A Very Peevish and Bitchy Post

I'm feeling very peevish. This morning in orchestration class my professor couldn't understand why I hadn't included a brass section in my orchestration of Debussy's Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut. I had explained why before (I like homogeneous groupings of instruments like all strings or all winds or all percussion or all brass--I have a hard time mixing them--like some people have a hard time mixing their peas with their mashed potatoes; also, this piece sounds very bell and gong-like--nothing too brassy or bright). Anyway, it just rubbed me the wrong way (seriously I can understand why he wanted me to include brass, but I get tired of explaining my artistic decisions to him--not that he's not artistic--and I sound like a total pretentious bey-otch here but I don't want any g-damn trumpets muddling up my gorgeous marimba/flute/string vibe I have going on here. Also, I teach a counterpoint lesson on Monday afternoon to a student who is incorrigible (is that the right word? Or maybe I should just say damn annoying). I know I shouldn't talk about my students that way, but oh my god I'm so sick of him complaining about how counterpoint rules interfere with his genius compositional artistry (he's a freshman). "Why is a fourth dissonant? Why can't I use fourths on the downbeat? Why is it called a 'perfect' fifth? Why can't we use parallel fifths? I feel so restricted! I'm just going to write the most boring music then, to REBEL AGAINST SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN DEAD FOR 500 YEARS. What. the. hell. I appreciate the curiosity, the questioning, but it really is a moot point isn't it? I can't explain why they didn't like fourths in the 16th century--they just didn't! So live with it! Anyway, I could go on and on but I can't tolerate inane, pointless, irrelevant questions. Some teachers say there is no such as a stupid question but I say there is! And could you not take up my time asking them? And to make it worse he was talking back and getting mad at me for correcting his improper use of dissonances. The point of all this bitching is that I'm sick of having to justify why composers made up rules for controlling dissonances back in the 16th century to a pretentious kid who can't wait to write a symphony and be famous. I'm really starting to understand why this field is dominated by men. It requires complete and utter belief in your own compositional genius/prowess and the (biological?) need or want to show off that prowess. It also requires insane attention to detail and incredible, left-brained analytical skills. I'm not into any of this, although I know some women are. I really think that the tradition of writing art music down to be performed by professionals is becoming obsolete and irrelevant. General audiences don't care about this sort of music, and professionals don't want to play new music (generally speaking. It takes years to work up to that point. Or you have to go to Juilliard). I think the world needs new music, but not in this way. I think we need to go back to the old days where composers were more like tradesmen or public servants (none of this genius crap). They served a necessary purpose in society--to write new music for church or the court or dancing or street entertainment. It wasn't about this sense of entitlement (oh look at me! I wrote a symphony! I can't understand why no one wants to play it or listen to it). It was about serving their community. Granted, that life sucked in many ways and they weren't able to compose freely, but they were able to make livings as musicians. It really is no wonder that most people prefer to listen to Baroque, Classical, or Romantic music compared to twentieth-century music. I think I'm done with my rant. But I still feel peevish. I felt peevish looking at the new issue of BUST (I love that mag but am getting kinda sick of so-called "alternative" culture). I'm mad because I lost a library CD (I can't find it anywhere!). I'm mad because I'm sick of school and students who come up with lame excuses for not turning in an assignment today ("I couldn't find the essay questions on the website!" Or "I left class before you wrote down the fourth question," or "I tried sending you an email last week but it didn't work so I'm turning this assignment in a week late because I don't know your office room number!" -----All of which are completely ridiculous. Everything is either posted on the website or on the syllabus). I'm also sick of French manicures (those icky girls who wear expensive-looking clothes and for the life of them cannot go to the bookstore and buy a 3-dollar mini-stapler). Yeah, sorry about that. What I need to do now is take a nap.