Paul Carey, composer-blogger, calls it like he sees it in this rant against music publishing.
He speaks against:
1. Formulas
They hope we will consistently give them what they want (speaking in the choral publishing world for now, as that is what I do the most): a formulaic 3-4 minute piece, with an easily understandable text, very limited tessituras, NO DIVISI (“divisi bad, bad, bad”)
2. Drums
don’t forget that anything with drums sells, and anything touchy-feely and dedicated”to the children”or “for the sake of our children” sells & sells (like an Energizer Bunny).
3. Accessible Music
My reaction to this is as follows- to set out on purpose to write “accessible” music will usually result in blandness and lack of creativity.
He even provides a solution – one that is in line with my thinking as well:
How can we make a major shift in our musical world? It’s really pretty obvious- directors and composers need to work together more directly, and stop relying on the mainstream publishers to set values. We need a new era where composers and directors collaborate far more and stop accepting the junk that the mainstream publishers and retailers think we want for our choirs. In other words, we need to rebel- composers need to stop writing to mainstream publishers narrow standards of so-called accessibility, and directors need to stop buying garbage from Hal Leonard and the like and stop blindly purchasing whatever JW Pepper and other music mega-retailers are telling you to buy.
philip copeland says
Paul Carey says
John Howell says