Writing Music: An Introduction

Writing music in the 21st century is at once both easier and more difficult than ever. As most musical commentators point out, we live in a time of great sonic diversity, where composers of so-called "classical" music (whatever that means...) can draw on anything from house music (listen to Ades' Asyla for orchestra), to free jazz (listen to Birtwistle's Panic) to pop songs (Turnage's Hammered Out) to folk music (a common practice since Bartok, also in Berio, Julian Anderson) to music from any bygone era (Ferneyhough and Ligeti drawing on Renaissance polyphony, Ades on Couperin). Or if plundering the music of others does not appeal, there exists a multitude of more abstract strains: one could write music consisting only of noise (Varese, Lachenmann, Sciarrino), derive music from bell-like sonorities (so-called "spectral" music: Grisey, Murail, Harvey et al) or strip away any music to its bare essentials in an exploration of structure in its purest form (minimalisms: Reich, Glass, Part). Or any combination of the above and more. As I read in one book on 20th classical music, it seems "anything goes".

Of course, it ought to be that anything should not go, or as Goehr told me in a composition seminar, "some musics are better than others". But this is subjective - it's up to you to decide, and you alone. This makes things more difficult than ever. There is more choice than ever, which means more decisions to make than ever. There is certainly no "right way" to compose - as John Adams mentions in his autobiography, there are as many ways to compose as there are composers.

Part of the role of the teacher is to inform students of this situation, which is both an exciting and a daunting one. There is so much to explore, so much to listen to. But composition is also about understanding oneself, which is reflected in the music one writes. I personally see the role of tuition as helping the student to hone in on what makes them tick - what it is that sparks a reaction in pieces they like (or even dislike), what it is that generates energy in the techniques they use (technique is such a vague word in composition - it has taken me a while to understand really what it means!) so as to eventually develop a method of writing that is synchronous with their intuition. It is following the student on a long journey, pointing out aspects of the scenery on the way, but never forcing them down a certain path. You show them a map, but never the route. And as a teacher, one has to be prepared for the day that the student shows them something off the map - something new.