YOU NEED TO HEAR HUMANS PLAY YOUR MUSIC

I’ve been watching NBC’s short-lived Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, a show about comedy writers at a late-night sketch show. In one episode, the producers are trying to get two newly-hired writers more involved, even though they’re not really experienced enough to contribute yet. One producer says to the other: “Toss them in the river… give their sketch a spot at the dress tonight. Let them hear what 300 people not laughing sounds like.”

This line really resonated with me because this is an experience composers need. Not so much the reaction of an audience (although that can be useful), but the composer’s own reaction to hearing the music presented in its final form.

I tell my students “you will learn more in 1 minute of hearing human musicians play what you wrote than you will in hours of composition lessons with me.” There is no feedback more valuable than hearing something not work when you thought the MIDI playback sounded pretty good. Or, more happily, when music you didn’t like while you were writing it turns out to be surprisingly great when a real player picks it up.

Young composers: every time you hear your music performed, you are honing your understanding of the connection between the notes you put on the page, and the sounds that result when musicians realize those notes. Get your music played, early and often, by humans. MIDI playback will lie to you. Composition teachers might lie to you. Your ears will never lie.

WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM KID COMPOSERS

I was recently asked to adjudicate the 2017 Lincoln Music Teachers Association composition competition. More than 35 students, many in elementary school, submitted original pieces, which I heard for the second time in a recital on Sunday. I found their music incredibly refreshing, especially the work of the youngest students. These kids have some great natural habits that we "serious" adult composers should be trying to emulate:

• Kids write what they hear, and they don't try to write things they aren't hearing. There's no faking. Their music radiates honesty. 
• Kids' pieces are the exact length as the amount of music they come up with. If they have 30 seconds of music, the piece is 30 seconds long. No kid unnecessarily stretches a small amount of music into a 7-minute piece.
• Kids aren't afraid to write melodies. No one has told them this isn't cool, and they seem to do it naturally. Huh.
• Kids write music that is clever without sounding like they are trying to be clever. One girl had a piece that was entirely in C major, gentle and flowing, and then the last two chords, suddenly loud, were E7/G# and A minor. Hilarious.
• Kids are so clearly not trying to impress anyone. If you haven't seen a young child play music they've composed, I can't explain how totally great this is. Their music is just earnest and fun. This was the first composition recital I've been to in YEARS where I never wanted to roll my eyes. They are entirely unpretentious.
• Kids' music grows organically out of their musicianship. Everything is playable and idiomatic because they have to play it.

I hope that as these students grow, learn, and deepen their musical understanding, they don't lose these great intuitive compositional impulses. And let's all try to compose a little bit more like kids do.

THE BEST FOUR MEASURES EVER COMPOSED

Okay, the title may be a little hyperbolic. Or maybe not. These four(ish) bars are near the end of Domine Jesu, in the Mozart Requiem. I’ve been wondering for awhile if I can think of four measures anywhere that are more satisfying.

Here’s why I think this ten second chunk of music is so great:

1. REALLY GOOD COUNTERPOINT. Look at the soprano and alto in the first three bars. When one sustains, the other moves. They fill in the gaps. It’s so smooth. Each of the four vocal lines moves distinctly from the other three. The initial entrances of the three upper parts layer down from the top like a Renaissance motet. Every voice has breathing room. It just feels good (which everyone knows is the best way to judge counterpoint, #analysis). Then, before you realize what’s happening, they’ve all joined together and fallen into the cadence. Slick.

2. THE DELAYED SUSPENSIONS. In the downbeat of the first full bar, the soprano is hanging on to the high G as the chord below shifts from E-flat major up to F major (more on this below). We expect the G to resolve down to F, a simple 9-8 suspension. Instead, it drops all the way down to C, the 5th of the F major chord, THEN jumps back up to the F we were originally expecting. By then the chord has changed, and now the soprano F is the 5th of a B-flat major 7th chord in first inversion.

In the next bar, it happens again (Sequence Alert!): the soprano F is tied over the bar, and for a split second - one eighth note - it’s the 9th over a new E-flat major chord. Then it quickly repeats the same melodic gesture: drops down by a 5th (again to the 5th of the chord), but this time when it leaps back up by a 4th, the bass note doesn’t change, so we finally get our 9-8 resolution - however briefly. This melodic sequence in the soprano is the hook that makes these first few bars memorable.

3. LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT F MAJOR CHORD. This piece is in G minor, where the 7th scale degree is normally raised to F-sharp (instead of F), since it’s the leading tone of the key. F-sharp also happens to be an essential pitch in a D major chord, which is the superimportant “V” in G minor. So we hear a lot of F-sharps throughout this movement. When the E-flat chord at the beginning of our excerpt shifts up to F major, it feels like Mozart has wiped the harmonic slate clean after all the previous F-sharps throughout the piece. We would label this chord “VII,” meaning a major triad that is built on the natural (lowered) 7th scale degree, as opposed to the leading tone. It’s not a particularly frequent chord in minor key-music of this era. Combine this with the soprano pitch G being tied over from the previous bar, and we essentially hear F(add9) at this important moment. Unexpected and beautiful.

4. GREAT COUNTERPOINT PART II: CHOIR v. ORCHESTRA. Just as the choral parts complement each other with just the right mix of long and short notes (largely half notes and quarters), the instruments are playing shorter eighths and sixteenths through this whole passage. Their quick, bubbling accompaniment contrasts the smooth choral texture above. The listener experiences multiple, distinct layers of counterpoint.

5. CONTRASTING WHAT CAME BEFORE. Here’s what happened before these four bars: the fugue (it starts at 2:00 in the video below) is full of quick, punchy gestures in all four voices. Very busy and active. Then at 2:46, the main motive gets passed back and forth between the sopranos and the other voices over a dramatic low D (dominant) pedal tone. This continues for four full bars, building up tension and momentum with the same busy melodic gestures. Then, finally, it opens up into these four measures. Suddenly, each voice is singing long, sustained notes in this beautiful and surprising harmonic progression. What a contrast.

To really feel how satisfying this short section of the music is, you have to hear it in context with the entire movement. The whole thing is less than 4 minutes, and our part starts at 3:03. Enjoy!

Uploaded by margotlorena2 on 2013-07-14.