Klarinet Archive - Posting 000102.txt from 2008/05

From: Barton Cummings <cbc_21@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] How do composers make money?
Date: Fri, 16 May 2008 09:59:45 -0400

As a composer/arranger, I can say that most of us have
day jobs. We either teach at a
university/college/conservatory, work for a publisher
as an editor, copyist, etc., or play in an orchestra,
band or freelance in a number of groups. Some
composers, and these are well-known highly recognized
and published and performed composers, at least in the
US, teach in the public schools. Plus a lot of
composer/arrangers write "school" or "educational"
music (whatever that means) for different publishing
houses and composing for the marching band field, in
the US, is very lucrative and can be a full time job.

All of these activities allow us to write our own
music. Not on the terms we would wish, but it does
work out.

Some composers who are lucky enough, do indeed live on
commissions and royalties from performances and
recordings.

And, even those composers who seem to be independent
are in many cases "visiting professors" at various
institutions and thus do have a source of limited
guaranteed income.

Of course, there are always a few who are born lucky
with the proverbial silver spoon and whether they
really are making it as composers is irrelevant. They
have the money to dabble in whatever suits them.

Interesting question regardless of on or off topic.

Barton Cummings

--- Martin Baxter <martinbaxter@-----.net> wrote:

> I think that many composers only make money on works
> that are
> commissioned. Many of these works are still
> financially unrewarding
> in view of the man-hours spent; but there are of
> course royalties on
> the subsequent performances, and (hopefully )
> recordings.
> Unfortunately many of those who commission works
> are virtuoso
> players and require works that very few will be able
> to play; hence
> sheet music sales for amateur performance are
> negligible.
> Financially the most successful works in the UK
> seem to be exam
> pieces for the various grade exams; if a movement of
> your sonata is
> chosen for (eg) Flute Grade 4 ABRSM you may well
> sell a lot of copies
> and with the current trend for students to want a CD
> "to know how it
> goes" -can't they read music? you may even get
> royalties on a
> recording. Performers like to sell records too.
> This may sound
> cynical but it is a fact of life.
> You could try writing a clarinet or flue sonata with
> four movements
> suitable for grdes 4,5,6 and 8. Who knows, you could
> make a killing!
> Martin
>
>
> On 16 May 2008, at 13:17, Curtis Bennett wrote:
>
> > This is pretty much off-topic to this list, but
> the ongoing thread
> > about John Adams made me wonder this. Recently, I
> was in my FLMS
> > (Friendly local music store) and happened upon a
> string quartet by
> > John Adams in the music section (John's Book of
> Alleged Dances). This
> > is a fairly recent piece of his, and was recorded
> by Kronos Quartet a
> > few years ago. It was $40. It struck me as a bit
> odd since I live in
> > Tulsa, and I have a hard time believing that there
> is any demand for
> > such a difficult piece of music in this town. I
> can only guess that
> > the number of active string quartets in my
> community probably could be
> > counted on one hand, and the number of those which
> could play such a
> > complex piece such as that would probably be 1,
> maybe 2.
> >
> > So, it struck me, how do composers make money?
> Surely writing such a
> > piece would net Adams very little actual income.
> And even if it did,
> > it would die off very fast once the market had
> been glutted. That is,
> > once all the people who could play it got it
> there'd be basically no
> > one else to buy it - at least not enough to
> sustain him.
> >
> > But as far as I know, John Adams doesn't have a
> day job. He's not a
> > conductor, he's not a professor - he's a composer,
> and does it full
> > time.
> >
> > Anyone have any insight into this?
> >
> >
> > --
> > Curtis Bennett
> >
> >
>
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