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There are many kinds of music in the world, outside of classical music.
Of course there’s jazz. And Broadway show tunes, and world music, and pop music in all its endless variety. Plus film and TV scores, and music for videogames.
But there’s also music created for specialized use:
- Background scores for TV commercials.
- Music, sometimes quite elaborate, created for events like the Olympics or the Super Bowl.
- Musical logos for TV news shows.
- The little chord you hear when you start your Mac (or the “Windows sound” I remember from the days when I used a PC).
Plus much more, including kids’ music:
Albums full of songs for kids- Scores and theme songs for kids’ TV shows
- on YouTube, endless versions of “The Wheels on the Bus,” a few with savvy arrangements
- theme songs for children’s books
- Music that kids’ toys play: A heavy metal riff from a monster truck. Lullabies from a stuffed dog named Scout. Ingenious contrapuntal tunes from a toy that pops little balls up on puffs of air.
Etc.
Who creates this music? Not our classical composers! But I think they’re missing out. Composers in past centuries wrote whatever music might be needed. For the church, for the opera house (where people went to socialize), for entertainment at the summer castle of a nobleman. Brahms made his living, not by writing symphonies, but by publishing delightful piano works that people played at home.
If, today, our composers wrote the music people use, they could make some money. And improve stuffed-dog lullabies. And join the musical life of our time. Wouldn’t it be great for us if the Superbowl announced new music by Jennifer Higdon or Christopher Rouse?
Why don’t our composers do these things? They’re not encouraged to. They don’t have the contacts. But most of all, they don’t have the chops.
To make most of this music, you don’t notate a score. You deliver a broadcast-quality, professional recording. Which you create on your computer, starting with the sounds (synthesizers, sampled acoustic instruments), and then polishing what you’ve got with the software used in recording studios.
People all over the world, mostly without conservatory training, have learned to do that. High school kids do it. But most classical composers — because classical music lives in a bubble of its own — don’t know how.
Very apt observation, Greg, and I don’t disagree with you. I struggle, however, to reconcile the acoustical timbres of, say, a string quartet with anything reproduced electronically – even via a recording. Technology is so great is so many ways but I fear it is beginning to drive creation rather than support it. I could be wrong, but we are teaching humans how not to listen via recordings and tracks played at a consistent level whether through ear buds, in the car, at the movies or non-classical concerts. Creating a piece for string quartet using technology prevents the creator from learning how those instruments work well together – what sounds powerful on a computer or recording may not be that powerful in the ‘real’ or ‘acoustic’ world. Almost every chamber and large ensemble I now work with struggle to create and even hear effective dynamic/ volume changes. Of course, you also begin the argument to create what people will pay for so that you can then go and create the kind of music you want, like Brahms, Lloyd Webber, Sting and even… Paul McCartney (loosely).
Stephen, I can sympathize with your pain here, if you don’t mind me putting it that way. But I’m not sure what’s wrong with technology driving creation. Hasn’t that always happened? Look at film. Maybe at the start, people just thought they’d make films of what might happen in a theater. But soon enough, film developed its own aesthetic, its own artistic techniques. And we’re certainly richer for it! I’d say the same for nontechnological developments. Atonality, or serialism, for instance. They drove creation, and we celebrate them for it.
I think, going to your main point, that we have coexisting aesthetics. Nothing wrong with that. If you prefer the sound of a string quartet to the sounds used in pop records (even very sophisticated ones — Bjork, Aphex Twin, Springsteen’s last album, which went far out from standard rock production), you have every right to. But whether this means string quartets (or the appreciation of them) should be threatened…I wouldn’t say so. A lot of things coexist today, musically. Seems to me that we have the most musically adventurous audience I’ve ever known about, these days. So in pop we can have electronic dance music more or less sitting side by side with acoustic singer-songwriters, we can — taking in a wider spectrum — have string quartets sitting side by side with both. And as long as we don’t make special claims for the quartets, or their sound, there’s no reason we can’t get people to listen, and to appreciate them for what they offer.
Case in point: a club performance I went to, at which the Quartet for the End of Time came between two ambient electronic pop musicians. The audience (close to 300 people) was evenly divided, the club booker told me, between people interested in each of the three parts of the program. So two-thirds of the audience most likely wouldn’t have known the Messiaen piece, or very likely even heard of it. And of course it was acoustic, while the other music was electronic.
What happened? A few minutes of shuffling, shifting position, whispering as the Messiaen started. Then rapt silence. And then cheers. Seems like the ambient electronic audience was perfectly willing to hear an extended acoustic piece in an unfamiliar (to them) style, and love it.
There is a great neuro-physiological divide between the conservatory, folk, world and jazz arts and commercial music production. People who learned to hear music from acoustic sources rather than through speakers HEAR DIFFERENTLY. Growing up with speakers and headphones as the only source of music literally stunts brain development – musicians have tens of billions more neurons to perceive music and space:
http://www.jneurosci.org/content/23/27/9240.full.pdf+html
The post-industrial soundscape of speakers, earbuds, computers, motorized appliances and the other sound sources you describe not only reduce spatial intelligence and creativity, they are bad for health. The onslaught of cheapened sensory experience and sounds designed to pump adrenalin like radio, TV, video games and YouTube increase stress levels above the thresholds where they depress the immune system and shorten lives.
I categorically refuse to participate in this trend, but I found a way to integrate innovations in electric and electronic composition into acoustic experiences. I believe this is the path to sustainable, healthy musical experience and reverse the sonic devolution of the species.
I practice this art at a Lower East Side salon. My novel acoustic design for the space and electro-acoustic inventions were instrumental in the NYTimes calling it “the best room in New York to listen to piano”. Steve Smith and many others have called it the best electro-acoustic sound in memory.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/27/arts/music/piano-by-jacob-greenberg-and-reinier-van-houdt-at-spectrum.html?_r=0
I am building a bibliography of contemporary psycho-acoustic and neurophysiological research to support my model of natural hearing, but many musicians already are aware that speakers are a poor substitute for music.
I invite you all to come hear a room that sounds like the chambers where Chamber Music originated from Purcell to Debussy, and the first speakers that sound enough like music they can fool audiences of conservatory performance majors. It is not only intoxicating, it is good for your health!
spectrumnyc.com
I am shocked! My first reaction was “Sandow is writing nonsense here – surely undergrad composers are required to take these sorts of courses.” I think I had to at CCM (Cincinnati) and at UCSD. But one quick look shows that at Indiana, these are optional courses, if I am reading their B.M. Comp requirements correctly: “Option 2 Performance Study students: K403 Electronic Studio Resources I (3 cr.) and K404 Electronic Studio Resources II (3cr.)” I wonder what the complete story is nationwide. I would guess that even in academia more gigs are secured by competent use of digital audio editing rather than demonstrating proper voice leading in the resolution of an augmented sixth chord . . .
Oh dear. Truer word never spoken
I think that there are lots of false assumptions at work here; the “composer-in-a-bubble” is a straw man..
Many composers I know DO write commercial music. However, it’s rare that a composer is successful at balancing a career with both commercial and art music composition.
I live in Sweden; I have friends writing music for video games, for documentaries, for commericials etc. Many of these are composers I studied composition with; they all had conservatory composition training. However, very few of them maintain even a semblance of a career as a concert-music composer. The only one I can think of is Pär Frid, who operates a commercial music studio, Frid & Frid, with his brother. I myself have composed music for a short dance film, using the sequencer Cubase (borrowed from a friend).
Here’s why composers (in my opinion) don’t write both concert and commercial music: ENERGY and TIME. It takes energy to compose, as you know, tremendous mental energy. I spend part of my time, two days a week, teaching music theory and ear-training. It is difficult for me to mentally “change gears” to compose, from one type of work to another. My experience is that it takes much mental energy to shift from commercial-composition to art-composing.
Composing also takes time, and not only for creating. I spend at least half my “composition” time in “office hours.” I do self-publishing work (preparing scores, engraving and editing scores, mailing scores). I massage relationships with conductors and performers via phone, email, lunches. I maintain my website and online presence. I apply for grants, contests, calls-for-scores. With all this work, plus teaching half-time, AT BEST I manage 8 hours of composing time a week. That’s enough for me to keep my head above water and my hat in the ring, not enough to grow as an artist. That’s how it’s been for almost three years – I’m 30 years old.
Once upon a time television stations reached out to concert composers in Sweden for soundtracks. In the “Golden Age” of 1960-1990, it was commonplace for composers (like Anders Hillborg, Sven-David Sandström, et al) to write for programs and films for SVT and Swedish Film company. That doesn’t happen much anymore, as TV stations increasingly purchase sound/music libraries from companies that aggregate music from amateurs, paying cash for songs and electronic compositions.
Another false assumption is that composers “lack the chops.” Most composers I know 40-and-under are at least capable using a sequencing program with midi libraries. Surprisingly many, even older composers like Anders Hillborg – COMPOSE FIRST in a sequencing program, THEN notate the work. I think that my contemporaries Andrew Norman and Paul Dooley work this way.
Also, most composers I know – 40-and-under – have played or (like me) currently play in a band, or can comp on piano in a number of styles, or at the very least are capable of decent pastiche of a number of styles.
Where are you getting the impression that composers live in this bubble? Because composers are having a hard time? Because there is a lot of commercial music in the world?
It’s highly possible to perform certain callings simultaneously. Composers can be bloggers and composers. Performers and composers (Caroline Shaw). Conductors and composers (Esa Pekka). These balancing acts are always difficult – think of the criticism Bernstein got from both sides. A composer’s interests are served, for example, by being a performer/composer. The network is the same; a composer can perform her own works (see Shaw). The network is not the same with commercial music.
Time and energy.
There’s a long way between that and “deliver[ing] a broadcast-quality, professional recording.”
So the problem is what Sandow said it is. (“They don’t have the contacts.”)
As a gigging musician who often takes jobs that don’t have much artistic integrity and/or aren’t what I really want to do with my time and skills, I do appreciate the reasons for taking advantage of the full range of work that is available to subsidize what we really want to do. Sometimes you just have to pay the bills.
But do you think there is a negative side to the democratization of these specialized compositions? If anyone can fairly easily create an audio track using ProTools or GarageBand, what incentive is there to pay a Higdon or a Rouse instead of me and my MacBook? A classical composer might expect a certain level of commission, but if a business can find someone else to produce music for a fraction of the cost, I’d imagine they’d be more economically inclined to go with the “casual composer,” if you will. You could have people low-bidding composers out of the market.
I also wonder if part of the reason Higdon or Rouse might not be seeking out these gigs is that the composer doesn’t seem to matter as much as the brand or product. I can’t tell you who composed the Olympics or Monday night football theme, and I don’t recall ever hearing that mentioned on the broadcast. My sense is that the way we consume music these days is different from when Brahms was writing his Hungarian dances. These days the music often seems secondary to the product; for Brahms the music, even if for entertainment, was still the product. In previous times the music people used for entertainment, church, etc could at the same time be the kind of music the composer wanted to write. But can we say the same for a composer asked to write background music for a commercial or arrangements of children’s songs in today’s marketplace?
A final question: How would you convince a composer who is used to having their name squarely attached to their work to write commercially without necessarily getting acknowledgment? (We are always grousing about people asking us to work “for the exposure” rather than pay, but ideally we want both, and I wonder if an established composer would be willing to give up the recognition of their work).
I agree with Matthew Peterson about energy and time. My impression is that it’s hard for composers to maintain contacts in multiple realms, and that success in one can sometimes undermine credibility in another.
Since the beginning of its commercial entertainment industry, L.A. has been home to composers who work in the biz while also writing concert music. Classical organizations here commission and perform pieces from composers who work in other genres. Composers like Don Davis, Bruce Broughton, Laura Karpman, and Gernot Wolfgang straddle film, TV, and concert music. There are many others, working across many genres.
It makes sense to teach composers multiple styles and to help them imagine varied employment possibilities. I think that’s happening a little more, now that students arrive with ears full of everything and (so I hear) aspirations that leaning toward the commercial.
At the same time, it’s good to remember that composers, like other humans, are better at some things than others, no matter what their level of craftsmanship and artistry. Geniuses at setting text or serving a story may not be so good at writing abstract music. And vice versa. Brahms didn’t write operas, or even symphonic poems. Puccini wrote very little abstract music. Brilliant film composers are not necessarily great at music without words or story.
However they may patch together a living—and composers almost always have to work in multiple contexts—younger composers seem less perturbed than ever by boundaries between styles and social groups. Composers have been enriching commercial music with greater complexity of thought and feeling, and they are bringing multi-stylistic attitudes into concert music. Maybe boundary-hopping composers will help the classical music industry lessen its isolation from the rest of the culture.