Tina Davidson

Composer

composing music

Talking to Henry

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I see Henry* at the conference, a wonderful composer and someone who has championed the field of new music as well as other composers. I take his elbow warmly.

Smiling, Henry turns to me from his conversation with a tall man who’s name I don’t catch. His friend interrupts our greeting. “I have to finish this conversation,” he says, and animatedly continues his long story about a job application as a composer that had not gone well.

“And then,” he finally finishes, “they hired a woman!” He pauses and names the composer. “This job was a fit perfect for my talents. Instead, they hired a woman.”

Henry knows her. “She is a wonderful composer,” he counters, “and she will be fabulous at this job.”

His friend shakes his head. All jobs are going to minority and gender diverse candidates; white men are being pushed out. I am flooded with thoughts.

I began my composing career in a music world governed by the idea of excellence – that the best candidate should get the job, the commission, or the performance. The catch, however, was who was determining this “excellence” and what the criteria was. I quickly learned that “excellence” included which school you attended, who you studied with, what kind of music you were composing, and finally, gender and race.

Fortunately, we are in a different time. Now, music institutions know that to survive they must find new connections with their audiences, as well as represent the broader community. Part of that work is to offer opportunities to minority and gender diverse composers and support those who have been hidden in the shadows. 

But there is something else. Historically there have been no women composers as well known as Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. For many reasons women were not encouraged or often ignored. But more importantly, they didn’t have opportunities to hear their music – a vital link to their growth and maturity as a composer.

Music doesn’t fully exist independent of performance. Unlike literature or art, music is incomplete until it goes under the fingers of a performer, who wrestle with translating and bringing it into life. Even then, the work is not fully realized until it is in front of an audience. Something magical happens to the work in this communication, this transfer to the ears of the listener. And it is where I learn, evaluate, and move onto the next project with increased wisdom. Without the performance of my work, my progress is hindered and only half completed.

In truth, there are always winners and losers in the face of opportunity. The pendulum sways back and forth. I have lived through the shift of dominance of university composers (mostly white men), the push for representation of women, the activation of composers in community settings, and now the inclusion of DEI. I am thrilled at where we are, and where we are moving to.  This music field – this thing I love, will be greatly enhanced. 

I applaud these opportunities to marginalized composers to speak, hear and learn. As their voices join with others, we cultivate a rich, diverse artistic field which will, over time, speak to and for all of us.

  • Not his real name.

Inter Stellar

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Not until the first snow of the year, did I know for certain that she was there. I had guessed as much, somewhere in the back ground, in the corner of my eye, in the undergrowth of my thoughts. But now, here were her footsteps, curling and meandering across my yard, like shafts of arching winter wheat.

I had heard her months before on the edge of sleep. A cry, a half-shriek or moan, almost like an animal mortally wounded. Stumbling out of bed, I stood by the open window and waited. The sound recalled my childhood. Late one afternoon, our dog appeared with a small brown rabbit in his large jaws. Terrified, the rabbit’s mouth was shaped like an oval as it screamed continuously – a bowels of the earth sound.

This, was no rabbit, however. Instead a vixen in heat, calling out an ancient enticement for a mate.

I started to set out scraps of meat for her, a fresh bone or two, a nightly snack – just something to keep her going in the winter. I know, I know. This is against all current wisdom: do not interfere with nature, or make wild animals dependent on humans. But, in truth, either by choice or necessity, foxes live in my neighborhood; we are part of the same ecosystem.

Small traces of her began to increase. The plastic dishes I laid out were scattered around the yard, often decorated with round puncture marks. Then, a carefully composed dropping of scat on the walkway, later, on my doorstep. A blue ball was left under the apple tree.

One evening I looked out the window and there she was. Slender black legs, thick red orange fur, and a laughing face. She approached the food as if it were a foreign object, jumping back in caution. Circling, she lay on her stomach and slid forward to eat, only to dance away again. Finally she finished it, and began to move gracefully off, stopping to look around every few steps.

Her movements were both of curiosity and caution. It made me smile. She had none of the cruel intensity I had as a young composer, where insistence was the only path forward. I was singular, driven, and compulsive. A straight line, a harsh beam of light, always thinking about what to create. Preoccupied and rarely in the moment, I was angular and often strident.

Now, in my seventies, I am more tamed. c is no longer one-directional, scraping and scouring rocks. It oozes, bubbling towards my writing and composing, my garden, and my friends. I have more elasticity, more contours.

I have, I think, learned wisdom, by being humbled through experience. I no longer move at a fast pace or travel long distances. Instead, the reach is deep, and as connections come to the surface, words are there to articulate them. Before I was a runner aimed for the horizon. Now I have a spade; I dig.

Age has not taken away my ambition – the belief I still have something important to add. I grapple with doubts or vulnerabilities, but I have learned how to be more fluid and gentle, like the fox’s looping footsteps.

I soften at the sight of her. For all her grace, she is no fool. While she is not possessed or driven, she knows the boundaries and carefulness of living.

I search to name her. I am thinking of Interstellar, or Inter Stellar. Borrowed from Latin, stēllāris, it is of or pertaining to stars, like the ones she roams under. And, both of us are are “inter” or between stages. She, a wild creature living in a tamed neighborhood, and I, a human living with the passage of time. 

Like her, I pause to sniff before moving a few more steps forward. I pick up my head and gauge the shifting patterns.

The Death of Finale

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Recently, the music notation software, Finale, long considered the industry standard, announced that it would end production. Although the software would be permanently available to download, the company would longer provide upgrades, particularly when the computer operating system changed.  In other words, soon Finale would be obsolete, and most probably the music created using it would no longer be accessible.

I, like many other composers, was panicked. I had used the software for over thirty years, and almost all of my music catalogue was in Finale. I had made PDF files of all my scores for ease of printing, but any re-editing or correcting had to be done on the original file.

Finale assured composers that all was not lost; music could be migrated to another notation software system. However (why is there always a however?) this entailed a lot of re-editing. Most of the dynamics had to be reentered, glissandos were all over the place, and any unconventional notation was illegible. I was looking at hours and hours of work to upgrade each piece. The prospect was daunting at best, terrifying at worst.

Of course, I was glad I wasn’t dead. That would have been a real problem.

I came to age as a composer in the mid 1970’s. To create a score, I used vellum or onion skin, a durable, semi-transparent material pre-printed with a staff. Using various well chosen pens and India ink, I would copy out my music. The manuscript was then reproduced through an ozalid process. 

This mode of copying was time consuming. The vellum had to be dusted with talcum powder so the ink would stick. Pen nibs needed meticulously cleaning, and mistakes were scraped off or even cut out. Once the score was created, each part needed to be copied out separately on vellum. Imagine an orchestra piece with 24-28 parts; it was a proof-reading nightmare.

When photocopiers became available, I switched to handwriting the score with pen and paper.  I corrected mistakes with white-out fluid, and cut a photocopied score up and glued the parts onto separate sheets of paper. The only drawback was that the parts would constantly come unglued, often falling into a tangled mess.

I began using a computer and the Finale software in 1991 with a great sigh of relief. Quickly I learned how to key in the notes, adjusting the formatting to my own personal satisfaction. My music was now more regulated and easier to read. Parts were extracted from the score and I sent them to performers by mail, or electronically as a PDF.  This was a best case scenario.

The advent of music software, coupled with direct access to the world wide web has been a great equalizer for artists. Before the internet, publishers (museums or libraries) were gate keepers. They selected artists they wanted to represent and made them ‘important.’  Now, composers became their own publishers, creating websites to publicize and sell their music directly to performers. More than that, the digital age offered artists – offered me – the taste of the promise that my work would endure, some place in the big somewhere. That my work would survive and have a life beyond mine. 

Artists are always concerned with the preservation of the works they have created over a life time. First, will the material used – the paper or ink – stand the test of time?  Secondly, how will the works continue to get out to the public? Are there publishers who will make the music available to performing ensembles after the death of the artist? Are there libraries, museums, or archives that will store and protect the work?

We live in a time of diminishing resources to safeguard the legacy of music created by American composers. We have no national repository in the way that other countries have. Canada, for example, has a library of all its composers’ works available to view, study or perform. In other words they honor and treasure their country’s artists; the US does not. And publishers have neither the financial resources nor the interest in representing composers that are not currently successful. 

The internet and the availability of music in a viable software system is of great importance; it will house, remember, preserve, and make available works of all composers – so that this generation of composers, who speak of our time, will be remembered.

The Finale-end-of-the-road reminds me of the false promise in terms of permanence. I look at my music paper with renewed fondness.

Barefoot in Winter

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I am sitting in my music studio, a few days into a month residency at MacDowell in New Hampshire. Outside is icy cold; the snow leans up against the studio and icicles hang off the small moss-covered shed roof.

I sigh and drum my pencil on the blank score paper. All morning I have been procrastinating, unable to move forward in composing my next work. I am caught in the bardo of creation – between not knowing and, at the same time, sensing the direction of the piece.

I wait and close my eyes, thinking about summer and soft warm dirt between my bare toes, the color a milk chocolate. In my mind’s eye, I turn and spin, remembering that Moses, as he approached the burning bush, took off his sandals to stand on holy ground.

Of course! Barefoot. The sound of the new work wells in my ears; I am flooded.

I grew up as a pianist in a household of strings. My mother was an avid amateur violinist and my sisters played violin and viola. I envied their ability to play with others, while I was continually on my own. In college, I took up cello in addition to studying composition and piano. I studied with Michael Finkle, who was mustached, quirky, and full of joy. We gathered weekly to play cello quartets and octets late into the evening. Then, turning off the lights, we improvised in the dark.

My ear is always bending towards the sound strings produce when I compose. The instrument itself is an ingenuity of construction – as one plays, the open strings resound, building up a deepening of sound – like a piano’s sustaining pedal, but discrete and selective. The resonating strings respond like ghosts to a call, building up overtones and harmonics, even different tones.

I love the immediacy a string player has between themselves and the sound they produce. Pressing the flesh of their finger into string, they bow to bring the pitch to life. With this comes the unique ability to bend a note easily through a glissando. This is aslide between notes, not a fast get-away, but a way of directing energy from one note to another. Sometimes I want to pierce through a note cleanly, like an arrow through the heart. Other times, I move between two notes, creating a slow-motion tension, where the departing note comes so close to the next note that union is magnetic and unavoidable.

The string instrument is a master of getting to the kernel of sound by varying the way a sound is made. Pizzicato and tremolo are most common, but, for me, ponticello (playing close to the bridge to make a scratching, buzzing sound) and col legno (reducing the sound to a bare shadow of itself by playing with the wood of the bow) gets closer to what I experience in a single note or tone – an outer shell-like-flesh with a soft inner core.

I am always composing towards the center of sound, to get as close as I can. And always, in a stream of movement, a consciousness liquid enough to become something else at any moment. Lean and snake-like, my music is continually circular and linear, transforming in a seamless continuity.

String writing in Barefoot

LISTEN: https://lnkfi.re/barefoot

Tremble for violin, cello and piano, has no end of movement – we shiver in delight or quake in fear. We shake in anger or pulse in love. We tremble in the act of knowing and not knowing.

Barefoot for violin, cello, viola and piano is cold and full of fresh snow, and always a longing for bare feet on green forest paths and creek beds. The dashing out and tasting life with little protection, the dancing before the burning bush – barefoot before God.

Wēpan for string quartet and piano is full of slippage from one note to another – glissandos between note to note; weeping, endless weeping.

Hush for violin and piano is quiet and reflective – a sweet calming of our child, ourselves and those around us – a stillness so that life can be experienced, cascading around us.

Leap, for violin, cello, viola and piano, was written during the pandemic when we found ourselves having leapt into a world unrecognizable. Restless and often sudden, the strings echo each other, searching and slightly out of tune.

Tina Davidson’s new album Barefoot, featuring the Jasper Quartet and pianist Natalie Zhu, is released on New Focus Recordings.  

 

Some Things I Have Learned, Part 1

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I was recently asked to come up with a lists of things I have learned about being a composer. What would I tell myself as a young composer? What would I share with others?

Three categories come to mind – how I nurture myself, what is part of my practice, and what is the business of being a composer. Over time, the list has grown, but at the root is always, always, safeguard your creativity and enrich yourself as a working artist.

Here is the first of two installments  – nurture and practice.

NURTURE, verb: to help (something or someone) to grow, develop, or succeed

Trust and value your own creativity.
Taking the time and patience to actively believe in myself as a creative person has been a life-time process. It has become a deep-self-knowing.

 Be with people who say yes.
If you have creative aspirations and your friends are not supporting you, find new friends. I am constantly grounded by friends who are generous, non-judgmental, and who see my work as just part of who I am.Feed the mind, body and soul. Embrace experience.
As an artist, I am what I eat – so reading and traveling are experiences that are directly channeled into my work. Eat pray love – life is the resource. I read, dance, take art lessons, and walk. Being a composer requires a multi-pronged approach.

Build community where ever you can.
Reaching out and being interested in other artist’s work has been a gold mine for me. I am not only inspired by what others of all disciplines are doing, but it feeds my work as well as puts it into perspective. Moreover, to have a community to share struggles, resources, and work is invaluable.

Dare to create yourself anew.
Heartbreak, failure, being sidelined – all of these are part of life. It is how I act upon them, manage them, learn from them, move through them and dare to try again, in a strengthened position, that matters.

PRACTICE, noun or verb: 1. the actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method, 2. to perform or work at repeatedly so as to become proficient

Talent depends on hard work – it demands it.
For me, there has never been an easy, quick path forward that doesn’t include time, discipline and work. The willingness to sit down and face what ever is in front of me, every day, most days, is essential.

Heave your heart into your mouth – often.
Composing is about authentically speaking about myself to others, not so that they understand me, but resonate with my music.

Learn that “no” is part of the artistic process.
When discouraged, I take comfort that even  successful artists get rejected. A life of artists’ endeavor is a process not a destination. I am in it for the long game and just keep going.

Journal every day.
Finding words to express my inner thoughts is part of my daily artistic practice. This allowed me to dig deeper into myself and my art. It is a place of asking myself questions – what is holding me back, what could I do better? Who are the inside voices that are giving me negative commentary?

Take a nap.
When blocked in my work, I take a walk, meditate or – my favorite, take a nap. My brain has an amazing ability to solve problems when left alone.

Late Summer Hydrangeas & Roses by Tina Davidson, pastel