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Sick of the egos and attitudes. Sick of crappy copy work and parts that are either unreadable or unplayable. It is all about *LOOKING* like a composer, or a playwright, or a poet, or a "jazzman" (seen that one a few times, too).

What sort of BS are they teaching these kids outside of how to functionally use melody and harmony, as well as understanding and writing ideomatically for the sundry instruments of the orchestra? When did "Phallic Expostulation" and "Poseur Hipness" become part of the degree plan?

When did what you wear to rehearsals of your music become more important than actually knowing your own score well enough to answer specific questions from your musicians become so commonly valued?

WTF is going on with that crowd?

Discuss…

See...??

Now that you're 60, you're not only full of hate, but you're grumpy, like me...

...but let me put up some charts and graphs that might be tangentially related to the topic, yet don't really demonstrate anything that anyone can truly embrace, meaningfully.

...but give me until tomorrow, ok?





compositions and clothing:
Buy that misguided clown a decent thrift store suit, and then challenge them to write a 64 bar piece for two alto saxes, a tenor, and a bari in D major that sounds like it makes some sense.

Supposing the circumstances arose, would you like to assume the role of composer?

If I had the desire to compose, I would compose. I am an arranger. I decompose.

Wade has done a lot of arranging and has proven that he is good at it.

I believe I have a knack for it, because I sort of challenged myself one time. I reduced the entire orchestration of Sibelius' "Swan of Tuonela" to an electronic keyboard with three string sounds and a volume pedal, a French horn, a bass clarinet, harp, a bass drum, an English horn, and a cello. Basically that ensemble sounded very close to the full orchestra version. I was sort of proud of that.

I really have no ideas regarding composition, and am in awe of those who are truly gifted composers. I'm also in awe of bowed string players.

In my “kollij” days I took two different orchestration/arranging courses. The two professors couldn’t have had more different philosophies on the subject. One was “ Always be aware of the extreme ranges of the instrument, the most effective range of the instrument, and the idiosyncrasies of the instrument. That way your piece will be more effective because your musicians will be able to play with confidence.” The other was “Don’t worry about your players. Instrumentalists these days perform at a very high level. They’ll figure it out.”

The Memphis Symphony has an arrangement of the Christmas Song that is arranged for solo soprano voice - or I suppose a male singer in a range (tenor?) that would work.
I've played it with them a couple of times over the years.
About 2/3 of the way through the arrangement, there's a key change that isn't in the arrangement - an inexplicable key change which was done by someone in the orchestra apparently, it's manuscript from then on, and then there's a tuba solo which is the melody of the second phrase of the bridge. It's way up in the stratosphere (even a half step higher with the key change). I think it might have an F sharp in it above the staff (at least).
There's time to pick it up and put it down, and - hell - I play it on my euphonium. I'm not going to screw that up on a Christmas show, and look like a dolt up there. Being a Christmas concert, everything else is on the big fat jolly tuba.

There seems to be a trend among some modern big band composers/arrangers to treat the bass trombone as more of a sound effect than a musical instrument. It’s like they heard someone splatting out a pedal D during warmup and thought, “Wow, how cool is that. I should put a bunch of them in my next chart.” I will play this stuff if I am pretty sure the check for that gig will clear, but I don’t find it particularly enjoyable. I guess I’m over 60 and grumpy too.

There is a story I heard many years ago. It belongs in the category of stories that are probably not true, but you wish they were. A Scandinavian orchestra was assembled to rehearse a (very) modern composition with the composer conducting. Apparently he had a hissy fit when he noticed there were only two horns. He went on a lengthy rant about the complexity of his harmonic structures, which could not be achieved without all four horn parts being covered. The principal horn calmly replied, “It is not a problem Maestro, we are both playing double horns.” Thus appeased, the composer nodded and began rehearsing.

bloke wrote: ↑Mon Apr 07, 2025 10:26 pm Now that you're 60, you're not only full of hate, but you're grumpy, like me...

I was reading an old article on Brian Ferneyhough and the New Complexity movement. He was talking about his 6th string quartet premiered in 2010: "If it gets played, that's fine, but that's not the goal."

The description from the article "His scores are hyper-dense, often pushing beyond the limits of human performance .... think multiple nested tuplets, irrational rhythms, extreme dynamics and articulation stacked on top of each other."

Personally I found it unlistenable - Maybe I am old fashioned but I actually like melody.... Once a composer or any artist puts their art ahead of the audience it all falls apart.

That is crap produced by someone who wants to look like a composer but who lacks any sort of original inspiration or talent. He is a fraud, a poo-flinging monkey who shames his audience for calling out his "art" for being the poo flinging it is.

He needs to look into driving a truck or perhaps welding. He has no business writing music at all, ever. His twaddle is not an intellectual product, but more of an exercise in seeing how F-ed-up you can make a Finale file and still make it printable. He is a moron. He is not a musician. He is certainly not the brilliant gem he thinks he is.

Clearly you just don't understand it

Last year (March 2024), I played Michael Tippett's 4th Symphony.
I seriously doubt that any of you have played it.
It's not even programmed by "big" orchestras.
(The internet lists four - TOTAL - performances, and the one in which I participated is one of the four listed...two in England, and the Chicago Symphony/Solti - which/who commissioned it)
It's wild...two tuba parts...
(The 1st tuba is probably intended as a euphonium part. I tried it out at home on euphonium, but it's also LOUD, and it was easier to play loud ENOUGH with the F tuba...I don't recall anything higher-pitched than G-or-so above the staff, so...)
ALL the parts are wild...The horn parts (in one portion of it) feature WIDE arpeggiated pitch CLUSTERS - 12-to-the-bar at a not-slow waltz (nearly: "in one") tempo.
I could "hear" it...I "got" it. I played it WELL. I'm not sure it was "worth" it.
It's one of those (have these become trite?) "birth-to-death" pieces.

' very difficult to play; ' very difficult to put together... only three rehearsals (and other stuff on the program)
I was "proud" of the orchestra for the accomplishment, but I'm not really sure what we actually "accomplished".

having taken two composition classes, one at IU with Bernhard Heiden and one at SUNY Albany with someone else, and seeing what is coming out of the composition department at the U of Az here, I decided that there is a culture associated with the more modern composers. I am not putting Heiden in this mix, however. The culture is to write structured noise, and that is what gets the grades. I'm sure some manage to write music anyway, but when I wrote music for the class at SUNY, I was basically told it wasn't what was expected. When I did a joke of "writing" something that was a structure with blank spaces (no staff even) where an instrument was waiting for the other instruments to make noise based on a geometric pattern (I was already an engineer and didn't know it yet) --it was welcomed with open arms as finally I was "getting it." I dropped that course. At least here at the U of A, students are learning how to structure a piece, although the very few I am familiar with do not sound like music to me; someone with actual musical talent could possibly learn something from that study here.
When I took composition classes, I expected it to be like taking English composition, that is, start writing something small and learn from there, but I found it was not like that. You were supposed to have already written things and then bring them in for criticism. Kind of like the "use more air" and "play the sound you hear in your head" methods of teaching brass, instead of how to actually play the instruments.

I recently played Journal by Richard Rodney Bennett, the film composer. It is a serial work that is not even a good example of the genre. If there is a good example of the genre. The conductor actually told the orchestra, "If you find yourself playing with someone else in the orchestra, you are in the wrong place.".

Guess what? The audience hated the piece. Maybe not as much as the orchestra though.

The piece was written in the 1960's and, as far as I could tell, has never been recorded and the only record of a performance I could find was the year it was composed.

Many years ago, I played a piece that in one measure had a percussion note with the explanation "strike bell of tuba with mouthpiece".

Bolero sure wasn’t a fan piece of the orchestra members when I played it last month.

As for composers’ attire, I thought a sports coat and blue jeans was the way to spot a composer in the audience. When did this change?

I've never had a negative experience with Bolero, having sat through quite a few performances from the back of the orchestra.

Everyone in the orchestra is interested in all the soloists and all the ensembles playing the melodies really nicely, and everyone's rooting for everyone else to do their best.

Additionally, I like taking the bass line to another level with the tuba, towards the end - bouncing what the basses have been doing forever - ultimately - off the back wall of the hall...ie. suddenly the bass line is loud, then it's louder, then it's loudest, then it's louderest...

Okay, I've been through the college F tuba solo stuff just like everyone else (and - every once in a while - I'm still asked to play some of that stuff in a mixed instrument orchestra sponsored recital), but I also have a really strong background in playing in different kinds of bands and combos, and I'm just as much into the "bass" thing, if not more so. Plus, no one gives a crap about F tuba solos, at least according to the attendance at recitals...
... Mama, girlfriend, studio teacher, boyfriend of accompanist waiting to take her out later, and maybe a couple more...

back to Ravel:
The last time I played it, the principal bassoonist impressed the hell out of me. They handed the solo off to the second bassoonist and covered both sax solos - one after the other - with only a couple bars rest in between them. They used Legere brand (forgive me for not inserting the accents) clear plastic reeds, so they wouldn't need to be wet, and played like an angel on both saxes, then went back and continued with the second bassoon part.

I like the Bolero. It is an excellent vehicle to show off all the principal players with the same comparative material. If you have played it enough you do not have to count all the measures of nothingness, but just sit and enjoy the experience.

I am afraid my initial post makes me out to be a "new music hater". I am not. I have played in several "new music" ensembles, and my orchestra has played many highly contemporary pieces. It is just that MOST composers are actually com-poseurs who are weak musicians in the first place. These are always the ones who come off like people are too stupid to understand their brilliance and talent, when all I wanted to know was what they were hearing in their head when they wrote two pages of rolled chords in my part. "YOU'RE OBVIOUSLY TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF WHAT I AM TRYING TO SAY IN THIS PASSAGE!"

Elaine once called Kramer a Hipster Doofus, which is the best way to describe some of these arrogant children.

The percentage of truly terrible, idiot composers is the same as the percentage of any terrible, idiot players on any instrument. Most are not. But few are truly great, and almost none are pro-level enough to ever be "remembered" after they die. Most are average, workaday people who write music that will probably never be published, and it is, much of it will only rarely ever be performed. Just like us: Some are idiots, some are jerks, and most are okay as both players and people. A few will become famous (in context, of course), and a very few of us will be remembered for our work after we die.

It's funny how nasty some composition students can be to the folks taking time out of their lives to read, prepare, and perform what is frequently embarrassing to have to play when these people are doing it as a favor or are hired at something far below the going rate because someone called in a favor.

Be nice to you players, especially if your music is the same dense, brainless twaddle most kids think is profound art.

Thanks goodness we have so much genuinely good music coming from genuinely good people.

@the elephant Bolero was an OK piece, just the rest of the orchestra didn’t seem to care to play it.

My undergraduate professor, who is also a composer, who you may have gone to school with at NTSU/UNT said a phrase while I was there that I have continued to share:

“I’m sure it sounded good on finale”.

I think this is the case of a lot of music today. I am a big fan of new and modern music too—it just has to be idiomatic.