Developments and Dangers: The Training of Young Composers

As the 1980s draw to their close, contemporary music is becoming more eclectic than ever before. In the tremendous range of idioms, from symphonies to synthesizers via many ‘isms’ and ‘neos’, composers of the younger generation have a baffling choice of directions for their preferred moves. Ideologies have altered considerably during the past two decades; the demands of technology have left some institutions unable to keep up with the progress of electronic music in others; now the early musical experience of children in schools is changing too, with the introduction of GCSE placing emphasis on creativity and composition. But amongst the changes some aspects of a composer's training remain unaltered. There is a general sense that composers are ‘born and not made’, although they can be helped – or hindered – by their teachers. As Professor Alexander Goehr remarked: ‘I can teach anybody to compose so long as they are not a composer’. The mechanics of composing, such as formal structure or writing counterpoint, can be taught; the source of inspiration is as inexplicable as ever. The young composer remains something of a rebel figure, with a need for a particular means of self-expression that can be shaped but not dictated to. The rudiments of harmony and counterpoint, form and orchestration, can all be explained and absorbed by the student. But for a gifted composer in training, the essential search remains for the individual voice which must be found through independent choices, under the careful guidance of a good teacher.