Adams, John

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Rest is Noise, possibly. That received a fair bit more publicity in the States than the average classical music book (perhaps due to Alex Ross's New Yorker connection)

[teamsaint]

If you can't be bothered to spell my name correctly I don't really see why I should be bothered to reply, but I've already made it clear I don't agree with the OP, and hardly anyone else has mentioned this aspect, so I wonder why it seems to annoy you so much.

I wish the situation was such that creative musicians experienced less pressure to ape the marketing techniques of commercial music. Marketing is basically to do with persuading people that a "product" no better than others is in fact more desirable than them, and applying this to music seems to me to devalue (potential) listeners to the status of passive consumers. Personally I wouldn't wish to insult people in that way.

I wouldn't agree with this specific part of your post.
marketing can be about this, but very often, certainly for things like music and books, it is about raising awareness about the availability of product, where products are indeed unique.

[ahinton]

Indeed
This makes interesting reading

http://soundandmusic.org/projects/so...sioning-report

Yes, it does. There's plenty to discuss in it but, for now, I'd just pick on a few issues.

The report states that
Perhaps unsurprisingly, composers who had an agent or publisher to handle the development of their commissions received significantly better than the general average commission income, at £15,000
and my immediate question is whether that figure represents the gross amount or what the composer receives after the agent or publisher has taken his/her/its cut.

The figures as a whole are profoundly dissipriting but, whilst it would clearly have been beyond the remit of this report, it would have been useful had the brief extended to a survey of the other sources of income for composers that relate directly to their compositional activites, such as performance / broadcast / recording royalties, publication royalties / sales (especially of self-published composers), as well as some idea of the proportion of individual composers' total incomes that derives from composition related income as a whole.

The only reference to the amounts of time required to fulfil commissions is in the context of composers who occasionally turn them down on the grounds of lack of time. There's no consideration of how much of that "lack of time" arises as a consequence of composers' need to spend time on other activities besides work on commissioned pieces. There is likewise no attempt to assess average individual incomes from all composition-related activity to a statistic such as the living wage or national minimum wage - perhaps because it would make for quite astonishingly uncomfortable reading!

All that said, many thanks for linking to this document!

[ahinton]

I wouldn't agree with this specific part of your post.
marketing can be about this, but very often, certainly for things like music and books, it is about raising awareness about the availability of product, where products are indeed unique.

I took Richard to be referring specifically to "marketing" of the kind that applies in this particular case and other cases like it rather then in the rather more general terms and context to which you allude here.

[teamsaint]

I took Richard to be referring specifically to "marketing" of the kind that applies in this particular case and other cases like it rather then in the rather more general terms and context to which you allude here.

probably.

The perils of internet discussion.

My colleagues in marketing are fine people , and do an honourable job.

or so they tell me !!

[teamsaint]

Yes, it does. There's plenty to discuss in it but, for now, I'd just pick on a few issues.

The report states that
Perhaps unsurprisingly, composers who had an agent or publisher to handle the development of their commissions received significantly better than the general average commission income, at £15,000
and my immediate question is whether that figure represents the gross amount or what the composer receives after the agent or publisher has taken his/her/its cut.

The figures as a whole are profoundly dissipriting but, whilst it would clearly have been beyond the remit of this report, it would have been useful had the brief extended to a survey of the other sources of income for composers that relate directly to their compositional activites, such as performance / broadcast / recording royalties, publication royalties / sales (especially of self-published composers), as well as some idea of the proportion of individual composers' total incomes that derives from composition related income as a whole.

The only reference to the amounts of time required to fulfil commissions is in the context of composers who occasionally turn them down on the grounds of lack of time. There's no consideration of how much of that "lack of time" arises as a consequence of composers' need to spend time on other activities besides work on commissioned pieces. There is likewise no attempt to assess average individual incomes from all composition-related activity to a statistic such as the living wage or national minimum wage - perhaps because it would make for quite astonishingly uncomfortable reading!

All that said, many thanks for linking to this document!

I don't know how it is in music commissioning, but in book publishing, certainly below the bestseller levels, it is true to say that the authors with the most proactive approach are often the most successful sales wise.

Thats not to say of course that this is how things should be in a better world, but frankly ,buyers, decision makers etc do take more notice, very often, of the creator than of a head office functionary.

Sad but true, I suppose. Division of labour rears its ugly head......

[ahinton]

Beautiful.

I suspect (hope) that rfg meant that he wished other composers had the ability to make their work better known to a wider audience (rather than the purely commercial aspects that his words might suggest) - but RB's comment here demonstrates that there are other, more important things to which composers can (and should) be devoting their time and efforts, and other, more important priorities that the Arts can (and should) be concerned with.

Indeed. It's not just a question of whether this or that composer is good at self-marketing or even motivated to do it but that of the kind of activities with which (a) the composer would best be occupied and (b) that would be expected of him/her; after all, a talent to self-publicise is hardly an indicator of the value of a composer's work, nor indeed could it be!

Mind you, what that might say about composers who spend a certain amount of time posting to internet fora is presumably another matter altogether...

[aeolium]

Does anyone really use Adams' music to convince an audience of the worth of "contemporary music", or to listen to more challenging contemporaries? Who would bother to do this? Don't planners & musicians put Adams on simply because they like the music & know an audience will come to hear him? In which case, you might ask yourself why so many listeners (and sophisticated, widely-listened**, "classical" performers) seem to enjoy it...

Quite. Why on earth should Adams' music be required to lead listeners to other music (let alone "real" contemporary classical music, as if Adams' music was somehow unreal)? We don't require this of any other composer or type of music. The music of the composer should stand on its own. Adams here seems to be blamed for not persuading listeners to hear music of contemporaries writing in a quite different style - how absurd is that?

[ahinton]

Quite. Why on earth should Adams' music be required to lead listeners to other music (let alone "real" contemporary classical music, as if Adams' music was somehow unreal)? We don't require this of any other composer or type of music. The music of the composer should stand on its own. Adams here seems to be blamed for not persuading listeners to hear music of contemporaries writing in a quite different style - how absurd is that?

That question answers itself. That said, as someone who is no fan of Adams, it would not occur to me to blame him thus; each composer, in his/her work, has to make his/her own presence felt as a priority over leading the listener to other composers' music. That's not to say that listening to one composer's work might not lead a listener to that of another; it's simply that this is clearly not its primary purpose.

[Richard Barrett]

Adams here seems to be blamed for not persuading listeners to hear music of contemporaries writing in a quite different style - how absurd is that?

I don't think anyone's blaming Adams or his music for that, and indeed the idea that populistic music like his might lead listeners to investigate less populistic music by others is as far as I know without any basis in reality. On the other hand, programming work of composers like Adams is, I think, often a lazy option taken by (especially) orchestras whose programmers know very little and care less about contemporary music but feel they ought to include some, with the effect that programming diversity is reduced further than is already the case.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Why on earth should Adams' music be required to lead listeners to other music

But ... but ... but ... Where on earth do you find such a ridiculous suggestion in any of the Posts on this (or any other) Thread, aeolie? rfg made the suggestion that, in his experience it has done this on at least one occasion (#s36 & 49) and might do for other listeners. A misunderstanding of what type of "other Classical Music" led to posts about other "contemporary classical" composers. But nowhere has there been any suggestion - until your own #85 - that anyone was demanding that this was a "requirement".

(let alone "real" contemporary classical music, as if Adams' music was somehow unreal)?

You've misread my expression "real contemporary classical Music" - the "real" applies to the "contemporary", not to the "Music". Whilst Adams frequently uses contemporary topics for the subject matter and titles of his work, the Music he writes flits about stylistically from various Musics written between 1920 and 1950. The subject matter is "of our time", but the Musical language is that of our parents' and grandparents' - unless one shares the bleak conception that ours is a uniquely nostalgist/necrophiliac age, in which grave robbery is a defining feature.

We don't require this of any other composer or type of music.

And we don't require it on this Thread.

The music of the composer should stand on its own.

Indeed it should.

Adams here seems to be blamed for not persuading listeners to hear music of contemporaries writing in a quite different style - how absurd is that?

This isn't happening - the "seems" is only your misreading the comments that have arisen from a misunderstanding of a post from rfg. The accusations you are making are as misdirected as if somebody now turned on you and claimed that you were saying that Adams' Music never leads listeners to other types of Music. You're not, any more than anyone else was "requiring" it to do so.

[ahinton]

programming work of composers like Adams is, I think, often a lazy option taken by (especially) orchestras whose programmers know very little and care less about contemporary music but feel they ought to include some, with the effect that programming diversity is reduced further than is already the case.

I'm sure that you're right about that and the laziness probably has its origins not only in lazy thinking on the part of those programme planners but also in the assumption that Adams' orchestral music is for the most part a good deal easier for orchestras to play than, say, Carter's and that this is useful to the extent of the conseqeuent convenient perception that less rehearsal time is likely to be required.

[ahinton]

But ... but ... but ... Where on earth do you find such a ridiculous suggestion in any of the Posts on this (or any other) Thread, aeolie? rfg made the suggestion that, in his experience it has done this on at least one occasion (#s36 & 49) and might do for other listeners. A misunderstanding of what type of "other Classical Music" led to posts about other "contemporary classical" composers. But nowhere has there been any suggestion - until your own #85 - that anyone was demanding that this was a "requirement".


You've misread my expression "real contemporary classical Music" - the "real" applies to the "contemporary", not to the "Music". Whilst Adams frequently uses contemporary topics for the subject matter and titles of his work, the Music he writes flits about stylistically from various Musics written between 1920 and 1950. The subject matter is "of our time", but the Musical language is that of our parents' and grandparents' - unless one shares the bleak conception that ours is a uniquely nostalgist/necrophiliac age, in which grave robbery is a defining feature.


And we don't require it on this Thread.

Indeed it should.

This isn't happening - the "seems" is only your misreading the comments that have arisen from a misunderstanding of a post from rfg. The accusations you are making are as misdirected as if somebody now turned on you and claimed that you were saying that Adams' Music never leads listeners to other types of Music. You're not, any more than anyone else was "requiring" it to do so.

Well said that man!

[richardfinegold]

If you can't be bothered to spell my name correctly I don't really see why I should be bothered to reply, but I've already made it clear I don't agree with the OP, and hardly anyone else has mentioned this aspect, so I wonder why it seems to annoy you so much.

I wish the situation was such that creative musicians experienced less pressure to ape the marketing techniques of commercial music. Marketing is basically to do with persuading people that a "product" no better than others is in fact more desirable than them, and applying this to music seems to me to devalue (potential) listeners to the status of passive consumers. Personally I wouldn't wish to insult people in that way.

What utter nonsense. Why shouldn't a Creative Artist develop a Public Profile in the hopes that others may discover their works? The practice is ubiquitous and has been for centuries. It can be done tastefully.

[aeolium]

This isn't happening - the "seems" is only your misreading the comments that have arisen from a misunderstanding of a post from rfg. The accusations you are making are as misdirected as if somebody now turned on you and claimed that you were saying that Adams' Music never leads listeners to other types of Music. You're not, any more than anyone else was "requiring" it to do so.

Ferney, I'm sorry if I misunderstood your and kea's posts (I don't think I was referring to anything richardfinegold wrote). I clearly seem to have misunderstood your comment "but then I fail to see how admiration of Adams can lead someone to real contemporary "classical" Music" as implying that that failure to lead to other contemporary music was something culpable to be laid at Adams' door but from what you have said that was not your intention.

On the other hand, programming work of composers like Adams is, I think, often a lazy option taken by (especially) orchestras whose programmers know very little and care less about contemporary music but feel they ought to include some, with the effect that programming diversity is reduced further than is already the case.

Is that really the case? I thought I would just check the orchestral programmes for several orchestras over the next season (and including this season's Proms) to see whether that was true. The results don't bear the allegation out. This year's Proms, for instance, include just two works by Adams in one half of one concert (compared with seven works by Birtwhistle in five concerts for instance). AFAICS I can't find any works by Adams programmed in the 2014-2015 seasons of the BBCNOW, the CBSO, the LPO, the Philharmonia or the BBCSO, though I admit I have only been able to check the concerts for the latter two up to the end of this year. I think the laziness is more to do with the programming of the usual suspects from the C19 and early C20.