Utility

I have written here before, at least in dribs and drabs, about all the things I don't have in common with people who come from a rock background, but one thing we do have in common is a growing discontent with the sound palette of the traditional classical orchestra. I myself am a player who sticks to traditional tone production quite a lot of the time, and yet there is more to this question than just that, including but not limited to rooms, recording techniques, and instrumentation. I also seldom miss an opportunity to disavow audiophilia, but admittedly this is largely an audiophile's dilemma: on the rare occasion I can summon the willpower to launch an investigation into the latest flavor-of-the-month orchestral composer, I often come away with even stronger (usually negative) impressions of the "sound" than of the piece(s).

The name Djuro Zivkovic has been circulating, and perhaps it brings hope. None of the pieces I've listened to thus far have disappointed, and I've just realized a primary reason for this: they make me forget that I've ever lamented the limitations of traditional instruments, tone production, or recording techniques vis-a-vis contemporary music. Certainly there is still much to be done in waking the orchestral world from its timbral slumber. Even so, it's good to be reminded that the usefulness of any tool depends almost entirely on the skill with which it is wielded.

C.o.S.T.

The acronym stands for "Consortium of Symphonic Transients." It refers to a large ensemble project I started last year to provide a more vital and sustainable medium for symphonic music than those which presently exist for those of us without a major orchestra gig or international composing career. Much to my surprise, the idea is proving mildly attractive to a few people besides myself. It's even gotten me my first grant, from the American Composers Forum nonetheless, which, more significantly, also marks the first recognition of my existence by anyone who writes the word "Composer" using a capital-C. Thanks to this modest sum of money, we're holding several rehearsals and two concerts in a wonderful performance space in St. Paul called Studio Z. In addition to a healthy dose of my music, I've incited 5 other players in the group to contribute music for us to play and interspersed it with my own to create a co-composed symphony of sorts which we will perform without pause as if it were a single work. I couldn't be more excited for this project, not least because it has led me to realize quite a bit about myself, my work, and what direction I want to go in, and as any good blogger would, I thought it might be worth sharing some of that with the wider world.

The general dearth of large ensembles in my musical circles, my inability to get meaningful performances or even readings of my large ensemble music, and self-awareness of my own artistic wants and needs all played a part in my decision to initiate a large ensemble project. However, it was an exchange with a student of mine which really lit a fire under me to pursue such a thing, an exchange which I would not initially have expected to have such a profound effect on my performing and composing lives, but of course, anyone who teaches knows that you frequently learn as much from your students as they do from you. I chronicled these events in this very space at the time, so I won't retell the whole story, but in a nutshell, this tuba student had come to me over the summer specifically to study jazz only to be told the ensuing fall by his band teacher that he wouldn't be allowed to play in the jazz band because, well...because tubas do not play in jazz bands.

For obvious reasons, that hit a nerve with me, resulting rather directly in the documents linked to above. However, it took a little longer for the larger epiphany to reveal itself: what if I put my money where my mouth is by writing music and starting a group where the instrumentation was flexible? This way, membership in the ensemble could be based more on musicianship and less on instrumentation. Contrast that with the orchestral world, where there are 20 violins and only one (maybe one) tuba player employed by each group. You could be the second best tuba player in town and not have shit to do. Or, consider the jazz world, where piano trios can get hired to play just about anywhere for anyone, but a sextet with 3 horns is too big, loud, rehearsal-intensive and costly to find its way into much of anything but the occasional club date. Rhythm section players have the horn players by the balls, since a rhythm section is a band unto itself and any horn players added to it are just extra mouths to feed and parts to extract.

In light of these sorts of considerations, it seemed to me that a large ensemble of flexible instrumentation could be a very powerful antidote to many unfortunate situations that I and many around me frequently find ourselves in. If someone is a good musician with something to offer the group, they should be in, and if not, they shouldn't. If they have a conflict with a gig, they don't play on that gig, and there are no hard feelings; no scrambling for subs at the last minute, no hiring subpar players because they are the only ones available on that instrument for that price, and no heightening jealousy when a band member becomes successful as part of another outfit and begins having scheduling conflicts. A group with open instrumentation can draw more loosely on a large pool of players rather than requiring every one of them to be present at each and every event, which mitigates the primary obstacle to maintaining a large ensemble project comprised mostly of freelancers.

These are the practical considerations, and they are very powerful. For many people, however, I suspect that the artistic considerations dictated by these practical considerations would serve as significant deterrents to such a project. For whatever reason, though, the more I began to ponder the artistic consequences of this sort of "transient" ensemble structure, the more I liked them. And if you're thinking this is going the direction of "I Can't Believe It's Not Music," graphic notation, prose scores and the like, think again. Indeed, that area is probably the more vital one as far as open instrumentation pieces go, and one day, I'll start a project to explore that territory; that day, however, has not yet arrived. I'm unashamed to state matter of factly that my aspirations for this project are not nearly that ambitious. It is symptomatic of just how bad things are around here that my less exciting alternative is actually quite exciting, to myself and others. I hope that one day it is rendered unspeakably boring by a plethora of similarly constituted ensembles covering much of the same ground with greater elegance and aplomb than I've managed, but until that happens, I reserve the right to inhabit this more conservative musical space without trepidation or shame.

The cornerstone of my overall concept for this group is to apply the chorus effect to heterogeneous groups of wind instruments. Once I had committed myself to pursuing the flexible instrumentation concept, I began writing pieces where each part was conceived for a general range and character of instrument rather than for a specific instrument. I created two templates for this approach, both for winds and percussion with optional string doubling of the wind parts. One is 8-part (7 horns, 1 percussion), the other 10-part (4 brass, 4 winds, basses, and drum set) with an optional second drum set/percussion part. They are given below:





I had years earlier begun composing untitled "series" of compositions to be played in any complete or partial order, all for solo tuba and some accompanying ensemble. I labeled these series with letters to correspond to the accompanying ensemble, as in The "A" Series for Tuba and Acoustic Jazz Trio, The "B" Series for Tuba and Brass Quartet, and The "C" Series for Tuba and Chamber Orchestra. Though the flexible instrumentation pieces would not be conceived to feature me as a soloist, I nonetheless had become attached to the idea of untitled movements which could be recombined in many different orders and wanted to apply it to this project, so I gave the new series the arbitrary letter names "D" and "F" respectively.

Obviously, a general division of labor between high, mid and low is still necessary; the instrumentation of these pieces is not truly "open" in the sense that any instrument can play any part in any octave, but it is tremendously flexible even so. This, of course, constitutes a near complete rejection of timbre as a compositional device, since I have no idea which instruments might actually end up playing the parts, or how much doubling there will be. I imagine this is an unthinkable compromise to many otherwise like-minded composers, but not for me. While the art and craft of orchestration is not entirely lost on me, my affinities for harmony, rhythm and counterpoint so outweigh those for the means with which they might be realized as to render timbre a moot point in much of my symphonic music. (Paradoxically, I feel less so about my chamber music, where the timbral palette is, by definition, smaller). I simply don't regard timbre with the preciousness or sentimentality it is typically accorded elsewhere, which means I'm not doing myself any favors by writing elaborately and specifically scored music that could only be performed by a professional symphony orchestra, and hence, which I'll probably never hear. I've written in that vein before, and I've got plenty of those pieces in me yet, but I'm quite content to write for unspecified forces as well; in fact, I'm finding it strangely gratifying and even liberating to do so.

In a traditional symphony orchestra, woodwind, brass and percussion parts are performed strictly by single players, as opposed to the string parts, which are performed strictly by groups of like string instruments playing in unison most of the time. Remove the strings entirely and add a very few doublings on instruments like clarinet and tuba and you have what is typically referred to as a "Wind Ensemble," essentially collection of wind soloists with a few strategic additions to assist with balance. It is only in the "Concert Band" or "Symphonic Band" that significant doubling of woodwind and brass parts is commonplace, and even then, this is done exclusively with like instruments; one does not normally hand the same part to the Bb clarinet, Bb trumpet and Bb soprano saxophone players, even though those parts are written in the same transposition and the instruments' ranges overlap substantially. Of course, the symphonic band paradigm is the predominant medium for K-12 instrumental music education in the U.S.; it's the one I came up in, and let's just say it left its mark. My first experience playing in a 120-piece symphonic band, with 8 tubas, 12 trumpets, countless clarinets, and so on, is something that will always be with me. Much as I grew impatient with it through compulsory participation, the further I get from those experiences, the fonder I become of them and the clearer their influence becomes.

My earliest compositions were written for 2-part and 4-part templates. Some time early in high school, I settled on an 8-part template not too terribly different from the D Series template above, and in fact, the similarities between them are not entirely coincidental. To this day, I suspect I wrote far more music in high school for that silly 8-part template than I have since written for any other instrumental configuration. It certainly was a medium which suited my technical and expressive needs exceptionally well at the time: I wrote nearly exclusively for it for several years, resulting in dozens of good-for-my-age pieces which I wouldn't necessarily want my name attached to now. What has become more apparent only recently is that despite its obvious limitations, this sort of thing still suits me rather well, and I've embarked on this project not only well aware of the similarities to my adolescent years, but in fact embracing those similarities in hopes of recapturing some of the naive excitement of that time of my life, which, as most anyone reading this probably knows, can be difficult for us "professionals" to hang on to.

I always envisioned the high school pieces as large ensemble music (i.e. for the school bands I was in), but the template was more an octet than a symphony. Each of the 8 parts was designated as a unique instrument with no multiples, and I gave little serious thought to the fact (which I was by then aware of) that a "real" band score would call for multiples of most of the instruments I had used. This is not to say, though, that I hadn't planned for certain possibilities, especially when it came to instruments I had altogether excluded; I envisioned horns, for example, doubling the alto sax part, and composed with this in mind even though "horn" was nowhere to be found at the left margin of my scores. In this way, there are further similarities with the current project, where parts are conceived to accommodate substantial doubling by any combination of 5-6 different instruments, and in a way, the practical considerations that led to this decision were also similar: my high school band had only one hornist and one trombonist, so writing full band scores with 4 unique horn parts and 3 unique trombone parts seemed foolish to me at the time. Similarly, I don't work with very many flute players these days, but Part 1 in the D Series can also be covered by clarinet, oboe, soprano sax, violin, guitar, and probably more I haven't thought of because necessity has not yet intervened, and so the group is able to function without a stalwart flutist even though I envision Part 1 most essentially as a flute part (indicated by "Flute" appearing at the top of the list of possible instruments for this part).

The large ensemble music I wrote late in college and immediately after college differs substantially from that which I wrote in high school in that (1) it is scored far more conventionally, (2) I'm not ashamed of all of it, and most importantly, (3) none of it has ever so much as sniffed a performance. The elaborate specialization of function among the instruments in a traditionally scored orchestra or band piece is a substantial obstacle to getting the piece performed, since you need access to an orchestra or band that is comprised of precisely those instruments in precisely those proportions. The 8-part pieces I wrote in high school were eminently more adaptable in that, while I had specific instruments in mind for each part, I knew that the ranges for the parts I had written closely resembled those of many instruments I hadn't, and had planned from the outset that the scarce instruments (should they miraculously appear) would simply double existing parts. Even so, their absence would not pose an insurmountable obstacle to performing the piece; that's the key ingredient that I've appropriated to C.o.S.T.

Ten years, hundreds of compositions and one college degree later, I find myself consciously emulating my high school self. In every other respect, you couldn't pay me enough to go back to being in high school, but perhaps I actually did stumble on something worthwhile back then without knowing it and have just now figured it out. It was inevitable at that time that I would outgrow the 8-part template and feel the need to explore a broader symphonic palette, but while those explorations have certainly been fruitful, in the end they've mostly helped me realize how content I actually can be with a more limited template where the specific instruments (timbres, that is) aren't specified. It is precisely because this approach so closely resembles that of not just my high school self but of many naive high school age composers that I'm just a tad insecure about putting it in front of capital-C Composers, who at first blush would be likely to see only arrested compositional development. Without being privy to the intervening 10 years or so of experimentation with more elaborate scoring and the subsequent realization that, while it's nice, it's not always absolutely necessary, it's not likely that anyone interested in upholding The Profession would find this approach compelling. However, as you've probably guessed from all this self-indulgent verbiage, I do. Don't take my word for it, though; better to hear for yourself.

Instrumentation Revisited

This post is intended as an expansion of an earlier discussion of instrumentation in music education, first explored here (PDF format), with a blog-based addendum here.

In continuing to reflect on my own experiences as a student, it is ever more apparent to me that the need to populate balanced instrumental ensembles is an undue hinderance to music education at every level. It starts with my 6th grade beginning band, where 90% of the students wanted to play either saxophone or drums. Appallingly, percussion was not even offered as an option. I was never privy to the exact reason behind this, but I have since hypothesized that either the discontent among those who were not selected to be percussionists had become destructive to the learning environment, or that giving the students implements which were designed for hitting things had proven to be a bad idea. Whether it was either or both of these reasons or something else entirely I'll never know; the point is that from the get go, the single most viable option for engaging a majority of the students in this class in a meaningful way was lost.

The saxophone, at least, was offered (alto only, as I recall), along with trumpet, clarinet, flute, trombone, and euphonium. We were asked to pick 3 instruments from these 6 and rank them in order of preference. Where more than the maximum allowable number of students had chosen a given instrument, the assignment would be made randomly, with those not selected being given one of their lower choices. Again, discontent among those not awarded the saxophone was palpable, at least in the immediate aftermath of the assignments. Needless to say, my top choice of euphonium was uncontested, though I believe I did list saxophone as my 2nd choice. Perish the thought.

In no way do I wish to overlook issues of practicality here, which include band directors' ability to find or create music to suit their needs, as well as the availability of school-owned instruments. Certainly, these factors make what I'm about to advocate a bit more challenging than simply forcing students into a balanced instrumentation whether or not they have even the shallowest inclination towards the instrument they are given. Nonetheless, where such inclination exists, doesn't it make sense to take it and run with it, even if it is rooted in the most trivial, commercialized pop-culture stereotypes? Given many students who want to play the same instrument, why not simply start a drum line or a saxophone octet?

I suspect that the answers to these questions may lead down some uncomfortable and contentious paths. It starts with acknowledging the stylistic hierarchy that exists in (more like dominates) music education, and within that, the instrumentational hierarchies that exist within classical and jazz musics respectively. Though they may advocate on behalf of "Music Education" or "The Arts" generally, it's not at all clear that teachers, parents, administrators or arts advocates would support establishing a school drum line as adamantly as they might support the school band or orchestra (or, at least, it was abundantly clear to me that this was not the case when I was a student). The shadow cast by the distinction between high and low art is palpable here, but I'm less troubled by the possibility that one would see fit to make such a distinction than that one might not be able to recognize the potential for high art to take root in the percussion section. In fact, I'm an unapologetic high art snob, and would like nothing more than to see it manifested in every possible way in every possible corner of the earth. If the kids want to play drums, then goddamn it, give them drums and turn them loose. Anybody ever heard of a guy named Elvin Jones?

Teachers themselves seem to view this as merely giving in to the whims of students whose worlds were shaped by television and pop culture, where instruments like the tuba are used merely as punch lines, and where those like the bassoon would be lucky to make it on the air even in this capacity. The act of foisting music and instruments upon students rather than meeting them halfway has become a ritual of sorts, the discontent it sows merely being taken as a sign that learning is, in fact, taking place. It's good for you in an unpleasant sort of way, kind of like eating your vegetables or going to the dentist.

Of the many flaws in this paradigm, perhaps the most glaring is that it invariably squanders what may be the only thing the beginning instrumental teacher has going for them, namely their students' curiosity. Particularly among tuba players, it seems that the stories of seeing the instrument as a kid and saying "I want to play that one!" are too numerous to count. Conversely, you hardly ever hear successful adult musicians say, "I really wanted to play x instrument, but they gave me y instrument instead, so I just toughed it out."

Like it or not, our most basic inclination towards something at that age is often very shallow, yet it can also be eminently valid and accurate. This, at least, is exactly how I would describe my relationship with the euphonium at that age, so much so, in fact, that the tuba (which was similar in design yet even bigger, more impressive looking and eccentric; the precise reasons I chose the euphonium magnified several times) was a tough sell once I'd had 3 years to latch on to the euph. Sacrifice these primal inclinations to some administrator's rigid idea of what "high art" looks and sounds like and you've lost your first best chance to engage students in music in a meaningful and enduring way. The exalted sentimentalism that accompanies such stories when they apply to unpopular instruments contrasts starkly with the contempt that's directed at students who immediately go for the drum set, or who want to play the music they've heard on the radio. Even as an avowed high art snob, I can still see that there's something wrong with that.

Another issue is that of music publishing. Although publishers of educational band and orchestra music seem to be moving towards more flexible arrangements that allow for as many odd combinations of instruments as possible, beginning and intermediate music for like instrument ensembles, or for ensembles of entirely flexible instrumentation (i.e. with a range rather than an instrument specified), are, to my knowledge, still hard to come by. Hence, any teacher who wishes to accommodate the wishes of a large group of students gravitating towards the same instrument is probably in for a significant transcription or composition project. Of course, the music that is available also is nothing to write home about as music, which is yet another unfortunate circumstance. If we simply must force students into standard instrumental configurations, we could certainly use a better reason than the utterly vacuous and often quite horrifying music that these traditionally constituted ensembles get stuck with.

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Instrumentation as oppression is not just a concern for the K-12 level, but for the college and graduate levels also. College music programs have the instrumentation of their flagship ensembles very much in mind when it comes to admitting instrumentalists as music majors. Given the sometimes spectacular disparity in reputation and recruiting ability among instrumental teachers at the same institution, it's not difficult to imagine a scenario in which the top candidate for admission in one studio is significantly weaker than the third and fourth candidates for another. There is often scholarship, assistantship or stipend money available only for the top one or two applicants on each instrument, but if instrumental balance is valued ahead of overall talent and potential, the weaker player would not have to compete directly with stronger applicants on other instruments who might otherwise beat them out for it. Though I can't claim knowledge of a specific case that unfolded this way, based on what I do know about the two colleges I attended, I'd be shocked to learn that this never happened, or even that it was unusual.

With state budgets dwindling, many public university music programs are increasingly dependent on privately-raised money, and they know not only that prospective donors want to see high art, but that they recognize it in only a few of its myriad forms. Invariably, the symphony orchestra is the gold standard. The trombone ensemble is cute, maybe even musically compelling, but it's not going to loosen the wallets of too many retired insurance adjusters. Until something changes on one or more of these fronts, music schools are going to continue to admit a one-size-fits-all student body that meets their instrumental needs rather than providing programs that reflect the unique interests and needs of their immediate communities (interests and needs which, one would hope, included orchestras and bands, but not exclusively, and certainly not to the point where balance trumps merit as an admissions criteria).

The year I was at the University of Northern Colorado was also a year that the school was up for NASM reaccreditation. As part of this process, so it was announced, the school was to put on a collage concert featuring various students and faculty whose performances would reflect the school's identity. Yet after being treated to a classically-dominated program of rather conservative repertoire, it was impossible to avoid coming away with the impression that the concert merely reflected what NASM thinks a school's identity ought to be. Until such accrediting bodies, along with politicians, philanthropists, and community leaders can see beyond the forms that high art has taken to the forms it might take, we'll be stuck with a quasi-authoritarian system of imposing instruments on students regardless of their inclinations. It would behoove us to establish a more egalitarian approach, and to rely on our ears rather than ours eyes to determine its success or failure.

Just Call Us "Other"

You can't make this stuff up...

From the Department of Poorly Written Program Notes, co-presented with the Department of Inadvertently Displayed Ignorance, and with promotional consideration provided by the Department of Midwestern Artsy-Fartsy Cuteness, I give you the blurb on George Benjamin's At First Light from the SPCO's "Program at a Glance," the condensed program notes that accompany the regular length program notes so that people who kind of care but kind of don't can learn something about the noise that is about to be foisted on them without taking too much time away from coughing and whispering to each other about how much they hate new music:


GEORGE BENJAMIN
At First Light

This piece, written when Benjamin was 22, was inspired by Turner's painting Norham Castle, Sunrise, an early precursor to impressionism. The music is itself a pastiche of gestures and abstractions. Fourteen musicians play more than 30 colorful instruments, including a bass trombone, whip, and a large newspaper.


Where to start? The appeal to age-based novelty is hardly uncommon, nor is the use of the term "gesture" as a backhanded compliment to a piece of new music, nor is the gratuitous use of an adjective such as "colorful" to distract listeners from the dissonance they're about to encounter. The crown jewel of this blurb, however, is the implication that the bass trombone is on par for novelty with a whip. A whip?!

It's true, I'm a low brass player myself, and hence a but biased, maybe even more than a bit insecure about our always tenuous status as "standard" members of the orchestra. That point aside, to categorize the bass trombone as novel is one thing, but to lump it in with whips and newspapers is completely absurd and ignorant. Not that I have anything against whips and newspapers (or rocks or sirens or bowed crotales...actually, I do have something against bowed crotales, but that story will have to wait for another time) being used as musical instruments, but I don't think its a stretch to say that the bass trombone has historically played a more significant role in the orchestra than they have.

In larger orchestras, the instrument is quite standardly used as the 3rd trombone, even if "bass" trombone was not specified by the composer. In case those of you who write program notes haven't ever actually been down to a concert since people got audacious enough to start sticking valves on trombones some several decades ago, this is because it sounds pretty damn close to a tenor trombone most of the time, and sounds even better in the lower registers by virtue of its larger bore, this despite being pitched in the same key as the tenor.

When one refers to a bass tuba, people are often curious as to how and why anyone would make a tuba that was even lower than normal, not realizing, of course, that the tubas they've seen and heard were, in most cases, contrabass tubas, and that bass tubas are actually smaller, not larger, than the instruments they're most familiar with. I suspect that, although the bass trombone is, in fact, larger than the the more commonly encountered tenor, the same dynamic is on display here, namely that the modifier is what catches people's attention first, along with the expectation that a bass version of an already low-pitched and heavily caricatured instrument must be something to behold. When this comes up in conversation with an avowed novice, I'm always happy to offer clarification, along with a good-natured, self-depricating low brass joke to help the medicine go down. When I read something like this in program notes supplied by a first-rate professional orchestra, the good-naturedness takes a hike. Writing program notes ought to consist of more than merely scanning the instrumentation for novelties, but when it must, a good handle on what exactly constitutes novelty in the first place is a must.

The poetic justice here? The trombonist played the entire part on his tenor (or, strictly speaking, "tenor-bass" trombone, a tenor trombone with one valve which lowers the pitch a perfect fourth, or less if the slide is out further at the time). Sorry, folks, you didn't get to hear bass trombone after all. If it's any consolation, at least you got to hear a nearly identical sound coming out of a nearly identical instrument, and at least the piece was actually written by a 22 year-old, albeit a 22 year-old who is now nearly 50. As for my consolation, I, probably alone, got to have a good chuckle at the status (or lack thereof) enjoyed by those of us who blow into big metal things that no one can name. It's not the first time, and I suspect it won't be the last.

Composing With Notation Software

There was an interesting and lively discussion on Sequenza 21 recently around the topic of composing with notation software. I would be remiss if I did not cover this topic on this blog at some point (actually, I'm somewhat shocked that I haven't yet in 2-plus years of blogging), for not only have I composed mostly with notation software for my entire musical life, but such software is largely responsible for my getting involved in writing music at all. Since the S21 discussion seemed to me to be dominated mostly by people who were already experienced composers before notation programs were widely available, I thought it might be worth hearing the perspective of someone who has never known any other way.

My Story
When I was in 7th grade (ca. 1994), my dad bought an early notation program called Concertware* for our then-state-of-the-art (it ran System 7) Macintosh Power PC. The program was buggy but highly intuitive and very effective. I had just started playing euphonium in the school band the year before, and my interest in music was burgeoning. Regrettably (but predictably), so was my interest in video games. At first, playing around with Concertware was pretty much just another game alongside NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat III (if that doesn't date me, I don't know what could), but years after my Super Nintendo had started collecting dust, I was still writing music with Concertware.

By the time I reached high school, I had expanded my default template to 8 parts, roughly approximating the school wind bands I had been playing in, with many parts doubled among instruments of similar tessitura. By the end of high school, I had composed over 100 pieces of highly variable but steadily improving quality for this instrumentation, including a 15-minute long, five movement "Symphony No. 1." Eventually, I ventured into chamber music and jazz as well, and during my senior year, I received my first "official" recognition as a composer by winning a composition contest put on by a local new music ensemble. That the piece sounded better played by them than by the computer served to bolster my confidence in the rather odd way that my compositional approach had developed.

While I still miss certain features of Concertware, its limitations became more obvious as I entered college as a music major. After experimenting with both Finale and Sibelius in the computer labs, I purchased my own copy of Sibelius 1 and never looked back. I upgraded to Sibelius 2 when it came out, but have not kept up with subsequent revisions. My college years saw the creation of many new pieces for all sorts of instrumentations. While I began to sketch at the piano more frequently, all of that work went straight into Sibelius the first chance I got, and would often serve merely as a jumping off point for composing directly into the computer, with much of the material becoming unrecognizable in the process. Perhaps my most productive and effective period as a composer came when I decided to move the home computer as close to the piano as I could get it. Despite destroying the legs on the piano bench and at least one chair by constantly shuttling back and forth from piano to desktop, this allowed me to use each tool for the tasks I found it most effective in accomplishing, and in hindsight, it seems to me that this made a difference in the quality of my work.

Composing With Notation Software: Pro vs. Con
First and foremost, let's address what I see as a double standard. If I were a concert pianist who composed primarily at the piano, it is unlikely that I would be criticized by a composition teacher for using my piano technique as a crutch; yet that is exactly what many would say about my use of notation programs. In fact, the two serve exactly the same purpose. In all honesty, I would indeed prefer to be able to work at the piano more of the time, and if I had exceptional piano technique, I certainly would take full advantage of it. Unfortunately, I am one of many musicians who merely play "arranger's piano" (even that's being generous in my case), and hence, the process of sitting down at the piano to compose is always quite frustrating. Even when the results are relatively good, I feel that they are severely limited by my poor technique, which is undoubtedly a more significant obstacle than any of the most commonly cited pitfalls of composing directly into a notation program.

Suffice it to say that I use notation program playback to hear ideas in real time that I am not capable of playing on the piano. In particular, that means thickly scored contrapuntal passages in pieces for large ensembles, but includes quite a bit more also. I use the computer exactly the same way a composer uses any other instrument for the same purpose. To date, I have not encountered anyone who discourages students from working their ideas out on an instrument, and if this technique can indeed be endorsed, then a software-as-instrument framework follows easily. Indeed, many experienced users of both Finale and Sibelius report developing a fluency akin to playing an instrument or typing text. My Sibelius skills certainly blow my piano skills away, so needless to say, I use Sibelius more often. Rather than limiting my composing, this opens up areas that would either go unexplored or yield poor results were I forced to rely exclusively on my very limited keyboard technique. And let's face it, you can't compose much with a tuba in your hands, though on rare occasions, I have written solo music this way.

Then, of course, there is the question of orchestration. I have been witness to many instances both on and offline where a commentator has lashed out at the idea of composing directly into a notation program solely on the basis that the playback does not give a realistic impression of balance among the instruments, in part because the synthesized sounds are not realistic, and in part because the program enables the user to artificially balance the parts to get the playback results they want. Perhaps because I was exposed to this viewpoint so early and often, it became something I thought about a lot, and subsequently, something that I was determined not to fall into.

Let me be clear that my primary reason for relying heavily on playback is temporal and not orchestrational. I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours of my life rehearsing and performing with large wind bands, orchestras, jazz bands, and collective improvising ensembles. It's true, one can most definitely not learn to orchestrate from a notation program, nor can one learn from a composition teacher or the books they've published. As a member of a large ensemble under a skilled conductor preparing the Hindemith Symphony in B-flat or Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra (to name two pieces in particular that taught me more than a phone-book-sized orchestration book ever could), one is not only partially responsible for creating the balance oneself, but also has a front row seat for all of the spot checking of particular subsets of the group in particular passages of music, as well as the conductor's advisements to these players based on his/her prior experience with the piece. I don't think I could overstate the value of this information to me as a composer, and yet, I almost certainly would not have learned it had I majored in Composition, Theory, or Musicology. In fact, when I was in school, many such classes met in the afternoon during ensemble rehearsals, hence preventing almost anyone from being meaningfully involved in both.

Despite being told repeatedly that composing directly into a notation program dooms one to orchestrational failure, I feel very strongly that one who brings a performer's pedigree to their work as a composer is destined to succeed as an orchestrator**, whether they compose at the computer, the piano, or off in the woods somewhere. Furthermore, after working with a notation program for a substantial length of time, as well as hearing some of their music performed, the composer begins to catalog the specific strengths and weakness of the playback in terms of its resemblance to real life players. Armed with this knowledge, the program becomes an even more effective and powerful tool for the composer to exploit.

Consider it granted that a lack of firsthand experience with the instruments one is writing for is a significant handicap, and that a lack of hands-on experience with the notation program one is using to write for those instruments is also a significant handicap. I don't think anyone would dispute those points. Conversely, as someone who started composing directly into a notation program, who has constantly refined this technique over the course of the last 13 years, who has concurrently performed others' music as well as his own with a myriad of large and small ensembles, who has undertaken countless hours of individual instrumental practice, and who has listened to quite a bit of live and recorded music, I have the utmost confidence in my compositional process and its suitability to my aspirations. If this is a crutch, then I'm happily crippled.

Chicken or Egg?
Here's something that was written in the S21 discussion cited above by Dennis Barthory-Kitsz, a self-described "doom and gloom guy" when it comes to notation software influencing composers:

Like any highly limited tools (including musical instruments), notation software eases the creation of music for which it was originally designed, but stands in the way of other music — save under very creative or persistent hands...

...The consequence of conservative tools is conservative composition — so much so that some composers brought up with these tools are only dimly aware of the possibilities outside them.

In fact, one could simply replace "conservative" with "innovative" in the excerpt above and have a statement that was no less valid, yet also misses the point. Speaking from my personal experience only, my composition reflects first and foremost what is in my CD collection; after that, the music I've performed; and a distant third, the very few scores that I have studied in any kind of depth. If there is anything responsible for the fact that none of my pieces to date necessitate a graphic score, it's that hardly a single thing I listen to was notated as a graphic score, that I've only rarely performed from a graphic score, and that I neither own nor have ever checked out from any library a graphic score of any kind, with the possible exception of examples contained in books on people like Anthony Braxton and John Cage. Is this an extreme condition brought on by an early predilection for composing directly into the computer, or am I perhaps entitled to claim that to this point, graphic scores just aren't my thing, even if Braxton and Cage are (sometimes)?

For a composer to be "only dimly aware" of 20th century notational innovations seems to me to have nothing to do with the computer and everything to do with the bookshelf and the CD rack. In my case, I've also learned quite a few notational tricks and extended techniques the same way I learned to orchestrate: by sitting in rehearsal while the conductor worked with another section. Although us big instrument folks in the back row often complained amongst ourselves that our time was being wasted, in hindsight, I can't honestly say that this was the case for me. Other than being the mythical genius that creates them out of thin air, the only way to become aware of new musical possibilities is to encounter them.

The qualification that "very creative or persistent hands" may overcome the shackles of notation software is apt; I would also question what exactly anyone who is not particularly creative or persistent is doing writing music in the first place. As for trudging off into the woods to compose without the aid of anything more than my mind's ear, I've attempted it many times, but it has rarely yielded anything more than a fleeting idea that happens to work as a jumping off point for computer- or piano-based composition. Sad as it is to say, I am not Mozart. Or Beethoven. I do not work entire pieces out in my head and then write them down just as they came to me. I'm more of an improviser who appreciates the opportunity to revise on occasion. Perhaps this is consistent with what critics of computer-based composition are fearful of; conversely, I feel like the explanation can be found in the musical artifacts and experiences I've surrounded myself with.

Here are 3 pages of music which required a little bit of creativity and an awful lot of persistence. As best I can recall, the first two were composed directly into the computer while the third was composed "in the woods" and edited slightly upon entry into Sibelius using the playback as a tool.








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*Here is the underwhelming Wikipedia page for Concertware. If anyone knows any more of the story, I'd love to hear it.

**I also feel that my performing experiences led me away from a conception of composition and orchestration as separate pursuits that are negotiable in isolation from each other and towards a vision of orchestration as an inevitable consequence of one's compositional voice, and one that is not negotiable without also altering said voice...but that's quite a tangent, and hence a topic for another post.