People Hear From Different Planets

I experienced compositional “shell-shock” in Boston. I had just graduated UCLA and was accepted to the New England Conservatory, where II began studies with noted composer Arthur Berger. He was disappointed/mystified that I still wrote tonal music. Without hesitation, he placed me on a strict atonal diet:) For two years I wrote according to his rigorous method, guaranteed to prevent any possible harmonic reference to earlier music. Almost like a vaccine! 

I still remember the ashes falling from his pipe to the keyboard as he puffed and poked over every single note I brought him. Eventually, I became quite fluent in his musical language and began to hear the way he did. So much so, in fact, that when some of the most prominent Boston composers made comments after a concert devoted to his music,  I realized they were clueless. They really didn’t understand what he was trying to get across. And these were brilliant musicians. They simply didn’t understand the landscape of his language. Here is a piece from that concert that is one of Berger’s finest: his Trio for Guitar, Violin, and Piano.

This communication gap was depressing. I questioned my own path because I wanted people to understand my music. I told Arthur that I was returning to tonal writing. He threatened that such a decision would doom my career, I would merely be repeating the past, and if I did so, he would no longer speak with me. He kept his word. After my Masters degree, I was accepted to Harvard and never spoke with him again. I learned this communication idea had serious repercussions! 

Early in my Harvard studies, I composed a sarcastic neoclassical sextet inspired a bit by Prokofiev. I called it War Piece. The audience responded with a loud ovation. I thought it was a triumph. The next day, the faculty discussed my possible expulsion for writing such a feeble, backwards-looking work. I still remember a “witness” called to testify! The violinist from the sextet. When questioned, he simply said it was fun to play. Heads shook sadly. I was put on probation. Click to hear “Crows and Flies” from War Piece.  

Wasn’t this the same problem I noticed at Arthur Berger’s concert, only backwards? The Harvard faculty wasn’t repulsed at my music; they were repulsed by my musical language. So they couldn’t hear it. It didn’t sound “correct” for a new music concert. The audience, like most concert audiences, didn’t have this issue. They were able to follow the piece and enjoyed it. 

I learned the “wrong” lesson at Harvard. If we know and prefer the language of Tchaikovsky, we won’t hear much music in anything sounding like Schoenberg. If we know and prefer the 20th language of atonality and experimentalism, we won’t hear much music in anything sounding like Tchaikovsky.

Was the listening gap really that simple? Is that why audiences are so polarized in their tastes? I began experimenting with my music, becoming a “schizoid” composer. Some pieces warmly tonal. Others much more chromatic and dissonant. Eventually the two languages fused, as they have for other composers attracted both by the deep expression in music from Bach to Debussy, and the exciting sonic possibilities in music from Schoenberg and Stravinsky to the present. 

Have you had the experience listening to a piece that you just couldn’t understand? Did it make you feel frustrated and angry, or just puzzled and intrigued to hear it again? Please share it in the comments.

I was not able to discover solutions to the audience listening gap until I began teaching at UCLA. To be continued…