In my advertising and film work, I work with composers who are writing their butts off. Some have so much to write, they employ legions of assistants. They are not writing contemporary art music, or are they? Many of their compositions are as fascinating, inventive, artistically marvelous as anything I hear at Disney Hall. They just don't play it in a concert hall. It's played in a studio, then heard by an audience on film or over the TV or radio. They get little respect from the contemporary art music establishment, maybe because they make a living at it.

Money is an issue often regarded as beneath the dignity of a true artiste. And of course, many true artists live on peanut butter. I'm always amused by the anecdotes about Bach constantly complaining about being underpaid and conniving to increase his income. Art music today is supported by philanthropists and government hand-out. It's the death knell of any enterprise when it lives off charity. Contemporary composers are thrilled to win $1,000 bucks from some foundation and get a performance by third-rate orchestra - for which the composer must supply the parts! What we call contemporary music doesn't pay because so few people go to hear it. Most of it is dreadful and audiences have been turned off. It's become an academic, ivory-tower pursuit. Erica Muhl, an acquaintance of mine, is professor of composition at USC. She studied with Boulanger, received a Lifetime Achievement award a few years ago, has had her pieces performed by respected symphonies, and so on. I think her music is wonderful, but nobody outside a very small group knows who she is. Fewer have ever heard her music in a hall or even on CD.

Concert halls can't afford to program music audiences don't like to hear. Obviously, they go broke if they do, so they all play Beethoven and Mozart - again and again. The NY Phil is putting on a fabulously inventive series this year: all of Brahms symphonies. Besides an occasional warm-up piece maybe five minutes long, orchestras just will not program contemporary music because even the mere mention of it sends audiences running for the exits and music directors get bombarded with irate letters from subscribers canceling. This is, of course, old news. The interesting thing to me is that contemporary art composers haven't done anything about it - other than complain.

There don't seem to be many ways to rectify the situation, as far as I can see. You can't make money from something nobody wants. OK, so what do they want? Well, seems to me they'd like a melody now and then. They'd like some rhythm. They'd like some interesting orchestration. Contemporary art composers, as far as I can make out, refuse to deliver those things on principle. I went to hear John Adams recent atom bomb opera in its premiere in San Francisco. It was a dud - and he's actually pretty good. We, as a group, can either change our tune or simply stop singing. We can't keep doing what we're doing.

Some time ago, a famed NY critic announced that the NY Phil no longer mattered to the cultural life of New York. A scandalous assertion with which I have to agree. The orchestras are dependent on grants and donations. The cultural life of the city expressing itself at the box office doesn't support them. They play famous old music to mostly old people. If you see someone under 50 at a concert, they're probably there under protest. As you said, the whole cosmos of concert hall music seems to have become effete. Criticism has devolved to comparing last night's performance of "the" Mozart to one conducted 50 years ago by Furtwangler - that and some mention of whether or not the legato technique of the keyboardist was appropriate given Mozart's détaché style. This all seems preposterous to me since Mozart never played a grand piano, but I guess the critics have to say something in the two column inches allotted by the paper's editor.

I think we fail, and it can't be called anything else in my view, because:
a) We don't write sing-able melodies - leaving the audience no way to follow and remember the piece.
b) Our music doesn't engage the emotions of the audience, so they don't relate other than intellectually and that must be the definition of "dry."
c) Our music is largely academic and frankly un-musical. Tone rows are soporific. Stevie Wonder rocks.
d) The players aren't very good, perhaps owing to little rehearsal time and so on, but I think more likely because they've been stupefied by playing the same music over and over again for years. Early on, I was told by a top professional player that technique had risen to such a high level, I shouldn't really worry about what I write. "They can play anything!" Then I was advised by some who know better, "Keep it as simple as you can - these guys can't play for beans."
e) And lastly, I don't think it's loud enough. Eight string basses, the whole orchestra for that matter, is absolutely inaudible compared to one guy playing a Fender Bass through an 800 watt head and four 12" Altec Lansing speakers. That's sound that shakes your solar plexus, drills into you, nearly lifts you off the ground. People listen to really loud music these days - in movie theaters, on their stereos, in their cars. Most art concerts sound dinky - even here at the vaunted Disney Hall. And if someone thinks the masters didn't want it loud, count up Beethoven's smashed pianos, consider Mozart's glee at once having 30 violins.

It's a pity we have these wonderful concert halls and fantastic orchestral and other instruments at our disposal and can't seem to write anything anybody wants to hear. It's the failure of the composing that's at the root of all this. If the music were good, quiet or not, audiences would come and the money would be there. We just need to write music that involves the audience emotionally, says something to them, moves them.

We might like to defend ourselves against these baseless insults and criticisms with a rosy critique or a prestigious $500 prize, but that's nonsense. We must confront the fact that we're writing un-listenable drivel. Until people camp out the night before to get tickets, until our contemporary music engages contemporary audiences, we're not contemporary at all. We're irrelevant.

You write that contemporary concert music, "... existing as abstract sound on a canvas of silence, must make its case for itself alone and, if it sets itself out to be art music, will find purpose in discovery and sometimes confrontation and challenge -- two aspects of art which are forbidden in the service-music paradigm." You continue, "...nonpop composers are not hired to do this work because their work has been increasingly driven (beginning with Beethoven, which makes it a long and deeply ingrained tradition) by self."

Ballet, opera, and other composers also work with forces other than self: the story of the opera, the desires of the prima ballerina, producers demands, and of course, time, what can be afforded, and so on. But more importantly, film composers, just as any artist, must reach into their self to find music. It isn't in the script. The composer is asked to respond to the story and the images that tell it, then write music that sometimes is background, but that sometimes "tells" the story. A crude example might be the theme to Jaws. Pictures of dark water don't tell us much. But with the "shark" theme, we know what's happening. I don't see that the issue of "self" separates pop and nonpop composers. And I cannot agree that the purposes of "discovery" and "confrontation" are forbidden for pop composers. Talk to some and you'll see. They are no less artists than we contemporary composers and they pursue their art for the same reasons.

You suggest, "The difference [betwixt pop and nonpop] lies not in its success, but in its purpose." Both pop and nonpop have purpose and both experience failure or success. What's the difference? The defining difference?

Seems to me purpose is one aspect of a composition. Success or failure is another. All my music is written with the highest purpose I can conceive. But, dang it, that does not seem to effect its success or failure. My artistry as a composer determines that. The purpose for a piece of music - movie, ballet, concert - does indeed bring different criteria of judgment to bear. But the point I was trying to make is that film and other "commercial" composers are writing a lot of very good, highly listenable, and wonderfully creative music. Danny Elfman is an interesting example.

It would be my guess that movie soundtrack albums far outsell any contemporary concert music. Using that as a crude measure, they succeeded. Of course, many awful things enjoy commercial success, but the fact that people buy soundtrack albums in large numbers suggests film composers are writing music people want to hear. The reverse seems to be true of contemporary concert music which more often is released in extremely small CD runs and even then, a great part of it finds its way into the discount bins. It is completely reasonable for a composer to not give a twit whether anybody likes or even hears their music - if that is their purpose. But my comments are trying to question why more contemporary concert music isn't programmed or doesn't create the same clamor and excitement as Bob Dylan's latest release. Why is our music in a backwater? To gage public interest in our music, I look for simple measuring sticks: album sales, number of performances, the desire of the public to hear it as expressed by ticket sales. In all those crude measurements, it seems contemporary concert music just does not find an appreciable audience. Commercial success isn't the root of my question here. I'm asking why we don't create public interest. But commercial success is a fair measuring device of public interest, and also something that was on the minds of many of the great composers.

You write, "Though they were hired to write, none of what Bach did made a profit, nor Mozart, nor Beethoven" and factors which gave rise to "the ability to create pseudo-democratic measures of the capitalist 'success' or 'failure' of art as a product." I differ. The particular masters you mention were, perhaps more than most, concerned with the economic success of what they were doing. The stories of Bach politicking and conniving to increase his income are endless. Mozart wrote The Magic Flute for the low-class theater because he needed the dough. He wa given a percentage of the ticket sales and so knocked himself out to write something people would pay to hear. Beethoven's financial dealings are sometimes questionable, but throughout his life, there is a stream of evidence demonstrating his concern for and desire to make an income, especially regarding publishing royalties. And, as I remember, he was one of the first composers to produce a concert of his music for his own profit. This economic issue was, I thought, one of the interesting points from your survey. Responses seemed to suggest that if composers could get paid for their work, maybe even make a living at it, they'd write more. Whether by patron, from publishing, or ticket sales, reward for the labors of composing seems to have been on the minds of composers since Corelli and before.

You ask, "If we pull the grants and donations rug out from under all cultural events -- all of them -- what would be the consequences?" The consequences seem obvious. Those that are supported by public interest, the public being willing to part with their hard earned money to pay for a seat, will continue to flourish. Those supported by grants will die off. It's that simple. Would it be a good idea to stop charitable funding? Of course not. We keep museums open for their educational value to the public. But are we writing contemporary music for its educational value? Maybe we are a pile of broken pottery shards from a long extinct culture. I had hoped we might be meaningful in the present day - not an artifact of a bygone era.

Don't want to digress into a discussion of creativity vs. commerce, but it seems you think the two are incompatible. "The purpose of commerce is never creativity, but profit." I think history shows it's creativity that creates profit. Yes, you can produce a "me too" product and make a profit. But it is creativity that markets respond, whether it's cars, movies, or art. I think you'd agree it'd be foolish to argue the creativity of Steve Jobs. Certainly, he's trying to make a profit - otherwise he's out of business. But it's his creativity that has led to the marvelous products he's created and the profit generated - profit that sustains his enterprise and allows him to attempt to create more products. Contemporary composers who disavow economic aspects to their work may indeed be creative, but as your survey indicates, they may find themselves with a tough row to hoe. They can't make a living at it, so must have a day job which is a distraction and saps their energies. They'd like to write more, but can't find the time. What they do write, if they hold to a non-profit philosophy, seems to inherently disregard audience appreciation since they don't care whether people will pay to hear it, and as such, is unlikely to please an audience. Mozart didn't get his commissions by writing overly intellectual, un-listenable sound experiments. He wrote to please his patrons so he could get the next commission. Why should we be any different?

You suggest a larger problem than economics. "So long as the context remains music of the past, no new music will be acceptable in the long term simply because it is new, whatever its musical merits." But Gorecki found a huge audience. The piece was, albeit, traditional, but it was not old as in written 300 years ago. The problem with "new" music doesn't seem to be that it's simply "new." The problem seems to be that so much of it just doesn't attract, or even repels an audience. When a philharmonic bill uses the word "new," audiences don't feat that it's new. They fear that it's going to be more dodeco-atonal-incomprehensible noise. Even a casual survey of non-composer friends will bear this out. In advertising, we'd say "Contemporary music has a serious brand image problem."

Sometime around the 1920's composers began searching for new expression. Since that time, composers have, with some notable exceptions, taught audiences that any new contemporary concert music is going to be hard to listen to, non-melodic, and that to "understand" the piece, you need to understand the formal aspects of the composition. Contemporary music turned into some kind of science experiment and boldly proclaimed that even if it "sounds" awful, it's actually very good. Liking it, being able to hum it's theme on the way out of the hall, or even making musical sense to the audience - none of these things were any concern of the composer. In a way, composers said, "Screw you, stupid audience." And, as history shows, the audience returned the same and left.

You "... don't agree that 'nobody' wants it. People do want it, just not enough to pay the bills. But Mozart doesn't pay the bills either. All orchestras are money losers on box office alone." Well, let's think about that. Orchestras are money losers because they can't draw big enough audiences at big enough ticket prices to support themselves. Rock concerts sell out 50,000 seat stadiums three nights in a row. So what's the problem? How come you and I don't do that? I say it's the music. If our music had any drawing power, orchestras would be fine. Mozart's problem is that he stopped writing and we've heard all his old stuff. I think orchestras would attract larger audiences if they could program "new" music people would like. I cancelled my seats at the Hollywood Bowl because they program music I've heard hundreds of times. The Mona Lisa is very nice, but contemporary painting is thriving. Why isn't that true of contemporary concert music? We composers can point to a thousand possible causes, but we never seem to point to the MUSIC.

You seem to disregard the cultural irrelevancy comment by the NY critic. I think it hits the nail on the head, tragic, and hugely significant. What he meant, of course, is that the NY philharmonic has no meaning to anyone. And that is, I think the great failure of contemporary composers. What we're writing doesn't draw audiences. We have no real impact on the people around us. We are irrelevant to the development of contemporary culture. Ouch! That stabs me in the heart, but I think it's true. We've wandered off into overly intellectual nonsense that nobody cares about. Our mistake.

Have to disagree with your "singability" arguments. Every school kid can sing you the principal theme of Beethoven's 5th. I question whether it's "extremely rare to remember what you've only heard once...." That is, I think, the point of what we sometimes term "a catchy tune." It's also the basis of theme and variation and restatement in sonata form. The point I'm trying to make is that contemporary music eschews melody, with all its inherent implications of tonic and so on. I suggest that's not just a stylistic issue. Melody is, in my mind, the essence of music. It's the organizing principle of tones. Serialists attempted to substitute numeric sequence, but that didn't seem to capture anyone's fancy. Esa-Pekka Salonen's Wing on Wing or Bodies are marvelously orchestrated, just ain't got no melody. Contemporary composers seem to believe melody is old fashioned. I think it's fundamental to what we call music. No melody? That's often called noise. Sure, there're all sorts of wonderful pieces that are just percussion, or use another aspect of music to organize the piece. But in a general sense, melody is an essential component of music that contemporary composers have abandoned and that appears to be a mistake.

The question of emotion is also fundamental in my view. Your argument seems sophistic. We are primarily emotional beings - not rational. Pit the two against each other and emotion wins nine out of ten. Music can certainly be intellectually engaging. I always hope it is. But we live by emotion. It's emotion that makes drama work. Excitement is an emotional response - sometimes to an intellectual thought. Emotion stirs our souls. Pure rationalism may have a place in science, but not in art. Art at its most basic level is emotional.

You wind up with "But I think the time is almost right for those who have truly failed -- the gutless administrators, promoters, music directors, and conductors of the classical establishment -- to be turned out." And here we diverge. Those people are charged with taking a composition and presenting it to the public. If the composition pleases or displeases the audience, it is the composer that did that, not the administrators. Certainly conductors have considerable effect, but assuming the conductor does the average job we hear on a Mozart, or Beethoven piece, it's the composition that matters. And here again, I think we as contemporary composers are simply unwilling to take responsibility for the fact that people don't really like our music. Throughout your response, you've used the terms "nonpop" and "pop." And to me, that's the point in a nutshell. Contemporary music is "nonpop," literally, not popular. People don't like it. And that's the problem - the problem only we composers can fix.

I suggest we do that not by writing pap in an effort to slavishly please our masters or make scads of money - an effort sure to fail with the public. We do that by writing music that is compelling in its creativity, originality, its emotional connection with, and meaning communicated to audiences. If we could do that, we would no longer be irrelevant and, blasphemous as it may sound, we might even become popular.