Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Advice for Young Composers Everywhere

1. Let your music speak for itself.

2. Learn the purposes of a program note: to provide information that locates the work in history and illuminates its background; to provide musical guideposts for those who desire or need help in understand the music.

3. Remember that thanks to the magic of search engines, anything you say or write that makes it on to the Internet will be discoverable when you're old enough to embarrassed by what you said at 16, 20, or 23. Yes, I am grateful that my youthful follies are on paper only.

2 comments:

Dr.B said...

This reads like a response to something. What?

Lisa Hirsch said...

I think there is no particular reason for me to call direct attention to the program notes in question.