At 1:08 PM -0800 1/30/05, Lon Price wrote:
The problem starts at the college level. Performance majors are so busy learning the established literature that they have no time to devote to a new student work, or at least that was my experience when I studied composition at USC. If the composition was technically difficult, requiring a lot of rehearsal time, which a lot of new music tends to be, no one seemed interested in investing the time and effort it would take to learn it. It seemed to me that composition students tended to "dumb down" their music in order to get it played. I refused to do that, so the only piece of mine that got a performance was the aforementioned orchestral piece.
So writing music that is accessible and playable is dumbing down? Which means that complexity and difficulty equals quality? Forgive me, but that does not compute. I don't know your work, Lon, and it may be terrific, but aren't you describing everything that went wrong during the 20th century in the shrinking world of "art" music, where most composers have to have day jobs? Find a market. Compose for that market. Or don't; it's your choice.
John
-- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
