Composing the Music I Want To

I can be highly critical of my own artistic endeavors. I think this comes with the territory, and to a certain extent I think it plays a necessary role in achieving true satisfaction with the end result. When I was in grad school, I found myself adopting an interesting measuring stick to critique my compositions. It wasn't about the sound of a piece so much as how intelligently written it was, how sophisticated its construction, or how innovative its techniques.

I still like some of those pieces a great deal, but the truth of the matter is that most listeners won't be evaluating how marvelously intelligent I am to have written that piece of music. And they probably aren't going to spend a great deal of time considering how intricately woven all of its musical elements are. Most of them are honestly listening more than anything else for whether or not they like it. Does it hold their attention? Does it please them on some level? Do they remember anything about it once the last note has been played?

I find myself in an interesting process now of conceptualizing music for potential use in television and film productions. Although the time I allow in my life for composing is at this point a fraction of what I would like to spend, when I do have the time, there are a few ideas already taking on flesh in my mind. I'm not worried so much about how intelligently written, sophisticated, or innovative they will seem; on some level, I am just assuming that they will be all of those things because of who I am. My primary goal, though, is to create effective and evocative music. It's something that requires much less intellectual critique and allows for much more rampant creativity. And it's actually quite a bit of fun.

Context for Composition

I've been working on a piece of music, and I am frustrated by the same doubts that usually creep in while I'm writing. It's almost like I am two people, one composing and one critiquing over my own shoulder. The composer side is making judgments about the expression of the piece, the nuts and bolts of pitch and duration and intensity, the precision of the notation. I can be fully engrossed in the sound I want from the performers and how best to communicate that with markings on a page.

And yet, the critic side still finds a few brain cells to tap into. And his argument is almost always the same, although he disguises it from time to time for variety. It boils down to: This music isn't intellectual enough. Which, of course, reduces to: You're not a good composer. Actually it's "I'm not a good composer," but putting my critic in the third person seems more natural. In actuality it provides an illusion that an objective outside party is drawing the conclusion.

The argument doesn't even make sense, but it seems to when it comes from my own mind. I blame graduate school. There we listened to famous works of art music that I had never heard performed live, and we dissected the construction of these pieces and how effective and brilliant they were. But they almost never get performed except at music schools, because however brilliant their construction, they aren't appealing pieces of music to most people's ears. I truly enjoy listening to some of these pieces, and I have most of my favorites on CD. But I have to admit that most people I know wouldn't choose to sit down and listen to this "brilliant" music.

In combating the critic, my response to myself is to create context. I do not compose so that a bunch of music students might be able to dissect my work in fifty years. I do not compose to show anyone how smart I am. I do not compose because my job demands that I produce something, regardless of its quality, in order to get tenure. I compose because I have something to communicate, and music provides a graceful and engaging vessel for that communication. Recognizing why I do what I do takes the critic's bite away. He doesn't ever really shut up, he just sounds much less convincing.