# Thought for the day: composers and formal training



## hreichgott

I've been listening to a lot of great new music by a lot of young and/or self-taught composers recently. (God bless the Internet.) I played a lot of new music by conservatory students while I was at school, from freshmen to senior recitals, and one complete opera. I was pondering the value of formal training to a composer.

Composition depends so much on individual imagination that it's easily possible for a completely untrained composer to write better music than a composer with multiple advanced degrees. But the skills you gain in formal training are very helpful; among other things, the composition students I've known gained a historical context for their work, they learned how to imitate various styles as a help to developing their own, and through learning harmony and counterpoint they tended to become faster at producing material since they could write down the sounds they wanted without as much guess-and-check (whether or not they were writing in common-practice harmony) and knew their way around more different kinds of ensembles.

Perhaps it's true that:
1. Composer X with formal training may or may not write better music than Composer Y without formal training.
And
2. Composer X with formal training will always write better music than Composer X without formal training.

What do you think?


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## StevenOBrien

In my experience, I think it's a huge asset for a composer to have an understanding of classical harmony/counterpoint/voice leading, orchestration, form, reading music, and probably most importantly, being able to critically listen to and analyse other music. It's not that these things teach you how to write better music, they simply supply you with good technique and an ability to present your ideas in a much more coherent manner, not to mention giving you the ability to write things with much more speed. The talent and the ideas need to be there in the first place though.

I never went to any university or conservatory. I'm entirely "self-taught" myself. If anyone's interested, I've compiled a list of all the educational resources I've found useful to me over the years: http://www.64digits.com/users/index.php?userid=Stevenup7002&cmd=comments&id=501037


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## Sid James

By today's standards, composers like Elgar and Schoenberg where largely self taught. My understanding is that Mozart was taught a lot/most things he knew about music by his father. It did not stop them from achieving what they did, indeed some might say they had some sort of advantage, avoiding academia which can be stifling to creative minds. However I think that getting a formal qualification in music is a good thing. & of course not that those two composers where self taught, they still learnt things and where up on the latest trends in music of their time, its just that they largely taught themselves, they did not go to a music school or study rigorously under a composer to do that. So they still got knowledge. & I think knolwedge is good, whether you get it through formal or informal sources. 

Maybe we need to distinguish knowledge from talent, but talent is much less harder to define than knowledge.

But I am speaking hypothetically as I am not a composer (nowhere near to that, I'm just a listener).


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## Jord

A lot of my friends are mere rock musicians, know little if not anything about theory. From hearing things they've written and play and so on it's easy to tell that the vast majority of them would only be able to play or write music for rock/metal, if you even mentioned things like sonata form, modulations, dominant, polyphony, counterpoint, the only type of harmony they know is homorhythmic harmonies (if that's what they'd be called) only in thirds, they wouldn't even understand how to explain or compose something in thirds, they don't know barely anything keys or scales. 

However i love Tim Minchin, and from watching interviews it sounds like he's had no training in music, got to grade 2 piano and quit, however he writes brilliant songs, also a slightly classical piece, very repetitive but still interesting (Peace Anthem for Palestine) so i guess if you're very talented then you don't need formal training

Although the majority of people who don't know anything about music or theory are condemned to writing songs with pentatonics licks that've been used 1000 times in almost all rock songs, claiming that people like Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan are geniuses, i'm sorry if you agree with this but personally i find this insulting to any composer/musician who knows anything about music and doesn't use terms like 'feel' to describe how good some guitarists are, when really they're just playing pentanoics to the 12 bar blues.

It turns out this has turned out into a bit of a rant, anyway, i apologise if i offended anyone, unless you're one of those rock musicians just described


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## StevenOBrien

Jord said:


> A lot of my friends are mere rock musicians, know little if not anything about theory. From hearing things they've written and play and so on it's easy to tell that the vast majority of them would only be able to play or write music for rock/metal, if you even mentioned things like sonata form, modulations, dominant, polyphony, counterpoint, the only type of harmony they know is homorhythmic harmonies (if that's what they'd be called) only in thirds, they wouldn't even understand how to explain or compose something in thirds, they don't know barely anything keys or scales.
> 
> However i love Tim Minchin, and from watching interviews it sounds like he's had no training in music, got to grade 2 piano and quit, however he writes brilliant songs, also a slightly classical piece, very repetitive but still interesting (Peace Anthem for Palestine) so i guess if you're very talented then you don't need formal training
> 
> Although the majority of people who don't know anything about music or theory are condemned to writing songs with pentatonics licks that've been used 1000 times in almost all rock songs, claiming that people like Hendrix or Stevie Ray Vaughan are geniuses, i'm sorry if you agree with this but personally i find this insulting to any composer/musician who knows anything about music and doesn't use terms like 'feel' to describe how good some guitarists are, when really they're just playing pentanoics to the 12 bar blues.
> 
> It turns out this has turned out into a bit of a rant, anyway, i apologise if i offended anyone, unless you're one of those rock musicians just described


I apologize for going off topic a little, but I really dislike your attitude towards rock musicians, and how you seem to be holding them to the same standards as classical composers (which are ONLY different standards, not higher or lower). I think you're missing out on a lot if you're expecting the same experience from a rock song that you're expecting from a classical piece. Try "rocking out" to a rock song instead of listening to it intently like you would listen to something by Mozart!

To me, it's like saying that "Sports cars suck because they can rarely carry more than 2 people! Mini-vans are where it's at!". Get a mini-van then, and let the people who want speed get a sports car! If you don't like speed, that's fine, but that doesn't make speed objectively bad!


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## Crudblud

*Regarding rock music:* It's worth noting that there are many technically accomplished musicians and composers working in and around the basic rock format, and the genre has strong progressive and avant garde traditions dating back to the 60s with bands like The Mothers of Invention, Captain Beefheart, and others through to the present day. What Jord may be describing, however, is the phenomenon of the teenage boy with a guitar who knows how to play _Smoke on the Water_ (or at least the opening riff) and _Wonderwall_ and little else, which I can confirm is actually a thing, but then I'm not sure it's a good idea to conflate a passing interest in strumming a few chords (with the ultimate goal of _getting busy_ with girls at parties) and the level of inventiveness that is observable in _Cacophony_, for example.

*As for formal education:* Back in my angry teenage years I was staunchly against music education, a position compounded by my woeful experiences with school lessons for guitar and piano in my first year at secondary school, and believed that people who took up formal studies were talentless and delusional. Over the years my position shifted considerably; I realised that while it may not have been necessary for me to have a formal education in order to do what I do (which is by no means in the western classical tradition) such training does benefit lots of musicians immensely. I still advise people, when asked how to get in to music making, to first go at it purely on their own initiative and imagination and see how it works for them, but I recognise why many feel it necessary to study in that way, especially if they are interested, as I'm sure many here are, in furthering a particular tradition, whether it be classical music or jazz or whatever else. I have no problem with any of that, but I think those people for whom that approach does not work should not be stigmatised as "mere" or "anti-intellectual", nor should the student musician be looked upon as a stuffy conservative lacking in talent.

Ultimately, music amounts to sounds connected within a temporal framework, that need only be the basic objective rule, I feel then that it is wide open to anyone regardless of their background or affinity for academic study.


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## Ramako

I am undergoing formal instruction for the present time... Of course I cannot appropriately value it without the benefit of hindsight. I can't say I'm learning a vast amount from my composition lessons, however I am learning about other stuff which I find very useful, particularly analysis.

Perhaps the most helpful, and most obstructive thing, is that I am in a musical environment where even in a harmony/counterpoint lesson I will have to justify my choices to my tutor. (cliche-warning) It helps give me a new perspective on the sounds I am using and forces me to reconsider my own ideas and to justify them to my tutor, but also to myself. It comes with dangers too, though. In particular I have found the desire to try and write something innovative for the sake of innovation has stymied my imagination - and I have to let go of this idea - if only because I am not original enough to come up with something like that. I am much better off following my own instinct and writing down what I want to write because I want to write it.


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## Sid James

Jord said:


> ...
> 
> However i love Tim Minchin, and from watching interviews it sounds like he's had no training in music, got to grade 2 piano and quit, however he writes brilliant songs, also a slightly classical piece, very repetitive but still interesting (Peace Anthem for Palestine) so i guess if you're very talented then you don't need formal training
> 
> ...


I love Tim Minchin too, but he did get an advanced diploma - so, a postgrad qualification - in contemporary music at West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, an institution I understand has got a high reputation as far as ones in the Southern Hemisphere go. His undergrad degree was a BA majoring in English and Theatre. But today's musicians, many of them are multidisciplinary, a fancy word meaning they cross boundaries beyond music. I mean this has been going on for ages, the late Elliott Carter actually majored in English and did some undergrad study in music, but most of his formal training in music was postgrad, esp. with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. So a lot of the barriers between music and other areas of the arts, and indeed between classical and non classical musics, are and have been broken down more and more in recent times.


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## Sid James

Ramako said:


> ...
> 
> Perhaps the most helpful, and most obstructive thing, is that I am in a musical environment where even in a harmony/counterpoint lesson I will have to justify my choices to my tutor. ... In particular I have found the desire to try and write something innovative for the sake of innovation has stymied my imagination - and I have to let go of this idea - if only because I am not original enough to come up with something like that.


As I said, I did not study music, but that kind of attitude was around in the discipline I studied as well to some degree. Depended on things like what lecturer you had as well. If I did not toe the ideological line of my lecturer, I could expect less than stellar marks. So too in my aversion and point blank refusal to use fancy words in place of simpler words that mean the same thing and you don't need a Phd to understand in the first place (thanks Mr. Derrida - NOT).



> ...I am much better off following my own instinct and writing down what I want to write because I want to write it.


Well I see it as not much different to some composers in the past. I see it as strongly linked to a clash of ideology of the teacher and student. In the past you had more conservative teachers trying to reign in their more adventurous students. But today, since all the rules have been broken, you got the wierd case of teachers advocating people to break the rules before they have learnt them in the first place. That was in my discipline to an extent, not in music. I think in music there is still an attempt by universities to pass on basic skills of the 'trade' of music. Of course, in areas like English, in the 1960's we threw out the baby with the bathwater, abolished explicit teaching of things like grammar. In recent years its been reinstated, you can't have people not being taught basic skills you need for life, work, further education, etc. You can't build a house on quicksand. But I'm digressing too much now so I'll stop.


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## Sid James

Crudblud said:


> *Regarding rock music:* It's worth noting that there are many technically accomplished musicians and composers working in and around the basic rock format, and the genre has strong progressive and avant garde traditions dating back to the 60s with bands like.....


I agree with that. But of course on a classical forum you will inevitably find people with a bias against other types of music. It goes with the territory in a way. Same as with say on a rock music forum, there will be people there who have a low opinion of classical. I mean even the great jazz trumpeter Miles Davis called classical to be **** (the 's' word) music, likening it to a sort of straightjacket compared to jazz. But of course not everyone likes one or the other, many people like both (not to speak of many other kinds of musics). I personally have enjoyed amazing music of many kinds/genres, although what's broadly defined as classical has been my main musical diet for the past few years. I see no use for putting classical above other types of music but if people want to do that, so be it. Its not surprising to get these sorts of views on a forum largely devoted to classical music. But I think music just has different purposes, and some musicologists agree with that.


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## tdc

I think every great artist at some point learns things from others (every person learns of course) 'formal training' is really just a more focused type of learning. So, logically in most cases I don't think formal training can hurt anything (unless of course one has a bad teacher) and in most cases I think it will improve an artist and/or composers skill set a lot but there are certain things in music that are hard to teach like (the dreaded word) 'feel', or 'talent', but things like this do exist and they are hard to teach. 

So, in summary I think formal training is in the vast majority of cases helpful and beneficial, but there will always be those instances of individuals with natural talent who are able to achieve with or without the formal training, and there surely have been some cases where an individual with lots of natural talent has been perhaps held-back or stifled somewhat, by a less talented but more formally trained teacher. That is why in my opinion it is good to take even a respected teachers advice with a grain of salt and to trust one's intuition, or in other words, take what is needed and leave the rest.


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## Jord

StevenOBrien said:


> I think you're missing out on a lot if you're expecting the same experience from a rock song that you're expecting from a classical piece. Try "rocking out" to a rock song instead of listening to it intently like you would listen to something by Mozart!


I've been listening to rock and metal virtually all my life, and i listen to a lot every day, i've got nothing wrong with rock musicians, but it's when they don't know anything about music, dismissing theory claiming that all they need is 'feel' (that's what most of the rock musicians say where i'm from anyway i don't know about everywhere else, i'd be fine if they could compose all genres with this 'feel' but they can't) also as i said before when they say that Hendrix and so on are the greatest musicians ever, but when asked why, they can't prove it, 'they just are'.

Also i think we should have to hold musicians of whatever they do at the same standards, because overall it's music and if you have different standards for different genres some might argue that Nicki Minaj is a genius, as well as Bach. 
(for those who don't know 




i sincerely apologise for posting this)


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## Crudblud

Jord said:


> Also i think we should have to hold musicians of whatever they do at the same standards, because overall it's music and if you have different standards for different genres some might argue that Nicki Minaj is a genius, as well as Bach.


What are these standards and from what are they derived?


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## aleazk

I have a very difficult relation with "formal systems of education". These systems were invented in order to make the learning process a little more systematic and then more effective. That's fine, in fact, I agree, some systematization is good, chaos can be inefficient. On the other hand, extreme formalization can kill the individuality and the imagination. This kind of "homogenization" of the students is also inefficient, and worse, segregationist for those who don't fit the canon. I think that's really a _tragedy_. As an university student (I'm currently specializing in theoretical physics), I think that, unfortunately, our systems of education are closer to the latter case. When I was an undergrad, I rarely attended the class. I liked to study directly from the books, myself, in home, at my own pace (which was generally faster than the pace of the class). My grades were excellent, despite this. But I had a lot of troubles and arguments with teachers, I generally did not like their "systems" or ways of presenting the material, etc. It was not a good time for me, and I ended in a depressive phase. What saved me, I think, was my curiosity and will for learning physics, which I love. 
In music, I see two possible cases. The student who wants to be a performer and the student who wants to be a composer.
In the first case, the most important thing, I think, is a lot of practice with the instrument and a very judicious teacher. A very frank but friendly relation between student and teacher is essential. 
For the composer, I think that a basic knowledge of music theory, music history and musical analysis is absolutely necessary. I think that one of the main inputs for a composer will come from the study and analysis of the scores and writings of the great composers. If you are a talented and intelligent person, you can do all this more or less by your own. On the other hand, it is recommendable to write many pieces and be conscious that these pieces are compositional exercices, not works of art. The capability for realizing compositional ideas is also a skill which improves with practice. I think that the advice of the teacher can be very helpful at this stage. In the case of the performer, I see it more difficult without the constant advise of the teacher.
In any case, I think that it's heavily linked with the personality. As you may have noticed, I prefer to work all by myself, but with a general guide from time to time with a teacher. I came across with some good teachers, and they know this. They said to me that this kind of things always happen (students which prefer to do the things in their own way, and students who get more involved with the teachers). These teachers said to me that it is the teacher the person who must adapt to the situation and not the student, in order to produce or activate a dynamic between the teacher and the student. Otherwise, each of them will be enclosed within their own idiosyncrasies.
So, to close, I think that the knowledge has advanced quite a lot, there's a lot to learn. Because of this, I think that it _is_ necessary to be involved in the formal systems of education, at least at the beginning of the process. You will learn many things, some things that you will need in the future and some others which are useless. The amount of knowledge is really vast, so I think that an involvement in the formal systems of education (in the first stages) is necessary in order to have a systematic first encounter with the subjet. Once you are done with the initial stages, the next steps are highly dependent on the personality, talent, and intelligence of the person. My advice, if you don't fit with the system, find your own way, because the system will not do anything to help you. If you are strong enough as to, simultaneously, follow your own way and the way the system wants, you will get your diploma and the doors will open for you. And, curiously, your idiosyncrasy, which is incompatible with the system, will be much more appreciated!. If you quit your formal studies, things will be more hard. But if you are very talented and stubborn, with a little luck the doors will also open for you. So, I think that talented people will always find their way, in general. 
Thorough study of the subject is, of course, a necessary condition for being good, but this is definitely not equivalent to have been involved (all the way) with the formal systems of education.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

^ that's easy the authoritative on this is either Music theory for Dummies or This is Spinal Tap....... if all else fails.


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## hreichgott

aleazk said:


> The student who wants to be a performer and the student who wants to be a composer.


Performance and composition are very different. I agree that classical performance really requires constant practice and long-term training with a teacher, whether attached to an institution of higher learning or not.


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## Ravndal

aleazk said:


> I have a very difficult relation with "formal systems of education". These systems were invented in order to make the learning process a little more systematic and then more effective. That's fine, in fact, I agree, some systematization is good, chaos can be inefficient. On the other hand, extreme formalization can kill the individuality and the imagination. This kind of "homogenization" of the students is also inefficient, and worse, segregationist for those who don't fit the canon. I think that's really a _tragedy_. As an university student (I'm currently specializing in theoretical physics), I think that, unfortunately, our systems of education are closer to the latter case. When I was an undergrad, I rarely attended the class. I liked to study directly from the books, myself, in home, at my own pace (which was generally faster than the pace of the class). My grades were excellent, despite this. But I had a lot of troubles and arguments with teachers, I generally did not like their "systems" or ways of presenting the material, etc. It was not a good time for me, and I ended in a depressive phase. What saved me, I think, was my curiosity and will for learning physics, which I love.
> In music, I see two possible cases. The student who wants to be a performer and the student who wants to be a composer.
> In the first case, the most important thing, I think, is a lot of practice with the instrument and a very judicious teacher. A very frank but friendly relation between student and teacher is essential.
> For the composer, I think that a basic knowledge of music theory, music history and musical analysis is absolutely necessary. I think that one of the main inputs for a composer will come from the study and analysis of the scores and writings of the great composers. If you are a talented and intelligent person, you can do all this more or less by your own. On the other hand, it is recommendable to write many pieces and be conscious that these pieces are compositional exercices, not works of art. The capability for realizing compositional ideas is also a skill which improves with practice. I think that the advice of the teacher can be very helpful at this stage. In the case of the performer, I see it more difficult without the constant advise of the teacher.
> In any case, I think that it's heavily linked with the personality. As you may have noticed, I prefer to work all by myself, but with a general guide from time to time with a teacher. I came across with some good teachers, and they know this. They said to me that this kind of things always happen (students which prefer to do the things in their own way, and students who get more involved with the teachers). These teachers said to me that it is the teacher the person who must adapt to the situation and not the student, in order to produce or activate a dynamic between the teacher and the student. Otherwise, each of them will be enclosed within their own idiosyncrasies.
> So, to close, I think that the knowledge has advanced quite a lot, there's a lot to learn. Because of this, I think that it _is_ necessary to be involved in the formal systems of education, at least at the beginning of the process. You will learn many things, some things that you will need in the future and some others which are useless. The amount of knowledge is really vast, so I think that an involvement in the formal systems of education (in the first stages) is necessary in order to have a systematic first encounter with the subjet. Once you are done with the initial stages, the next steps are highly dependent on the personality, talent, and intelligence of the person. My advice, if you don't fit with the system, find your own way, because the system will not do anything to help you. If you are strong enough as to, simultaneously, follow your own way and the way the system wants, you will get your diploma and the doors will open for you. And, curiously, your idiosyncrasy, which is incompatible with the system, will be much more appreciated!. If you quit your formal studies, things will be more hard. But if you are very talented and stubborn, with a little luck the doors will also open for you. So, I think that talented people will always find their way, in general.
> Thorough study of the subject is, of course, a necessary condition for being good, but this is definitely not equivalent to have been involved (all the way) with the formal systems of education.


I am very sorry if I'm offending you now but, i wish you could use paragraphs more. Its very difficult to read so much text without a chance to breathe or blink


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## Jord

Crudblud said:


> What are these standards and from what are they derived?


Well there aren't really i'm just ranting :lol:

what i'm trying to say is, it just really annoys me when artists or musicians get classed as geniuses or masters by people who know nothing, and all they've really done is played pentatonics to the 12 bar blues and in their eyes, that is what constitutes genius


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## Mesa

Pentatonics to a 12 bar blues. Definite and refined genius.

Of course King is an incredibly rare exception, but I'm struggling to see your point.


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## StevenOBrien

Jord said:


> Well there aren't really i'm just ranting :lol:
> 
> what i'm trying to say is, it just really annoys me when artists or musicians get classed as geniuses or masters by people who know nothing, and all they've really done is played pentatonics to the 12 bar blues and in their eyes, that is what constitutes genius


If someone can create something so great with so little, it only amplifies their genius in my eyes . Again, I think you're judging it by standards that the work never sought to achieve in the first place.


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## Jord

Mesa said:


> Pentatonics to a 12 bar blues. Definite and refined genius.
> 
> Of course King is an incredibly rare exception, but I'm struggling to see your point.


It's something we'll just have to disagree on then, good guitarist, good song, but i don't see how this makes him a genius at all, i wouldn't say he's a genius but someone like Joe Pass absolutely destroys King


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## Jord

StevenOBrien said:


> If someone can create something so great with so little, it only amplifies their genius in my eyes . Again, I think you're judging it by standards that the work never sought to achieve in the first place.


I guess so, but the problem is is that it's completely subjective, you might think they're making so much out of 3 chords and 1 scale but to me they're just using the same licks over and over again, phrased differently and different rhythms (one guitarist i hate the most, Kirk Hammett, somehow he's managed to use the wah pedal and the same licks every album of Metallicas career and people still worship him) i'm not saying i don't like it, it sounds great, but there's nothing that constitutes to genius in my eyes


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## Mahlerian

It may be interesting to note how much Schoenberg's style had already formed before he began studying with Zemlinsky.

Listen to the first song on this page, which dates from 1893, the year before he started lessons.
http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=439&Itemid=592&lang=de

Here's another example, a piece for violin and piano:
http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=260&Itemid=435&lang=en


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## Jord

Mahlerian said:


> It may be interesting to note how much Schoenberg's style had already formed before he began studying with Zemlinsky.
> 
> Listen to the first song on this page, which dates from 1893, the year before he started lessons.
> http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=439&Itemid=592&lang=de
> 
> Here's another example, a piece for violin and piano:
> http://www.schoenberg.at/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=260&Itemid=435&lang=en


That isn't Schoenberg is it?


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## Mahlerian

Jord said:


> That isn't Schoenberg is it?


Of course it is. Age 18 or so.

Here's the piece that got him the approval of Brahms a few years later.


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## PetrB

If you are innately talented and inventive / creative, no amount of formal education is going to turn you into 'an academic musician.'

If you want to stumble through, take five times as long to clearly grasp a working principle of music, composition, have 'gaps' in your knowledge all over the place, approach skills which must be built in a cumulative series instead randomly, and take at least twice as long to clarify your critical faculties, know what to look for or 'get into' the pieces you are writing, then teach yourself (some have no choice, by timing or economy.)

Formal education will not make you 'Talented' or 'Creative.' Those are innate characteristics which can be further guided: they cannot be 'taught.'

Formal study will give you tools for a lifetime and a much readier access 'in' to music, its inner workings, what to listen for, and how to better evaluate your work along the way in the pieces you do make.

Elgar, Schoenberg and Gershwin were primarily 'self taught.' One must add they were all 'genius,' as well 

The posit that Mozart was not schooled is preposterous... taught at home from infancy by a formally trained and professional composer father, trained in counterpoint at a school in Rome, some meetings with Haydn, are in total anything but an informal or 'self-taught' spectrum of study.

One look at the numbers of classical composers whose music we listen to, and how many of them were 'self-taught' tells you the value of formal training - whether at home, one-on-one study with a master, or within a more academic institution.

P.s. I should add that my 'formal training' in theory and comp was circumstantially 'engineered,' i.e. I started at a very small Junior College where the student-teacher ratio was such that it was more like a small group of grad students working with a master. When I transferred to the four year university, I managed to take theory and comp (the latter private lessons) from the same teacher -- almost an old world, 'not in the modern academic situation' situation. I too, would have bridled at feeling more subject to a non-individuated schedule in a larger and vastly more impersonal school: between circumstantial luck and will, I cut a state junior college and a seriously large four year state university 'system' down to an intimate almost private training.

Autodidacts often lack interaction with another of a different sensibility, viewpoint, and aesthetic. A basic harmonic procedure can be perceived of, correctly, from only one of many angles, or wrongly perceived and the subsequent materials studied then also skewed. There is nothing like another mentality, that mentality affected by having studied with other professionals, to expand and temper a student's range of thought.

It is truly only the most extremely rare genius who can, all on their own, absorb and understand the craft, most or all of its implications. 'The rest of us' can benefit more than a little from learning with and from others.


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## Jord

Mahlerian said:


> Of course it is. Age 18 or so.


That's awesome, i thought he was just an atonal composer.


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## Mahlerian

Jord said:


> That's awesome, i thought he was just an atonal composer.


He was a master of late romantic tonal music before he wrote some of the first music commonly called atonal (the final movement of the String Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor, the Three Piano Pieces Op. 11). On the other hand, some of his tonal works in the time leading up to that breakthrough (the D minor String Quartet No. 1, the E major Chamber Symphony) are extremely chromatic and some people can't tell the difference. If you haven't heard it before, listen to his String Sextet in D minor, Verklarte Nacht. Even people who hate Schoenberg's later music (or think they do) tend to love it.


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## arpeggio

*Frank Ticheli-Interview*

Link to a Frank Ticheli interview I posted in another thread. If are unfamiliar with it, check it out. He addresses many of the issues that have been raised in this thread:

http://www.talkclassical.com/23933-surviving-composer.html#post420694


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## hreichgott

Jord said:


> to me they're just using the same licks over and over again, phrased differently and different rhythms


Couldn't resist this reply. (Not intended as anything personal, and this is not a comment on the B.B. King performance.)


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## ricardo_jvc6

I am in the conservatory studying Piano, Music Formation and Composition. It gives me a boost and techniques to analyze pieces and compose my own stuff but that doesn't make me better than a person who hasn't any formation in Music Theory.


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## tonystanton

This is exactly what I need right now, thanks so much for posting.


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## kamalayka

hreichgott said:


> I've been listening to a lot of great new music by a lot of young and/or self-taught composers recently. (God bless the Internet.) I played a lot of new music by conservatory students while I was at school, from freshmen to senior recitals, and one complete opera. I was pondering the value of formal training to a composer.
> 
> Composition depends so much on individual imagination that it's easily possible for a completely untrained composer to write better music than a composer with multiple advanced degrees. But the skills you gain in formal training are very helpful; among other things, the composition students I've known gained a historical context for their work, they learned how to imitate various styles as a help to developing their own, and through learning harmony and counterpoint they tended to become faster at producing material since they could write down the sounds they wanted without as much guess-and-check (whether or not they were writing in common-practice harmony) and knew their way around more different kinds of ensembles.
> 
> Perhaps it's true that:
> 1. Composer X with formal training may or may not write better music than Composer Y without formal training.
> And
> 2. Composer X with formal training will always write better music than Composer X without formal training.
> 
> What do you think?


Why are you implying that self-taught = no knowledge of counterpoint and harmony?

I'm self-taught (by economic circumstances, not choice!) and I still work through traditional textbooks.


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## Sid James

Adding to the 'self taught' brigade - Elgar, Schoenberg, Gershwin - we got those who started study but didn't finish it - or finished it later, when maybe it didn't matter.

A cd I was just listening to of *Walton's* concertos says this about his uni years: "His Oxford career brought success in music but failure in the necessary academic tests to allow him a degree."

There was also *Erik Satie*, who started a degree in his teenage years, but only got to finishing it much later, in his late thirties, pushing forty. So he came back as a mature age student. By then, I'd guess the bulk of his music people today consider 'great' or significant or whatever had already been written? People can correct me on this, my comments on Satie are coming from memory, but I know he completed his studied under Vincent d'Indy.

*Harry Partch*, American microtonal composer, was also a drop out from music school. Not surprising since he went on to disown the entire Western corpus of music from Bach to Schoenberg. He got more out of studying antiquity than he did out of music, esp. the ancient Greeks, when he went to London. So he was pretty multidisciplinary & wide ranging in his insterests too. & like Satie, a true eccentric.

But what I'm saying is that around the turn of the 20th century the academies and conservatoriums of music where certainly conservative. No wonder many trod the well worn path to Nadia Boulanger in Paris (that was after WWI). She at least taught more modern and up to date techniques, whereas the academies where like jurassic.

However its significant that Satie completed his studies at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, which was always considered less conservative the the Paris Conservatoire. So there's those differences in institutional culture and pedagogical approach as well. Same thing today, no?...


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## PetrB

Formal training = formative training. That very short list of well-accomplished and admired composers who are all touted as 'auto-didact,' fails to mention all their study from 'formal' texts, consulting scores, and their direct consultations with highly experienced / expert players and composers, and all the rest.

The current wished for interpreted notion about those who are autodidact ends up being an arrogant paeon which might as well share the lyrics to the song "My Way."

Those famous self-taught composers were not without 'formal training,' they just did not get it through the avenues of academia.... any other take on it is wishful thinking, a bunch of proverbial hooey


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## Sid James

Just adding to the mix that its my impression that before the establisment of the conservatoriums and academies of music in the 19th century, music was like a trade. You had a kind of apprenticeship from a master of the art. It goes back to the middle ages, to when things where centred on the church. You certainly get a lot of composers starting off as choristers and then becoming conductors of choirs, then composers to the church (and courts).


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## PetrB

Sid James said:


> Just adding to the mix that its my impression that before the establisment of the conservatoriums and academies of music in the 19th century, music was like a trade. You had a kind of apprenticeship from a master of the art. It goes back to the middle ages, to when things where centred on the church. You certainly get a lot of composers starting off as choristers and then becoming conductors of choirs, then composers to the church (and courts).


Yep, like about every other skill-set or trade before the establishment of schools for the multitudes. Apprentice / study with a master, learning the skill / trade from the ground up.


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## Tomposer

Hello again everyone.

I think it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. There is some confusion because it's certainly true that not everyone needs a formal education in music in order to do really well at it; still the fact remains that for many other people, a formal education is an aid in learning music efficiently. As others have said, it by itself is nowhere near enough to guarantee "success" in any sense of the word, but it is undeniably helpful for many (I would say most) of us who have gone through the process.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

I still think the best approach is


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