What's "composition"?
by Ron Herrema
Thistle: I'm afraid I didn't get too much composing done this week. It's not that I didn't try--it's just that every time I sat down to compose, nothing came to me. It was very frustrating.
Antwort: No inspiration, eh?
Thistle: No, none at all!
Antwort: The muses were not kind to you.
Thistle: (glumly) No, they weren't. . .
Antwort: So composition is the unenviable art of waiting for the beneficence of these mysterious external forces. . .
Thistle: Well, I didn't say that. . .
Antwort: What exactly would you say composition is?
Thistle: In the broadest of terms, I guess I would say it's the craft of writing music.
Antwort: "Craft"--that's sounding a bit less passive. As for broadness, I'm not sure that it's limited to music.
Thistle: Well, I realize that "composition" is used when discussing other arts, like writing and painting, but I assumed that our context was that of music.
Antwort: Yes, it was--but the point is not a moot one. What do all these arts have in common that enables us to describe them with the same word, "composition"?
Thistle: . . . I guess the fact that they all involve the creation of objects for aesthetic enjoyment.
Antwort: Yes, but "composing" and "creating" are somewhat synonymous, so that begs the question--unless it was the "aesthetic" part you were focusing on; but I'd prefer to put off the discussion of "aesthetic" for the moment. What I was thinking was that the formation of these "objects" you refer to always involves the placement of parts into relationships that result in a meaningful whole. It's the arrangement of relationships among parts that I see as being at the heart of the process of composition--a process which results in objects which we call "compositions."
Thistle: Oh . . . hmm. But doesn't a carpenter or even a factory worker place parts into meaningful relationships?
Antwort: (pause) I guess the musical analogy for the carpenter would be a performer. Musical performers place parts into meaningful relationships, but they do so as agents of the composer. This is not to say that they are completely divorced from the compositional process--there is a small degree of re-composition inherent in the interpretive process.
Thistle: What about the guy who designs a sump pump? Is he a composer? He certainly arranges parts into a meaningful whole.
Antwort: I think "design" is a pretty good synonym for "compose." I wouldn't object to calling him a composer of sump pumps.
Thistle: But his design has no aesthetic purpose.
Antwort: The purpose of the pump might not be aesthetic, but it has an aesthetic dimension, like it or not. Furthermore, not all music is composed for completely aesthetic purposes. In fact, I would argue that it is impossible to compose anything for a completely aesthetic purpose. All works of art necessarily have non-aesthetic dimensions--a social dimension, an economic dimension, etc. And the strength of these dimensions is somewhat fluid. Gregorian chant is now perceived by many in a largely aesthetic way, but its original purpose is as spiritual as it is aesthetic.
Thistle: I can accept all that, but I still find our definition to be rather vague--I'm not sure it will make composing much easier for me. Maybe it's the "meaningful" part that eludes me. How does music mean?
Antwort: My first reaction would be to say that it means by fulfilling a purpose. The sump pump means by fulfilling its water-removing purpose, and a musical composition means by fulfilling musical purposes.
Thistle: What are some of those purposes?
Antwort: As I suggested before, I think that they are multi-dimensional: aesthetic delight, the promulgation of beliefs, social bonding, the portrayal of drama, the accompaniment of dance, etc.
Thistle: And what sort of things would you say give aesthetic delight?
Antwort: Have you ever heard the compositions of Ron Herrema?