This new structure is changing the economy of music as noted by Alexandra Topping:

“Even though users of streaming services are not necessarily buying more music, the industry benefits by learning more about fans’ tastes. Steve Purdham, CEO and founder of We7, a music streaming service and download store, said: “They may not buy an album, though they have that opportunity, but you can sell them tour tickets and a T-shirt of their favourite band.”

A similar trend in literature is discussed by Motoko Rich and Brad Stone in the NY Times (”A New World: Scheduling E-Books“):

No topic is more hotly debated in book circles at the moment than the timing, pricing and ultimate impact of e-books on the financial health of publishers and retailers. Publishers are grappling with e-book release dates partly because they are trying to understand how digital editions affect demand for hardcover books. A hardcover typically sells for anywhere from $25 to $35, while the most common price for an e-book has quickly become $9.99.

Amazon.com, which sells electronic editions for its Kindle device, has effectively made $9.99 the de facto price for most best sellers, a price that publishers believe will reduce their profit margins over time. Barnes & Noble, through its Fictionwise arm, also sells best sellers in e-book form, for $9.95.

This is not all bad news, as publisher margins are higher on e-books because Amazon currently takes losses. Again, the game is to discover the best way to make a profit in a changing market.

There’s recognition all around that this trend is just beginning and that there is still a strong demand for physical CDs and Books. Right now, the only question concerns where this is all headed.

I still am curious as to what is driving this change. Is it the obvious answer that consumers are not willing to pay the prices? If that is the case, does that mean that these artistic products are no longer valued? I’m not entirely sold on that as consumption overall is not decreasing, merely changing. Is it perhaps a result of competition both in terms of distribution and production, i.e. more sale points with vast amounts of new products. That seems somewhat more likely to me at the moment. However, if that is the case, that would suggest that the market is hurting itself (which seems plausible).

This trend is particularly fascinating for me because I find myself affected at both ends of the spectrum. On the one hand, as a composer, I would want the market for music sales to remain strong so that the production of new music may be compensated in a way that makes its creation reasonable. On the other hand, I consume music in much the same way as the first article suggests; I don’t purchase many CDs any more (possibly due to current financial conditions), but instead peruse music in the non-commital ways provided by such services as YouTube and online streaming radio. That said, I would hate to see the demise of the album!

Update: More predictions on the future of e-art ask the question “Does the Book Industry Want To Get Napstered?”

One likely source of inspiration is that a similar generator; in the case of composers, another composer. One composer with whom I studied, Nikola Resanovic, made it evident that he drew some of his inspiration from other musicians; namely, The Beatles. He made no attempts to hide such inspiration, but rather made it evident with occasional titles such as “Igor’s Pet Walrus” alluding to the source of a harmonic progression (as well as components from Stravinsky). It became apparent, however, that such preferences leaked into his music even when he hadn’t necessarily consciously intended to do so, e.g. preferences for particular progressions typical of pop music, and became part of a wonderfully engaging personal style.

Another source of inspiration might come from the materials with which a composer works. Brandon Paul, a student at The Ohio State University, published a study on the music of Einojuhani Rautavaara. Paul’s observations regarded the symmetrical nature of Rautavaara’s music around an axis that is largely the result of playing piano and the symmetrical positioning of one’s hands. The interesting revelations of the study, however, come with the discovery that the non-piano music also conforms to the same sorts of patterns. The language that was developed due to physical limitations in one medium, spilled over to create a unique style in all media.

My current impetus for thinking about the subject of inspiration came when I read about Satie’s daily routine during the period when he moved to Arcueil, 10 km outside Paris. He made nearly daily returns to Paris on foot, when according to Templier, “he walked slowly, taking small steps, his umbrella held tight under his arm. When talking he would stop, bend one knee a little, adjust his pince-nez and place his fist on his lap. The we would take off once more with small deliberate steps.” His consistent routines were marked by periodic stops at street lamps to jot down some music.

This habit becomes interesting in regards to an observation made by Roger Shattuck during a conversation with John Cage in 1982, that “the source of Satie’s sense of musical beat—the possibility of variation within repetition, the effect of boredom on the organism—may be this endless walking back and forth across the same landscape day after day… the total observation of a very limited and narrow environment.”

In the case of Satie, a habit that is not particularly inherently musical, yet permeates the daily life of a composer, becomes a source of stylistic inspiration.

Surely every composer is in some sense inspired by not only what is heard or played, but also lived.

Whereas I have written before in defense of live performers (“Who Needs Performers?”), I found the recent attacks on performers who used pre-recorded music rather lacking in substance. In particular, the 2009 inauguration performance and the national anthem at the 2009 Super Bowl were written about by Eric Felten in the Wall Street Journal in an article titled “That Synching Feeling”.

Here are some of the reasons offered by performers as to why they would use pre-recorded music:

• This occasion’s got to be perfect. You can’t have any slip-ups.
• The slightest glitch would devastate the performance.
• There are too many variables to go live.
• The performers care too much about their art to risk presenting something substandard.

On the flip side:

• This led the musicians to deny who they are as performers.
• There is something pitiful and pitiable about musicians hobbling their own voices.
• What is art without risks?
• An opportunity for glorious exertion and vitality was missed.

If I were to be coming to this argument for the first time and read these two lines of reasoning, I must say that I’d probably have to agree with the decision made by the performers.

The arguments made by the performers addressed the marketable situation in which they were involved. They were hired on the basis that they create apparent perfection on a regular basis. This impression is enhanced by the recording industry that expects and delivers flawless (i.e. edited) recordings. Nevertheless, this expectation exists and must be addressed. If not, such a flawed performance would surely make the internet (as it actually did in the case of the Inaguration).

Taking a look at the arguments made by the other side, I am left with more questions than answers. “What is art without risks?” Good question; perhaps we should pursue an answer. What is the “something pitiful and pitiable about musicians hobbling their own voices”? What does it mean to deny who you are as a performer? What sort of “opportunity for glorious exertion and vitality” was missed that was not at all possible when in the recording studio for the pre-recording?

These are, in fact, questions about the value of live performance that must be addressed. I think, however, we musicians would be hard-pressed to offer a response to the public value of the market. If most of the audience is going to be watching via the internet, then who cares on which day it was performed? I think it is time for us to learn more about our audience and their expectations so that we can address their needs while at the same time pursuing ours.

Two quotes, in particular, stood out to me as calls to composers in regards to their work:

I regard my talents as God-given, and I have always prayed to Him for strength to use them. When in early childhood I discovered that I had been made the custodian of musical aptitudes, I pledged myself to God to be worthy of their development, though, of course, I have broken the pledge and received uncovenanted mercies all my life, and though the custodian has too often kept faith on his own all-too-worldly terms.

-Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues and a Diary, (London: Faber, 1968), 125.

Here, Stravinsky elegantly describes the work of a Christian composer; gifted with talents by God, but still human. It speaks directly of the role of steward that the Christian plays to produce much with what we are given. It also recognizes directly the fallibility of humans and the limitless mercies of God.

[Secular-religious music] is inspired by humanity in general, by art, by Übermensch [superhuman], by goodness, and by goodness knows what. Religious music without religion is almost always vulgar.… I hope, too, that my sacred music is a protest against the Platonic tradition… of music as anti-moral.

-Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Conversations with Igor Stravinsky (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959), 142.

Stravinsky is also weary of composers of “religious” music that is essentially secular. Simply using a religious text does not make a piece religious. Stravinsky elsewhere suggests that “Christian” music is not truly religious unless it is composed by a “Christian” composer. This suggests that it matters what is in the heart, not merely by the outward workings.

What a challenge does Stravinsky pose to Christian composers!

The author paraphrased Jared Diamond’s book Guns, Germs and Steel with a list of factors that may be the most important factors in whether an orchestra will present a new work:

1. Is there an economic advantage to the orchestra for doing so?
   Will the new work make us money? Will we get grant moneys, film contracts or payment by the composer or patron?
2. Will the orchestra gain prestige?
   Will the orchestra get recognition, be reviewed, be honored in doing the work, receive greater attention? Will their music department be honored? Will the teacher?
3. Will the new work contribute to the the value of the present repertoire or detract from it?
   Will introducing yet more music into the market decrease the value of the present holy lexicon of works which is the stock and trade of the orchestral industry or put it out of demand?
4. How immediately will these advantages be realized?
   Without investment—or as little as possible—will the orchestra be rewarded soon?

Why has this not become a major discussion among composers? Let’s get the ball rolling!

“The DJ is the custodian of aural history.”
—Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky

There has been a back and forth of influence between popular and serious music throughout the ages. One of the best known examples is the use of the popular tune “L’homme armé” as the basis for over 40 separate “Missa L’homme armé” from the Renaissance.

Going the other direction, much of the progressive rock movement was an attempt to elevate rock to a more credible level via classical influences. Notable examples include King Crimson, Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Soft Machine and Emerson, Lake and Palmer.

One of the interesting notions of the 20th century is post-modernism that happened in one way or another in both realms nearly simultaneously. The idea of quotation, or reference, music seems to be pervasive in both worlds to a great extent. A quick glance at composer bios frequently shows comments related to pop, rock or jazz influences that are sometimes very apparent. Composers such as Berio took literal quotation to a whole new level with his Sinfonia with musical quotations of Mahler and text quotations of Lévi-Strauss and Beckett.

References and quotes are almost the modus operandi of the popular realm. Rap and hip-hop would almost be non-existent if it were not for the use of sampling.

DJ Spooky sparks some interesting thoughts with the DJ posed as a “custodian of aural history.” Is that a fair statement? I would say so, with some qualifications. Sampling tends to include music from all realms, including classical. In this sense, it is much more inclusive than much of the classical version of quotation music. Jayson Greene wrote an article in Stylus magazine in which he listed the Top Ten Classical-Music Samples in Hip-Hop. Angus Batey referenced this list as he argued that Hip-hop is not inferior to classical music.

The qualifications I suggested would include such matters as the fact that within the DJ realm, all classical music will likely be in reference to popular music, and not the other way around. To me that is a bit limiting. On the other hand, where else can aural history be wrapped up in such a neat little package as Nas’”I Can” (Beethoven’s F&uumlaut;r Elise)?

Although Sol LeWitt died last year at 78, one of his biggest installations, Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective will open to the public soon, at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts and be on view for 25 years. LeWitt hired a number of artists to execute his ideas over the past several years, including the time after his death.

LeWitt was one of the pioneers and masters of the “conceptual art” movement. For him:

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art. — Sol LeWitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art“, Artforum, June 1967.

This much I am on board with. As a composer, I find there is usually a point about a third into each piece or movement that I write where I notice that the conceptualization is complete and it is just a matter of executing the remaining notes on the page. In a sense, once the ideas are there, they can—in a sense—take care of themselves.

Where I took issue with the report was when one of the artists began to compare the roles of conceptualizer/executer (my terms) across disciplines. For example, LeWitt (conceptualizer)/hired artists (executers). Also architect (conceptualizer)/construction worker (executer). Then came: composer (conceptualizer)/performer (executer). With this I can simply not agree.

Composition and performance, to me, are two separate arts. Both require conceptualization and execution. A composer must come up with original ideas (conceptualize) and work them into notes on a page (execute). Performers must determine an interpretation (conceptualize) and then practice long hours in order to be able to perform successfully (execute).

I’m not sure where the disconnect is, but I suspect it may be related to the public not being quite sure what a composer actually does (see Classical Music’s Marketing Problem). Perhaps, if the public could recognize the dual role of conceptualizer/executer for both composers and performers, we may move a great deal forward in our reconnection between listener and artist.

Since the nineteenth century, analytical studies and discussions about music often have arisen either explicitly or implicitly from organicist roots. In its most extreme form, the organicist model states that in order for a work to have aesthetic value, it must have arisen from a single musical idea or concept.

This was perhaps the most beautifully worded summary of so many of the discussions I have been a part of in recent days. Here, I will illustrate only a few.

Schenker’s theories have been a central topic of interest among my colleagues in recent days. There are some postulates of his that everyone seems fairly willing to accept and others which are either so limited as to be of little value or simply seem inaccurate. One such agreement is the idea that a Schenkerian understanding of a piece can positively inform performance. A disagreement lurks around the dubious explanation for the Neapolitan chord.

An interesting middle ground (no pun intended) is the question of the status of the major triad as the “Chord of Nature” from which all true music flows. Composers may be fairly ready to agree to the concept of the compositional task as the resolution of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of music (harmony, melody). Much less likely is the possibility of finding a composer who wants to suggest that everything comes down to the major triad.

The question then becomes, is it possible to retain a majority of Schenker’s postulates while electing to reject the major triad as the only fundamental sonority? How much of modern music could be explained in such a light? How many composers think this way? To me, this is an area of introspection that deserves more time from composers today.

Another opportunity for such a discussion came up at the 2008 SMT/AMS National Conference. Joanna Demers presented a paper on “Noise, Silence, and the Microsound Movement.” This is a field that posits the smallest musical unit as a single sound wave (or some such small measurement.) Interestingly, this area of composition came from the popular realm of hip-hop.

Not surprisingly, this type of music tends to be very quiet: almost inaudible. The listener is not to raise the volume, but rather to lower the volume of the surroundings so as to be able to better focus. This music has also been termed “Glitch Music” as many of the sounds resemble mistakes more than they do traditional music.

A question arises with the premise of the Microsound Movement in regards to the smallest musical unit as it relates to music. The man who coined the term “microhouse” also said, “[Glitch] notes, pulses, and textures bear no immediate relation to the world around them, to a language of melody or tonal narrative…”

Such a view does not seem at all foreign to a compositional market that values electronics, but clearly it does raise some new questions. I haven’t made any decision on the subject of the “smallest musical unit” or what a “single musical idea or concept” might be; nor am I sure that I will have to make such a choice. For now, I am enjoying the conversation and look forward to continued discourse!

One tenet that keeps sticking out in my mind as I read is the connection between analysis and performance in Schenker’s mind. Perhaps he takes it a bit far to suggest that there is only one true performance of each piece, or, even more so, that performance is superfluous to the music that exists in the score. He does, however, demonstrate that performers can lead the listener through each piece by performing an analysis (not the literal graphs that so many recognize, but rather the resultant understanding.)

Benjamin Zander, a leading interpreter of Mahler and Beethoven recently spoke on TED.com about Classical music. I think he expressed much of what Schenker intended in a humorous, yet powerful way. He takes the audience through “performances” of the same piece as played by a young piano student who progressively gets better. The student begins by placing emphasis on every note; then beat; then measure, phrase, then… they quit lessons. These students generally leave their studies right before being able to demonstrate the direction of the music by only emphasizing structural goal points. I think Schenker would be proud.

Granted, Schenker’s theories traditionally pertain to a limited selection of music of which Brahms is emblematic. Theorists, however, have been feverishly working for years to bring his thinking into the music of today (as are some of my colleagues.) If nothing else, I think this principle of direction in music can, and should, be carried forward. I have heard plenty of awful performances of new music that use emphasis not merely at the the measure- or beat-level, but at the pure note-level. How, distasteful! I think there is a call for performers of new music to find the direction and then, only then, perform.

This does not get composer’s off of the hook. We can not leave the performers to flounder in a murky sea of notation. Rather, it is our responsibility to at the very least compose a sense of direction into each piece. Even better: we can make it obvious. I understand that not all compositions must have direction (i.e. soundscapes and the like), but for those that claim to be “music” in the western tradition, I hardly think that this is an option.

I recently read a passage written by The New Yorker music critic, Alex Ross that made clear to me the value of these enormous stylistic differences. In preparations for translations of his popular book The Rest is Noise His task was to include all quotes in their original languages in order to obtain the best translation. Here is an example:

“Il y a trop de musique en Allemagne,” Romain Rolland wrote, back in the heyday of Mahler and Strauss. Something was lurking, the French writer suspected, in these humongous Teutonic symphonies and music dramas—a cult of power, un “hypnotisme de la force.” Germans themselves recognized the demonic strain in their culture. During the First World War, the not yet liberal-democratic Thomas Mann wrote a manifesto titled Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, in which he praised all the backward German tendencies that he would later come to lament in the pages of Doktor Faustus. In the earlier work, Mann states that die Kunst “hat einen unzuverlässigen, verräterischen Grundhang; ihr Entzücken an skandalöser Anti-Vernunft, ihre Neigung zu Schönheit schaffender ‘Barbarei’ ist unaustilgbar…”

To me, the text is enriched by the insertion of original-text quotes. How better could one understand the content or ideas behind these statements than to look at the words that were used to describe them.

On the other hand, there are those authors that use foreign words without necessity. T. Maretic, the great Croatian linguist, formulated the rule, “Do not use unnecessary foreign words, that is those for which good substitutes can be found in the vernacular.”

The parallel to music is nearly direct. The use of one style within the context of a different style may be extremely beneficial in order to best express the intent of the composer. It may simply be that what must be said can only be expressed a particular way.

Back on the other hand, Maretic may have said, “Do not use unnecessary foreign styles, that is those for which good substitutes can be found in the familiar (i.e. first-employed) style.”

For this, I am thankful to have so much to draw on. Like no generation before, composers today have endless possibilities. So, how multi-lingual can we be?