You hear the word diva bounced around all the time. We know what we mean by it, but what’s a good working definition? I rather like this one, that Jon Pareles wrote in the New Times on 31 Aug 2009. Although this blog is not one for singers, I think with a little effort you can see how this applies to composition:
Without adversity, a diva is just a singer. It’s the back story, the tale of struggle and tenacity, that draws audiences to read more than musicianship into her performances. The singer touches on something personal so the listener can feel like a witness, a confidant, a judge, a voyeur, or perhaps all at once.
Interestingly, this was a review of a new Whitney Houston album.
It’s interesting how we get so entrenched in one way of doing things. We become hardened (maybe even defensive?) against change, preferring the comfort of what we know. This is the point of an article referred to on the excellent Sibelius Blog. (By the way, if anyone knows of a Finale blog that is similar, please let me know in the comments field.) We think Finale is best or Sibelius is best, depending on which one we happen to use. We think this way about our computers (Mac or PC?), our cars (foreign or domestic?), our wines (red or white?) and so on.
But this way of thinking prevents us from learning and growing; we don’t try new things — we don’t even consider it. Even within that very software program we use everyday we become inured to change, entrenched in our way of doing things, and we gloss over helpful new features.
Of course the parallels to composition need hardly be spelled out by me. We should all engage in a little relearning every now and then. I highly recommend this blog entry.
With the huge downturn in the economy over the last year, the stock market is on everyone’s mind. It’s a funny business because of all the euphemisms. One hears talk of a “correction” or a “retracement.”
The truth is no stock goes straight up in a straight arrow. Wall Street types think it is healthy to “consolidate gains” and to discard the “weak hands.”
I was thinking about this in the context of 20th century music history. There was always so much concern for progress and advancement. No time was every taken for “consolidating” ideas and forming the basis of a new direction in the discipline. As a result, ideas were instead generated and discarded very rapidly. Atonal music, serialism, and minimalism have all lasted a historical blip in time. Contrast this with the slow process of change from Bach to Haydn to Mozart to Beethoven to Wagner. What once took hundreds of years now takes a decade, if that.
Is today’s music more accessible? More tonal? Are we in a state of consolidating gains?
Like many other people before me, and many others after me, I moved to New York City because it was the center of it all, especially for classical music.
This has become (and will continue to become) less necessary. In a July 30 2009 op-ed piece in the New York Times, Bill Wasik writes:
Online…the audience can be yours right away, direct and unmediated–if you can figure out how to find it…
In other words, why move to New York when you can just go online? The whole article, with all its implications, can be read here.
In the pitched battle between Sibelius and Finale, one constant criticism has been that Sibelius sacrifices control and power in an effort to make matters simple for the end user. Advocates of Finale always claim a superior ability to fine-tune notation layout.
That this is so — or has been so — is pretty much admitted in a remarkably honest blog posting by Daniel Spreadbury, who happens to be the Senior Project Manager at Sibelius. As I come to Sibelius from Finale, my own particular complaint has always been about slurs. About slurs Mr. Spreadbury writes:
…it turns out that sometimes you simply need the full control afforded by all of the cubic Bézier’s control points, so the first thing we set out to do in Sibelius 6 is provide access to all of those control points. Slurs now show six handles, all of which can be manipulated with either the mouse or the keyboard, and numerically using the Properties window. Furthermore, we made it possible to adjust the positions of each of these control points separately for slurs that cross a system or page break.
Finale users will recognize what this means — Sibelius now handles slurs much as Finale does.
Mr. Spreadbury addresses other factors in the development of Sibelius 6 as well in his blog post on “The Story Behind Sibelius 6.” For me, Sibelius 6 now represents the ideal balance between simplicity and powerful composition notation. It’s hard to imagine that Finale is capable of doing something that Sibelius can not — and Sibelius handles matters much more intuitively. I highly recommend this software.
It’s interesting, too, that Sibelius is willing to address its software challenges in a public venue such as this. Be sure to read the entire blog entry here.
I’ve seen composers in rehearsals be pretty tough on their players, and I always think, “hey, there’s no need to antagonize the people who are going to perform your music!” It seems to me you would like your performers to be fans of you. Now of course, yes, you want them to get it right, but…
Jennifer Higdon, one of my favorite contemporary composers (and just an all-out nice person, too), has some great insight into what’s going on the first few times you go to a rehearsal of your music. Some patience might pay off! Keep these insights in mind:
My friend Haim Avitsur participated in a performance of “Orbits” for 80 trombones, soprano, and organ. (Haim was not the soprano, and he doesn’t play the organ!) The piece is by Henry Brant (1913-2008) and was performed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
In a New York Times review of the concert, the critic Anthony Tomassini writes that Brant
…regarded space as the fourth dimension of music, along with pitch, time and timbre.
As you can see from the picture, the space of the Guggenheim is quite an evocative arena to make use of space as a compositional element! I have argued in my audio podcast that the “missing element” of music is form, but I thought I would toss this in — space — as another possible element for composers to consider experimenting with.
If you are entering the word “apple” in to your notation program for a song lyric, is it “app-le” or is it “ap-ple?” Instead of going to your dictionary or looking it up on the internet, Mac users have an easy way to find out via the dictionary widget that comes with OS X. Just hit F12 and type in the word, and the widget shows the proper hyphenation, as shown in this picture.
I had to do this just today with the word “scholar” for an Emily Dickinson poem. Is it “scho-lar” or “schol-ar?” A quick look at the widget reveals that the second option is correct.
It’s a tiny detail, but those who make money in score copying can distinguish themselves by paying attention to these little extras. It lends your score an extra sheen of professionalism.
PC users, is there a similar option? Let us know in the comments section.
This is sort of an informational post for those who might not be clued in. Both Finale and Sibelius have announced new versions in the last few weeks. I had been a Finale user for years and switched to Sibelius sometime a few years ago, with Sibelius 4. One thing that had always frustrated me about Sibelius is its handling of slurs. Much as I loved Sibelius, I had to admit Finale’s handling of slurs was always better and top-notch. This seems to be fixed in Sibelius 6, and the demonstration on Sibelius’s website suggests a similar approach to Finale, with perhaps a few improvements tossed in. The new Sibelius feature called Magnetic Layout looks superb too. I am looking forward to this update!
It’s interesting how we get so entrenched in one way of doing things. We become hardened (maybe even defensive?) against change, preferring the comfort of what we know. This is the point of an article referred to on the excellent 
