Thinking Out Loud – Working to Get Back to Where You Started

I wanted to share this story in continuation with the idea of “if you didn’t do it on purpose, does that mean it has less of the value?”

Now, this subject is: “if you didn’t have the education for it, does it mean it has less value?”

Anyways, where I was just out of high school and applying for colleges, I was beginning to composing some original pieces. I had two years of theory training, so I understood the basics. However, there was still a lot for me to learn and understand when it came to writing music.

During one of the college auditions, I got to sit down with a professor of composition and show him the stuff I have been writing. While impressed by the fact that I had a portfolio to show – he wasn’t too keen on how I started the first chord on measure 1 with in first inversion. He felt like this tarnished the piece and made the harmony weak… therefore making my compositional skills like inadequate.

Years later, I can now say that I am more educated than where I was back then in high school. However, it now seems that if I was to put my first chord in first inversion, people would look at that as a stroke of experimental genius.

What gives?!?

Do I really need an education, a degree, or some approval to justify my composition? Why was my portfolio any less “art” than what it is now? And why should it be for anyone else?

Simply, do we as a society judge and evaluate a person’s compositional skills based on their background? That if you weren’t trained, it’s luck; but if you had education, it is genius?

Just thinking out loud.