Well, I was thinking for a while... Should a composer or musician be modest? I mean, modesty is a very important character trait in my opinion. I personally don't like boastful acts. I mean, obviously, you would not like to see people brag in front of you and admitting how good they are and etc... I think it's something many people here should be aware about. Modesty is a part of honesty. When you're modest, you're honest to yourself and to other people about your capability in something. I personally believe that all composers should be modest. No matter how good or professional you are, there's always something you can learn in music.

Though, to flip the idea around, there's the acceptance problem. Because music is such an opinionated thing, do you believe that criticism can really aid you? I think it could, in many ways. But the thing is that music is such an opinionated thing, is it mandatory to accept every single style? Is it mandatory to respect every single piece? Is it moral to be modest and kind about your opinions on other people's music?

Hmmm...From what I've experienced...Modesty is important...Sometimes,through modesty,we can actually make good songs...
It works for me...Cause you know,there's always someone who is better than you in the world...So...yeah,you get the point...

For acceptance...Well,it's nice to respect and accept how other people make music...Criticism is of course a part of everything we do..We CAN criticise and accept a music piece at the same time...We don't have to hold back our criticism towards other people cause...well..they might really need it...
We might not like every single piece we hear,but accepting the piece as the way it was made by the composer,to me,is noble...

Yeah,this is a noob's point of view,so..if it's messed up,do understant

From my point of view, we need both modesty and confidence. Yes, they're opposites, so we must use doublethink to get past the confusion! When we're modest, we allow ourselves to improve. And when we're confident, we believe in ourselves and we believe in our music. And if we ourselves don't believe in our music, then there's no point in writing music.

Indeed. As my choir teacher tells the people who make the choir they auditioned for, "act like you were the first on the list, but work like you were the last."

As composers, we should accept criticism with a grain of salt. Some can be quite enlightening, while other can be inhibiting or degrading to our feeling, especially if there's a back-story behind a piece that the critic doesn't know about.

As composers, we should accept criticism with a grain of salt. Some can be quite enlightening, while other can be inhibiting or degrading to our feeling, especially if there's a back-story behind a piece that the critic doesn't know about.

That's what I'm talking about when I say acceptance. In my humble opinion, music is such a vague art form that you can't really expect people to completely understand what's behind your music upon their listening. They are not your identical twin and can't think like you. I mean, if you want direct expression of something, then you should perhaps do it through lyrics, or poems or whatever. So here's another two questions: It's vital to be nice while commenting or critiquing but is it vital to understand other people's pieces the way they want it? And can't composers accept other people's personal opinions even if they disagree?

I mean, to accept is to understand and respect other people's point of views. You don't have to agree with their opinions, but you have to live with it anyways. How would you feel if you were Stravinsky at the Rite of Spring's premiere where people literally had a riot merely over the piece you composed? Bad of course. But he accepted it, it can't be helped even if no one understood his music.

PS (side note): Therefore, I don't expect people to understand my music, I want them to tell me what they think it is. And that's what it will be.

Edit:

As to answer my own questions:


It's vital to be nice while commenting or critiquing but is it vital to understand other people's pieces the way they want it? And can't composers accept other people's personal opinions even if they disagree?

I say no to the first question. Every piece is special to every single person, you should never have identical feelings of a piece with another person.

As for the second question, I would say yes. I like different views and opinions on my music. I like the fact that people like this piece of mine more than the other one.

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@ Deathraider: You only mentioned to be modest as a musician. But what about as a composer?

Ah! Very nice topic you've brought up here, Dot. I would have to agree that you need to be modest in your abilties, both as a musician and a composer. But I do not (in most cases) think you need to be modest about explaning the artistry in your playings or emotions going in or coming out from the music. What that means is, be modest and nice about your ability to (example) play the piano very well, or how you can write pieces very well; however, when your explaining your emotions, feelings, thoughts, interpretations (etc.) you don't really need to *watch* what you're conveying, as long as you're speaking from your heart and mind truly.

When people say to be how good of a pianist I am, I either get a little nervous and give a headbow with a complementary 'smirk.' I also will be straight-forward and just say, 'Thank-you." Now, I usually don't say much when people ask me, "How did you get so good, so fast?!" The most I say is that I just want to keep practicing until the 'end.' Like Dot said before, were always learning something new about music, and this goes out for anybody, anybody at all. For instance, my music theory/composition teacher has many, many years of intense music experience, and he admits (he likes to admit it too) that you can always learn something new or different about music that you or anyone else has never thought of or found out; music is such a constant thing, and that's why I think it is so much next to life.. Getting back on topic.. What I just said there wasn't so "modest" because I was speaking my mind and heart about what my opinions are. (Made an example by accident. Lol)

I think I'll always be a modest person in any situation, but I'll always been honest about anything I do or feel; that's what makes music interesting, doesn't it?

I appreciate your comment, Mazeppa.

However, I found that something you said was a little confusing... Perhaps contradicting. You said that being modest does not apply to expressing an opinion and admitting something must be in certain ways (an example being admitting that you're able to do certain things on your instrument or saying a certain part of your piece is better than other parts). But you also said that music is an opinionated thing (which I strongly agree). If music is an opinionated thing, then how can one admit or assure certain qualities about it? Maybe at this point, it's not really always modesty, but acceptance. In another words, I want to know whether if you're saying music is something that are factual, solid and perhaps structured to the point where someone must accept the composer's opinion about the piece? (I mean, you can give facts and tell what inspired you to do such and such, but people doesn't have to agree.)

There's the line between understanding the music and just being assimilated, hence I daresay that critic should never have the same perception of a piece as the composer. Again, the critic is not a twin of you, accept this! Surely you may want to convey some sort of emotions, but even if the critics does not understand you, let it be. Music was never really an autobiography with every details etched clearly. You enjoy music for what it is, you enjoy it for what it makes you think about, you admire it for being itself.

Furthermore, let me expand on the acceptance aspect as not all of us here seem to understand the concern here:

As a composer, do you accept other people's opinion even though if you don't agree with it? I say yes, you need to be polite in response as well. Though, you have the option of following the advice or not (unless you know the person is incapable of doing anything same, slightly below or better than you).As a critic, should you completely see through the composer's perception of the piece? I say no, again, you're not a twin of the composer. You are just someone else and you are entitled to see every piece of music different from other people. But most of all, how polite can you be as a composer to accept positive or negative comments?

To add even more to this matter, when a critic critiques, what sort of comments do you appreciate? Postive comments (i.e. That passage sounds good)? Negative comments (i.e. That piece is horrible)? Positive constructive comments (i.e. This passage sounds good because of such and such but you can improve it by doing this and that)? Negative constructive comments (i.e. This passage sounds weak, you can improve by doing the following...)?

I think modesty is probably the most important thing about being a composer of musician- at the end of the day you cant exactly improve if you think you're already fantastic; you're putting a mental barrier for yourself.

As for a person admitting how good they are- I think that is also an important part; there is a difference between "I have put my heart and soul into composing/learning this piece of music and I am really proud of it, and yes it's pretty great" and "This performance/composition is amazing, because I am amazing". See if you are constantly looking for flaws in yourself it doesnt do much for your self esteem and that cant get you very far either. But at the same time, the latter example is just pure arrogance.

There is definately always something you can learn in music- even the professionals take time out to go and study with another professional so they can develop skills further. But at the same time, if during that whole period you just sit there like- 'you're the better composer therefore I will just shut up and learn from you' then it can be counter-productive, because you have to have confidence in your own ideas.

I think what I'm getting at is that it's perfectly fine to be proud of whatever you have that makes your compositions/performances unique, but at the same time you have to understand that there is ALWAYS someone who is better than you, and always someone who will have similar ideas and will have taken them that bit further.

Now onto the acceptance part-

As a composer, do you accept other people's opinion even though if you don't agree with it?

I accept other people's right to have a different opinion to mine, and that just because it's different it doesnt make it wrong. But at the same time, I believe you have to have an understanding of what the composer's intentions are before you can really comment. For example, I personally can't stand the compositions of composers such as Sorabji and Xenakis because to me they're just sheer virtuosity for the sake of it. But then at the same time i havent read into the works, and i know nothing about either of those composers, so I keep my mouth shut because I dont know enough to give an informed opinion.

As a critic, should you completely see through the composer's perception of the piece?

I dont know if i understand this properly, but if you mean you should ignore what the composer was trying to achieve, then I say definately not. if you are however saying that no two people have the same perception of a piece of music, then that is very true.

How polite can you be as a composer to accept positive or negative comments?

I think that depends on the temperament of the composer. At the end of the day it's understandable that some get frustrated by comments people make. I mean look at Debussy- he HATED the fact that people called his music 'impressionism' because of the implications that came with the term that all of his music was just a blur of sounds with no real structure or essence- it was up to the listener's interpretation. Now anyone who has studied a Debussy piece will know that his pieces are pretty much the opposite- they have a very clear structure and in some cases his piano pieces are written on three staves so there is absolutely no mistake about what he wanted. For someone to take all this trouble just to have it labelled 'impressionism', 'vague', 'blurred'- well im sure anyone can understand how he got so offended by it. But then again, that is the French for you- their culture has a different view of politeness to other cultures- I think to fully answer your question we could do with a debate on what exactly politeness is, as everyone's view is different. For example- what some people would call being polite, others would call being a doormat.

What sort of comments do you appreciate? Postive comments (i.e. That passage sounds good)? Negative comments (i.e. That piece is horrible)? Positive constructive comments (i.e. This passage sounds good because of such and such but you can improve it by doing this and that)? Negative constructive comments (i.e. This passage sounds weak, you can improve by doing the following...)?

Positive comments are essential to help a composer build self esteem, and anyone who says they dont appreciate positive comments is a liar.

Negative comments help the composer to go back and improve their own methods and develop further- they are probably in my eyes more important that positive comments.

Constructive comments of the positive or negative kind are usually taken with a pinch of salt. If someone says 'this bit sounds weak- try this', yes I will go to the section mentioned and try out different things, but I usually disregard what the person has specifically suggested, because i just think- well if i did that then it wouldnt be my composition anymore would it.

What a long post lol. Good topic though

My thought is that there is no need to be modest about your own work, I truly love my own music but as I would like everyone else to love it too I can not just dismiss other peoples critisism.

In commenting other peoples work there is a need to be modest since that person might feel the way about his/her own music as you do about yours.
In other words tread lightly, but do not lie just to humour people.
honesty, modesty and creative critisism in a nice blend is the best way to go IMO.

Well, in my opinion, pride/confidence does not equal to being boastful (as Al suggested earlier). But the major difference, again, in my opinion, is that this confidence and pride is within your piece's effort. People should hear your confidence in your piece, but saying that you're proud of it and all that is rather... Not confidence. It's being somewhat boastful. If you're proud of something you don't really need to say it, the audience can hear it through your music. Your effort is your pride.

Even if you are a boastful person, as long as you accept what other people speak of your piece, good, bad or whatever, then I guess it's really a personality matter. But if one can't accept it and one is boastful, then the person is an ignorant and disrespectful jerk.

@ Thorn: To reword this question:

As a critic, should you completely see through the composer's perception of the piece?

Must you agree with everything the composer say about their piece?

Basically where I draw the line between confidence and pride/boasting is that to say you're happy with a composition you've produced is being confident, however to say your composition is above improvements, criticism and other people's ideas is being a twat.

But I stand by what I implied in my previous post, even if i didnt say it directly; no one understands a piece of music better than the composer- and after all said and done, whether the composer is personally happy with the piece is what makes the difference between it being improved on or being shared with others. So in that sense, there has to be a sense of confidence in your work

Even with famous composers there is probably something every one of us here would alter in their works to make it sound nicer in our personal opinion- but then it's not their composition anymore is it? Im sure, for example, Liszt turns in his grave at all of the personal additions Horowitz used to add to his works- same goes for Chopin with the harder versions of his Etudes that Godowsky wrote- yes it might sound better in some people's opinion, but is it what the composer wants?

Even with famous composers there is probably something every one of us here would alter in their works to make it sound nicer in our personal opinion- but then it's not their composition anymore is it? Im sure, for example, Liszt turns in his grave at all of the personal additions Horowitz used to add to his works- same goes for Chopin with the harder versions of his Etudes that Godowsky wrote- yes it might sound better in some people's opinion, but is it what the composer wants?

Again, that's what I'm talking about when I'm saying acceptance. No matter what the composer's desire for the piece is, let's face it, it's impossible to achieve. Wagner can't expect his The Ring Cycle to be perfect. He can't expect everyone to love it. He can't expect every nuance to be perfect.

I guess that's my ultimate message to convey.

I would say, have a fair amount of modesty, but if you're proud of something, don't be afraid to say so. Just as long as you don't become boastful, you should be in the clear. When someone compliments you, accept it with grace. when someone critiques you honestly, accept it with an equal ammount of grace.