New Music

Well, if you've been following my whereabouts (and if you have, that's kind of sad for you), you know I am not in Orlando, but in, um, beautiful Muncie, Indiana, doing a doctorate in theory and composition. So expect a growing number of posts over the next couple of years related to music composition, and performance, and maybe even a bit of college life. But probably not that last one.

Anyway . . .

As a composer of "contemporary" music (which, really, just means recently written - it's not a style), I've been out of the loop for a while. I've been teaching, playing, arranging, and writing little pieces for friends for the last 15 years. So I'm trying to get up to speed. and looking around at various premieres of new works (yes, you COULD have a premiere of an old work), I'm beginning to wonder: Does ANYBODY just write music any more?

The vast majority of pieces I see (and hear) are programmatic: there is a story. It could be a true story ("This piece is an elaboration of my divorce and subsequent exploration of single life"), something from literature ("Peanuts: The 5-act multimedia opera"), or just an imagined program ("This is a symphony of nature: The insect kingdom versus various plant phyla").

There usually follow, in great detail, musical aspects related to the story.

A sonata is not sexy. A symphony without a subtitle is lacking. Make it a "Sonata in Three Dialogues," or a "Symphonic Metamorphosis on an Existential Haiku," and people will warm to it quicker.

I think I'm going to run into a problem here. I try NOT to write with a program in mind. I try to create a musical experience (o.k., arts lovers, perhaps an "aesthetic experience"), both for the listeners and the performers.

I am not disparaging those who write with/to programs. I'm a big believer in "whatever works for you - be yourself!" I just wonder if I'm handicapping myself by NOT affixing colorful titles to my works. I've never been a big PR person. I hope I don't have to start now.

Maybe one reason for the trend is that many "laypeople" think new "classical" music is too difficult for them to understand. For many, many years composers wrote music that was beyond even the most sophisticated audiences. Composers would write for themselves, entertaining themselves with the newest permutations of applied logarithmic analysis with regard to the x-axis of symmetrical amorphism. (Not an actual term.) So, today, by providing a title and program, the audience is comforted. "I don't know what I'm about to hear, but I know what the composer is TRYING to express."

So what about the composer who just tries to express - music?