In the website I lead, Harp Spectrum, we have an article about composing for harp, and it ends up with a plea for all composers to show their harp music to a harpist before publishing it. i recently gave lots of tips to a young Greek composer who emailed me his music, and to a rather prolific writer of band music from Detroit, I think, whose music writing program, I found, was full of mistakes especially regarding pedal charts.”

The Harp Spectrum article can be found here, and is a great primer for those new to the harp.
http://www.harpspectrum.org/harpworks/composing_for_harp/composing_for_harp.shtml

Your post has started quite a thread over at Sequenza21, Ken – many in the same vein as Elodie’s.

-Rob

Thank you so much for your comment.

There are two separate issues here that I think you’re responding to. One is the fact that there are always forces and people who are resistant to change, like my recalcatrant board members. That’s just life, and I try not to let it bum me out- at least they give money!

As far as the hyper-structured nature of the orchestra, I’ve struggled to find my peace with it as a conductor. I hate watching the clock. My other great love in life is quartet playing. In my old quartet, if we needed more time on a piece, we would often rehearse on later or just agree to meet sometime the next day or even later that day. The clock was only for starting rehearsals, never finishing them, except to gently remind us that we all had other gigs and commitments. Whatever the program, we would add whatever time it took to be ready when the concert came.

Orchestras are different- the time is painfully finite, and the trains have to run on time- you have a duty of trust with musicians, board members, the owners of the hall and many others, that means you have to start and finish on time, and not just start rehearsals on time… One must issue rehearsal schedules on time, finish bowings on time, order music on time, send out season ticket brochures on time. …

So….. How do I live with it? My non-musical love in life is hiking. More than once, I’ve gotten caught out at the end of the day, racing a setting sun to get back to camp. Orchestra life is always a day hike- there are only so many hours of sunlight in a day, and for an orchestra, a day is a concert sequence. You may want to hike an entire 35 mile loop, but with experience and knowledge of the difficulties of the path, you may realize that 15 miles is long enough, and if the terrain is hard, 5 is plenty. Working in orchestras means knowing how many hours of sunshine you have, and picking the path accordingly.

The guidlines don’t say not to do this or never to do that, only to know that everytime you use a creative form of notation or a non-Italian tempo marking, the sun continues to move overhead, and eventually it may start to set before you’ve gotten where you want to go.

I don’t dare call myself a composer, but I’ve written music since I was a little kid. If someone told me to write a 14 minute wind quintet by Tuesday in the key of F# minor or a 47 minute twelve tone piece for string orchestra by the end of Feb, I could do it. The more limits and parameters I have to work within, the more creative I feel, and the same is true for writing words….

Thanks again for your writing!!!!!!!!!! I hope you’ll not give up on orchestras- they can do marvellous things with that limited time and that terrible structure.

Ken

thanks for such a fantastic post — I am just starting to enter the world of professional groups, sending out scores, interacting with conductors, etc — one shy toe in the water at a time — and have often felt the “kid alone in a big forest full of unknowns” type of feeling.

Your article is going to be printed and hung on my wall. Just what I needed to hear.

Yours truly,
Karen Peace

As I mentioned, those people who tried to stop the residency from happening were mad when it happened and would have tried to block a future one (and have tried the same tactics on all matter of other projects).

However, although we haven’t done another residency, we have had a huge increase in the representation of new music since then, having done several premieres and commissions including, most recently, Leandro Espinosa’s Movement for Strings, premiered in November. Excitingly, I feel like the audience has gotten more and more receptive to new music during that time.

We’ve focused largely on composers who live in the area- many of them are known to people as performers or teachers in addition to their writing or have some tie to the town. This means we get some of the presence and connection of a residency without flying someone in and out, and also means we’ve been able to spread the opportunities around rather than give an entire season to one composer.

Also, composers often feel that they’re having to (unfairly) compete with standard repertoire for space on programs and budget. The worse news is that they have to compete with the musicians onstage as well- we’ve drastically cut our guest artist budget to focus on building the quality of the orchestra on stage, and that has taken precidence over inviting another composer-in-residence (and any number of pianists and violinists) for now. However, we’ve been able to make up for that so far by seeking out talented and interesting composers in the neighborhood….

KW

Incidently, at a performance of one of my compositions for band, the conductor (undoubtedly in the throes of a Freudian slip) asked me to stand at the conclusion of the performance and introduced me as the “composter” of the piece. My tongue is still sore from intense biting.

To the best of my recollection, nobody who opposed the project (a tiny but vocal and determined faction) ever expressed a change of heart. Many, many board members, musicians and members of the public did say “great success.” The obstacle in doing it again is not that the vast majority wouldn’t want to do it, but that they don’t want to fight the same battles over and over again against the obstructionists…. It’s like an orchestral filibuster- people in organizations learn to advance their agenda by simply doing everything they can to stop others from accomplishing things, something that I think happens in every organization.

Cheers, and great to hear from you

Ken