Composer Blogs@Sequenza21.com
Stefanie Lubkowski received her bachelor's degree in Music and Technology and Guitar Performance from Connecticut College, in New London, CT. In fall of 2005 she will begin a masters degree in composition at New England Conservatory, where she will study with Lee Hyla. Stefanie's past teachers include Noel Zahler, Yehudi Wyner, and Pozzi Escot. Stefanie has written for various chamber ensembles and electronic media. Her most recent commission was El Hombre de Plata, an electronic tango premiered at the Auros Groups for New Music "Tangothen & Now" concert in Cambridge, MA.

Stefanie's musical interests and ambitions are wide ranging. She enjoys putting her iPod on shuffle and letting it spit out a mix of electronica, 20th century string quartets, Tom Waits, punk rock, 1930s orchestral tangos, Einsturzende Neubauten, early American blues, Beethoven, Johnny Cash, and opera. She hopes that one day her music will be heard on concert stages around the world, independent films, computer games, car commercials, radio (or its future equivalents), and anywhere else music is being enjoyed.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
in defense of "selling out"

As I observe my debt rising, I've been collecting my thoughts together on the friction between being an artist who creates something worthwhile and the need to earn a living.

It seems most composers who have gone the academic route in their training shun and scorn commercial projects such as writing jingles and soundtracks for TV ads, TV theme music, even film scores. A project isn’t “serious” unless it is solely intended for the concert stage. Composers in this camp have traditionally earned a living through teaching at the university level rather than purely through composing. Unfortunately, substantial teaching positions are not numerous, nor are commissions with hefty monetary compensation, and competition is fierce. Many composers are obliged to work some sort of day job in order to pay their bills, especially early in their careers.

Selling out by taking on some commercial projects starts to look a lot less unappetizing when you are saddled with 100k+of educational debt. And if you don’t “sell your soul” to commercial endeavor, you still run the risk of selling it to a day job. I have a day job I really like, but I still resent spending 8 hours in the office, and having only 2 or 3 to spend on my music each day. Recently some ins toward some commercial gigs have become available to me. No matter what I do, I’ll have to spend at least 50% of my time and energy doing something that pays the bills. I could spend that time at a job to which my education and subsequent skill set is irrelevant. Or I could spend it doing something on which I can use my skill set. The skill set I devoted much of my resources acquiring.

And if my post-tonal, serious music sensibilities seep into commercial projects and broaden someone's ears, well , that's a good thing. I’m not imagining that I will convert the masses and convince them to like the “good” music that they “should” like. I’m hoping that familiarity with contemporary sounds will open doors to greater appreciation. The first time I heard certain non-Western music (Indian classical, gamelan, Japanese gagaku), it sounded mighty strange and I was disinclined to like it. But if I ended up hearing enough of it so that my ears grew accustomed to the unfamiliar scales and relationships, my reactions would change and become less dismissive, even if I never grew to love it either.

As composers of a relatively un-listened to genre, I don't think it would hurt us to get our stuff out there when and where we can, even if the medium does not measure up to some standard of "pure" or "serious" art or worthy cultural presentation, and the content is watered down to fit the bill.
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski

Friday, December 30, 2005
semester break

I finished my first semester at NEC on December 19. I really love the program there, so much so that I will apply to continue through the doctorate. The professors are great, and other students are wonderful. It’s a total music environment, and one I find so stimulating that in addition to the three pieces I completed during the semester, I have three more waiting to be realized. Next semester will be devoted to the most ambitious of those projects: an orchestra piece inspired by the Nortec Collective’s Mexican electronica. This will be the second orchestra piece I’ve written, and it’s far more complex than the first; I’m planning significant percussion parts event though I know nothing about writing for percussion. I’ll be consulting with percussionists quite a bit.

Right now, I’m doing some sketches for my orchestra piece in short score. My previous orchestra piece was written in full score the whole way, partly because my teacher wanted me to do it that way, and partly because I had very specific timbral ideas. With this piece, thematic development is more important, so short score seems like the right thing to do.

Once again, I am worried about my ear training skills. I have to re-take the ear training proficiency exam on Jan 17. I had been practicing steadily Sept-Nov and making plenty of progress. But then with the stress of my Dad’s illness and routine end of the semester panic, I stopped in December. Now I’m back at it, but it’s unclear how much of my previous progress stuck, and I’ve only got 2 weeks!
The most important lesson that I’ve learned at school this semester is not a healthy respect for ear-training. It is that the more experimental or challenging things that I have written are more successful than I think they are. This semester I had to write two things that challenged my skills or plunged me into unfamiliar territory: a trombone etude for orchestration class and a rhythm “morphing” exercise for composition seminar. In both cases, I brought my work into class thinking “this is going to sound terrible and be a dismal failure.” And both times, not only was my piece not a failure, but it was praised by the player and/or professor as not only meeting the requirements of the assignment, but also as being well-done. My teacher even suggested I turn my rhythm exercise into a full percussion piece (which I will do in the near future). I’ll have to keep this phenomenon in mind as I dive into my orchestra piece.
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski

Wednesday, September 28, 2005
playing with blocks

I seem to be having some sort of composer’s block. I’m working on a second movement to a chamber piece based on “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. (Scored for flute, clarinet, sax, cello and piano) Last week I was swimming in inspiration and wrote about a third of the movement in three days. Now I’m drowning in mediocrity. Everything I come up with sounds like crap (to my ears at least), and I’m having a hard time making decisions…

As a young composer, I used to look forward to the time when I could just generate material through application to the problem at hand and plain hard work. It seems I can now do that, but the double edge of this sword is that generating reams of material may still only render one or two good things. Just about as much as if I’d sat idle waiting for only good stuff.

So, while I dither about my next move, let me muse about why I started this crazy project in the first place. For many centuries, it was nothing if not expected that composers would turn to popular or folk music for inspiration and source material. In the modern era of media, celebrity, and the commodification of popular anything, we’ve turned 180 degrees and reviled the pop. I think it’s a perfectly healthy response to a world in which everything is engineered to sell little plastic discs rather than provide any genuine expression of anything. On the other hand, it’s rather isolating to completely ignore something that’s all around us.
One day I was listening to a local college radio station and heard “I Put A Spell on You.” I hadn’t heard it in several years, and fresh exposure reminded me of how much I loved the quirky, yet powerful, passion of the song and it’s performance. I started thinking about how I would use those sounds and motives in a piece of my own.
In my mind, there are two emotional aspects to the song: frenzied and powerful vs. desperate and pleading. My first movement captures the frenzied aspect, and now I’m trying to explore the desperation. But I’m stuck, and frustrated.
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski

Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Conservatory Cooties

I seemed to have survived my first two weeks at New England Conservatory. Well mostly. I did not pass the hearing portion of the theory placement test, but only missed the mark by four points. My analysis essay was fine. After consulting with the professor in charge of the placements test, I’ve decided not to take the remedial course. Instead, I will continue practicing ear training on my own. It feels a bit like gambling, but the course doesn’t do a lot of hardcore ear training, so I’m better off spending the time drilling chords, intervals, etc.
This means I can’t take any graduate theory courses yet, so I am taking Orchestration, Composition Seminar, possibly Intro to Ethnomusicology, and my lessons. So far, I’m very happy with the classes, the professors, and my classmates. Unfortunately, I seem to have caught a slight bug from this new germ pool.

It’s refreshing to have music assignments, deadlines, etc. For so many years now, all my music pursuits were independent studies, with no outside pressures. The only realm in which I had outside pressure and stimulus to work in new ways was my day job. This week I wrote a one-minute violin etude for my orchestration class. In this assignment, it’s more important to employ a diversity of techniques rather than create an elegant form. Not the kind of thing I would normally take on, but I’m having a lot of fun with it.

On the other hand, the prospect of working at the MFA, going to class, and keeping up with all the coursework is very intimidating, and many a day I think, “how the hell am I going to do this?!” Such is the life of a grad student I guess.
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski

Monday, August 29, 2005
first week of school

I am in the midst of orientation week at NEC. So far I've attended meetings on financial aid, grad curriculum, and academic advising. Not to mention, the theory placement test. Actually, better not to mention the test. I don't think I passed it, or rather, I have no confidence that I passed the ear training component. I've never been good at it, and despite spending the last two months drilling (and making progress) with a computer program recommended by NEC, I still had trouble. For the analysis, I chose the contemporary piece, Bartok's Line and Point, from Microkosmos Book 4. My teacher had gone over it in my lesson a year or so ago, and I've also analyzed several other Bartok pieces over the years. No problem there.

Unfortunately, no matter how well I did on the analysis, if I bombed the hearing part, I will not be able to take grad theory courses until I pass the test or complete the remedial course. And since I need to take 4 theory classes to meet my requirements, I can't afford to bet on passing the test on the second try. I'll have to take the remedial course. I'm frustrated because I already know most of the stuff in the course. Even the ear training part I understand, it just takes a lot of time and practice for me to master it. And it costs extra money and is worth 0 credits.

Well, I'll give myself until tomorrow to be disgruntled about it, and then I'll just steel myself to accept whatever comes and get on with it.

If I do pass the test, I plan on taking Electro-Acoustic Music I and 20th Century American Composition and Theory. If I don't, I can still take Electro-Acoustic Music, but I will have to substitute either Instrumentation/Orchestration 1 or intro to Ethnomusicology for the theory course. My required courses are Composition Studio and Composition Seminar. Registration is on Friday, and I'll find out whether I passed the test right beforehand.
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski

Tuesday, August 02, 2005
weaknesses

As I prepare for the NEC placement theory exam, I am up against my constant musical nemesis, ear training. I've never been good at it, although slight improvements have been made since my undergrad days, thanks to the help of my sister and some training software I recently started using (MacGamut). I wish I was good at ear training. Not only would I be saved hours of practice time, but it would be incredibly convenient to be able to transcribe from recordings, and do all those other nifty play-by-ear tricks.

Some people have asked me how I can compose without strength in this skill, and how I can look at a score and have at least a rough idea of what it sounds like. But I find that how you hear "inside" your head is vastly more complicated than a direct translation of skills one has for external listening skills. At least, that's the way it is in my head. When I compose (and I don't rely heavily on a keyboard or even midi playback) I do have a satisfactory idea of what it's going to sound like, and when I look at a score, I can get a vague idea. How do I do it? what is actually happening inside my head? I've got no idea, I just know it works for me.

And so, as I make slow, agonizing progress in melodic dictation this week, I ask myself, should composers be good at everything musical? Is that a realistic or necessary goal
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski

Sunday, July 31, 2005
Day Jobs

For the past week, I've been on vacation from my job at the Museum of Fine Arts. Which only means that I could spend more time on my second job: composer. It's a strange thing that to be a composer in this day and age means to hold two jobs for most people: whatever you make a living doing, and then composing. Right now I'm working on some electronic music that would most likely end up in the pop bins at a record store. In the last 6 months, I bought an array of electronic music software, along with a minimum of hardware, and I've been working on some modest projects to help me learn how to use all this stuff. I majored in Music and Technology, aka electronic music, in undergrad, but hadn't pursued it after graduation due to financial constraints. I had wanted to get back into in in the past year or so, after I realized that technology and pricing were such that I could run a decent studio off my laptop without bleeding my bank account dry. Then I got a commission for an electronic tango piece. Now I've moved on to some ambient works based around samples of my teakettle. Progress is slow as I struggle with learning Digital Performer, but no matter how many stumbling blocks there are, I'm reminded of how much fun this is.
posted by Stefanie Lubkowski