Thursday, December 22, 2011

A Sound Vision

It's absolutely tactile, it becomes 'Mommy, I saw a thousand rainbows!' through hearing sounds. That's transcendence, that's something where you can actually bring abstraction to feeling, to something memorable.
Yo-Yo Ma
Listen (Winter 2011)

This quote from a recent interview with Yo-Yo Ma illustrates his enthusiasm for music of the past century. He briefly discusses playing a movement of Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time for a group of children. He described to them the colors that Messiaen saw in the piece and used that description to help give the children a frame of reference from which they could now engage the piece in their own imaginations.

I chose the above quote as a jumping off point for this blog entry because it illustrates how easily it is to communicate directly to children's imaginations about music. In the interview, Mr. Ma makes some other fine points about tradition versus invention and translating abstract ideas into concrete sounds. One thing that stuck with me after reading this interview (which was an interview mainly on Ma's new recording of bluegrass music) was the general sense of newfound enthusiasm I had for contemporary concert music. A musician steeped in classical tradition, such as Yo-Yo Ma, during an interview on a new album of bluegrass music, makes me (a composer of concert music) feel invigorated about new concert music.

What strikes me about Mr. Ma's discussion of music is his passion for and dedication to exploring contemporary music. In another portion of the interview, he says:
I've never in my mind put a lid on nature's creativity. Humans put a lid on things. Nature has its own frame and I think of humans as part of nature. So world classical music is actually humans dealing with humans in the natural world. Every single tradition that I know of is the result of successful creation. And world classical music already is: Phillip Glass, Toru Takemitsu, Tan Dun, Bartok, Steve Reich, Puccini . . . 
The question for us then becomes: How can we foster such appreciation, understanding, yearning for and experience of contemporary music among the generations of musicians just beginning their musical journey?

Moreover, if you are a composer, the thought may have occurred to you: What is the future of my music, and what are some fundamental ways a composer might be able to help ensure its future?

One way for composers to answer these question for themselves is to write music that would help teachers better understand and be able to teach contemporary music. As a smattering of articles published in music education journals over the past few years indicates, there is, at least, an occasional interest in this topic of new music pedagogy among composers and educators. While pieces have been composed for the purpose of exposing and education musicians who are new to contemporary music -- everything from short piano pieces akin to Bartok's Mikrokosmos to a large amount of band music -- there is room for so much more to be written.

Then the question becomes: how available is this music to teachers and performers who want to embark on a journey through new music but are not sure where to start? Where do they look for this music? Perhaps, how can they have pieces tailored to their specific student's interest and learning needs on their instrument?

Composing music for the early stages of musicianship -- once a commonplace compositional activity -- has long since taken a back seat to writing for virtuoso performers. A sound vision of twenty-first century musicianship should include a consistent sampling of contemporary music in the course of private instrumental lessons. Let us encourage the type of hunger and enthusiasm that we see in Yo-Yo Ma from all of our musicians such that the musical traditions we love can be invigorated with the inventions of our time!