(no subject)
Okay, so here's the thing:
I love my piano teacher.
I love my voice teacher.
I do not even like my composition teacher.
Which of these three am I majoring in?
My composition teacher is new this year. Her name is Sally Lamb and I've only had two lessons with her. However, just from these interactions, I feel like I'm going to suffer a personal crisis. Looking at my pieces, it seems to me she is thinking "This kid will never make it, why even bother?" and is trying to teach the hopeless.
To be sure, we are coming from different schools of thought regarding composition. Her school of thought is much more in the contemporary classical vein. In the academic world, this point of view is not only valid, but almost mandatory amongst the students and teachers.
While I have made great strides in understanding and appreciating this kind of music, it is not my calling to be the next great contemporary classical composer. I write much more conventional music and I add my own style and flare to it. Currently, I'm writing a five-movement piano suite very much in the ethos of Beethoven: dynamic, motivic, theatrical.
She told me Beethoven has already done Beethoven, so I shouldn't do it. But it's not Beethoven, it's Wymore. It was influenced and inspired by some of the great piano works of the late Classic period, but She wants it to have a specific process occuring in every movement, and to instead emulate Ligeti.
Now, Ligeti is a great composer, probably far greater than I will ever be. The point remains: why am I to emulate Ligeti and not Beethoven? Why her vision of greatness and not my own? Why am I to modify my octaves so they're sevenths or ninths when I want them to be fucking octaves?
I shouldn't be dreading my lessons. I shouldn't be questioning my place in this school. I shouldn't be questioning my career just because my teacher disagrees with me. She said it is her job to push my and stretch me into new places and I completely agree with that statement. Her job is to push me to expand my horizons to a place I wouldn't go on my own, not to drive me into a state of self-doubt, alienation, and frustration because we don't see eye to eye. My teacher from last year understood my position and while he had his own ideas, he understood that at the end of the day, I'm going to write what I want to write. I want to write an entertaining, enjoyable, accessible piano suite demonstrating my ability and the ability of the player. I want to do it my way. I want to compose it, not have my teacher compose it through me. I don't want to fit her mold. I want to make my own.
Cody out.
I love my piano teacher.
I love my voice teacher.
I do not even like my composition teacher.
Which of these three am I majoring in?
My composition teacher is new this year. Her name is Sally Lamb and I've only had two lessons with her. However, just from these interactions, I feel like I'm going to suffer a personal crisis. Looking at my pieces, it seems to me she is thinking "This kid will never make it, why even bother?" and is trying to teach the hopeless.
To be sure, we are coming from different schools of thought regarding composition. Her school of thought is much more in the contemporary classical vein. In the academic world, this point of view is not only valid, but almost mandatory amongst the students and teachers.
While I have made great strides in understanding and appreciating this kind of music, it is not my calling to be the next great contemporary classical composer. I write much more conventional music and I add my own style and flare to it. Currently, I'm writing a five-movement piano suite very much in the ethos of Beethoven: dynamic, motivic, theatrical.
She told me Beethoven has already done Beethoven, so I shouldn't do it. But it's not Beethoven, it's Wymore. It was influenced and inspired by some of the great piano works of the late Classic period, but She wants it to have a specific process occuring in every movement, and to instead emulate Ligeti.
Now, Ligeti is a great composer, probably far greater than I will ever be. The point remains: why am I to emulate Ligeti and not Beethoven? Why her vision of greatness and not my own? Why am I to modify my octaves so they're sevenths or ninths when I want them to be fucking octaves?
I shouldn't be dreading my lessons. I shouldn't be questioning my place in this school. I shouldn't be questioning my career just because my teacher disagrees with me. She said it is her job to push my and stretch me into new places and I completely agree with that statement. Her job is to push me to expand my horizons to a place I wouldn't go on my own, not to drive me into a state of self-doubt, alienation, and frustration because we don't see eye to eye. My teacher from last year understood my position and while he had his own ideas, he understood that at the end of the day, I'm going to write what I want to write. I want to write an entertaining, enjoyable, accessible piano suite demonstrating my ability and the ability of the player. I want to do it my way. I want to compose it, not have my teacher compose it through me. I don't want to fit her mold. I want to make my own.
Cody out.