competitions behaving badly

Alphabet Soup wrote a blog post discussion competition competitions behaving badly, and I too have written a blog post about the most exploitive comp comp ever. But I probably found one that's worse because it targets only young composers.

Who would think that the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA) would be able to sleep at night charging an exorbitant fee for their comp comp? Check out the divisions and the ridiculous fees:

Elementary
Age: 5–10 as of January 1, 2012
Entry Fee: $50
Junior
Age: 11–14 as of January 1, 2012
Entry Fee: $70
Senior
Age: 15–18 as of January 1, 2012
Entry Fee: $100
Young Artist
Age: 19–26 as of January 1, 2012
Entry fee: $100

I know what you're thinking—how many fifteen to twenty-six-year-olds have access to $100?! How many eleven to fourteen-year-olds have $70?!  And what five year old has an extra $50 lying around?! Because, if I were five and had an extra $50, I would take all my fifty one-dollar bills and throw them on a mattress while jumping on the bed proclaiming, "I'M RICH! I'M RICH! I'M FILTHY RICH!!!" Instead I'm yelling, "WHO HAS THAT TYPE OF MONEY?!"

the fairest of them all?

A few days ago John Mackey forwarded me an email about the John Cage Memorial Random Composer Award. (Dude, check out that picture of John Cage.) Ha! Thanks John! (Also, when I get my first paycheck from NKU, I'm going to make The Koi Pond to celebrate—it looks beautiful.) Anyway, the contest states:

"The John Cage Memorial Random Composer Award was inaugurated in 2011 in commemoration of John Cage's 99th birthday. The JCMRCA will be awarded to a single composer each year, whose biography and music will appear on this web page for the year.

ALL composers are encouraged to enter—ALL those who frame, manipulate, capture, appreciate, organize, and hear sounds as music. It is the intention of this competition to recognize a composer of any age, gender, race, nationality, sexuality, style, influence, education or creed. However, it must be a real person. Donald Duck may not win this competition. If the winner is found to be sufficiently inhuman, a second winner will be selected.

One composer will be selected from the entries using Random.org's true random numbers culled from atmospheric noise. No email addresses or information entered in the competition will be shared with any individuals or corporations. There is no financial gain to either the competition or the entrants. The winner will be asked to provide sound clips of their work for the website, which will be displayed for a year until the next competition.

Come one, come all and add this bit of joy to your life as a composer—and maybe to your CV!"

I will have to say, please do NOT put this on your CV—this is all in good fun.

Image by taubuch on Flickr, Creative Commons License v. 2.0

composer FAIL #42

I'm wondering if it's worth my time to submit my music to composer competitions. As most composers know, comp comps take lots of time—you have to prep your scores, print them out, purchase an envelope, burn a CD of a decent recording of your piece, and go to the post office to mail them because you can't possibly guess how much the entire package will cost to send.

If you're lucky, the non-Luddite comp comp sponsors allow you to submit everything online (via a compressed folder of your PDFs and MP3 recordings). Currently, I only apply to comp comps if they allow me to send a compressed folder of scores and recordings AND if they have no entrance fee.*

But maybe it's time to stop. I'm getting old and tired of the runaround, and these comp comps aren't paying off. I think it's time to focus all of my efforts on getting to know players and getting my pieces performed.

it has been ten years

It has been almost ten years since the September 11 attacks occurred, and already tribute concerts and albums are starting to take shape. As someone who was living on the West Coast at the time, I can only see and hear what New Yorkers have experienced.

One such concert is Eleonor Sandresky and Daniel Felsenfeld's marathon Music After concert.

"'Music After' is a marathon concert, co-produced by composers Eleonor Sandresky and Daniel Felsenfeld, to take place on September 11, 2011, commencing at 9:18am and finishing after midnight. Composers who lived or were housed downtown on that day a decade prior will be represented. It will be a concert that will demonstrate, with an appropriately-long arc, not only the sheer number of composers who were immediately affected but also the fact that, ten years on, they are still here, still doing what they do. Beyond that, it will be a free, casual, un-sanctimonious place where the music community en masse, and anyone else who wants to join us, can go—to meet, to think, to listen. The day will be about Music—speech-making and memorializing will happen elsewhere and by others. On September 11, 2001, Daniel Felsenfeld was a few blocks from the World Trade Center, looking after the apartment of Eleonor Sandresky, who was on tour with the Philip Glass Ensemble in Brazil. Both of them—like all of the composers featured—were forever changed. It was for this reason that they both decided to produce this concert, a gift to (and from) the city."

composer FAIL #41

Photo by yumiang

This is the second orchestra rejection letter, but I'm sure this comp comp was tough. Anyway, there's always next year.

Congrats to Brian Ciach and Hannah Lash! I'm looking forward to listening to your pieces.

On a side note, this is the last time I'm not capitalizing my titles. Apparently this only works for David Lang.

i can hear you

I apologize for geeking out a bit, but I now have a pair of fancy shiny new earplugs.

I participated in a study that tested how well musicians could hear with custom-fitted earplugs. It turns out musicians don't need as much protection as the drugstore variety provides, but because the player cannot accurately hear music when wearing these earplugs (it blocks all high frequencies and therefore muffles the sound), it is ideal for the musician to wear higher-quality earplugs like mine. With these earplugs, I can accurately hear pitches and timbres and still hear people talking, although I hear myself a little too much.

Photos by the author.