Alphonse Nguyen

The following guest article was written by my friend, Countersubject.

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So you call yourself a composer?

Consider the following points:

1. We write music for selfish reasons, admit it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . Everyone wants to say that they compose music for the sake of art, or for the pleasure of people, but come on, you know that’s not true. You know that somewhere deep inside you, the thing that’s churning your muse and creative juices are pride, ego, and other attributes that you do not want to admit. But at least you can say that even the famous masters did it: Bach wrote his music for money, Mozart wrote for fame, etc . . .

Know this:

If you strive to fulfill your pride by writing music, the higher you climb the stairs of hierarchy, the more it’s going to hurt when someone trips you down.

If you strive to fulfill your greed by writing music, the more you make, the more you want; it’s exponential.

If you strive to ‘win’ or ‘pwn’ other people by writing music, it’s likely that someone else is also plotting against you; it’s an endless war of envy.

Ultimately, being an aspiring composer is worse than being a miser.

2. What’s so great about the masterpieces?

I’m pretty sure many of us in this stage have heard pieces of music that are famous, but lack essence. It’s true. A lot of the so-called ‘great composers’ can’t write. They suck. But people like them for whatever reasons. On the other hand not-so-well-known composers could have some amazing works that are underplayed.

So what does this all have to do with writing music?

At this stage of your composition career, it is more or less that you compare yourself to those who are ‘up there’ because you have outgrown your circle of amateur peers. Thus, you, being more and more critical in your listening, will eventually realize that some of the ‘great composers’ aren’t as great as they seem. That being said, just because you hate their music with a fiery passion, this does not give you the permission to not listen to them. There’s always something to be learned from music you hate.

3. Everybody sucks. You too. You’re very welcome.

It’s true. Sometimes you truly question why people would like your music or other people’s music. We can’t call anything great because we are not anyone to define great. So don’t be too egocentric . . . in the exterior. No one cares what you think deep within, however. Have at least a façade of modesty, and you might live by. But a lot of the times this isn’t a problem for many people, since I know that many of my fellow composers are humble people.

4. Humans are humans. Composers are humans. Musicians are humans.

A lot of the times, composers and musicians forget that their art is not merely run by the art itself, but also by those who control it. Thus, the fact that you don’t get a commission while a dork who can’t write intervals did, is probably because that guy is: a) nice b) better looking than you c) went to school with his son . . . etc. Yes. My point is: a lot of times, music is about people, not the music itself. It’s not because you are a terrible composer, it’s because the other composer has something connected to the guy commissioning. This concept appears everywhere, not just music. So if you think something’s unfair, well, I guess you should attempt to tie better connections with people. Make a few more friends; don’t just write music all day.

5. Individuality.

We always say, ‘This is my style, I like it this way, so I’ll have it this way.’ No. Unless you’re writing Burger King’s theme song, you can’t have it your way. The fact that you’re a composer means you have put yourself in a cage. You are only to do tricks within the confines of the cage. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t be creative, it merely means that it’s harder because you have people to appease. If you can still be yourself within the cage, then kudos to you, you are truly a creative composer. If you complain that, ‘It’s not free enough, I am entitled to be free’, I’d tell you to tell that to Shostakovich and then have the entire Soviet army laugh at you. If you don’t get that reference, go to Wikipedia and read about Shostakovich. Secondly, total freedom is anarchy. You definitely don’t want that.

But now, you can argue: but Schoenberg did it, he did the twelve-tone thing and it’s still alive! And what about John Cage?! Messiaen?! Penderecki?! Stravinsky?! Debussy?!

Let me ask you this then: are you John Cage, Messiaen, Penderecki, Stravinsky, Debussy, or Schoenberg? Well no. So don’t tell me that. Besides, Schoenberg went through a lot—in fact, so much that he decided to go back to tonality toward the end of his life. Stravinsky got his face tomato-ed in the premiere of The Rite. It’s not all that great if you were in their place.

However.

We all still have the urge to differ ourselves from others, like Aristotle to Plato. So perhaps, as I mentioned above, modesty is the key to your wishful idea of ‘revolutionizing music’. You merely need to know that you can’t blatantly tell people that you’re an innovator. People merely can’t accept change that quickly. Geocentricity didn’t change to heliocentricity overnight, it took well over hundreds of years.

6. Musicians are not your slaves.

Yes, this is a very important point. Just because we think the composer is the shadow king that controls every string in a puppet show, it gives us absolutely no right to put musicians in a lesser position. Yeah, sure, they’re playing your music while you wave your silly baton. So what? Piss them off, they have the option to walk away and you’re going to look like an idiot on an empty stage.

So!

A few things that you should do to assure that your musicians are happy with your music:

• Keep your written music absolutely flawless. I repeat: ABSOLUTELY. The fact that the coda sign is a pixel off can perhaps ruin the entire rehearsal, and can end up having a very unhappy piccolo player. And unhappy piccolo players can be vile. But aside from having angry-looking musicians on stage because your ugly sheets made them mess up, you can seriously make a fool of yourself by hearing things you don’t want to hear in your music. Leave no ambiguity in your written music, for pete’s sake.
• Difficult music is for capable people. Writing über-hard music for, say, a high school group, is just illogical. I’m not saying that your piece sucks, but it’s just going to sound like excrement if your ensemble can’t play it right. Nor could you say your performers are bad players, because I’m sure they’re not, it’s just that you, Mr./Ms. Composer are pushing them too much.
• My third point is kind of related to the second: never blame your musicians in a bad performance. It is your task to make a piece sound good. By making it sound good, it is also your responsibility to assure that it will sound good. If you can blame your poor musicians for being bad musicians, they can very well also deem you a poor composer. If this starts, who’s gonna play your music at the end of the day?

Being a composer isn’t easy. You chose a difficult path. I’m sure you can still turn back and do ‘better’ things, but if you think about it, everything is relative. Similar concepts will recur, in other words, they are not merely concepts for composition, but also to a certain extent, life. If the blatant and ugly sides of composition have not ruined your passion, how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?