As an undergraduate at the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music, my composition teacher was Stanworth Beckler. I learned so much from him. As with all real learning it’s not the information that’s presented in lessons and lectures, it’s the off-hand comment, almost in passing that sticks with you and guides and comforts you decades later. Several of his stick with me to this day.
Beckler taught a course one semester that was the result of his own in-depth study and analysis of ALL of the compositions of Igor Stravinsky. What a course! For the longest time I carefully kept his handouts. But…life. I no longer have them. If there’s any Beckler students out there who have those notes I will happily pay for their duplication and postage. They’re priceless.
Anyway…After listening to the complete works of Stravinsky over a semester and hearing Beckler’s analyses, one day I had the distinct impression that Stravinsky’s oeuvre is his own self-instruction in how to write music. That may seem like a peculiar observation for someone who wrote The Rite of Spring; he knew how to write music! But, alas, you have to learn all over again, every piece, no matter how long you’ve been doing it, ever since we entered the non-common-practice period (pretty much post Wagner to the present day).
I too am still trying to figure out how to compose and each piece I try to chip away at a new skill a little bit. (No, I won’t tell which skill it is for this piece.)
