Those Who Do and Teach

American new music’s dependence on the academy is problematic, no two ways about it. On this point, I think most commentators—even those (like myself) who are most heavily invested in the university system—agree. There are plenty of reasons, and plenty have been discussed on these pages in the past, but I think I’ve found a new one.

Most of the professional composers I know are also teachers. Leaving aside the near-certainty that a composer’s aesthetic predilections will color his or her teaching, what about the possibility that working as an educator might lead a composer to frame his or her artistic views differently? A teacher is responsible for molding the minds of today’s youth; a composer, divorced from pedagogical obligations, is responsible only for writing good music. A composer’s opinions, informed or un-, can be taken or left without consequence. A teacher’s opinions, however, are also guidelines. They’ve leapt from “this is what I think” to “this is what you should do.” Everything a composition teacher says to a student contains implicit prescriptions.

Because teaching and composing are so often yoked together, I very seldom meet composers over 30 who aren’t also paid to tell people how to compose. What if most professional athletes also served as coaches? Talking about what he does on the field—and, moreover, showing somebody else how to do the same thing—isn’t something we require of athletes, but the exigencies of the American new music situation make this kind of double duty very attractive to composers. It’s only natural that spending a few hours a week naming the parts, so to speak, of the act of composition with one’s students might impact one’s own compositional thinking. Maybe that’s a good thing, but maybe it can fool the teacher into thinking that his or her musical impulses have to be examined, vetted, ratified, and transmitted—which, as far as I’m concerned, they absolutely don’t.

So, to the teachers of composition reading this, I have a request: Imagine, for a moment, that you’re not contractually obligated to care how anyone else writes music. Does it feel liberating? Does it feel hollow? I’m genuinely curious.