# The obsessive compulsive composers, and my composing identity, and help?



## clavichorder

Preface: First off, I want to say that I won't listen to harsh criticisms of my strange ideas. If you can go with it and try to reach me at my perspective, then please do. If not, then your opinion is not welcome, I am either not ready to hear it, or you are simply not so right as you think. I am inquisitively minded and I am sorry if that is disagreeable, but I'm going to keep beating at this topic till I really understand what the deal is. 

Be warned, there is a lot in this post, but I think I have good things to work with. 

Here we go articulated as best as I can figure out:

I have a certain fixation on composers who seem really "regular." I tend to avoid the grandiose ones like Beethoven or Brahms, because there is too much force of personality there. I am very compulsive myself, but don't want to have a force of personality to try to connect with all kinds of people. I want a voice and it doesn't have to be heard by too many, but I want it to be something that I would sincerely like. 

That was a tangent but perhaps the core of the issue. Now, I wonder if I should stop identifying with these composers? I could give examples but it would be the same old thing. 

On the other hand, I like that. Why should orderliness and repetition in music be considered compulsive? 

Elliot Carter called minimalism like fascism. I sort of find it hard to compose sonata form pieces these days because I don't like beating a theme home, its too "powerful," possibly manipulating. I think it works though as a quirky thing. Its almost endearing in composers like Medtner or Martinu, because its just who they are and they aren't too self conscious about it, it seems(Medtner sometimes too much, but in a good way, I think). I like composers who allowed themselves to be compulsive and didn't question it. As a result, they were themselves, not being a chameleon like Stravinsky too much, and they weren't too self consciously "super charged" like Beethoven. 

I do like the thought of experimenting with different music, but I want to know what my own tastes are in a more modern context, more strongly, and I want to be able to work with that in my own music, develop. 

For example, I like Martinu, I like Honegger, I like Tcherepnin, I like Medtner's more intellectual sounding pieces(I derive comfort from that, as opposed to the ones of "spiritual intensity" for lack of better descriptor). I like Alkan. I could get into some Stravinvsky that sounds like him. 

For some reason, I also like Elliot Carter. The prolificness was there with him for sure. 

Definitely neo classical is my comfort zone and I want to start off working with it. I was trying to make "pure classicism for a while" and that was met with some success, as were my pastiche renaissance works and baroque works.

If you want to me to learn, you need to show me that you understand where I am coming from. I feel like I might need to learn something about being more free with different musical interests, but I also really just love to fixate and is that so bad? 

This is partly a negative post. I wish it could be constructive rather than destructive. 

I am starting to consider using my note pad more liberally. My composition teacher said "a page per day" "half hour time limit" a while ago. Yeah, I think that's the direction I want to go to free me up a little.


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## clavichorder

I will say that I could get into Bartok more too. And Hindemith and Webern.


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## clavichorder

And yes, I'll acknowledge that I am exceptionally arrogant. But also just inquisitive and with certain tastes. So I hope I can get a break from negativity and see what good things there are to work with. I don't know how the climate is here these days with composing music a certain way.

If anyone needs anything better clarified...just ask on a point I said that doesn't make much sense...it possibly doesn't.


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## joen_cph

Have you composed anything on some literary themes, or any vocal music so far? Speaking as a layman I was wondering whether this doesn´t often mean a certain re-orientation when composing, a shift of focus from the purely musical fabric towards the new subject, its content and potential, thus maybe also inspiring a new kind of expression in some ways ... 

As said, just a layman´s thought - maybe not so relevant for you ;-).


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## clavichorder

I have not. I have thought about it. I just don't appreciate poetry that much. I don't have the attention span for it, I wish I did. Maybe a literary theme that I already know about, nothing too big, just a little piece or something.

I've been into playing board games lately, so maybe a concept piece of sorts?


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## Crudblud

clavichorder said:


> I have not. I have thought about it. I just don't appreciate poetry that much. I don't have the attention span for it, I wish I did. Maybe a literary theme that I already know about, nothing too big, just a little piece or something.
> 
> I've been into playing board games lately, so maybe a concept piece of sorts?


Perhaps looking for a game with rules that could be applied to composition?


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## clavichorder

Crudblud said:


> Perhaps looking for a game with rules that could be applied to composition?


Well, I am just trying to learn how to play Go and Pentago(a modern game similar in some ways). I like their inductive reasoning. But it takes a long time to master those games.

Mancala is a really fun game, but I lost my game board. A bit more limited. I could use a game that has some limitations, but you never know, maybe a rudimentary grasp of Go or Pentago could fuel an interesting work?

Thanks for the suggestions.


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## StevenOBrien

I think you've gotten yourself into a trap of constantly overthinking everything and crippling your creative output as a result. I don't think you should force yourself to live up to anyone's philosophy or ideology of music. Not even your own. I was in a similar sort of situation, and this solution helped me. Hopefully it will help you too:

Meditate, clear your mind, and then, if possible, just compose something. Don't think, just compose, exercising no moderation on what you're writing. You can start thinking again when you've finished this piece (even if it's short). Immediately leave the piece aside for a day or two and then come back to listen to it, and hopefully you'll find that it will encapsulate a near-perfect balance of everything you want in your compositions. Even if it doesn't, hopefully it will give you some perspective on where you feel you need to go.

Ultimately, perhaps just don't think about what you're composing while you're initially composing it. It never helps, in my experience, it almost always just leads to something that was worse than the original conception. Sometimes you'll want to change things *later on* for the sake of balance or symmetry or contrapuntal clarity, and that's fine, but just let go of your self-criticism during the actual process of composing.

In my experience, out of all these thoughts you're having about what makes the best possible music for you, a solution will eventually emerge subconsciously. You don't need to consciously nitpick over things in your music. Just let go and such problems will eventually work themselves out by themselves.


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## clavichorder

The thing is, my technique for composing can go two ways, I could write it on paper(with poor awareness of harmony and a focus on the visual process), or I could do it at the piano via improvisation and slow memorizing. I don't have a fluid process that I trust yet and I hate the thought of switching back and forth between piano and note pad. I am resistant to entering things into a program at this stage. 

Maybe I should meditate on that? And ear training possibly(or just better ability to read and associate sounds with notes on paper)?


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## Sid James

I'm no composer, but I think this conversation between Andrew Ford and the late Michael Tippett about how young composers find their own voice is pretty relevant here. Its from Ford's collection of interviews with composers, a book titled 'Composer to Composer' (published by Allen & Unwin, 1993). The quote in green below is an extract from the Tippett interview. -

FORD:...As someone who knows the value of good advice, Tippett now ponders the difficulties facing young composers today and wonders whether it is possible to offer them much by way of helpful counsel...

TIPPETT: ...So that when a young composer is in college in the present day, he may find quite a difficulty in finding what he wants to be or how to do it. 
For that reason there have been the pulls of certain very obvious fashions, some of them very unrelated to localities, which have drawn composers. I have never had that problem because I am older and have stayed my own way, but moved all the time towards exploring the possibilities of making works of art which could move across frontiers, or some frontiers. 
And then, as Verdi said, most composers would like to live in an ivory tower, but they have to live in the marketplace. I would accept that. So what does the marketplace imply? That is the difficulty.
I don't belong to any school, and I never have. I don't want that complexity that is impenetrable, that is absolutely clear. In my younger days there was a composer, I think he was Indian, called Sorabji, who lived in England and wrote the most complex pieces of piano music ever. Well, it hasn't succeeded, because it became beyond the pale of complexity.
Minimalism, I think, has the danger of being dull. I can't put it any better than that.
I can't give advice to a young composer. I think they have to find who they are themselves. We did too; I was no different. I had to find what my own song was and it took me till I was nearly 30 before I got there.

FORD: I mentioned to Tippett that the first time I had met him, as a student composer myself, he had given my some very valuable advice. I had just completed a piece which was extremely complex and I was very proud of it, but then it was played and I had never heard anything so boring. For all my use of mathematical procedures, there was nothing of interest in the music. Tippett had said, 'Just use your ears, love.'
Thirteen years later Tippett found this story remarkably amusing ('Did I really say that?'), but at the time it was what I had needed to hear. As advice it may have been oversimple and rather extreme, but it altered my whole approach to composition and set me on the road to finding my own voice. There must be literally hundreds of composers around the world who can point to similar encounters with Tippett and who feel, as I do, that the meeting marked a watershed in their development.


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## ricardo_jvc6

I was like you before, I thought everything that I do should be derived from another composer's techniques. No and NO! Knowing musical theory is a good way to your own and resource to compose but never use other composer's techniques, you aren't here to follow anyone's philosophy. You are yourself and yourself only. Chill and relax before doing mistakes that lead you to nowhere. I have my own way of composing and I'll stick that way. Like you... have your own. I sometimes just go to the piano to improvise, merely... but I don't do it a composition way. My Composition way and it will always be composing in a notation software, for how much I can write by hand... I think this process in computer is better for me. Stay at your own ideals not from anyone else...


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## Mesa

I identify quite strongly with personality and methods of Brian Wilson, Henry Mancini and Satie, and i've just realised how much of an influence they have on me compared to other music which i listen to much more.

Everything seems to be working fine at the moment, so i have no interest in consciously rejecting these influences! There's more than enough me in what i do, i hope. At some point all of my influences will collapse like tender meat in a stew and i will be left with a sonic goulash which contains my very essence.

Think less, feel more my dysfunctional amigo!


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## PetrB

Crudblud said:


> Perhaps looking for a game with rules that could be applied to composition?


LOL, My good Herr Doktor Doctor Krudbloed: is that prescription 'immersion' therapy or 'aversion' therapy?


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## Crudblud

PetrB said:


> LOL, My good Herr Doktor Doctor Krudbloed: is that prescription 'immersion' therapy or 'aversion' therapy?


It's the kind of suggestion I give out when I'm tired. At least, I hope it is...

@Clavi: My *super serious* advice would be not to attempt to cultivate an "identity", but rather to write what sounds good to you and let your work speak for itself.


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## clavichorder

Crudblud said:


> It's the kind of suggestion I give out when I'm tired. At least, I hope it is...
> 
> @Clavi: My *super serious* advice would be not to attempt to cultivate an "identity", but rather to write what sounds good to you and let your work speak for itself.


What's so wrong with 'cultivating an identity though?' Is that the n(narcissism) word or something? A little cultivation can't hurt. I also don't underestimate the value of being freed up a bit too. But I feel like I would like to understand music theory very personally through experimentation first. Essentially, I believe there is value to reinventing the wheel.

What if I just want to write music like I understand musical grammar?

What feels good to me right now is the comfort of the north German baroque tradition, the sons of Bach and related composers, the english renaissance keyboard composers, Medtner(a sense of comfort there combined with intellectual grounding feeling), Martinu(neo renaissance).

I used to like more graceful music like the French stuff. I still am fond of Rameau and Purcell.

One can enjoy the weighted intellectual feeling of the German stuff. One can enjoy many things. I do sort of have a Cagian philosophy in that regard, but I think I sort of found my recurring comfort zone with the German stuff. I get a little release now and then from Tchaikovsky, Saint Saens, and Johann Strauss, Prokfofiev, Mozart, and other such free bird sounding composers who could also lay out the ambitious works.

I feel plenty, I'm just afraid to express it. Also, what's wrong with a "thinking" composer. Feeling is sometimes overrated.

The "what sounds good thing" is sort of "pleasure is the law" thinking like Debussy. It is merely a free way of thinking about pleasure.

I have been considering getting into obscure American romantic composers and obscure English composers more. It seems logical, since I speak the language but the style is appropriately dated, that I might find some familiarity there. I like Arthur Foote.

Honestly, thinking and speculating like this does not trouble me. It only troubles me when others think its wrong and criticize me. Perhaps it would be in my best interest to know how to not take that personally.


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## clavichorder

I have written some pieces that are thoughtfully constructed and some pieces that are laid out with easier feeling. I don't like the intense "Germanic" combination of the two quite as much. In Medtner, they seem to coexist without being focused to a freakishly fine point.

Often times I speak metaphorically. So if what I say doesn't make sense, I'm not trying to be pretentious, I merely had a thought I was curious about.


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## clavichorder

PetrB said:


> LOL, My good Herr Doktor Doctor Krudbloed: is that prescription 'immersion' therapy or 'aversion' therapy?


What do you mean?


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## clavichorder

Mesa said:


> Think less, feel more my dysfunctional amigo!


This post gives the impression that I'm worse off than I am. But I agree, I "overthink." Thinking is valuable in my opinion, but yes, its not the only way to go about things...

The sun is starting to come out around here(Seattle is a nasty place in the winter with its gray for long stretches), maybe that'll cheer me up. I bought a chromatic harmonica finally.


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## clavichorder

ricardo_jvc6 said:


> I was like you before, I thought everything that I do should be derived from another composer's techniques. No and NO! Knowing musical theory is a good way to your own and resource to compose but never use other composer's techniques, you aren't here to follow anyone's philosophy. You are yourself and yourself only. Chill and relax before doing mistakes that lead you to nowhere. I have my own way of composing and I'll stick that way. Like you... have your own. I sometimes just go to the piano to improvise, merely... but I don't do it a composition way. My Composition way and it will always be composing in a notation software, for how much I can write by hand... I think this process in computer is better for me. Stay at your own ideals not from anyone else...


What if I already developed my own way and its gotten lost because I tried to accelerate the process? I write at the piano. I know how to write short miniatures with good voice leading that do have flavors of other composers, but the end results are often personal enough(in recent history, the ones I wrote are not quite myself).

I worry about "chilling" though. Because I don't want a slack style of composing. I want a style that uses good theoretical understanding, but a personal one. Bach's was invaluable as a composer because he didn't just write as a pure composer, but took in many theory perspectives from other composers going way back, I gather.

I'm not trying to be Bach. I'm trying to be me. And I'm analytical and curious when I'm left to it. Why can't a musicologically and music theory minded person also channel that into composition? Bartok did it.

I'm honestly asking why not. Are these points I'm raising that one should disagree with?

Maybe I didn't want a personal voice to begin with, but was made self conscious about it. I just wanted to compose music that used theory found in early music. Is that so wrong? It seems stupid that it should be.

People say things like why would one want to write in an antiquated style, or its disrespectful or something. The most I'll content myself with is "they'll just be models." I find it otherwise absurd, and consider it more just going my own way, than reactionary, to want to compose this way, because its what I feel I want to do. There are plenty of possibilities in a logical system such as tonal music. There are plenty of new blues songs to be written.

It hasn't "all been said already." And why should it be like "the gospel." Music is more mathematical and sensory based, it doesn't have to be " a literature" like Greek mythology so much(although that is fun).

Sometimes I feel like I should keep composing a hobby and do chromatic harmonic as a blues thing. I also know that there is a very active choral composing tradition to this day, and I'd be happy to try to support myself conducting and teaching pieces that I and others have written. Who cares about being a great composer? But I do care about earning a living and enjoying music, and I also do have intellectual standards that are fairly automatic.


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## Ramako

clavichorder said:


> What's so wrong with 'cultivating an identity though?' Is that the n(narcissism) word or something? A little cultivation can't hurt. I also don't underestimate the value of being freed up a bit too. But I feel like I would like to understand music theory very personally through experimentation first. Essentially, I believe there is value to reinventing the wheel.
> 
> What if I just want to write music like I understand musical grammar.
> 
> What feels good to me right now is the comfort of the north German baroque tradition, the sons of Bach and related composers, the english renaissance keyboard composers, Medtner(a sense of comfort there combined with intellectual grounding feeling), Martinu(neo renaissance).
> 
> I used to like more graceful music like the French stuff. I still am fond of Rameau and Purcell.
> 
> One can enjoy the weighted intellectual feeling of the German stuff. One can enjoy many things. I do sort of have a Cagian philosophy in that regard, but I think I sort of found my recurring comfort zone with the German stuff. I get a little release now and then from Tchaikovsky, Saint Saens, and Johann Strauss, Prokfofiev, Mozart, and other such free bird sounding composers who could also lay out the ambitious works.
> 
> I feel plenty, I'm just afraid to express it. Also, what's wrong with a "thinking" composer. Feeling is sometimes overrated.
> 
> The "what sounds good thing" is sort of "pleasure is the law" thinking like Debussy. It is merely a free way of thinking about pleasure.
> 
> I have been considering getting into obscure American romantic composers and obscure English composers more. It seems logical, since I speak the language but the style is appropriately dated, that I might find some familiarity there. I like Arthur Foote.
> 
> Honestly, thinking and speculating like this does not trouble me. It only troubles me when others think its wrong and criticize me. Perhaps it would be in my best interest to know how to not take that personally.


While a few of the aspects of the OP I didn't understand, this makes 100% sense to me. In fact I find myself in a similar position, if differing in some of the details. I also am concerned about cultivating a composer's identity (or indeed whether such a thing is a good idea), and very concerned about 'musical grammar' and the like.

But I'll throw around a few thoughts in any case.

One thing I would say is that the pieces of yours I have seen have inspired me to (at some point soon) write some pieces where I pay the utmost attention to the smallest detail, so that everything seems relevant. I have a problem, in music as in words, of taking far more notes/words than necessary to say what needs saying - and perhaps more importantly saying what doesn't need to be said.

Another experiment I want to try is to do what Steven suggested, by 'letting go' and composing.

Then I could compare them, and perhaps use both methods in addition to my current ones when suitable.

But I think having a variety of compositional techniques at one's disposal when working is a good thing. However I think it is also important to have methods which are refined and work well, which I don't really at the moment. Also little tricks. I am a person who finds that the notes never match up to my conception. However it's amazing what a simple inversion will do sometimes.

However I also feel much more drawn to the 'thoughtful' style of composition. It's not that intuition doesn't come into it - not at all - but that it is checked by the conscious. There are merits to all kinds of different methods of composition, and all kinds of different compositions. It is a matter of them suiting the individual tastes.


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## clavichorder

Also, keep in mind that I am not so heated when writing this. I am honestly very curious about finding my path in music. I like early music, I like choral singing, and I like consistency in composers. I like blues. I like Medtner understanding the piano and piano sonata so well. I like Beethoven doing that too. I love the piano miniature and piano sonata literature. I love massive 20th century orchestral sounds. I like Bach. I like more. What do I do with all that?

I dislike the emotionality of rich harmony, but like the intellectual aspect of it. I like the emotionality of Tchaikovsky when I'm feeling down, whose music is very sunny. 

Sunny music that "just glows" is great and is perhaps most lovely for me to hear sometimes(a little "Winter Day Dream" is appreciated in annoying Seattle). But my interest in musicology and forms are pulls me in other directions. The more mental aspect of things feels more solid to me. And it would help other composers out better to know your theory(if you care to be a composers composer, in teaching others they can compose too), than to just write music that pleases you more emotionally.

I suppose there are all kinds of ways to write and there is value in them all. But I am wary of certain things.


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## clavichorder

Ramako said:


> While a few of the aspects of the OP I didn't understand, this makes 100% sense to me. In fact I find myself in a similar position, if differing in some of the details. I also am concerned about cultivating a composer's identity (or indeed whether such a thing is a good idea), and very concerned about 'musical grammar' and the like.
> 
> But I'll throw around a few thoughts in any case.
> 
> One thing I would say is that the pieces of yours I have seen have inspired me to (at some point soon) write some pieces where I pay the utmost attention to the smallest detail, so that everything seems relevant. I have a problem, in music as in words, of taking far more notes/words than necessary to say what needs saying - and perhaps more importantly saying what doesn't need to be said.
> 
> Another experiment I want to try is to do what Steven suggested, by 'letting go' and composing.
> 
> Then I could compare them, and perhaps use both methods in addition to my current ones when suitable.
> 
> But I think having a variety of compositional techniques at one's disposal when working is a good thing. However I think it is also important to have methods which are refined and work well, which I don't really at the moment. Also little tricks. I am a person who finds that the notes never match up to my conception. However it's amazing what a simple inversion will do sometimes.
> 
> However I also feel much more drawn to the 'thoughtful' style of composition. It's not that intuition doesn't come into it - not at all - but that it is checked by the conscious. There are merits to all kinds of different methods of composition, and all kinds of different compositions. It is a matter of them suiting the individual tastes.


That sounds pretty balanced to me Ramako! I think you have a pretty cool method for composing, a you are probably at a better access point than myself for trying Steven O'Brien's suggestion. You work has inspired me to try to do things more recording on paper and to try to stretch things out with more notes and thematic follow through. That being said, if you are patient, the way I compose is actually very personally satisfying as long as you don't expect others to pay attention to it too strongly(it might just happen anyway, I've gotten compliments from girls in choir, lol, but its most gratifying when someone makes an intelligent observation about what you were trying to do, and rather than try to impress many, I am realizing how to appreciate comments from those few, I hope) and don't linger on one success too long.

I am more fond of Mompou these days. Very fine 20th century miniaturist. Very mystical sounding. I don't so much try to copy styles, as try to find a focus to build from.


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## clavichorder

Also, I want to thank everyone for their patience and being kind and just acknowledging that I, and others like me just have troubled souls/minds. I am a very sensitive person. I am thinking miniatures are still good for me to work on for the time being.


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## Crudblud

My point about not _trying_ to cultivate a persona is not so much to suggest a lazy route, but to allow you to be yourself, both as a person and as a composer, and in that allowance you will find the wellspring of not only creativity but of personal growth. Change, or rather, development of self understanding, which may seem like change, is much easier to resist than it is to allow, perhaps because the ego aspires to ideals which contort and distort self image, and in doing so wills self ignorance, but I think in following it and attempting to sculpt yourself you end up only with a sculpture, not the original subject. So yes, do not _try_ to develop is the point, and in doing so you will develop.


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## clavichorder

I believe that trying is important. But trying to compose is better than trying to develop your composing chops(meta approach?). Trying is good.


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## clavichorder

I think I've settled down a bit...


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## PetrB

I've held off on responding here, partially, I admit, because you have openly announced your 'condition' or frailty, as it were, and that then has people approaching you with perhaps more delicacy than is 'good for you.'

There is a fine balance between your admitted obsessiveness and not projecting on other composers that same obsessiveness.

Plenty of composers, not clinically obsessive, have a near 'fetish' attachment to a single idea: Bach, though with an extreme gift of varying and transforming the basic idea, never lets go of it.

Takemitsu, often a little cell-like motif predominates an entire piece or movement, again, used in many ways.

Now the rest of it. 
You are more than far over-thinking the entire business of your 'identity' as linked with music, the music you write, the music you like. How can your mind intuitively come up with fresh ideas if it is cluttered with anxiety, identity questions (very much about self / ego)?

Right. Too, stop worrying about 'which way you should write / what composer you might sound like, all the rest.

If you are not willing to fail, stumble, and find the page you are working on not 'yielding' anything worthwhile, and any of those often enough, as a student, you will never improve.

You are a student: Ergo, you teacher's 'prescription' of one page a day is 100% correct to 'remedy' your current dilemma, and to gradually get you to improve, in a slow and rather tedious but steady progression.

That page a day can be any sort of sketch. Choose a bunch of notes (you can always change them) and see if you can simply 'make them work, without concern about their 'meaning' or 'emotional import' or 'your wanting to say something.'

Have faith that a few well-written and well-chosen notes will express something on their own. Because they do.

Eventually, _running on faith while putting your ego on hold,_ you will reach at least a minor break-through: you will have a much better idea, quickly, if those few notes, that harmonic premise, will yield something which can be developed, to any length, brief or longer, or not. I.e., you become much more 'efficient' in knowing what is worth pursuing, what not.

Too, again without the personal (and distracting) self-involvement of 'identity' on your mind, you will then find those areas musical which are more 'home' and of interest to you, have gained a readier technique to work them, and you will see that gradually, you are 'finding a voice.' 'Your voice' cannot be pre-decided, no matter how much you admire and would like to be, or be like, composers x,y, or z. That is 'who you are.'

Of course, I've never been able to predetermine exactly 'what is being expressed' when I write, and only half-way through can I have enough distance or perspective to even begin to name a quality the music may have, a generic 'mood, tone' if you will. At that juncture, staying busy with the matter at hand becomes critically important, because even then your perception of the intellectual or emotional import of that piece could be 'off' and others could take it -- well -- but quite differently.

So it is only when one is done with a piece that the determination of what it really does do in the way of acting upon you can be named.

A lot of this is a classic matter of 'faith,' i.e. you do not see all the steps along the way which make it happen, because many are neither visible or conscious. You have to trust that 'they are there' and 'working.' A few times around the block with that experience, and much doubt or worry when writing will just slide away.

Write, everyday, whether you 'feel' something or not. Building up a technique and fluidity is critical. We are not 'inspired' magically each and every day. The daily composing is what keeps the well primed, the tools oiled. Don't expect great things of each day's work, just try to "make it work."

And, LOL, be patient with yourself and all of it.

It may help to recall the medieval tradition of the craftsman vs. the romantic / contemporary idea of 'the artist.' The medieval mason put a mark on each stone he cut and dressed, that mark facing inward, not showing on the building: the purpose was not an innate humility, but the facade was not meant to be a wall of graffiti, and the mark was so he would be fairly paid, piece by piece, for work done.

One of my biggest psychological 'breakthroughs' as a student was realizing I had no business thinking or wondering if what I was working on was nearly as good / great as the least little piece by Stravinsky! Then I realized that until I began, got through the middle of, and completed those shorter student pieces _merely as best I could,_ that I was therein getting practice in beginning and then finishing a piece! Both the quality, speed of execution immediately improved. I was no longer busy 'competing' with the greats, 'trying to be like composer _____,' or style 'C', or anything else. Just finding my own way.

Some time later, without again worrying but 'just writing, I found I had made a piece I felt truly 'expressive' of something musical, and for a moment, was both relieved and pleased.

That is sort of how it goes. Get yourself out of the way, concentrate on only the music, and making it work as best you can, keep it simple, do it regularly, and... there you go.

All the identity / identification is really a detractor -- a shrink might even find it a manufactured excuse to keep from doing the work because you have a fear it won't be good.

Only one way to find out 

Best regards,
Petr.

P.s. For anyone at any crux / crisis in 'making art,' there is an invaluable, beautifully simply written little book, which I urge you to get a clean copy of...
http://www.amazon.com/Art-Fear-Observations-Rewards-Artmaking/dp/0961454733


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## clavichorder

@Petr,

I have had some success in general 'going with it' lately. Hopefully not quite the head case I used to be, but relapses do happen.

Regarding the page a day. My hang ups about harmony and ear training inadequacies make me wonder how aurally conscious I want to be or should be, of the vertical aspects of what I am writing. My teacher just wanted me to write things out regardless. It was sort of embarrassing when he played those strange things, and I had written such nicer miniatures. 

In recent history, I've written plenty of 'nice' piano miniatures, some of them because I let go a little. But I did have that ego issue where I went back to determine what exactly I was sounding like. 


What is your opinion on "at the piano" versus on paper? My teacher's on paper was I think to fool my ear and get it out of the way or something.

I've yet to restart the 'one page a day' thing again. I think it's possible I'll want to do this because I am not enabled to dwell on my successes with that, so easily. I can replay over and over again what I've put together at the piano, and show it off.


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## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> What's so wrong with 'cultivating an identity though?'


If you don't know what your identity is, cultivating one, then, ain't the way to go about it. You will, without a scintilla of a doubt, be donning a persona / clothing which does not suit you, is not who you are. It is an artifice which will eventually lead to at least discomfort or a greater and more difficult 'crisis' than you think you are in now. Yes, it has very much to do with _youthful_ vanity and self-conceit... and the arrogance which comes from the bluffed front which covers the insecurity of not really sensing, completely, 'what you are.' -- _almost all within the standard bailiwick of the young (myself included, 'in my youth.')_

The situation is very like that at the amusement parks: there is just no synthetic hurrying of being 'tall enough to ride this ride.'



clavichorder said:


> What if I just want to write music like I understand musical grammar?


Good grammar never wrote an interesting or great anything. It certainly helps in writing something (any quality) which is _clear._ Nor has ever a full working knowledge of music theory ever composed an interesting piece. The theory, not the premise of theory, was a mere set of tools to build the thing.

Table. Do you think the table is a discourse on the hammer, saw, plane, sander, mortise and tenon joints, stain, and finish? Or is it 'just a table? Perhaps _after_ you have successfully built that table, you can then wallow and luxuriate in the slightly more sterile ruminations over whether the table is a discourse on hammers, saws, planes, sanders, mortise and tenon joints, stains, and finishes, but only after that table is completed. Prior or mid-construction, that ruminating is a massively self-indulgent occupation taking time and energy from building the table.

Build enough tables, then in between projects there is a real value to like ruminations.

Did the tools 'inspire' in any way with the decisions made by the craftsman as to the table's proportions, what wood was used, which way the grain sits, the wood color, the overall shape and function. No. just tools.

This is a common trap, "I'll write a piece using the octatonic scale." Fine. Maybe the piece turns out well. It is still an academic exercise, maybe of interest, pleasant enough to hear. Do you think Bartok first sat down and thought, "I will compose a piece using the octatonic scales and juxtapose those with slightly altered diatonic scales?"

Hardly: I believe those tools were already honed and in his tool kit, and he intuitively reached for the tool he needed as required for the piece he was making. HUGE difference in approach.

It is a very real yet ironic dilemma, the technique vs. trusting technique as so well learned it is used merely as a near unconscious reflex, _pulled out of the box without a lot of thinking about the tool,_ just grabbing it because it is the right tool for the idea at hand. *That, of course, is why you are studying, and writing 'exercises' as well as pieces.*

So you're hungry to already be a highly developed craftsman, and a master craftsman at that. Big Whup, which one of us as eager students was not also hungering / yearning to not only make something really great, but fantasizing about the 'spotlight' of admiration for having done so.

Well, admit it to yourself. Say daily, "I am a student, not a master." I know at the moment what I like, and my preferences, but might come up with something more 'mine' if I forget about all of that and 'just write.'

Truth be told, most masters feel that way every time they are composing something... they are far more used to the 'discomfort' of their not knowing everything, questioning the worth of what they are about even while feeling quite competent and truly being on top of their game. If that getting 'easier' is 'getting better about the way you feel,' that is about as good as it gets, maximum.

That means there are plenty more opportunities to feel miserably in doubt, all along the way 

So cheer up already.


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## PetrB

clavichorder said:


> What do you mean?


Made me think immediately of 'systematic' approaches to music, like the first Viennese school of serialism, which of course was very fluid under the pen of Schoenberg, who was the first to 'break the rules' he had proposed, and both the second generation, Webern and Berg, using it also in their own idiosyncratic way as a means to their individual ends. Later, Stravinsky would get into serialism, completely stamped with his own musical sensibilities and personality -- because he was a master composer, of course 

School, and learning 'rules' can do that to you. There is a very canny and sage maxim, 
_"Once out of school, you have to unlearn half of what you were taught in school."_

*Perhaps it was not prudent
to tell that to a student, 
but there it is.*


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## clavichorder

PetrB said:


> Made me think immediately of 'systematic' approaches to music, like the first Viennese school of serialism, which of course was very fluid under the pen of Schoenberg, who was the first to 'break the rules' he had proposed, and both the second generation, Webern and Berg, using it also in their own idiosyncratic way as a means to their individual ends. Later, Stravinsky would get into serialism, completely stamped with his own musical sensibilities and personality -- because he was a master composer, of course
> 
> School, and learning 'rules' can do that to you. There is a very canny and sage maxim,
> _"Once out of school, you have to unlearn half of what you were taught in school."_
> 
> *Perhaps it was not prudent
> to tell that to a student,
> but there it is.*


I already knew that Bruckner said, after taking his students through a very difficult music theory course, told them to "forget it all for composing purposes"(I made up the wording to that quote). And we know how long Bruckner studied music theory for...

I like "half" better.

I do remind myself these days that I am a student more these days. I must have gotten the hint from enough people...

Thank you for your reply, I hope I will continue to appreciate advices like this.


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## PetrB

Re-thinking what was written, genuine, was simply too personally direct to have any public interest, I've retracted it and sent it directly to the OP.

(Move along, nothing to see here


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## StevenOBrien

PetrB said:


> Re-thinking what was written, genuine, was simply too personally direct to have any public interest, I've retracted it and sent it directly to the OP.
> 
> (Move along, nothing to see here


Personally, I thought you were sufficiently tactful in your answer, and it was of benefit to other composers in similar situations.


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## PetrB

StevenOBrien said:


> Personally, I thought you were sufficiently tactful in your answer, and it was of benefit to other composers in similar situations.


I'll leave it to the recipient to post it, then, if they so choose, with hereby granted permission to edit as they see fit.

If was that sort of 'teacher talking to you' in a manner which those who have not experienced may more than have taken as 'beating someone up pretty badly.'

Whenever I've been on the receiving end of that, it was in private, tête-à-tête, and not in front of 'the whole class

But, thanks.


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## StevenOBrien

PetrB said:


> If was that sort of 'teacher talking to you' in a manner which those who have not experienced may more than have taken as 'beating someone up pretty badly.'


Well I think some students do well with a good intellectual beating every once in a while .


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## clavichorder

The personal aspects of the message do not bother me so much, but perhaps I should be more modest sometimes. I will give this a post and see if it needs any more editing. I'm not bothered by this advice, it seem very worthwhile.

This is PetrB's retracted post, since he gave me permission to post it, I think.

"Dear Clavichorder:

You are so seriously self-consciously over thinking all of this it is no wonder you are littered with blocks.

"What if, what if, what if." "Who am I," "Who am I as a composer," etc. etc. etc. You really need to still your mind at least in these regards, whether with meds, by mental techniques of talking yourself down from spinning to such a degree as you are presently, or a combination of both. 

How there can be any room in your head for the calm to come up with ideas and just 'see what you can do with them' is beyond me, and it would be, to me, a miracle if you could until you still that ******* chattering monkey.

Stop obsessing upon a particular harmonic style, a particular technique. "There are hundreds of ways to draw: All of them are correct." After that, any fusion or fusion plus a personal infusion are yours for the picking. There is no hurrying, sorry, going through those hundreds of ways until you go through them, wholly accepting that some of the results are going to be 'relatively derivative.'

Stop worrying about critics! You are still a student composer. Worry about critics when you have the larger professional premiere.

You won't know if composing is a hobby until you are done with composing altogether. A big chunk of the music of Nikos Skalkottas, by nature of his personality, was composed and then sat in a drawer only to be found, played and recognized after his death.

Presently, you are busiest with, day and night it would seem, creating obstacles to your writing anything at all, prejudging works not yet even conceived of or not yet begun, second-guessing what is 'acceptable,' and all the rest.

In the gravest earnestness I can muster, I tell you that you have to allow yourself to be captivated by a musical idea, any musical idea, but 'captivated'. Period. That means none of the spinning about whether it is trendy, retro, 'if it is you.' (If you're captivated / engaged, it must 'be about you,' no?) has any room in there. Then follow through and see what you can make of that idea, never thinking of 'its place in the lexicon of classical music,' fame, criticism, whether it is retro, middle of the road, etc. Currently, you are busy with Bitch Goddesses vs. serving Apollo!

Serving: who and what are you serving via music? Yourself? Or are you ready to serve music?

You have not written nearly enough to really merit asking the questions about 'your music' you are now asking, which you are also putting before the actuality of music yet to be written. Obstacle after manufactured obstacle -- what I hear most, between the lines and underneath it all is fear of rejection, really, and there is nothing to reject until there are works done. When a work is done, then presented, then you can allow yourself the anxiety over its reception.

Your impatience is extreme. You are thinking like a recognized composer mid career and in a personal crisis evaluating his past body of work. You do not have a past body of work to dwell upon like that. You will if you just write and write and write and write and write some more.

I dare say all this, because (without the added spin of chronic obsession -- taken earnestly into account here), nonetheless, I’ve "been there, done that.: It produced little or nothing in the way of work.

You do seem to worry about your musical identity as if you were already a well-known composer with a public awaiting the next work, and critics ready to extol or condemn.... not healthy, my lad.

Always best regards,
PetrB"




I edited more personally applicable bits out, which are less generically pertinent.

This message covers a lot of bases. Not all of them have I been entirely guilty of, but it is a very perceptive and thorough word of caution and a sort of rough encouragement all the same.

I easily take to heart a need to be captivated by an idea. Its something my previous teacher had told me about that I had forgotten. I'm a bit lazy about covering bases with a thorough reply, but the information is being taken in.

I take it as a very through and general word to stop being so obsessive about doing things a certain way I think I'm supposed to do them by my own ideas. Getting down to the music, essentially. I dig it. Its a good thing I made this thread.


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## PetrB

Most gracious of you, at least a little bit brave -- and thanks -- I sincerely hope it helps. 

The 'getting to it' is sometimes the most difficult part, especially without all the worrying about 'how it / I will be perceived.' 
I'm not totally free of it still, but have learned if it comes up, to tell it, "Shut the **** up! I'm busy."

As always,
Best regards.


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## clavichorder

I wouldn't call it very brave in the purest sense(if it was, I wouldn't have called myself fragile in the beginning). I partly have very inconsistent high and low levels shame and inconsistent care and lack of care for social norms. How that is pertinent here is a vague thing. 

Thank you for your acknowledgement of my effort though. I will try to get some samples of my work made available here in the near future.


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## clavichorder

I was being extremely weird with this post. I still have some fragments I'd like to share, and maybe I'll make it a project to notate them on a computer program rather than do piano performance like before.


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