Earth to Composers
Kyle Gann has a message for teachers of music composition who try to dictate musical style to their students. "Earth to composers: the 20th century is over!" And that goes for you, too, Elliott Carter!
Even the ever-tolerant Mr. Gann has his limits, however.
UPDATE: In the comments, Steve Hicken pointed out I was one T short of an Elliott, and I've fixed that now.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
7 Comments:
If you're going to trash somebody, you should probably spell his name correctly.
Seriously, though, I have two thoughts on these issues to share.
I. Isn't stating "Earth to composrs: The 20th century is over!" prescriptive?
II. Mr. Carter's telling a new student he's never going to make it as a composer is unforgiveable, w/o doubt. So is walking into a teacher's studio and telling him his life's work is "played out and pointless".
I beg to differ, mr. Hicken.
1) Stating that, essentially, "free your mind from one track dogma and dictation", is not, despite language, an actual demand in the same way as "write like this"- is.
Your argument could be extended to say that demanding that someone to be free (in any sense of the word) is just continuing their enslavement (i.e, its just another demand on them that dictates their life). But this, my friend, doesn’t hold any water, so neither does your logic, despite language.
2) A new composer's ego is fragile (probably) They need encouragement to achieve. An established composer, such as Carter, should be shaken up a bit, told to modernize (ha!) and renovate his music. He has an ego that can handle it, im sure, especially if he thinks he's so correct.
I have no problem with confronting bullies, musical or otherwise!
I completely agree with the original post, however.
The man i've studied with privately, Brian Cobb, is young, and certainly free-thinking in his approach to music instruction. I appreciate his voice and his suggestions, he points out things to do, he focuses on the positive, he criticizes constructively- and never has he been dogmatic in style. I imagine that with any teacher like carter, i would end up in a heated argument (though i do enjoy debate! so that might be fun for me)
I agree, up to a point. That point is this--when somebody says "The 20th century is over" it is reasonable to infer that they mean that you shouldn't use the techniques and ideas associated with that century. Local hegemonies aside, the 20th century was damn pluralistic.
Fred, I too noticed that little moment of prescriptiveness in Kyle's anti-prescriptive prescription!
What "the twentieth century is over" might mean is not that twentieth-century styles are over but that the twentieth-century habit of turning music into politics (are you with us or against us) is over.
That's one of the worst sentences I've ever written.
"That's one of the worst sentences I've ever written."
Then there's no hope for me.
But when i read the post, i didnt see it as an attack against atonal technique, so much as the dogmatism and, as it was said, the "with or against" mentality of modernism.
I much prefer to simply act as if the twentieth century never happened. With the exception of the blues/jazz traditions, anyway. If every "serious" composition by every "serious" and well known composer were to magically vanish overnight, I think my iTunes library would lose less than two dozen tracks (I have some Copland and Penderecki in there, but that's it).
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