The Music-Writing Journey

Almost everyone who aspires to write music does so on their own initiative, not because a hand guided them to do so. The hand that guides people to other careers could be the promise of a high-paying job, a influence of a personal connection like a teacher or family, a desire for power, or a myriad of other selfish and less selfish reasons. With writing music, well, there isn’t much promise in terms of pay, there aren’t enough composers stalking around society for the average person to be likely to know one, and the average school board member has more influence than the average Curtis graduate will ever have. So most aspiring music writers are doing so on their own initiative and genuine passion for music, and you would think that self-selecting effect would make them, on average, good at writing music. But anyone who has been to the composition department of a mid-tier state school, or even a high-tier state school or mid-tier music conservatory knows that isn’t the case. So why is this the case?

First, writing music is just inherently difficult. All art is difficult when you get to a certain level, but with some its particularly difficult to get to a certain baseline. It’s a lot harder to compose an, at minimum, good piece of music or write a good novel than it is to cook a superficially good meal or a good-looking painting. It’s why there are so many more “How to draw like __” or “cooking”¹ slop books at Barnes and Noble than “How to write music like __” or “How to write a novel like __” books.

Second, people aren’t listening to great music that often, and what they do listen to is the auditory equivalent of Marvel movies or Star Wars, where the people who made those may have been inspired by numerous artistic influences from across time and cultures, but those influences don’t really shine to people who don’t look for them. There isn’t really a name for this phenomenon as far as I know, but it’s everywhere in the arts. This is also why it seems like a lot of people people are easily impressed by mediocre art, given the right context.

I should mention of course, that the greats of the past have been selected out of hundreds of years of music history, and that the past had its more-than fair share of mediocre performers. I know that. But even those mediocre performances of the past could articulate what makes Beethoven so musically satisfying.

I recently graduated with dual bachelor’s in computer engineering and music from Virginia Tech. I’ve continued to interview in the somewhat rough engineering job market, but with the burden of schoolwork gone, I have more time for non-academic projects. I’ve turned additional attention towards writing music, which I do in addition to playing the cello and piano. My composition “Three Short Pieces” won 1st prize for the Yee Memorial Prize, a composition contest for students. You can listen to and see the scores for some of my compositions here:

Modern classical music often has a negative connotation, associated with uninteresting and/or unsatisfying works that are performed once, get some polite applause and are never heard again. It doesn’t feel like the often exciting and constantly evolving world of music of the previous few centuries. With my works, I aim to avoid some of the trappings inherent in writing new music, such as:

The echo chamber - much of modern music can be 1) intellectual exercises exploring the absolute limits of what music is or what it can be, not meant for the public, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Cares_if_You_Listen%3F) or 2) uncreative regurgitations of something from before, losing the novelty. Both are the result of a lack of critical feedback from people wanting something out of the listening experience. Regarding the former, occasionally something audiences love comes out of experimentation (see: Philip Glass, Steve Reich and the minimalists), but that wasn’t the point. In that sense, experimental music has more in common with modern mathematics research than it does a traditional conception of “music”, such as beauty, or emotional effect. (It shouldn’t be so surprising then that modern math and modern music exist mostly in academic circles). Most of the time, you get something like the works of Stockhausen, Boulez, or Cage; not exactly something people will be whistling down the street.

Social grievience self-satisfaction. You see this with composers writing works that claim to relate to some “background” (ethnicity, gender, etc.) but not necessarily their lived experience as a person. Orchestras will then perform those works as acts of soft social activism. While I am not opposed to drawing from background, or even social activism through the arts, it is clear it has come at the cost of incentivising virtue signalling rather than musical invention.

(BOLD) With my music, I aim to write intelligable, satisfying scores without resorting to writing overly sentimental slop, by incorporating elements of the musical inventions of the 20th and 21st century into the essence; this is my innovation, and what will bring the classical music tradition into the 21st century.

With your funding, I will be able to compose more frequently and sustainably, have my works properly recorded by live musicians, and/or attend a proper music conservatory, all of which would help develop my artistic vision.

When I think of the kind of art I want to make, I think of Ravel. His father and brother were engineers, likely responsible for his lifelong fascination with the mechanical and functional. This poured over to his music, which was written in a manner unusual for the 20th century; his great degree of technical knowledge made it highly logical from a theory prospective, but in the service of beauty rather than stiff correctness. The concept of “sincereity” alone didn’t do much for him. Reminds you of the best engineering.

Thank you for your consideration,

1. Actual cooking, at least to me, is the creativity and culinary knowledge required to make something that suits a particular moment from instinct, and not just the physical act of assembling food as I think popular culture (food TV, Youtube, TikTok, etc.) has led us to believe. ↩