# Performance satisfaction from composition



## Lunasong

"Composition is an act of faith. While most composers strive for artistic excellence in their work, music also serves to communicate. Without willing players and attentive audiences, any composition is merely a complex set of instructions. Every piece of music, whether new or historical, is a testament to its composer's faith in the partnership among composer, performers, and audience."
David P. Sartor, contemporary composer and 23-time ASCAP Plus award winner.

My interpretation of this statement is that composers write with the intention that their work will be performed *by* others *for* others. One of the more difficult aspects of composition to find a conductor willing to perform one's piece. Sartor comments, "I often tell people that, to a composer, an entire season filled with the works of the dead is the same feeling that a performing musician gets when he/she is replaced with a pre-recorded orchestra track in a live show. Not an exact parallel, but the end result is lost opportunity and, in the case of composers, a public that increasingly believes that "classical" music is all historical and no one is composing it anymore."

If you document your piece via MIDI and upload it to Soundcloud or YouTube and elicit comments, is the satisfaction the same as having it performed live? I have to believe not, because it's not the communication and involvement intended from composition.


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## andre

Lunasong said:


> "Composition is an act of faith. While most composers strive for artistic excellence in their work, music also serves to communicate. Without willing players and attentive audiences, any composition is merely a complex set of instructions. Every piece of music, whether new or historical, is a testament to its composer's faith in the partnership among composer, performers, and audience."
> David P. Sartor, contemporary composer and 23-time ASCAP Plus award winner.
> 
> My interpretation of this statement is that composers write with the intention that their work will be performed *by* others *for* others. One of the more difficult aspects of composition to find a conductor willing to perform one's piece. Sartor comments, "I often tell people that, to a composer, an entire season filled with the works of the dead is the same feeling that a performing musician gets when he/she is replaced with a pre-recorded orchestra track in a live show. Not an exact parallel, but the end result is lost opportunity and, in the case of composers, a public that increasingly believes that "classical" music is all historical and no one is composing it anymore."
> 
> If you document your piece via MIDI and upload it to Soundcloud or YouTube and elicit comments, is the satisfaction the same as having it performed live? I have to believe not, because it's not the communication and involvement intended from composition.


Dear sir,
For you maybe not, but I have as a singer, producer, writer, a lot of fun in here
and 2 CD's online!

Greetings from andre


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## PetrB

Midi and even the best of instrumental samples is a virtual very far cry from live and real. 

There is absolutely no substitute for real / live. There is very little satisfaction in hearing one's work in a midi realization - other than it may confirm you 'were hearing what you thought you wanted to hear' when you were writing it. 

Unless you are extremely knowledgeable and practiced with midi, very real problems of acoustic balance will not show up until the work goes to real players in a real acoustic space - which often results in shocking disappointment for the young composer with little experience of having works played live.

One composes first for oneself, if there is consideration for 'others' those first in line are those who will be performing the work, for if you do not engage the musicians the chance of engaging the listening public is nil.


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## BurningDesire

I have had a couple performances, or attempts at performances, and the experiences ranged from nightmarishly frustrating to bittersweet. I tried to get one of my first pieces performed and got several of the musicians working on it, and they had it down pretty good, but when I gave the piano part to another student friend (I was going to play the electric guitar part and try to lead the ensemble), he was asking me if I had written in "wrong notes" or "wrong chord spellings", like I must have made a mistake (the part was idiomatic for the piano, his fuss was that the chords just didn't jive with him). I told him that the reason the chords aren't complete sounding is because there's also four saxophones and an electric bass playing other notes of those chords. He never practiced it, and never showed up to the few rehearsals I could scrounge together, and sometimes when I tried to work with him, he revoiced the chords, and I had to tell him that the piece wasn't a jazz chart. The piece wound up not getting performed, partly because he was a flake.

The pieces that did get played live were good learning experiences, and I really loved hearing my music getting played. The only frustrating thing is that there were mistakes, some which were pretty bad (and its made far more frustrating because these musicians are professionals, professors, some with their doctorate). One of them couldn't perform techniques I called for (flutter-tonguing, and portamento glissandi on a clarinet, which I don't think are _that_ outlandish to ask for), another was a guitarist I think never even looked at the score before the reading, and some others... well it felt like they viewed playing my piece was a chore they were being forced to do (they volunteered their time for this) and it was just a very uncomfortable atmosphere.

Still, I am happy that some of my music has gotten played, I'm just a little wiser to the sometimes lacking abilities of performers (and I can much more relate to the frustrations of so many composers, from Beethoven to Zappa)


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## Crudblud

People can't play something instantly and 100% correctly, people need to eat, people need to sleep, people *expect to be paid*. My computer can play it instantly, the music can be modified on the fly and it won't complain, and it doesn't ask for much in return. I'm thinking of marrying it.

But seriously...

I have had none of my work performed, but I think the key difference here is that I, unlike many of you, do not come from an academic background. Much of the exciting new music I was exposed to before I started listening to classical music again (I listened to the popular stuff a lot as a child) was very DIY in aesthetic, and I realised partially through that and partially through the synclavier works of Frank Zappa, that it was possible to create fully engaging musical works 1) without "proper" training, and 2) on a computer.

I find unadulterated satisfaction in working with the computer because I am able to craft every minute detail of the music and know that it will be reproduced with total precision. I understand that almost any fault is my own, through this I am forced to become better so that I might use the technology to an increasingly greater extent with each new session. I feel that I have more control over the eventual result than I would if taking a score with the communication of vague ideas like "allegro" -which as we all know can be interpreted any number of ways by many different musicians- and handing it to someone else whose technical limitations and understanding of certain terms ingrained by their tutor's own understanding dictate the nature of the finished product. I am simply not comfortable with someone else having that level of control over my work. I'm more than open to collaboration*, but when the idea is mine and mine alone the work must live up to the ideals I have in mind.

tl;dr: There is nothing more satisfying for me than having a tool which can perform my music with absolute precision each time. While I have great respect for anyone who participates in the making of music with honesty and integrity, I am the arbiter of truth as regards my work, and there is simply no room here for anyone else.

*a friend and I have planned some 50 albums together, to be recorded sometime in the future


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## Praeludium

I guess that it's one of the advantage of being an instrumentalist as well as a composer (and it must be even better when you're a kind of Liszt. Being a conductor could be useful, too.). When I'll feel ready to say "I'm a composer here's my piece", I'll still have the possibility to perform my music myself (if I write for guitar). That's a quite reassuring thought (if I don' think about how hard it is supposed to be to get concerts scheduled).

It seems to be quite a odyssey to find good and skilled musicians to perform new pieces (let's not talk about _great_ musicians...). It seems quite unfair since I guess that composers who have tons of "friends" find a way to be at least correctly played and others slave away.

But I wouldn't be surprised if composers were also a part of the problem. If more composers were proficient instrumentalists, I'm sure this would make the things easier. 
Also, I'm under the impression that there is a trend among the serious composers to write extremely hard stuff (it's possibly related to the previous point). As a guitarist, most of the contemporary pieces I can think of (not counting mediocre music by guitarist composers) are freaking hard. It's okay when you're Hans Werner Henze, Toru Takemitsu or Tristan Murail. But shouldn't relatively unknown and young composers be a little more reasonable ? I'm not sure all the composers think about the hours and hours of hard work that their piece will bring to the instrumentalist.

I tend to compose my pieces not even expecting them to be played (even though I don't write impossible stuff at all). It can be a quite depressing feeling if you think about it. But I feel a great pleasure when I'm in the process of composing as well as when I finish a piece (once in a while...), and I know I make progress from these (study, despite the fact that they're still like little parts of me) pieces.

Doesn't having your pieces played is as frightening as rewarding ? I'm asking here. The only experience I have is my harmony teacher (who's mainly organist) playing a little piece by me on the piano for an harmony exam where you can present personal projects. Even with this little piece it was quite stressful lol


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## Ramako

I have had a few experiences of my works being played.

First of all, I have written small, mostly piano, works, which I have no intention of being played _for_ others, but only _by_ others, which have been tremendously fun.

I have had short pieces for large pieces performed by skilled musicians for concerts, and these have been extremely exciting. There were some mistakes, and some high notes for trebles I probably shouldn't have put in sounded a bit like screeches, but really they were pretty successful overall.

On the other hand I have had some somewhat less successful performances, where the first movement was taken about half as fast as it should have been...

A composer does their work in their small dark room (or whatever) well before things get played. But still the excitement I feel as a composer when my piece is about to be played is much greater than instrumentalists', except perhaps soloists, I think. My work has already been done, but still I have to rely on the other musicians to get it right. Even so it is worth it.


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## BurningDesire

Praeludium said:


> Doesn't having your pieces played is as frightening as rewarding ? I'm asking here. The only experience I have is my harmony teacher (who's mainly organist) playing a little piece by me on the piano for an harmony exam where you can present personal projects. Even with this little piece it was quite stressful lol


I've had several pieces played, but only one in a true concert performance setting. It was very scary XD I was scared for the performer, because I knew several bits were giving him trouble, and I was just scared about having something very personal being out there for people to hear it. I had been somewhat unhappy with the piece for awhile, so I was anxious that I wouldn't like it, even played on its proper instrument. But overall, the performance went well, even with the mistakes (the bits that I knew he wasn't gonna be able to play already, and one time the sound distorted with feedback, but this didn't harm the performance much).


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## Lunasong

Thank you very much to the composers who have responded. I think it is quite interesting that some of you get as much (or more) satisfaction out of an electronic file as you would out of live performance of your works. I am not a composer, but the mother of one, and I have watched him get extremely nervous at the performance premieres (wind ensemble) of his pieces, and what it's like when the performance isn't as expected. He writes using Finale and it does always "sound" better on the file playback than live, but I don't think anything beats the excitement and immediacy of live performance.
.
There is much joy in the journey (the process of writing) as well.


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## aleazk

Generally, I compose my piano pieces on the piano and usually I play them, even if they are somewhat difficult, since I have a good piano technique (I'm mainly a pianist). Because of this, I have the possibility of working details proper to the sonority of the piano. On the other hand, I have only one 'orchestral' piece, for a chamber ensemble. The process was very 'theoretical', I didn't even use the piano to set up themes, etc. I don't think this piece will be ever played, since I'm not a professional at all, it's just the work of an enthusiast. I compose just for my entertainment and it's nice to actually hear the piece, even if it's just a computer's realization. I have a 'real sounds pack' installed in the program sibelius and it sounds really nice in certain occasions. That's enough for my current aspirations.


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## Crudblud

Lunasong said:


> If you document your piece via MIDI and upload it to Soundcloud or YouTube and elicit comments, is the satisfaction the same as having it performed live? I have to believe not, because it's not the communication and involvement intended from composition.


And you get to decide what other people intend when they compose something?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

I have had quite a few of my works performed by performers of varying skill from novices to musicians studying in conservatories and playing in professional orchestras. It is _much_ better hearing a human's interpretation although a computer realisation is better than nothing. I agree that music is written to be performed by others for others. When I see a whole concert season filled with music that doesn't go any more recent than Strauss I do get a feeling of lost opportunity. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has an annual "Metropolis New Music Festival" and often programs contemporary music as part of their regular concerts throughout the year which I think is excellent as long as in the regular concerts the pairing of old and new music actually makes sense because there have been times where a very dissonant, atonal work by Brett Dean does not fit with Beethoven's sixth symphony. Victorian Opera also programs a world premiere every year which is also great. I fully agree with what Mr. Sartor says about the partnership among the composer, performer and audience. Without it, music is hardly anything at all.


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## Lunasong

Crudblud said:


> And you get to decide what other people intend when they compose something?


I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "you" in this statement. The performer? The audience? It is the performer's job to interpret as exactly as possible the composer's intention. It is the audience's job to decide what is meant, which may have a lot to do with their previous exposure to the type of art form, program notes or other external supportive "clues," what they ate for dinner or who is attending the concert with them, etc.

That's why some people listen and review saying "I liked that, it was pretty" and some can go into rather more detailed analysis. The most important thing any composer can do is engage the listener in some way so that they at least feel something.

"Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, I expect you not only to master music; I expect you to save the planet. If there is a future wave of wellness on this planet, of harmony, of peace, of an end to war, of mutual understanding, of equality, of fairness, I don't expect it will come from a government, a military force or a corporation. I no longer even expect it to come from the religions of the world, which together seem to have brought us as much war as they have peace. If there is a future of peace for humankind, if there is to be an understanding of how these invisible, internal things should fit together, I expect it will come from the artists, because that's what we do."
Karl Paulnack
(if you have never read this entire address, please take the time to do so now.)
http://www.bostonconservatory.edu/music/karl-paulnack-welcome-address


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## Crudblud

Lunasong said:


> I'm not quite sure what you mean by the "you" in this statement.


I mean you. You said "If you document your piece via MIDI and upload it to Soundcloud or YouTube and elicit comments, is the satisfaction the same as having it performed live? I have to believe not, because it's not the communication and involvement intended from composition." This suggests to me that you think there is a universal "intention" among composers that does not vary from person to person, which is clearly not true.


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## paulc

Only one of my compositions has been performed live, so far. For piano, clarinet and voice.

Live performance beats the hell out of MIDI!


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## Lunasong

Crudblud said:


> I mean you. You said "If you document your piece via MIDI and upload it to Soundcloud or YouTube and elicit comments, is the satisfaction the same as having it performed live? I have to believe not, because it's not the communication and involvement intended from composition." This suggests to me that you think there is a universal "intention" among composers that does not vary from person to person, which is clearly not true.


You've made a fair statement, as I agreed with the quoted composer that composers would prefer to hear their works performed live, and that is obviously not universal.

The universal intention among composers who either upload their music to be heard publicly or have their music performed publicly by live performers is to be heard by others. The desire comes from wanting to share the music that comes from within oneself with those outside oneself. Is the satisfaction the same no matter which medium is used? My understanding of your response, which is as valid as any other, is that your satisfaction comes from, to the best of an electronic medium's ability, being able to exactly reproduce your intent. I know you currently share your work and you intend to share it on a greater scale in the future.

The public performance of the work, whether electronic or live, is communication. The missing element in the electronic version is the participation of live musicians, which creates a huge risk of variation from composer's intent. One of the reasons the Beatles stopped performing live is they could no longer reproduce what they created in the studio. I'm in no position to judge if they were as satisfied with their songwriting, based on the elements of communication and involvement, in their later years as their earlier, when they had girls screaming and fainting at their live performances but not really listening to the music. The Beatles certainly showed continued growth in craft.


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## Crudblud

Lunasong said:


> The universal intention among composers who either upload their music to be heard publicly or have their music performed publicly by live performers is to be heard by others. The desire comes from wanting to share the music that comes from within oneself with those outside oneself.


Then we agree. I must have simply inferred the wrong meaning from your original post. Sorry for the confusion.


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## Krisena

I've had three string quartet pieces performed by a string quartet. The compositions themselves were experiments in different things, one with tempo, one with harmony and one with instrumentation. The experiences I made were that harmonies that give me a certain colour in midi, give me a different colour when played live (I'm a synesthete) and that muted pizzicato strings and harmonics blend incredibly well.

In regards to the harmonies, I'm a synesthete bear in mind, what was a strong and intense colour when played on midi instruments, became a mild, almost invisible violet and green when played live. Simply beautiful.

And about the instrumentation piece, through-out, I play with going back and forth from muted pizz and harmonics (transparent) to clear pizz and and normal bowed tones (opaque) interchangably, always going back and forth, and in the climax, everything is suddenly opaque, meant as a major dopamine burst for the listener, and it worked so perfectly I had to give a whistle for the players.

To be able to _create_ these colours and surprises, in short: experiences, is what drives me as a composer. So I guess I compose first and foremostly for myself. I don't have any noble ideas about communication, because it is dissolved in other people's minds anyway, I simply create the music that doesn't exist yet and I want to hear.

I've also done some arrangements for minor ensembles which have been well-recieved by both the musicians for being fun to play both musically and technically and by the audience for being kind of beautiful.


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