Page 55 - Composing Processes and Artistic Agency

44 The topography of composing work

habitual during training and professional practice: “All self-development
depends on the mastering of appropriate responses to others; an indivi-
dual who has to be ‘different’ from all others has no chance of reflexively
developing a coherent self-identity. […] The individual is unable to dis-
cover a self-identity ‘sober’ enough to conform to the expectations of
others in his social milieux” (Giddens 1991: 201). Frequent references to
established composers in history, well-known philosophers, music theorists
or musicologists and the terms connected to them are neither superficial
rituals of self-projection nor unreflective reproductions of disseminated
educational content. Rather, they are the expression of a multilayered
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process of identity-building. The appropriation of, and participation in,
theoretical discourses is here a typical sign of an individual’sability to
join in and of his or her integration into a collective (see Wenger 2002:
55–57). One composer we interviewed discussed a composition as “more
of an offer to the listeners, to take it with them on their search or on
their way, so that through their experience, interest and intuition they can
become co-creators”. This immediately recalls Umberto Eco’s (1962/1989)
theory of the open work of art or Roland Barthes’ (1968/2005: 142–148)
interpretation of the reader as a second author. However, we are not talking
here about “copies” or “plagiarism”, but rather about the appropriation of
ideas, convictions, figures of thought and rhetorical turns of phrase that iden-
tify a person as a member of a practice community.
Many of the interviewed composers regularly write down their thoughts
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and ideas on works in progress. Christof Dienz confirms: “Often I even write
a ‘prose score’ in the prep phase. I write it in words because if I don’t, I’ll
forget what I was thinking, […] just as a reminder.” Judith Unterpertinger
also says, “There is much that I jot down in words, i.e. narratively”. Looked
at closely, these writing processes (or rather these accessories) are not a simple
writing-down of what has already been thought. Rather, diaries are one of
the many places where ideas are developed. When composers pursue an
impulse to write and follow an idea, a thought or an association, they trigger
new sequences of ideas or associations, which are often expressed concretely
in drawings as well as language. The goal of writing is then primarily practical:
to make progress in the composition process. For instance, Marko Ciciliani
observes:

Ultimately, concepts are important to me because they radiate such
motivation and fascination. But then I have to be able to transpose
them to music. And that’s basically the decisive moment. If I start, and I
realise, okay, I’m capable of conveying this topic in an artistic form that
preserves its fascination and its interest, then I’ve got past the critical
point.

Consequently, writing becomes a generative and creative activity integrated
into the composition process. The Notate contain various semiotic forms –