# Should a composer be able to play everything (s)he composes?



## chillowack

I was reading a thread on another classical composing forum, in which this question was being discussed: does a composer have to be able to play everything (s)he composes?

For instance, in the case of a piano composition: if a composer composes a piece which is beyond his own skill level as a player, does that somehow invalidate, diminish, or weaken the piece, or the act of having composed it?

In the other community, the majority opinion fell squarely on the "no" side (i.e. a composer does *not* have to be able to play everything (s)he composes), and I wanted to get some input from composers here, to see if that view is generally agreed upon.

Personally, I also say "no," but I confess that I wonder if the classical composers of yore composed pieces beyond their own skill levels--or did a part of their immortal genius lie in the fact that they _were_, in fact, able to play every piece they ever composed?


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## Aramis

I would like to see Beethoven performing his symphonies on his own.

Hehe.

Good joke


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## nickgray

This is a most ridiculous thought. Composers are not professional players, at best they are competent with an instrument or two. Of course there are exceptions, but in vast majority of cases this is true.

Basically, if you write a symphony, does that mean you have to be able to play it? Absolutely ridiculous. Same thing goes for all other instruments and compositions.


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## MJTTOMB

Scriabin, my compositional idol, had miniscule hands, yet his compositions require monstrously large hands to perform. Scriabin could reach a 9th on the piano, while much of his work requires 10ths and 11ths at the very least.


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## SenorTearduct

I agree with NO... But I do believe they should hold the tools to discuess their works in an intelligent manner, like give reasons to their choices in their music, if anything that is the upholding stature for a composer... to know what you are doing.


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## Weston

I've often wondered how they know someone would be able to play their compositions if they themselves can't, but I understand Tchaikovsky was a mediochre pianist at best. I guess they just know the ranges of the instruments and have some idea of what is impossible.


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## chillowack

Very thought-provoking responses gentlemen, thank you for weighing in on this. Particularly interesting are the specifics about Scriabin and especially Tchaikovsky. It is both surprising and inspiring to learn that Tchaikovsky was but a mediocre pianist--that fact alone is a powerful answer to my question!

Composing music, then, is an art form distinct from (though related to) _playing_ music; and just as a world-class pianist can't necessarily compose, so it must also be true that a world-class composer can't necessarily play.

A very encouraging thought to me, since I myself am far from being a master pianist. Already my compositions exceed my playing ability, a fact which had begun to concern me--but now I feel free to move further and deeper into the realm of complexity, unhindered by misgivings about "hypocrisy" or anything like that.


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## nickgray

chillowack said:


> It is both surprising and inspiring to learn that Tchaikovsky was but a mediocre pianist


There's also an interesting fact about Berlioz: he actually never learned to play piano at all, his instruments were guitar and flute.


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## emiellucifuge

I must also stand on the No side.

Many composers are excellent performers on one instrument but this by no means a reason to stop them composing for other instruments eh?


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## Mirror Image

chillowack said:


> Composing music, then, is an art form


Absolutely it is. I'm a mediocre guitarist, I look at myself as more of a composer or as Copland said "an assembler of sounds."


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## Bach

chillowack said:


> Very thought-provoking responses gentlemen, thank you for weighing in on this. Particularly interesting are the specifics about Scriabin and especially Tchaikovsky. It is both surprising and inspiring to learn that Tchaikovsky was but a mediocre pianist--that fact alone is a powerful answer to my question!
> 
> Composing music, then, is an art form distinct from (though related to) _playing_ music; and just as a world-class pianist can't necessarily compose, so it must also be true that a world-class composer can't necessarily play.


However, it is important to note that the best piano composers were also great virtuosi. From Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov.. all virtuosi.


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## Mirror Image

Bach said:


> However, it is important to note that the best piano composers were also great virtuosi. From Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Rachmaninov.. all virtuosi.


Don't forget Saint-Saens and Bax.  Both men could seriously tear up some keys.


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## SenorTearduct

saint Seans is my hero


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## World Violist

I think that composing what one can play has its advantages for some--Rachmaninoff, for example. However, it can't be a necessary thing. I think it depends on who the composer is; what he/she can or can't play, whether it affects their compositional fluency, etc.

I for one just don't care.


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## Mirror Image

World Violist said:


> I think that composing what one can play has its advantages for some--Rachmaninoff, for example. However, it can't be a necessary thing. I think it depends on who the composer is; what he/she can or can't play, whether it affects their compositional fluency, etc.
> 
> I for one just don't care.


Love your avatar. It was only a matter of time before Britten hook, line, and sinkered you into his musical web. One of my favorite composers: "Ballad of Heroes," "Piano Concerto," "War Requiem," "Sinfonia da Requiem," "Simple Symphony," "Prelude and Fugue," "Variations on a Theme by Frank Bridge," and "American Overture" should all be played more.


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## emiellucifuge

Many great composers were virtuosi but then again many were not. 

Dvorak was a good violist, he played in the prague philharmonic under Smetana, but he was by no means virtuose. He wrote 3 concertos, not one of them for the viola.


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## Weston

chillowack said:


> Very thought-provoking responses gentlemen, thank you for weighing in on this. Particularly interesting are the specifics about Scriabin and especially Tchaikovsky. It is both surprising and inspiring to learn that Tchaikovsky was but a mediocre pianist--that fact alone is a powerful answer to my question!


Actually, I can now find no evidence to back up this claim. It was something I heard on a podcast about Tchaikovsky, but everywhere I look on the web claims he was an accomplished pianist.

Anyway, I'm sure you needn't worry to the point of stopping what you enjoy doing.


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## danae

A definate NO from me too, but that doesn't change the fact that a composer has to know all there is to know about an instrument before he/she writes a piece for this specific instrument. 

And there have been many cases in which composers know what can be done with an instrument better than the players themselves. Of course that mostly happens in the case of contemporary music.


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## chillowack

Weston said:


> Actually, I can now find no evidence to back up this claim. It was something I heard on a podcast about Tchaikovsky, but everywhere I look on the web claims he was an accomplished pianist.


I have read that Sergei Taneyev studied composition under Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory, but then later the roles were reversed, and Tchaikovsky took Taneyev's opinions quite seriously, even saying he "feared" them. In one story, Taneyev took one of Tchaikovsky's compositions and marked it up, whereupon Tchaikovsky decided it was "awful muck" and tore it to shreds.

What's interesting is that Taneyev is not regarded as one of the great composers--most people haven't even heard of him--while Tchaikovsky is legendary.


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## chillowack

danae said:


> a composer has to know all there is to know about an instrument before he/she writes a piece for this specific instrument.


If this were the case, no one would ever compose anything!

That's the whole point of the discussion, I think: you don't necessarily have to be a master pianist to compose a piano piece. It's possible to be a great composer without being a great pianist.

But I do agree that the more you know about the instrument, the more options you have for where you can go with your composition; and continuous study of the instrument can only yield benefits.


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## SenorTearduct

its funny how artist of all kinds no matter how great tend to flow to critics.... always wanting perfection even in subconsciousness


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## PetrB

Hector Berlioz ~ not a child prodigy, played 'adequately' only guitar, flageolet and flute.

Did not stop him from becoming a great composer or such an orchestrator that he is still known for that aspect of his music. He wrote a book on orchestration which is still recommended as an essential volume in a larger general study of orchestration.

So, answer to the Q?
NO.


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## GoneBaroque

When Benjamin Britten composed his Nocturnal for the guitarist Julian Bream Bream requested a change as Britten had him playing two notes on the same string together; so I vote NO.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Most of the things I have written I can't play.


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## Tomposer

It goes without saying that a composer won't be able to play everything they write (unless they somehow play every instrument). It's also important for a composer to anticipate what it might be like to play something without actually being able to.

On the other hand, I think these days the balance has swung way too far in the other direction largely due to compositional tools available on the computer.

Composers these days should ensure they still have a strong concern for the performability of their music for more than one reason. Firstly it has to be playable to get played, but just as importantly, understand the nature of the instrument you're writing for provides practical parameters which guide a composer's artistic and musical choices. Young composers who never stretch beyond a computer or text book sometimes lack that understanding, and their music is occasionally a little vacuous as a result.

Composition and _playing _music are two sides of the same coin - the production of music. So yes, a composer should seek to gain a practical understanding of instruments, either by picking them up his/herself or closely associating with performers whenever they can.


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## elgar's ghost

I wonder if Stockhausen ever thought of obtaining a helicopter pilot's license.


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## Moira

My vote is for no on the same grounds that a playwright probably can't play all the roles in one of his or her plays.

Music, like theatre plays, is multi-dimensional and to expect a composer to play everything would be like limiting the playwright to writing age and sex appropriate soliloquies.


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## Tomposer

Moira said:


> Music, like theatre plays, is multi-dimensional and to expect a composer to play everything would be like limiting the playwright to writing age and sex appropriate soliloquies.


Of course, and if we take the question in the title of the OP literally then the clear answer is "no."

However I think the more important consideration is that composers are best to gain an intimate understanding of instruments they aren't proficient at, or become closely acquainted with the way a performer relates to their instrument - this is the nuts and bolts of a composer's craft.

Put it this way, if learning about instruments in an exacting way is not the job of a composer, in order to be able to anticipate the framework of a composition, then whose job is it?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

elgars ghost said:


> I wonder if Stockhausen ever thought of obtaining a helicopter pilot's license.


For some of his other compositions I think he'd need a powerful rocket as well


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## chee_zee

an absolutely ridiculous notion, made even more ludicrous by our present time, the 21st century. An excerpt from minoru miki's book, this passage for the ryuteki: the notes with an X can be played tremolo or slurred at 138 bpm~, the notes with a triangle at 100". Wanna know everything and then some about bass that even some bassists don't know about?

Read bertram turetzky's contemporary contrabass (falsetto flautando?). Talking with performer's you'll never meet thousands of miles away? Internet. Face it, being able to run scales on a viola fast as lightning has nothing to do with writing for a 96 piece orchestra, or for writing a solo clarinet piece. Never has it become more useless and time-wasting to make a dedication to become a virtuoso at an instrument or a decent player at many instruments than now, for several reasons as briefly touched on above. Don't lie to yourself, it's not going to help you become a better composer, reading books, listening to music, transcribing music in as much detail as you can, talking with performers both online and in-person, that's 1000x more efficient than running arps on viola or piano. Nor will piano help with orchestration. there's plenty of books on organ registration, things that you wouldn't guess by just fiddling with an organ. a million monkeys, a million years, still no shakespeare.


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## Stargazer

I remember reading about one piano work that Schubert wrote...the Wanderer fantasy I believe...that he was unable to play after composing it. Apparently it caused him quite a deal of frustration!


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## Praeludium

chee_zee said:


> [..]
> 
> Never has it become more useless and time-wasting to make a dedication to become a virtuoso at an instrument or a decent player at many instruments than now, for several reasons as briefly touched on above. Don't lie to yourself, it's not going to help you become a better composer, reading books, listening to music, transcribing music in as much detail as you can, talking with performers both online and in-person, that's 1000x more efficient than running arps on viola or piano. Nor will piano help with orchestration. there's plenty of books on organ registration, things that you wouldn't guess by just fiddling with an organ. a million monkeys, a million years, still no shakespeare.


It's wrong, IMHO.
I'm convinced that to fully understand many very important things about music, you have to be able to work on an instrument/sing at least properly. 
Working on the tone, projection/presence, phrasing, articulation, rhythm and tempo, the structure of a work, and of course, having the music of the great masters of the past on your fingertip : how could these things not be useful ? Knowing about these things highlight just so many things about music.

Moreover, I have trouble understanding how you can write music to be performed without having yourself this physical and aural contact with the music.

edit: And I'll certainly be glad to be able to, until a certain point, rely on myself when I'll think about performing my works in concert. Maybe because I'll be the only one interested


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## chee_zee

knowing your own instrument has nothing to do with knowing other instruments. is this trill possible, what's the fingering, what's the range, what's the timbre of this register, is it the odd numbered partials that are louder or vice versa, is there a 'cut out' in partial 9-13 and 21-25? once again, you being able to play an instrument has nothing to do with the practical side of things, especially in the 21st century.

how is playing guitar hours on end every day going to teach you about the myriad reasons for nonfusion of a hichiriki and ryuteki? moreover, how will learning scarlatti on piano teach me the complex fingerings of the sho? why would putting low flutes and low oboes together not work real well, what if that wasn't my intended effect? well I don't know why that wouldn't work, I've been spending all my time with a metronome and triad arpeggios rather than deliberately learning composing. you can learn more by simply listening to music, transcribing, and reading, in 1 year, than you would in 6 quadrillion years practicing an instrument.


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## chee_zee

It's like saying you can learn to build boats, planes, cars, etc, by piloting them. you would indeed learn quite a bit over the span of countless years, but most of what you learn in that regard isn't from being at the wheel, it's from either reading up on your hobby or being told about it by those who have been at it longer than yourself,or from engineers. Think of formula 1, lewis hamilton might know a bit about how his car works, but he's the driver/performer, not the engineer/composer. no matter how many thousands of laps he does around the nurburgring, he should really be reading up on thermodynamics, aerodynamics, and basic physics should he not?


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## Praeludium

I think you have some heavy misconceptions about instrumental studies, chee_zee...
I've never been practicing hours of triads arpeggios with a metronome - those who do this kind of "work" are just *bad*/practicing the wrong way.
Moreover I wasn't suggesting all composers should be virtuosos instrumentalists, I just think they should be proficient - that corresponds to the level of someone who has a DEM or a bit much in France, which I guess correspond to someone who has a Bachelor in whatever instrument). That's something everyone can achieve with a few years of regular work with a teacher.

Your metaphor is interesting but not entirely valid IMO : a boat pilot don't have to care about phrasé, rhythm, tempo, etc. In other words, there's much more in common in writing and performing music than in building and piloting a boat. We should also take into consideration that music is an Art.

Now I agree that just performing won't teach you much about writing, and vice-versa. 
But they're complementary disciplines, the two faces of the same coin. We shouldn't forget that the (in my opinion, sterile and absurd) very clear separation between performers and composers is a product of the XXth century. 
Instrumentalists used to compose and composers used to be instrumentalists. Of course there were some exceptions - Berlioz wasn't a virtuoso, but he was teaching guitar, not all composers were virtuoso instrumentalists, but a lot were. I don't understand why today we're supposed to do only one thing properly. I mean, it's not even a matter of time. So, why ?

And, an other thing we forgot how to do is _improvisation_. It an Art has been forgotten by most of the instrumentalists of the XXth century, and I think that's why today we can see sooo much performers only playing the music of the others, and certainly as much composers who can't play music.
We perceive things like that :

Performing *I* Composing

when we should perceive them like that :

Performing <-> Improvising <-> Composing

About the theoretical side of composing, I don't understand what prevents you from working on this on the top of being an instrumentalist. It'd certainly make things even clearer IMO


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## chee_zee

only so many hours in the day.


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## mleghorn

It doesn't make sense for a composer to limit him/her-self to what he/she can play. I play the piano, but when I compose, I try to NOT compose with my fingers.


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## Tomposer

Of course a composer can't learn all the instruments or even a number of them to an expert level (usually) - this goes without saying.

But otherwise I'm with Praeludium. The link between being a composer and being an experienced performance artist is a little eroded at present, and the thing is it would do us good to work at that for a variety of reasons not the least of which is because associating yourself somehow in the chain of live gigging is a good way to build important exposure and make a living. Off the top of my head, at least part of the secret to the success of Steve Reich and Philip Glass (two notably successful American composers) is their drive to perform their own music.

Another thing about getting involved with performance (or even just _performers_) is that a composer can (re)learn that music isn't about a head in a book (or more commonly these days in front of a computer), but rather about group dynamics, having fun, sharing, trading and even stealing ideas (in a friendly way), etc, etc, etc, etc. There is so much value in this.

But probably the most important reason for a composer to learn about performing on an instrument/s is to build an intuitive and intimate understanding of the physics and practicalities instrumental practice entails - these apparent *limitations* are remarkably freeing for one's practice of composition - artistically and technically. You don't have to learn "all" the instruments to do this, but proactively seeking instrumental and performance experience has proven benefits.


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## Romantic Geek

Stargazer said:


> I remember reading about one piano work that Schubert wrote...the Wanderer fantasy I believe...that he was unable to play after composing it. Apparently it caused him quite a deal of frustration!


Schubert was not a very good pianist. He was decent, but would have had no career performing.

Last time I checked, he was a pretty damn good composer. And he wrote some awesome piano works.


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## juergen

This survey could be expanded: Should a contemporary composer compose in the traditional way, i.e. try something at an instrument and then paint the notes on paper or type them into a notation editor or should he/she use more modern methods, for example use software-based composition tools?


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## chee_zee

whatever process works for them. Personally, I think you should write for whatever instruments you are writing for to get the most idiomatic compositions possible. Too many small time film composers are too pianistic, they write something on piano and expect the orchestrator (or themselves using samples) to make it work. Very hard to make something pianistic work on say an oboe. If writing for oboe, why not WRITE FOR THE OBOE, not your piano..... 

as to paper vs software, moot point, but if you write it in software directly then you don't have to do so later, and writing by hand takes much much longer anyways. and if it doesn't for you, then you don't know how to use your software enough. even qwerty and mouse in sibelius is a thousand times faster, especially with the more instruments you are writing for. a lot of media composers, especially for film, will play something to say cubase or logic and don't even notate much, leaving it to the orchestrator. Again, not a fan of this, but it's fast and efficient. For someone doing it all themselves, it'd be worth it to:
master ear training
master your notation software
and then voila a streamlined process.


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## Praeludium

Juergen, I'm not sure if this is a little typo or whatever, but I think _a lot_ of persons first write without instrument and then use a piano or whatever to verify.

I like to write on paper. I can cross out, underline, draw, use colors, and there is a tactile contact I like to have. I tend to write not-so-properly (I can read myself, others have difficulties) and don't write out _everything_ (eg. if there is a pedal note, I won't write it until the end, and so on).

Even I, mediocre student (not even in composition at the moment), would lose something if I had to write directly on computer, using an ugly and sterile interface, directly typing a finished product.

But the point about efficiency is a very good one. I personally don't care about efficiency (Dutilleux seem to be a not so efficient composer !), and don't think I'll ever compose music for a living (even if I'm very serious about composing, I'd prefer to make a living as an instrumentalist and be totally free in my composing work), so I take my time and don't use anti-poetic devices q:

An other point against using notation software, which is more general, is that I'm a free man and don't want to be dependent of any software or software editor to create something. 
Dependence itself is fine and unavoidable until a certain point. But with a pencil, an eraser and some paper I'm free, with most of the softwares I already have a canvas. That's why I'm considering learning to use Lilypond, where you really do what you want.
That's the same mentality which makes me being very mistrustful about e-books, IPad, and so on. 
It's fine to have tools but I don't want to be dependent of them.


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## juergen

Of course, the usual way to compose is to sit at the piano and improvise until something useful comes out. But this method always leads to the effect that the compositions will reach maximum the level what the composer is able to play.

Composing through improvisation, that's what the composers of the past centuries have done long enough. If we continue with this method, I don't think we will hear anything substantially new.

The last century was marked by the search for composition options outside of tonality. I think this search can be considered completed. So, what comes next? What will be the future methods to compose be?


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## chee_zee

using all available methods, including atonality, piano improv, atonal piano improv, paper, software, paper and software. no reason to force yourself into one box unless it's jobwise you need to be really fast with software so there's no point in using paper. just use what you feel is easiest to produce your best work. although writing using an instrument is extremely limiting, you should be writing for whatever instruments are in the piece not getting ideas from some other instrument nothing like the ones to be used imo.


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## Tomposer

juergen said:


> Composing through improvisation, that's what the composers of the past centuries have done long enough. If we continue with this method, I don't think we will hear anything substantially new.


One of the defining things about recent art music is that there is a questioning of the very idea that we must always be progressing along some sort of ill-defined scale of perfection, and that one does this by continually and purposefully coming up with something "new".

We are now at liberty to look back upon the 19th and 20th centuries; it appears classical music was only an aspect of what was happening overall and not always at the forefront, as we can assess in retrospect... if we emphasize events like the "break from tonality" at the expense of looking at the history of recording, electronic music, jazz, rock and pop, we have a skewed point of view.

Let's keep things in perspective: Undoubtedly, sound of the 20th century is startlingly new, a fundamentally different sound to preceding eras, but by and large this is because of: recording; the digital revolution; commercially available electronic music production; a wider view of non-Western music; the advent of jazz, rock and pop. Contrary to what some of us were taught it is not especially because of the specific _intentions _of art music composers.

Let's be honest, many of the modernist's supposed innovations - the ones they consciously employed for the purpose of being innovative - atonality and total serialism for example, though they have no doubt had an important influence on many present-day composers and still live on in various contexts, have not in fact had the revolutionary and lasting impact that was predicted at the time by proponents and later by mid-late 20th century musicologists. Also consider that though electronic music fills a gigantic role in music of the 21st century, it is not principally in the way its academic pioneers envisioned - it only gained global significance when synthesizers where _commercially _produced, permitting relative mass consumption and a swathe of non-academic musical development.

So if we take only one lesson from this, it is simply that innovation is the less-than-entirely-predictable result of genuine curiosity. That is to say, innovation is the _result_, not the _process_. The latter may entail it, but not necessarily (even perhaps not usually) because we intended it.  So composers are much better to just get on with the actual job of making music, rather than casting themselves as something akin to a science fiction author or futurist.

Some people will derive remarkable results from their use of new musical processes while others will similarly become known for what they achieve with nothing but a pen and paper; the only thing is certain is that we can't say who they are going to be before they have done it.


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## juergen

Tomposer said:


> One of the defining things about recent art music is that there is a questioning of the very idea that we must always be progressing along some sort of ill-defined scale of perfection, and that one does this by continually and purposefully coming up with something "new".


I do not think we need to force progress. The progress comes naturally. I'm just wondering, in what general direction regarding composition techniques this will go. Computers have already influenced the way of composing and I expect, that this influence of computer technology will increase rapidly in the future. Today the people use notation editors, sequencers, virtual instruments. That makes it possible to simulate the sound of an orchestra at the computer what certainly has made people possible to compose, who otherwise would never have had the chance to do so.

Now we are about to reach the next step. Some very exiting things happen in this field and we will be able to use tools, which have implemented all the music theory knowledge of the past centuries and makes this knowledge available at your fingertips. Software, which helps you to find chord progressions, knows how to execute modulations, knows the voice leading rules, inserts passing tones and auxiliary tones where they should be, transforms phrases into every desired style, and so on. No more headaches from doing mental arithmetics, like: What modulation steps are necessary to reach the A flat major key from the F sharp minor key and how will it sound? Just let the computer do that, listen to the result and decide, if it is what you wanted. Heavenly conditions for a composer.

But the important questions are: Will then a composition have the same value as if it had been written by traditional means. And: If suddenly everyone will be able to compose, for example, a symphony at the level of Beethoven, how will that influence the value of Beethoven's symphonies?

The original question of this thread was: Should a composer be able to play everything he composes?
I want to expand this question: Should a composer have invented everything in his compositions himself?


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## chee_zee

that's just silly. first off, if you know how to compose then doing modulations aren't a problem, it's part of the artistic side of things as much as it is a part of the 'job' aspect. I doubt any serious composer would be using computers in such a manner to be frank. No composer has invented any more than 1 percent of all notes they have ever written, ever written a minor chord, or any chord? Ever written using a certain rhythm, motivic interval, etc?


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## mwd

I agree, composesr do not need to be able to play what they write, but they do need to appreciate what a given instrument is capable of. Listening to a concert harpist recently she explained that some compositions for the harp have had to be re-arranged as they were simply unplayable. Don't ask me to explain the technicallities but she was most convincing.

MWD.


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## chee_zee

did she mention any particular pieces?


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## juergen

mwd said:


> Listening to a concert harpist recently she explained that some compositions for the harp have had to be re-arranged as they were simply unplayable. Don't ask me to explain the technicallities but she was most convincing.


The harp is tuned diatonically and half tone increases are generated by pedals. Therefore one cannot create any combination of notes simultaneously.


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## chee_zee

I think it goes beyond that though, as that's something one picks up in an orch manual. who knows maybe it's for composers way back when that didn't have as good orch manuals as say adler or something and didn't know the intricacies of pedal work.


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## juergen

chee_zee said:


> who knows maybe it's for composers way back when that didn't have as good orch manuals as say adler or something and didn't know the intricacies of pedal work.


Or it happened to a contemporary composer who didn't use the right algorithms for the playability check


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## Tomposer

Experienced composers push past the boundaries of orchestration manuals because with interactions with players over time (usually different players of different standards) they get an understanding of what they can "get away with" based on practice rather than texts. They learn about the instrument at a level of intimacy so they can write difficult music which is nonetheless achievable by the performer.

This is the difference between a beginner and an experienced composer - the beginner might desire to write something which is difficult to play, but not understand how a performer will approach it, whereas a more experienced composer can consistently write tricky passages as they know exactly how the player is going to go about tackling it.

We've all seen virtuosic players shred pieces in a way which not only makes the player look good but also makes the music itself sound impressive. Skilled composers understand this, don't kid yourself  . So it only takes a couple of performances watching an skillful player struggle with a part you've given them, hence not sounding as good as they can sound thus not making your music sound as good as you thought it would, to understand why knowing about how a performer operates is very important.

On the flip side of the coin, knowing how to write for an ensemble of moderately skilled players, or for an event that you know in advance will not receive much rehearsal, etc, etc, is equally important as these situations impose their own set of considerations.

Here's an example... At the moment I'm writing music for a very highly skilled group, but I know my piece will only be one of a set which are all to be _memorised _in entirety by all members of the group. As I know that in advance, it wouldn't be judicious of me to write a piece which is difficult to memorise... eg., many and varied sections, many non-repeating patterns, etc. Why? Because I know they will make my music sound better if I supply them with something that is attainable. This "restriction" obviously has an effect on my artistic and musical choices in the composition, but I personally believe that's a good thing when it happens - it helps to direct the musical outcome and restrictions (as Stravinsky and others have pointed out) are usually a good thing for one's composition.


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## chee_zee

virtuosic passages are done on a per performance/performer basis, thus you won't really learn that kind of stuff even in university unless you're talking with a performer, rather than your prof.


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## Arabella

I also say, no.
The wonder of a composer is very different to that of a musician. 

Just as a violinist may not have been able to compose the piece he is playing.


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## Lenfer

I say no if they had to be able to play everything they compose it means lots of great work would never see the light of day. 

What happens if a genius composer who could play anything and everything a true virtuoso suffered a stroke or similar incapacitating illness or accident. If he could still write or compose via a verbal aid or having someone scribe for him/her would you stop them from doing so because they can no longer play it for themselves?


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## Tomposer

chee_zee said:


> virtuosic passages are done on a per performance/performer basis, thus you won't really learn that kind of stuff even in university unless you're talking with a performer, rather than your prof.


Hmmm... well, there are all sorts of things you won't learn from your professors which are useful for a composer; of these, most of them are gained via hands-on experience and interraction with players and ensembles. But when I said "virtuosic" all I really meant was any passage which is likely to challenge an advanced player. The point being that it is ok to write such passages, but if so it's best to have an understanding of how a player is likely to approach them.


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