What Are You Practising / Composing Now?

[Richard Barrett]

particularly brass players

Trumpet players in particular are used to deciding for themselves whether a part is better suited to be played on a B flat or C instrument. Also, I found to my surprise, when horn players switch to Wagner tubas they prefer to have their parts in F, whether the part is for a B flat or F tuba. This is only scratching the surface of the weird world of brass transposition, as BBM will no doubt confirm. I was somewhat shocked when, back in my days as a copyist, I first saw a brass band score with all the instruments notated in the treble clef.

[BBMmk2]

I have been asked to transcribe the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 for concert band, by the Indiana State Wind Symphony, no less!

[Pulcinella]

I have been asked to transcribe the Finale from Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5 for concert band, by the Indiana State Wind Symphony, no less!

That's worth at least two feathers in your cap, surely.

[Dave2002]

Allegedly Mozart wrote this

“It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.”

in a letter to his father. In German, of course.

Not that I'm advocating "competing" with Mozart, but studying works of others, and practising, and building on them, does make some sort of sense.

However, many people have written that Mozart was very fluent at composition - he certainly had very significant talents.

[Richard Barrett]

studying works of others, and practising, and building on them, does make some sort of sense.

It made more sense when there was consensus about what knowledge and skills composers ought to have in order to be able to work with the materials and forms of their time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Allegedly Mozart wrote this

in a letter to his father. In German, of course.

Not that I'm advocating "competing" with Mozart, but studying works of others, and practising, and building on them, does make some sort of sense.

However, many people have written that Mozart was very fluent at composition - he certainly had very significant talents.

It's interesting how far away one's assumptions can be from actualities, when it comes to assessing composers and their music. I for one had always assumed the Frank Bridge had adopted a more advanced harmonic language in the mid-1920s in order to get something out of his system that had been building up in his soul, particularly his feelings about World War I, and that wishing to express these in his music would have involved drawing on a more spontaneous or intuitive mode of inspiration that had been suppressed; but it turns out that working out his new harmonic system was a slow and painstaking process, this being one of the reasons why his compositional output became smaller from that point on.

[Dave2002]

It made more sense when there was consensus about what knowledge and skills composers ought to have in order to be able to work with the materials and forms of their time.

Surely it must still apply - though with different genres, audiences, instruments, equipment etc.

[Richard Barrett]

Surely it must still apply - though with different genres, audiences, instruments, equipment etc.

As I said, there's absolutely no consensus about any of those things in the way there was in the late 18th century or earlier.

[Dave2002]

As I said, there's absolutely no consensus about any of those things in the way there was in the late 18th century or earlier.

Do we really know there was a consensus even back then? Bach was amazing, but he grew up in a very musical family, and it's possible he was in a completely different tradition - rather more like artists with their studios from a slightly earlier period, in which the master produced the outline, or the finishing touches, or whatever - but other people were involved in different stages of production.
I didn't realise that until my last visit to Leipzig a few years ago. He actually provided and organised the music for three churches. We all know about St Thomas Church, but there is also Nikolaikirche, and St Pauls - which the town council blew up in the 1968 in an act of architectural vandalism. Bach was at one time responsible for all of htem.

Clearly Bach had to gain sufficient credibility to gain his positions, but it may be that he had many people - students/pupils/instrumentalists effectively working for and with him. In that kind of society there would have been considerable group understanding - which may perhaps not exist today. Even then, in some parts of the world, music was quite an industry.

In the meantime I couldn't resist tinkering with the Lyadov piece - it'll take more work, but it's doable, at least in a simple minded way.

[Richard Barrett]

Do we really know there was a consensus even back then?

In a broad sense, yes.

[BBMmk2]

That's worth at least two feathers in your cap, surely.

I think so!

[Dave2002]

In a broad sense, yes.

It made more sense when there was consensus about what knowledge and skills composers ought to have in order to be able to work with the materials and forms of their time.

I'm still not convinced that there aren't pathways for modern composers. Different people will have different approaches to what they learn and what they know, and what they want to produce. Some of those will still study the works of others from the past, while others will take advice from modern practitioners.

I suppose to some extent it depends on what one means by a composer. A composer could be a musician who has studied instruments and other aspects of formal music at a music college, or a university, or a jazz musician, or could be a self taught person who plays in a small band, or a rap artist etc. In each case there is likely to be a flow of ideas from one person to another, surely, either directly, or by listening to works produced.

Another factor is simply the financial viability of living as a composer. Wasn't it always thus?

[Richard Barrett]

I'm still not convinced that there aren't pathways for modern composers. Different people will have different approaches to what they learn and what they know, and what they want to produce. Some of those will still study the works of others from the past, while others will take advice from modern practitioners.

I suppose to some extent it depends on what one means by a composer. A composer could be a musician who has studied instruments and other aspects of formal music at a music college, or a university, or a jazz musician, or could be a self taught person who plays in a small band, or a rap artist etc. In each case there is likely to be a flow of ideas from one person to another, surely, either directly, or by listening to works produced.

Obviously. A "flow of ideas from one person to another", though, is not necessarily the same thing as basing one's work on a preexistent model. You have made my point for me actually: in the 18th century there was an emphasis on using such models as the basis for one's work because the range of possible models was relatively restricted: you had to know a certain more or less agreed range of things (which in some cases became codified as "rules") in order to become a well-formed composer. Nowadays, as in your own examples, that isn't the case.

[Dave2002]

Obviously. A "flow of ideas from one person to another", though, is not necessarily the same thing as basing one's work on a preexistent model. You have made my point for me actually: in the 18th century there was an emphasis on using such models as the basis for one's work ...

However we should remember that many people in earlier centuries didn't really have much access to music. We perhaps don't know how much music making was carried out by "common people" - though some would have been exposed to music in churches, and maybe also theatres. Public concerts started to become popular in the 18th Century, but how much "popular" music and music making was there? The function of music may also have been different - as in for example, work songs, in which many may have participated - willingly or otherwise.

Nowadays, with social media and the internet some people can develop their music and make it available to millions, and also listen to a much wider range of musics than people in previous centuries. Clearly there was awareness of music in previous centuries, though how widespread it was we perhaps can't be sure. In some formal concerts in previous centuries pieces might have been played twice - because those would have been the only two performances that any ordinary person would ever hear.

It might also have been fairly common for local musicians - such as church organists - to have indulged in a modicum of composing/improvising or arrangements of other pieces. Some wouldn't have done, but others would have been much more adventurous.

[Richard Barrett]

Clearly there was awareness of music in previous centuries, though how widespread it was we perhaps can't be sure.

On the contrary, there's an extensive literature on the subject.

Involvement in music before the advent of recordings and broadcasts was a very different matter to what it became subsequently, and indeed it was expected of every trained musician to be able to extemporise, arrange and compose within the parameters of the prevailing style in that time and place.


Not that any of this has much relevance to the thread subject of course.