Writing Formal Music

The discussion between advocates of formal music and those who prefer main stream music, is not as old as we might imagine. I usually consider music written as a technical exercise following certain set of rules as being more formal. On the other hand we have a significant amount of music created recently by musicians without any formal music education. So, what is the truth? Which music is superior?

Let us start this discussion with trying to define what music is. Surprisingly enough, it has been redefined repeatedly in the last 400 years or so. Technically music could be defined as anything that has to deal with sound and time. However, I see it as a human activity, and not just random sound. Also, since we do not seriously consider writing music for cats and dogs, it has to somehow affect other people.

Without going more into technical detail, music is a form of human activity. From that point, both formal and amateur music has similar merit. If I try to develop the ideal situation that I as a composer expect, or at least hope to achieve, the creation of music can be divided into several steps:

• Composition
• Performance
• Audience response

The first two steps tend to often blend and create an improvisation-interpretation phenomena. This may explain why some pianists are more popular than others. And ideally, the audience’s response is positive.

In the last fifty years or so, the growth of formal music is enormous. Most composition students learn twelve-tone technique, and many of the university affiliated composers write in that manner. Not only is this music surprisingly unpopular even among students, but there is even a notion that the purpose of this music is not to be heard, but instead analyzed and appreciated by looking at the score.

In my experience, it is very difficult to publish formal music or to have it performed. If I were to write a formal composition (which I have done in the past) I am looking at severely shortened life of my music:

• Composition
• No performance
• No audience response

With all that said, we are a changing society, and our tastes and likes in music are varied on a daily basis. We have quite a few composers and songwriters who make millions and whose music is very popular, and many of them had little or no training. Here is the same chart for their music:

• Composition
• Performance
• Very appreciative audience response

Every musician, and especially every composer, answers this question: Should I try to write music that others will like to hear, perform, record and sell, or will I write matrices and invent or follow math-based rules, having to explain why the resulting music product is worth their time.

On the other hand, amateurish writing can have all sorts of problems, including obvious mistakes in harmony and instrumentation. And yet, this kind of writing is what we hear on the radio everyday.

I believe that the ideal would be educated writing in a style that is appreciated by the listeners. We all face this problem to some degree, and if we believe that our purpose as musicians is to get our audience to like our music, some of these choices can be made easier!