Bernard Chasan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Jeff Dunn:
>
>>Or maybe we should give up and do what we do best, movie
>>scores, rock and rap.
>
>What do you mean "we"?  Jeff Dunn can give up (I had not realized that
>he has been writing music) but it is clear that lot's of composers are
>not of the same mind.

Sorry for my bad netiquette; I forgot the:)

In my understanding, most composers (including myself, by the way) HAVE
to write; it's in the blood--though there may be intervals of abandonment
or block.  We certainly don't do it for money, unlike with rap, rock and
movies.

Pipe-dream time: wouldn't it be nice if there were more of a market for
symphonies like for rap, rock or movie music?  We were closer to it in
the 30s and 40s, when writing the Great American Symphony was more of a
real goal.  I'm perhaps more cynical in these War-on-Terror days, but
it seems to me that American culture just doesn't have what it takes any
more to produce more than isolated flashes in the symphony pan compared
to the European.  Finland can fry up a bonanza with sustained subsidies,
but that approach is beyond the pale for us--we're too busy subsidizing
other flash- producing industries.

or then again, perhaps the symphony in the sense of a dialectic is
just too passe of a form...or perhaps writing them comes and goes like
bellbottoms...

(You can see I haven't written a symphony yet--it would wander on too
much!)

Jeff Dunn
[log in to unmask]
Alameda, CA