EMUSIC-L Digest Volume 53, Issue 11 This issue's topics: looking for advice... (4 messages) Your EMUSIC-L Digest moderator is Joe McMahon . You may subscribe to EMUSIC-L by sending mail to listserv@american.edu with the line "SUB EMUSIC-L your name" as the text. The EMUSIC-L archive is a service of SunSite (sunsite.unc.edu) at the University of North Carolina. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 14:11:23 CET From: "Jack L." Subject: Re: looking for advice... On Sat, 29 May 1993 07:48:28 -0400 idealord said: >4. Sooner or later you'll learn that composers always end up teaching >themselves. Comp lessons are great for pointers, aphorisms, that kind of >stuff, but after a while if you listen to tapes of your music (over and over >and over) and critique the living f*ck out of them yourself you'll find your >problems (solutions will have to wait 'til you're dead ;-). > >Jeff Harrington >idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org You're 100% right I think everyone who does music after doing a piece sits down, and with a critic vision thinks that it's a piece of sh*. Everytime you do something good, after a while it seems you can do better. It makes you search for new ways of composing and creative tools, etc. I couldn't say that I do good music. Even if I were a professionalist, for me my music will always be a part of self-improving process. I know that in a point it's good enough for many people, I can be proud of it, But still I know I can do better. On the other hand this process never stops. Like you mentioned you do, do , do and you 'die'... Jack L. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Jack Latanowicz tel/fax Pl-(0-61) 798-202 ul.Porzeczkowa 27 jack%plpuam11.bitnet@searn.sunet.se 61-306 Poznan P O L A N D "sooner or later everything has it's end..." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 12:26:44 EDT From: Mark Simon Subject: Re: looking for advice... I agree with Jeff Harrington that ultimately it's you that teaches yourself composition. Self-criticism is important, but even more important is to discover a standard to criticize yourself against. That means listening to a lot of music. In deciding where to study music, the size of the music library should be a big consideration. I spent most of my undergraduate years in the music library listening to records with the score. I didn't let a day go by when I didn't enter that building. It was my ambition to absorb the entire literature of western music (it still is and always will be. One needs an infinite number of lifetimes). I listened to Stravinsky and Haydn, my favorites even then, to Schoenberg and Stock- hausen, Wagner and Mahler. I detested Wagner and Mahler at the time but I listened to 'em anyway, just so I could say exactly *why* I hated them. Eventually I came to like them. I always listened with the score, if I could find one, so when a good passage came I could put my finger on it and say "Aha! Here's the good stuff!" and then pick it apart for all it was worth. You have to absorb this stuff and let it seep into your pores. You have to discover what the masters' tricks are so you can steal them and use them in your own stuff. Eventually this gives you ideas to develop your own tricks. Here's an amusing episode from my student years, which was illuminating musically, though I don't recommend anyone else try this. I was listening to Schoenberg's Woodwind Quintet repeatedly in my dorm room (imagine this: in those days you could just walk into the library and record a cassette right from the turntable!) and it all sounded prickly and and I couldn't make any sense out of it. That night I went to someone's apartment and, it being the early 70's, someone brought out some dope and we all proceded to get stoned. Well, this stuff had to be more than just dope. I hate to think of what kind of crap I ingested that fateful evening, and what might have happened to me because of it had I not been lucky. Anyway, before I knew it, my short-term memory had been chopped into little shards. Every 10 seconds or so, time seemed to start all over again. I stopped in mid-sentence, unable to remember what I had started to say. It seemed terribly hilarious at the time. When I had recovered my short-term memory I trudged home, still with a considerable buzz and upon entering the room, started up the Schoenberg Quintet once again. Suddenly it all seemed very logical. Arnold himself seemed to be speaking to me, cracking jokes along the way. What had seemed obscure now sounded clear, even classical like Haydn. Even more surprising was that the next day, with a clear head, I still could hear the music in that light. I don't recommend drugs as a way to study composition, but I do recommend lots and lots of critical listening. --Mark Simon tip@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 2 Jun 1993 15:48:22 PDT From: metlay Subject: Re: looking for advice... > Here's an amusing episode from my student years, which was illuminating >musically, though I don't recommend anyone else try this. I was [drug induced enlightenment deleted] > I don't recommend drugs as a way to study composition I would love to make a crack about the parallel between this story and the recent stink in KEYBOARD concerning Freff's article about how he opened up his creativity with X, but I'm too wasted to think of a good one. Luckily. -- mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Team Metlay's BANDWIDTH is now out on Compact Disc! Email me for details... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 3 Jun 1993 09:10:53 EDT From: wbf@ALUXPO.ATT.COM Subject: Re: looking for advice... >From a Mike Metlay post: > > Here's an amusing episode from my student years, which was illuminating > >musically, though I don't recommend anyone else try this. I was > [drug induced enlightenment deleted] > > I don't recommend drugs as a way to study composition > > I would love to make a crack about the parallel between this story and > the recent stink in KEYBOARD concerning Freff's article about how he > opened up his creativity with X, but I'm too wasted to think of a good > one. Luckily. The ledderz t'th'edidor thiz mondth are craaaaaaaammmmd wif ledderzon th'topik. Focksee ------------------------------ End of the EMUSIC-L Digest ******************************