven thousands of years. That's very cool!

Then there's music…

Unlike visual art or architecture, which produced works capable of lasting a long time, music was not notated for most of human history. The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete, notated musical composition from anywhere in the world. It is thought to date from the first century AD, making it about 2,000 years old. That means there is no record of notated music for the previous 198,000 years of human existence on this planet.

For how many of the roughly 200,000 years of human existence have our ancestors been making music? To borrow a common "click-bait" phrase, the answer may surprise you! Archeologists have discovered ancient flutes from approximately 43,000 years ago, which suggests that (a) music was being made 43,000 years ago, and (b) it was probably being made before that as well, since the first forms of musical expression probably involved the human voice and percussion instruments.

There is no record of the actual music made for most of human history, for at least one very simple reason: Then, as now in most cases, music was ephemeral; it was there when people played it, and not there when they didn't; there appears to have been no desire to make it "eternal" (or at least, "long lasting") by writing it down, until the Seikilos epitaph.

Not only that, but, to my knowledge, the Seikilos epitaph did not signal a vanguard in the new practice of notating music; the following 1,000 years or so produced very little notated music. According to Wikipedia, the founder of what is now considered the standard music stave was Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from about 991 until after 1033.

In the centuries following Guido d'Arezzo's life, notation became more commonplace, especially so when music became more complex, because the increasing complexity required a system of notation in order to be performed accurately.

Nowadays, despite the1,000+ year history of notated music, most of the "old" music that is performed or recorded was written since the late renaissance, meaning it comes from the past 500 (or so) years.

So, while it is entirely possible that some of the musical art from the recent past will be long-lasting, the inherently-ephemeral nature of music is such that most music, even in this day of easy digital recording, will only last for as long as we retain its memory in our minds, because most music is not recorded. I play guitar practically every day, but I doubt that I have recorded more than about 100 minutes of guitar music over 45 years of playing guitar.

Despite its essentially-temporary nature, however, it is undeniable that some music has lasted an impressively-long time, possibly because it is thought to represent the pinnacle of musical artistic expression,  or possibly because a lot of people just like it (Vivaldi: 4 Seasons; Pachelbel: Canon in D); that gives all composers something to aspire to, should they wish to do so.

And even if our music does not make it into the pantheon of musical greatness, there is a realistic chance that at least some of it will last longer than we will, provided we unceasingly strive to write better music.

Anyway, tempus fugit! I need to get back to the piece I'm working on…

Postscript: Experimentation is Perilous?

Hippocrates was a doctor, so when he called experimentation "dangerous," he probably meant that experimenting on a patient could harm that patient. If you are an air-traffic controller, experimenting on the job could have disastrous results; ditto for a military strategist, or an operator of a nuclear power plant.

If you are a composer, however, there is no equivalent worst-case scenario that results from a failed musical experiment. Some may not like your experiment, or performers may call it unplayable, but, generally speaking, people are not physically harmed by compositional experimentation. I would suggest that some experimentation, as in trying new things, is essential for an artist.

Post-Tonal Harmony Ideas (3)

I wrote a short piece for today's post, based on the arpeggiated chords presented in section 8 of my Post-Tonal Harmony Ideas (1) post. You may wish to listen to those chords again before listening to today's composition , but it's fine to skip this and just listen to the piece below.

The chords in section 8 of Post-Tonal Harmony Ideas (1) were constructed by superimposing different harmonic structures found in tonal music, such as an F# major triad and C major triad, a combination used by Stravinsky in Petroushka, in order to create post-tonal sonorities.

There are no particular "rules" to follow in combining chords in this way, but I would suggest that the resulting sonority should not sound overtly tonal; if you start with a G chord and superimpose an F chord, for example, it would result in a G¹¹ chord, which is overtly tonal.

That said, however, it is really the context in which such chords are used that determines whether they are tonal or post-tonal. If you play the chord in bar 3 below, for example, and resolve it to an Eb chord, it will sound like an altered V⁷ resolving to I in Eb major, because bar 3 starts with a Bb⁷ chord. If you play the same chord (bar 3) but move to a different sonority that in no way suggests an Eb chord, then you've placed it in a post-tonal context.

Another suggestion, if you try this approach, is to use chord combinations in which the two triad-based chords have no notes in common with each other, although that is by no means an essential condition.

The approach I find that works best is to work these out at a piano, exploring the possibilities by playing different chords in each hand until you find combinations you like, and then immediately write them down. Frequently, the experimentation may involve just altering one note at a time until you find a sonority that you'd like to keep.

Once you have a collection of chord combinations that you like, you can use them however you wish in a composition; you can transpose them, add further notes to them or otherwise modify them, invert them, re-use them, etc.

Here is the piece; you can hear it with the audio player below the score:

 

More Details on this Composition:

• I began with the first three arpeggiated post-tonal chords presented in my Post-Tonal Harmony Ideas (1) post (they are in section 8, numbers 1, 2, and 3). 
• I transposed the second arpeggio, and subsequently re-used and transposed the other arpeggios as well. 
• In bar 7, I introduced a new chord (i.e., one that wasn't in the original blog post), which consisted of a Db Maj.7th chord plus an Eb Maj.7th with augmented fifth. I also reused transpositions of this chord.
• One way to vary these chords, aside from changing notes within them, is to add notes on top of them that are not part of the original sonority; I did this a few times in this piece, especially in my choice of flute notes.
• As you can hear, I took time in the score to move from one sonority to another, because the harmonic complexity of these chords is, to me, inherently captivating, and it takes time for the ear (well, the brain, actually) to absorb them. 
• Harmonic progressions using these chords can proceed as quickly as you want, however.
• This is "colour-based" composition; each chord has its own colour. The process is something like an artist creating an abstract painting using only splashes of colour here and there, with the result being pleasing to the eye (well, the brain, actually).
• "Mystery" and "Wonder" were the names of two of our cats that passed away several years ago.

Final Thought: Practicality

• One very practical advantage of this approach to composition is that the chords should fit naturally into the pianist's hands, provided you started by experimenting at the piano with chords that fit your hands. A skilled pianist has spent years training their hands to instantly form the correct shape in playing tonal chord structures, like triads and 7th chords, so if you use those same chord shapes, but combine them in untraditional ways, the pianist is likely to find the music easier to play than a lot of contemporary music.