I have to admit, I've had a couple of significant career breaks from competitions so it's hard to be fully against them. Although I agree I'd never enter one that involved writing a piece specifically for it. Another thing to bare in mind is who the judges are, whether they're likely to be in to your kind of writing, or whether they're likely to be just promoting their own buddies/pupils etc. My own personal bugbear is with age limits which feel very unfair to older composers for no reason whatsoever.
Hi David! I've won a few competitions myself and though the've not really helped me career-wise, they did boost my confidence and helped some with cash flow, which is always nice. I totally agree with you on the age limit restrictions. I'm pretty sure the thinking is the contest is intended to help new composers starting out in their careers, but one can be any age and be a new composer, so that doesn't really hold water. We have this fascination with youth. When a precocious youngster composes something decent we gush all over it, however, if an older person composed the same thing we don't give it a second look, often not even a first look.
I have enormous issues with music composing competitions. How can you know whether the judges have even listened to the composition that you sent? To me it's like an architecture competition based on building plans for judging the best house - pointless. The other thing is the rudeness and snobbery of replies. I entered one competition once. For doing a 10 minute solo piano score. I only found out about the competition 3 weeks before so I worked like a lunatic to meet the deadline. Always knew that I wouldn't win it. But I truly did not deserve the dismissive, snob reply that I got that basically said that I did not deserve to enter at all. This set me back as a composer; I truly came close to giving up composing altogether. My absolute hate for the classical music scene and its snobs is set in stone from that event; I don't care who a music expert is or how many degrees they have. If they - the supposed experts with degrees - do not understand music I will not hesitate to tell them to their face. My lifelong hate for the entire classical music scene. It's people, snobs, cliques and muppets - will burn inside me like a volcano because of my competition experience.
I absolutely agree; I am too old to enter most competitions. Yet I taught myself from absolutely nothing 3 years ago and am 100% self taught. The other aspect of age discrimination is that it is very hard to find a music teacher as an older person; teachers just want to teach kids.
@@musicalneptunian Hi Musical Neptunian I know this is 3 years late in a reply but as a piano teacher I wanted to reply to your last point that music teachers only want to teach kids. The reason at least for me is I generally find 90% of adults are too busy to learn. They start out very enthusiastic but soon find that sticking to learning piano or music in general is a very time consuming activity that doesn't always blend well with having to earn a living from their bread winning job. This is why some music teachers refuse to teach adults. Myself I do teach adults but I always groan inside a little when an adult contacts me wanting to learn because I think to myself "Is this going to be another student who does not practice for 3 months in a row and then gives up" Hope that helps you understand the viewpoint from the other side of the isle.
@@Eddyhartz With all due respect I don't find that reply satisfactory; a kid could give up because they have exams or other school work. But at least you do teach adults.
I believe one of the most critical points is whether you actually _wish_ to write such a piece as the one called for in a particular opportunity. It's tempting to try for everything going (a bit like applying for jobs when you're unemployed), but you're not going to enjoy writing music in a style or for a context for which you have little time and enthusiasm, and so you're probably not going to do it well. If you are writing a piece that you want to write, then regardless of what happens with the competition you end up with a work that you can be proud of that came from a positive creative experience. As a late bloomer, I agree with David Bruce about age limits. Why not have some comps for the over 35s?
I think another thing that is worth noting is that a lot of these competitions charge 20 to $30 for a fee, when is Eric Whitacre has said they should be happy to be getting your work, and that you're paying them frankly it's a little insulting. If it was done more above board, there would be donors and a clear transparency of how much money was raised because, it is expensive to have the 70-piece orchestra, but the way a lot of them go about it which I think you have touched upon is underhanded and they don't necessarily care about 90% of the performers and perhaps they already have names that they have picked out beforehand, people in their Network and yet they still advertise this shiny grand prize to everyone else...
Yes, it's definitely dishonest. And in the real world, nobody important will care about winning a composition prize anyway. Good work speaks for itself.
I've always felt uneasy about most music composition competitions. This video confirms these uneasy feelings. I just write what I write. The hell with everything else that ultimately doesn't contribute to what I know and sense is my OWN voice, etc. Too much subjective judging with these sorts of competitions... As well as the age limitations, women only comp. competitions (or any comp. competition specifying gender or race to be included or excluded, religion being in a "gray" area here perhaps), emphasis on (modern) instrumental techniques, and in general, the avant-garde dogmatic nuttiness-aversion to/complete avoidance of tonality and tertial/traditional harmony/melody, more common meters, lyricism, romanticism, more dramatic elements, etc. If I hear a piece that sounds like it is more removed from the "soul" of a composer, it probably is... 👍👍👍👍👍
I entered one in high school and supposedly Zappa was judging but, of course, we didn't win and, to be honest, I haven't even heard the song in decades, but as I remember it, it sucked! but we learned a valuable lesson. if you turn the tracks up and down on the four-track, you get layers and layers of "what"s and 'huh"s. its pretty hilarious when youre a kid and to this day I still dont know how the guy who recorded it knew it would be so funny sounding. I digress...they didn't even send us a form letter saying they received our entry... no fee, though, so thats cool I guess... good to see a video by you again.
Great content on this channel. Thank you for putting all this up! I usually have periods of time when I immerse myself in what would be generally called classical music, but after a while I lose interest, then come back again and so on and so forth. I have a feeling that if I understood music from a theoretical point of view (musical theory, structure, composition), not just approach it by feeling and intuition, I would appreciate it even more. What video or written material would you recommend for someone who knows nothing about musical theory?
Hello, I often point my students to an excellent website that takes you through the basics of music theory with a minimum of extraneous pain: www.musictheory.net/. I hope this helps. Thanks for your comments.
There also those competitions where you send your portfolio and ait they choose you, then you get commissioned for a new work with the guarantee it will be performed. I find that much more logical than the “call for scores” type of competition that you refer to in this video! Also, what is the outro music?
MAN TRA It's a short excerpt from my piece Strasbourg Quartet (2014-15), for bass flute, bass clarinet, percussion and cello. The piece will be recorded shortly for a new portrait CD on the Kairos label (Vienna).
I'd like to bring up another point about composition competitions. Feedback! Not all competitions give the entrants feedback about their work. So. if you are thinking of paying your money and entering a competition, I recommend that you email them first and inquire whether they provide a critique to all entrants once the competition is over. This is important for 2 reasons: 1) It would be very informative to get feedback about your work from a panel of "experts". 2) It's the only way to prove that they did actually listen to your composition. I say this because I just paid $50 (US) to enter into the Cum Laude Music Awards, and I was expecting for that fee I would get a critique of my composition, but I was wrong. They have a policy of no feedback at all, they said it would be be impossible for them to do so. But I imagine that when the judges listen to all of the compositions they would be making notes about the pieces and their impressions, otherwise how on earth would they remember what was what after a few hundred compositions? Then when it's all over I don't think it would be that difficult to email those notes to the composers.
Another way to look at competitions (besides this pragmatic career orientation) is to question the possibility for art piece to be put into competition, just like horses and bulls. i don't see why a award of any kind does any good for art or the artist, besides pretending to praise a superficial, random and ephemeral irrational quality of that particular artist. but 99,99% of the winners are forgotten, and 99,99% of the prominent artists never tried or never won. last point: 50 years ago, to win awards was a shame in visual arts. When Max Ernst won the Venice Biennale Prize, he was excluded of the surrealist movement, because it was considered obscene to compromise with such a commercial perspective on art. Now very few people refuse awards. ... ... ...
The surrealists were all experts at marketing and happily sold their paintings to wealthy collectors. Also, it's boorish and crass to refuse genuine public recognition for work well done. Obviously awards are not proof of a work's quality, but why denigrate the attempt, however clumsy, to honour a society's most accomplished artists?
surrealists were totally against this promotional marketing attitude, from the beginning to the end of the movement. By the way at first the painters linked to the movement had difficulties to survive with their paintings (Tanguy, Masson, etc). The success and greed of Dali was the reason of his exclusion of the movement. Of course my remark didn t mean to refuse genuine public recognition, but to question the relation between competitions and this recognition. And moreover when it goes to defining a "well done work", i think it goes to misunderstandings and academism. Last, the most accomplished artists are not the ones who win / compete etc.
I would hope that that kind of pomposity and pretensions posing so dominant in the world of painting wouldn't be welcomed and praised in music. Why do 99% fade over time? Because 99% of all artists are forgotten! How many composers do you suppose there were who were colleagues of Mozart or Beethoven, who have been overshadowed and entirely erased by those two giants? If you are offered an award for your work you take it, because most composers -many who were probably better than you- received no such recognition in their time and receive none at all today. Keep the surrealists' hypocrisy out of music.
I have to admit, I've had a couple of significant career breaks from competitions so it's hard to be fully against them. Although I agree I'd never enter one that involved writing a piece specifically for it. Another thing to bare in mind is who the judges are, whether they're likely to be in to your kind of writing, or whether they're likely to be just promoting their own buddies/pupils etc.
My own personal bugbear is with age limits which feel very unfair to older composers for no reason whatsoever.
Hi David! I've won a few competitions myself and though the've not really helped me career-wise, they did boost my confidence and helped some with cash flow, which is always nice.
I totally agree with you on the age limit restrictions. I'm pretty sure the thinking is the contest is intended to help new composers starting out in their careers, but one can be any age and be a new composer, so that doesn't really hold water.
We have this fascination with youth. When a precocious youngster composes something decent we gush all over it, however, if an older person composed the same thing we don't give it a second look, often not even a first look.
I have enormous issues with music composing competitions. How can you know whether the judges have even listened to the composition that you sent? To me it's like an architecture competition based on building plans for judging the best house - pointless. The other thing is the rudeness and snobbery of replies. I entered one competition once. For doing a 10 minute solo piano score. I only found out about the competition 3 weeks before so I worked like a lunatic to meet the deadline. Always knew that I wouldn't win it. But I truly did not deserve the dismissive, snob reply that I got that basically said that I did not deserve to enter at all. This set me back as a composer; I truly came close to giving up composing altogether. My absolute hate for the classical music scene and its snobs is set in stone from that event; I don't care who a music expert is or how many degrees they have. If they - the supposed experts with degrees - do not understand music I will not hesitate to tell them to their face.
My lifelong hate for the entire classical music scene. It's people, snobs, cliques and muppets - will burn inside me like a volcano because of my competition experience.
I absolutely agree; I am too old to enter most competitions. Yet I taught myself from absolutely nothing 3 years ago and am 100% self taught. The other aspect of age discrimination is that it is very hard to find a music teacher as an older person; teachers just want to teach kids.
@@musicalneptunian Hi Musical Neptunian I know this is 3 years late in a reply but as a piano teacher I wanted to reply to your last point that music teachers only want to teach kids. The reason at least for me is I generally find 90% of adults are too busy to learn. They start out very enthusiastic but soon find that sticking to learning piano or music in general is a very time consuming activity that doesn't always blend well with having to earn a living from their bread winning job. This is why some music teachers refuse to teach adults. Myself I do teach adults but I always groan inside a little when an adult contacts me wanting to learn because I think to myself "Is this going to be another student who does not practice for 3 months in a row and then gives up"
Hope that helps you understand the viewpoint from the other side of the isle.
@@Eddyhartz With all due respect I don't find that reply satisfactory; a kid could give up because they have exams or other school work. But at least you do teach adults.
I believe one of the most critical points is whether you actually _wish_ to write such a piece as the one called for in a particular opportunity. It's tempting to try for everything going (a bit like applying for jobs when you're unemployed), but you're not going to enjoy writing music in a style or for a context for which you have little time and enthusiasm, and so you're probably not going to do it well. If you are writing a piece that you want to write, then regardless of what happens with the competition you end up with a work that you can be proud of that came from a positive creative experience.
As a late bloomer, I agree with David Bruce about age limits. Why not have some comps for the over 35s?
Strongly agree re age limits. Not sure what their purpose really is. Seems kind of dumb to me.
I think another thing that is worth noting is that a lot of these competitions charge 20 to $30 for a fee, when is Eric Whitacre has said they should be happy to be getting your work, and that you're paying them frankly it's a little insulting. If it was done more above board, there would be donors and a clear transparency of how much money was raised because, it is expensive to have the 70-piece orchestra, but the way a lot of them go about it which I think you have touched upon is underhanded and they don't necessarily care about 90% of the performers and perhaps they already have names that they have picked out beforehand, people in their Network and yet they still advertise this shiny grand prize to everyone else...
*composers not performers
Yes, it's definitely dishonest. And in the real world, nobody important will care about winning a composition prize anyway. Good work speaks for itself.
Thanks for your advice Samuel... It's really helpful...!
I've always felt uneasy about most music composition competitions. This video confirms these uneasy feelings.
I just write what I write. The hell with everything else that ultimately doesn't contribute to what I know and sense is my OWN voice, etc.
Too much subjective judging with these sorts of competitions... As well as the age limitations, women only comp. competitions (or any comp. competition specifying gender or race to be included or excluded, religion being in a "gray" area here perhaps), emphasis on (modern) instrumental techniques, and in general, the avant-garde dogmatic nuttiness-aversion to/complete avoidance of tonality and tertial/traditional harmony/melody, more common meters, lyricism, romanticism, more dramatic elements, etc.
If I hear a piece that sounds like it is more removed from the "soul" of a composer, it probably is...
👍👍👍👍👍
I've been mulling over this, sound advice, Thanks Samuel.
I entered one in high school and supposedly Zappa was judging but, of course, we didn't win and, to be honest, I haven't even heard the song in decades, but as I remember it, it sucked! but we learned a valuable lesson. if you turn the tracks up and down on the four-track, you get layers and layers of "what"s and 'huh"s. its pretty hilarious when youre a kid and to this day I still dont know how the guy who recorded it knew it would be so funny sounding. I digress...they didn't even send us a form letter saying they received our entry... no fee, though, so thats cool I guess...
good to see a video by you again.
Possibly a topic for a future Q and A: How does one go about networking when they haven't attended any music school and can't do so?
Kyle J. Whitehead - Music Good one. Can you email that to me?
Certainly.
Great content on this channel. Thank you for putting all this up! I usually have periods of time when I immerse myself in what would be generally called classical music, but after a while I lose interest, then come back again and so on and so forth. I have a feeling that if I understood music from a theoretical point of view (musical theory, structure, composition), not just approach it by feeling and intuition, I would appreciate it even more. What video or written material would you recommend for someone who knows nothing about musical theory?
Hello, I often point my students to an excellent website that takes you through the basics of music theory with a minimum of extraneous pain: www.musictheory.net/. I hope this helps. Thanks for your comments.
I fully agree with what you said.
There also those competitions where you send your portfolio and ait they choose you, then you get commissioned for a new work with the guarantee it will be performed. I find that much more logical than the “call for scores” type of competition that you refer to in this video! Also, what is the outro music?
MAN TRA It's a short excerpt from my piece Strasbourg Quartet (2014-15), for bass flute, bass clarinet, percussion and cello. The piece will be recorded shortly for a new portrait CD on the Kairos label (Vienna).
A new CD!! I will have to put my hand on that
The first rule of a competition has been said by Qui-Gon Jinn : "When we make a bet, we must expect to lose"
Good advice.
I'd like to bring up another point about composition competitions. Feedback! Not all competitions give the entrants feedback about their work. So. if you are thinking of paying your money and entering a competition, I recommend that you email them first and inquire whether they provide a critique to all entrants once the competition is over. This is important for 2 reasons: 1) It would be very informative to get feedback about your work from a panel of "experts". 2) It's the only way to prove that they did actually listen to your composition. I say this because I just paid $50 (US) to enter into the Cum Laude Music Awards, and I was expecting for that fee I would get a critique of my composition, but I was wrong. They have a policy of no feedback at all, they said it would be be impossible for them to do so. But I imagine that when the judges listen to all of the compositions they would be making notes about the pieces and their impressions, otherwise how on earth would they remember what was what after a few hundred compositions? Then when it's all over I don't think it would be that difficult to email those notes to the composers.
It's funny to hear a CV being mentioned in the context of music as opposed to more traditional academic contexts.
Practically every composer has a CV :)
I am a composer And I have a channel where I post my original compositions if you’re interested.
How can I connect with you
Another way to look at competitions (besides this pragmatic career orientation) is to question the possibility for art piece to be put into competition, just like horses and bulls. i don't see why a award of any kind does any good for art or the artist, besides pretending to praise a superficial, random and ephemeral irrational quality of that particular artist. but 99,99% of the winners are forgotten, and 99,99% of the prominent artists never tried or never won. last point: 50 years ago, to win awards was a shame in visual arts. When Max Ernst won the Venice Biennale Prize, he was excluded of the surrealist movement, because it was considered obscene to compromise with such a commercial perspective on art. Now very few people refuse awards. ... ... ...
The surrealists were all experts at marketing and happily sold their paintings to wealthy collectors. Also, it's boorish and crass to refuse genuine public recognition for work well done. Obviously awards are not proof of a work's quality, but why denigrate the attempt, however clumsy, to honour a society's most accomplished artists?
surrealists were totally against this promotional marketing attitude, from the beginning to the end of the movement. By the way at first the painters linked to the movement had difficulties to survive with their paintings (Tanguy, Masson, etc). The success and greed of Dali was the reason of his exclusion of the movement. Of course my remark didn t mean to refuse genuine public recognition, but to question the relation between competitions and this recognition. And moreover when it goes to defining a "well done work", i think it goes to misunderstandings and academism. Last, the most accomplished artists are not the ones who win / compete etc.
I would hope that that kind of pomposity and pretensions posing so dominant in the world of painting wouldn't be welcomed and praised in music. Why do 99% fade over time? Because 99% of all artists are forgotten! How many composers do you suppose there were who were colleagues of Mozart or Beethoven, who have been overshadowed and entirely erased by those two giants? If you are offered an award for your work you take it, because most composers -many who were probably better than you- received no such recognition in their time and receive none at all today. Keep the surrealists' hypocrisy out of music.