My top 5 musical weaknesses

Since I graduated in May 2024, I have mostly been reflecting and registering my accomplishments and the skills I improved during my undergraduate career, which was probably a much-needed exercise in self-affirmation. However, my satisfaction has begun to pale, and I am reflecting on the many things I can improve on as a musician. Here are my top 5 musical weaknesses.

5. ORCHESTRATION

Writing for instruments that originated in Europe centuries ago has always been slightly awkward for me. My exposure to the skill began in earnest with the first instrumentation and orchestration course I took when I was 20 years old. It is somewhat odd that a composer such as yours truly should feel any kind of resistance whasoever when writing for acoustic instruments, since the assumption people make with “composers” or “Composition” majors is that they are likely to be fluent in orchestration- and yet I was reluctant to invest in my orchestration skills, because I used to tell myself that all my desires to sculpt sounds were going to be satisfied in DAWs and music-making software. I also barely heard classical music growing up, and still feel more cozy listening to synths, or guitars, or even jazz ensembles to this day, as opposed to any kind of music from the classical canon, which would likely involve sounds from the likes of pianos, contrabassoon, flutes, harps, cellos, oboes, and piccolo (probably not in that order!).

"Then why are you a Composition major?” is what I was often asked by my peers when they realized this lack of classical music listening experience. My answer used to be “because I want to get better at dealing with the abstract elements of music, like pitch, rhythm, harmony, form, etc.”, insisting that wanting to develop these skills didn’t necessitate a passion for classical music in particular. I had a hunch that certain aspects of musical composition transcended cultural factors like what sound generators you happen to use for your music, and that these abstract details about music-making was what I was seeking to think about. Indeed, I once pompously declared to some friends that more than 70% of my satisfaction with musical composition had purely to do with the purely pre-sonic abstract choices I made on the page rather than the resulting sounds I would hear at a concert; I recall a possibly apocryphal Brahms quote I have heard, which suggests that he would have rather stayed at home to study scores rather than go to a concert, which sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

As far as orchestration is concerned, I suppose I have succeeded in composing sufficiently interesting music, but I often wonder if exaggerating the musical individuality in my concert music was a way for me to circumvent learning about standard instrument combinations, awareness of orchestral trends across the historical periods, and an intimate awareness each instrument’s range, timbre, techniques, and repertoire. Being a Composition major at Berklee was the right choice for me because I wanted do develop my own voice, and my musical authenticity obviated any need to conform strictly to standard orchestration rules; however, it would be best for me to acquaint myself further with the historical trends of the past and present, in order to firmly ground myself within the musical culture I still seem to be a part of.

4. PERFORMING

Playing music in public is something I never aspired to do growing up, and it is unfair to assume that 100% of musicians have the inclination to perform in public. However, playing- rather, practicing- the piano was one of my best highlights in music school, and I have often thought of it as my favorite musical activity. Slightly ironically, I never quite wanted to build any kind of performance experience, despite all the clear and substantial progress I made in my piano studies- I have often been encouraged by both faculty and peers to put myself out there, and perform. I think one of my friends, a jazz player, said it was “criminal” that I wasn’t really performing, given how much I (seem to) practice.

If I was asked to go to a desert island with just one object for my musical endeavors, I would not take sheets of manuscript paper for composition, nor would I take my laptop for coding or producing electronic music- I would probably take a (weatherproof) piano. I find that even practicing rhythms repetitively satiates all of my musical needs- I can be creative if I improvise; I can be theoretical because I can think of the layout of the keys on the keyboard or just imagine rhythms; I can be physical because you move when you play the piano; and obviously, I can hear the actual music too. So, why don’t I perform? I think there are only two potential reasons for this, which interestingly contrast each other- the first is a lack of confidence which keeps me in the safe confines of my house where I can practice for eternity instead of test myself in the real world; and the second is an absurd, covert kind of hubris that makes me believe “practicing” is a higher form of musical experience and expression than “performing”.

I know I can keep improving at playing the piano, assuming I get over my post-graduation slack/slump sometime soon. However, from a life-perspective, I think it really would be a bit of a waste if I didn’t share my craft in one way or another in a performance setting. Being more “extroverted” in my musical expression has always been in a challenge, but I think I will rise up to the challenge eventually- besides, if I am to pursue my artistry seriously, I shouldn’t feel so picky and avoid challenges and cite shallow reasons like “eh I don’t feel like it” in order to dodge these opportunities. I just have to try! And I guess I am- I am going to perform in the Bleep Blorp Festival in March!

3. MYOPIA

The “tldr” of this section is I struggle to pay attention to form in music. It is hard for me to keep track of a larger timeline with more unique musical works, and I catch myself focusing more or less exclusively on what is happening exactly in the current moment. Listening to a soloist at a jazz composition recital might entail thoughts such as “oh, motivic development with a singular pitch. Ok, I just heard a bebop line. Alright, a rising line with that really guttural accent on the first note that really reminds me of Michael Brecker. Ok, now the soloist and pianist are interacting”. These thoughts are fine, but I wish I could pay deeper attention to what was happening on a larger scale, such as being aware of and also being able to recall the various sections that had occurred in the piece so far, being able to tell if there was something that linked said sections together, what kinds of gestures were used to move from one section to another, or if the music wasn’t overtly sectional, what kinds of “through lines” were used to get us from point A to point B.

Jazz standards were by far the genre of music I have consumed most in recent times, and due to their cyclical nature (and having memorized the tune I was listening to well), I never had to pay attention to what was happening to the form itself, because it doesn't change in most interpretations of any tune. This led me to focus on the melodic improvisation and slightly regrettably, not much else. Other listening habits come to mind, like my general preference for sticking to a few tracks for weeks- if not months- on end listening to the same piece of music, where I keep savoring what I hear in the present moment. I also tend to scrub through recordings often and replay certain sections because I really enjoy them. I am slightly embarrassed to say that I really might be unaware of how a lot of my favorite musical pieces end because I am still so fixated on that awesome 30-second-long section I have remained so loyal to!

Conquering my musical myopia is not an insurmountable challenge, and I should not be shocked to be suffering from it considering the aforementioned habits. With my recent desire to improve my attention span and consume more long-form content- I should have you know that I barely watch Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts now, and instead watch a monumentally long 22-minute-long episode of Batman The Animated Series for entertainment- listening to musical works I am completely ignorant of more often should be a good exercise, and I should start by reducing my intake of All The Things You Are. Being conscious of the compositional trajectory of music is likely just a skill, like anything else, and it’s about time I started training my musical memory muscles.

2. COLLABORATION

frequent collaborator (capiton edited)

One of the most uncomfortable things I did as a Composition major was to write a composition with a fellow classmate, and it felt awful even though he was a close friend and probably my favorite (student) composer in the class! The first time I even had a jam session as a pianist was in my third to last semester, and I only arranged one because I was assigned to do so- my professor diagnosed me with you-need-to-play-with-people syndrome and had me play with others. As an electronic musician who always found a great deal of comfort sticking to my computer, I think I successfully dodged every opportunity for collaboration in music school, instead preferring to work on my individual craft and participate in events where I could show up as myself, by myself, for myself. I certainly got a lot out of my music education, but I seemingly neglected one of the main reasons anyone should go to music school- to work with others and collaborate.

It’s true that musical expression need not be inherently social or explicitly collaborative- you can achieve a lot of things by yourself, like by composing alone, or locking yourself in a practice room, or experimenting with random things in software. I have even heard claims that things like “group-study”, for instance, are unproductive, since people mostly just end up chatting or wasting time as opposed to working sincerely, which may not be too far from the truth when you consider college culture. In my case, I think working alone gives me an unwavering kind of focus which lets me finish my work with a solid sense of determination, and I’m glad to have developed that skill. It’s also likely that one’s personality traits influence your ability to work with others such as introversion, agreeableness, etc. Additionally, if the nature of your work, or your artistic process, is habitually highly personal, anyone else contributing to it can feel like a kind of aesthetic trespass, which may feel awkward.

The discomfort is probably not a good enough reason to avoid collaboration altogether, especially in one’s early stages of music-making or artistic career. Being able to communicate effectively with others is a life-skill, and worth investing in, because you never know what amazing things you could achieve by combining more than one brain together. Indeed, a recent project I worked on only came into existence because a friend reached out and wanted to work with me. I suppose some musical opportunities lend themselves to collaboration better than others, like playing in a jazz quartet, which I may or may not be doing sometime soon 😉.

1. SELF-INDULGENCE

It is hard to talk about my self-indulgence in music, because any kind of sincere self-reflection was largely absent in most of my musical works besides those conceived around my last year of college. I stuck strictly to assignment guidelines for most of my undergraduate career, as I was a proponent of the “you have to know the rules before you break them” philosophy. This meant I never framed any of those experiences as personal, and let them remain completely abstract. That disciplined approach fared me well, but I eventually found the courage, and perhaps the need, to pay attention to my own self and try and express something more intimate. All of my recent works have something to do with my personal life- my string quartet "Sitting in Silence" had to do with a very particular personal passionate predicament I was going through; my “Bildungsroman” reflected my musical coming of age; “Faucet” had to do with me reconciling my compositional aesthetic with my love for EDM sounds; “Nostalgia Addict” had to do with my tendency to daydream; and so on and so forth.

I don’t think any of this is criminal, and self-expression is neither an inappropriate nor an incongruous motivation for making music, but as of late, it seems like expressing myself is all I have done. Setting aside confounding factors, like the recent events in my personal life which made me more tolerant of seeking catharsis through my music, it is worth asking to what extent self-expression, self-conception, or projecting identity should be a reason to make music. Any individual’s art seldom exists in a vacuum, and holds the potential to resonate with other people’s experiences. If you are too self-indulgent, then perhaps only you will be able to understand yourself, which suggests a slightly alienating- if not lonely, and potentially penniless- artistic existence. This perfectly explains my slightly unfounded grudge against scoring music for media for instance, because I have told myself they will tell me what to do, and that this would somehow suppress my self-expression.

It would be worth it for me- and my career- to set my newfound pride aside, and instead attempt to articulate ideas and concepts in music that are not explicitly personal. I think the primary responsibility I would hold as an artist is to frame my work in a way which sets up the listener’s expectations, and one of the ways I can achieve this is to really work on titling my pieces more sympathetically. I have my own qualms against the potential expediency with musical titles- you could conceive of your musical work in a completely detached way, and then at the end disingenuously title it for monetary or social profit (take a random voice-leading exercise you worked on and then dedicate it to your political movement of choice). But for better or worse, I am incapable of such deceit (assuming I have described it correctly), and I think it would be nice for me to think harder about my titles, because that would naturally shift the focus towards me considering the experiences of the listeners of my music. One solution might be to look towards imagery in the natural world. Another is to represent the shared experiences people go through, and I may even choose to get political in the process. As a tangent, I have wondered if I can make a piece of music in favor of animal rights for instance.

As I wrote in the opening of this post, I have been taking the time to celebrate my wins lately, which was probably important for me from a psychological perspective. But I am now anticipating and hoping for another prolonged period of intense training and immersion in my artistry, and I know I will continue to grapple with these questions, and ask others, as time goes on. I will now proceed to shockingly and unsatisfactorily conclude this post by saying that self-improvement is perennial.