Okay, folks.  Here’s another update on my latest page, Overbite.  Check out the score here:

And take a listen to the Finale-Playback-Thing Here:

I’d love to hear any feedback that you have; leave a comment!

…interview on Richard Zarou’s podcast, No Extra Notes. What a trip!

…of my Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano just around the corner (Tuesday at 3:00pm at San Francisco State University), I decided to take a final listen to the bleep-blorp-bleep playback of the Finale playback orchestra dealy.  I’m not sure what put me in the mood.  Aside from the mistakes in range in places (I apparently thought the piano had another octave at the top of its range…I think it was because I was too busy writing conceptually to think of what the actual notes should be at that point), and a misunderstanding of writing for stopped horn (which, considering I was once a horn player, is quite embarassing), I don’t think the piece is too bad.  I can always fix those mistakes up and the piece will float.  I’m thankful that Lydia Van Dreel, Sylvia Davanzo, and Sandy Holder have been so understanding, and willing to make fixes.  It’s been tough not being there to retranscribe the score alongside them.

I worry that people forget that part of the process of premiering new works is working out these sort of kinks.  I’ve got the feeling that most musicians think that all (good) music comes from some kind of virgin birth, absolutely perfect from its inception.  Experience has taught me that’s hardly ever the case.  I, for one, prefer this sort of give and take.  If there is a better way to play something for a performer, I want to hear it; the idea that I, GREAT COMPOSER dictate what will be done is a little bit not my style (don’t get me wrong, I have all the delusions of grandeur to be a GREAT COMPOSER).

I can’t help but feel anxious when I listen back to this piece, for a couple of reasons.  First, because the piece brings me back to a stressful time in my life.  Second, because of the language I used to write it.  The piece is very, very (VERY) traditional in a lot (A LOT) of places.  Now, us composers have been led to believe that we can write whatever we’d like, but the truth of the matter is that composers who ape music of the past are generally not taken as seriously as other composers.  This isn’t a tonal/atonal thing; that battle is safely over.  This is more of an “old” vs. “new” thing.  Music can sound overtly consonant, so long as it’s presented as being “new” in some way: that’s sort of how minimalism came to be recognized as an intellectual movement, as opposed to being relegated to a fetish of the sentimental.

In the Trio, I strove to create “new” music out of conspicuously “old” music.  I wasn’t interested in using the passing triad or inflection (a la Ligeti, or the minimalists, etc.), but larger chunks of tonal music patched together in unexpected ways.  I go back and forth as to whether I was able to create this, or if I simply indulged some overtly comfy, sentimental feelings.

Ultimately, I feel that if you’re going to use “old” music, it’s best to put it in as radically “new” a context as possible.  You know who does this really well?  Del Tredici, particularly in Vintage Alice. I listened to his music non-stop from 2007 to 2009, and it’s been a tremendous influence on me.  For some reading material, check out this New York Times review of Vintage Alice.  I disagree with the reviewer’s, um, review, entirely, but it at least gives some context to what Del Tredici faced during his career (not that it’s over…you know what I mean).

One thing that Del Tredici had going for him in Vintage Alice was that the pieces he was quoting were just that: quotes.  Quotation of anachronistic music is an entirely different intellectual device than outright composition in an anachronistic style.  People can recognize a quotation as a “foreign” element.  It doesn’t belong to the piece in the same way as if it came from the composer’s pen.  It took me a long time to recognize the difference.

I’m interested to see how the audience interprets my piece.  I’ve got my fingers crossed.

…stumbled upon this article in the Independent about Pierre Boulez the other day.  In it, author Michael Church pokes a stick at known iconoclast and curmudgeon Boulez.  As I read this article, I couldn’t help but ask myself, “Why does this article feel so…I dunno, icky…to me?”

I think the reason I felt this way is that it feels so forced.  I mean, I get it.  Divisive opinions make for tasty news, especially in an area so stereotypically dry as classical music.  But seriously, Boulez (despite being an insanely good musician, composer, conductor) is 86.  His world-beating remarks made a lot more historical sense in his 30′s.  Nowadays, though, it feels a little bit more like an old man threatening to steal your baseball: don’t let Ol’ Man Boulez see you fetishizing the past in his yard, he’ll call the authorities!

I think that the problem with Modernist composers seem to have is that many have lived long enough to see their ideas become outdated.  The existence of their ideas in the general post-postmodern cloud of ideas, references, and referenced ideas, makes them stand out as woefully anachronistic.  Ironically, postmodernism seems to be fueled by woeful anachronism.  Perhaps Boulez is now guilty of fetishizing the past, himself.

Here’s the first chunk of my piece for the Equinox Sextet, Overbite.

You can take a listen to the sound file (MIDI-ish Finale thing) here: http://db.tt/wfSVeuh

Lemme know what you think!

…composing when I was 13 years old.  Maybe it was because I was young and isolated, or maybe not, but I had a lot of assumptions about what being a composer is like.  These assumptions, though largely changed or negated from time and experience, still show up as prejudices today.  I wish I could go back in time and talk to my 13-year-old self, but in light time travel being…um…difficult, I guess writing a blog post will do.

Here, then, is my Letter to a Young Composer.

Dear J. M. Gerraughty,

Yup, here we go with this cliché…Hey, it’s you (um, I mean us) from the future!  As I recall, you’ve been composing for about 5 months now.  Mr. Bailey has been trying to teach you species counterpoint, and you’ve been half-assing and ignoring it.  Before we go any further, let’s talk about that for a second.  Get to work on those; you’re an idiot for ignoring species counterpoint.  I know it’s boring.  I know it feels irrelevant.  Suck it up.  Counterpoint is like scales and arpeggios for composers, or like working out for athletes.  It’ll help in the long run.

Next up, you’re gonna need to learn piano.  Why?  A couple of reasons.  First, most people in music academia know how to play piano, and if you want to have a job teaching someday, you’re going to need to learn how to play.  Second, most people assume that all composers are at least facile on the piano.  I’ll give you a peek into your future, here: you suck at piano.  I mean it.  You’re pretty damn awful.  It’s gonna cost you at least another semester of grad school (and about $7,000 in student loans) for you to barely make it past the proficiency exam in grad school.  Mostly though, you should learn piano because if you don’t, we spend our life acting like we have a small compositional penis because we can’t play it.  It’s gonna lead to you freaking out every time you meet another composer, sabotaging relationships with colleagues, and keeping you from actually doing what you love.

You’re going to feel, for a lot of reasons, that you’re not a “legitimate” composer.  The piano thing is part of it.  Another part is your lack of musical heritage.  New Hampshire is cultural black hole.  And there are still kids that are more talented than you there.  You haven’t run into them yet, but give it three years.  You’ll be up to your neck in those people.  The good news (and in another way, the heart-breakingly frustrating news) is that most of those kids will become engineers or doctors or whatever.  Either way, you’re not going to be the best at this.  No matter what you accomplish, there’s always going to be some nine-year-old kid on Oprah that’s gonna make you feel like shit for not being a child genius.

You can’t win at composing.  You’ve got to think of a new way to find meaning in your life.

There are going to be lots of composers that are from better-looking schools than you.  Kids who have been studying at Juilliard while you were studying in some guy’s basement.  Kids who have had every advantage in the world that you didn’t know about or didn’t have access to.  Just because they got into better schools than you doesn’t necessarily make them better composers than you.  You’re going to come to realize that being a successful composer is not synonymous with being the best composer. The best composer is not what you should be aiming for.

There are prize-winning composers out there who still can’t get their work done.

Make friends.  Friendships and meaningful professional relationships are how you’re going to make it as a composer.  You can’t be the composer douchebag that constantly propositions people to play his pieces.  People will get skeeved out; plus, it’s degrading to do that day after day. Still, learn to walk up to people and introduce yourself.  It will help with everything, from asking girls on dates, to getting a commission.  It never gets easy, but it gets less difficult.

Lastly, a word about the actual process of composing.  There’s a difference between struggling with ideas (which is necessary), and struggling with what you think the ideas should be (which is not).  Don’t be afraid to write the “wrong” music: compose like you breathe, or sweat, or sleep.  Go with what feels natural to you.  Your point of view is what you can offer the world that all those geniuses with rich parents can’t.  I guarantee that when you do that, composing will remain something you love doing, not just something that you do.  Never lose sight of the fact that you love this.

Sincerely,

J. M. Gerraughty