There is nothing like a Conservatory -- or any room of astute academic musicians -- to point out all the things that you don't know about music. The more time I spend in one, I feel rather than learning, I'm just lengthening the list of things "I should already know."
Composition, however, seems to be a different beast. Like musicality, you can clue people in on where to start, but authenticity cannot be taught. What have I learned in school? A lot about history. A lot about reading scores, hearing things better, improving counterpoint, strengthening various aspects of craft, and learning all the different ways I can string a set of notes together.
The music, however, has nothing to do with any of this. Essentially, I'm hearing the same music I've heard in my head since I was teenager. It is only that I'm hearing it better, and getting more of it down on paper. I'm very encouraged that there are still things floating past my mind's ear that I can't quite put a finger on, so I know I still have much room to grow.
All of this rumination leads me to one thought: is it wise to school a musician for so many years? What, beyond the basics of undergraduate education, could I not have learned from a traditional apprenticeship instead? Were it not for the need to find income in a society brutally unforgiving of unprofitable ventures (like new music), would many of us even bother with the schooling? Would a classical music culture more divided from an increasingly delusional academic world prosper, or falter?
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This was a bit like looking back at myself a few years ago! My personal (and is probably not this way for most) experience was one of feeling as though I was being beaten into submission (i.e. You simply can't like Beethoven, Stockhausen, Cage, Johnny Cash, Coldplay, that new stupid song by Outkast... or that new stupid song by Green Day all at the same time... you just can't) and that if I didn't take my beating "like a good little music student" and like all previous music students had to endure before me, then I could not be accepted into "the Club." I decided that I preferred to like what I like and write what I want to write as opposed to what I knew I would HAVE to write in order to eventually get a job. Funny that I find myself once again in a profession that has these same types of issues... and I am about to walk away from it... and at the same time walk away from any financial security because I still have music that is IN me that has to be expressed...
I really get Charles Ives these days... make the money elsewhere... make the music you want to make... if no one cares, so be it.
just my thoughts
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