19. Collaboration in Reality - TCC Roundtable

[Aaron] Welcome to the Theorist Composer Collaboration, a podcast series highlighting modern composers and their compositions. My name is Aaron D'Zurilla, I'm the host of this podcast and also a graduate music theory student at Florida State University. Today we have a very special episode: the very first TCC Roundtable, with today's discussion being on the topic of collaboration in reality. These roundtables will be occasional breaks from the interview format of the typical TCC episodes showcasing casual conversations with various people in and around the music academic industry on the panel. Speaking of the panel, it's time to introduce who we have on the show today. First person I'm gonna prompt is Justine de Saint Mars. How are you doing and can give the audience a little introduction of yourself?

[Justine] Hey, I'm doing well. I'm Justine. I am about to start my second year in my master's at FSU for composition. I guess that's that's the main stuff, right? Yeah. 

[Aaron] Yeah it is, and I have to very clearly point out that this is episode 19 of the Theorist Composer Collaboration and you were the very first guest. You took, you're the first person that I asked and the first person to jump onto it. And I also have to say if anyone, if anyone does read the transcripts Justine has been helping out a bit with some of the transcripts as there's credit at the end of them for some so thank you Justine for that. And thank you for coming back on. And speaking of coming back onto the show. We have another TCC alumni on this program Will Davenport. How are you doing? 

[Will] I'm good. I'm doing good I'm Will, I'm also a graduate student at Florida State University studying music composition. It is also my second year same as Justine and Yeah, I'm doing good. 

[Aaron] So yeah, Will you were on episode 3? Yeah, it was Justine then Ky Nam and then you. So it's come a long way, even if it's just in a couple months since then a lot of things have happened. Well before we get into, I don't know, the technical stuff. What have you two been up to? It's well, Will how about you go you go first? What have you been doing?

[Will] Well, I have been spending the summer in Athens, Ohio near where I graduated from from my undergraduate. Been hanging out with my former professor Robert W. McClure. He's been great to talk to and catch up with. I've been engraving a lot. I wrote a electric violin concerto, which I'm hoping to get performed this come upcoming fall, maybe we'll see. And then I'm also working on a piece called Worm Charmer for alto saxophone and percussion 

[Aaron] Worm Charmer I think of this only because I just saw it yesterday, but I just saw "Dune 2" yesterday. Oh I mean part two. Beautiful movie, I see what you're 

[Will] So good.

[Aaron] You've been recommending that to me months, or both of us months ago, Will and you were totally right. But that that's conversation for another time. Justine, what have you been up to since recording, I think it was February March, maybe April? I'm not sure but what have you been up to?

[Justine] I've mostly stayed in Tallahassee. I went to Africa for a bit to see my dad, who's currently working there. And I've also been working on an orchestra choir piece for the upcoming Festival of Creative Arts, so keep a lookout for that. 

[Aaron] A little birdie also told me that you composed the score for a film.

[Justine] Oh, yeah, just finished that maybe like three weeks ago. 

[Aaron] Yeah, that's small thing. Not to give too much away about that because that's gonna be part of the things, I think should be part of the things that we talk about with collaboration. So let's talk about the or let me intro the general topic. So collaboration in reality, what does that mean? If anyone was listening last week with Dr. Daniel Townsend on episode 18, very briefly we kind of made light about the whole having a conversation about the conversation and getting perpetually stuck in having a conversation about the conversation and never getting down to the nitty-gritty of different topics. And so, you know, this show is called the Theorist Composer Collaboration we talk about collaboration, the show itself is a form of it. But you know, you have to ask the question, what does it actually mean in the day to day, the month of month, degree to the degree, and piece to piece when you're writing or studying? So that's what the crux is generally of today, which is what does collaboration really mean in a physical, real-life, academic, professional sense? And how do you execute on it correctly and any best practices? So let me start with, before I get into the bullet points that we have prepared for this, Justine I'm gonna go to you first. What does collaboration mean for you? What does collaboration mean for you in your academics and your career and what you've done?

[Justine] I guess it depends on the context. Collaborating is like working with someone else but in different ways. You could be collaborating with another composer and that would be completely different than collaborating with the performer that's performing one year of compositions. But it's it's, I would say it's a mutual synergy of effort and work.

[Aaron] A mutual synergy of effort and work. I think that's a, I like that one. Ok, Will what's your take?

[Will] Yeah, I mean collaboration is kind of a big umbrella term, especially when it comes to being a composer because you have performers and conductors and engravers and all these different aspects and all these different people that you kind of work with. And so collaborating with each of those different types of people and all those different types of jobs is kind of its own beast. But ultimately it's it's kind of just I don't know music is only created through collaboration and so it's very essential to kind of our line of work.

[Aaron] Now some people I guess, I suppose I'm creating a straw man. Some people would say that it's not necessarily created through collaboration depending. But are you saying more that it should be necessary or is?

[Will] Well, I mean if, unless you are writing music for yourself to perform in a space that you own for yourself.

[Aaron] So you're including like the audience in that?

[Will] I would say so, I think there's a certain level of collaboration between the audience that you have to keep in mind when you're writing music.

[Aaron] I, not to play a gotcha game or you know gotcha game with this. But what about the artists or composers who say that you should not necessarily consider the audience when you're constructing the music?

[Will] Well, it depends on the context. I think in that case they're most likely talking about maybe using experimental techniques or the general like classical music audience is there there's kind of a piece that's liked by them and a piece that's not liked by them. But at the same time you can't write a piece that's just not enjoyable to listen to, the like you need the audience as a composer if you want to have a career, I suppose.

[Aaron] Well well, it's funny. You know, I'd point to people such as Milton Babbitt who may disagree with you on that, but I largely would agree largely would agree. Justine, what's your take on all that? 

[Justine] I mean, I guess If you're willing to sacrifice you know money. If you just compose for yourself, you don't care about anyone else. Yeah, go for it and support yourself another way, because I guess you're not going to get any money, except maybe some institutes that want very strict guidelines on this kind of absolute music. But as a composer my main focus isn't the audience though. I do keep them in mind. I write what I want to listen to and if the audience likes that great if they don't it's okay.

[Will] Yeah, essentially by what I mean with collaboration with the audience is that I'm thinking of a piece and I don't remember the title or the composer but it was a performance by Pope Bauma, and it was a piece using feedback from microphones. And they warned the audience that if the sound becomes too abrasive you are you're allowed to leave during the performance, because this may hurt. Um, and I gotta say I didn't, I was not having a great time in the audience. Um I think the piece, in the most extreme sense pieces shouldn't hurt the audience I think that's a little cruel. And of course the composer is like exploring kind of the the extremes of sound and like stuff like that, but you, I think you also need to just keep them in mind when you're writing and remember that people will be listening.

[Aaron] I just thought of the most esoteric like pain in the ass thing to possibly ever pose, which is that yeah isn't pain the true sound of life? That's a, point taken. I think that the the safety and well-being and pain receptors of the audience should definitely be put into consideration. So there's a little broad overview, Justine, you brought this up a little bit in what you said, but the first large umbrella that we're going to go down is collaboration with performers and so, you know you two are professionals, you are composers. I'm not a composer, but you know I've collaborated with performers in my undergraduate composition classes. Now one of the things that, and when I say you're professionals, it's not that you know you only have so much experience because you're just going into the second years of your masters. But one thing I'd be interested to hear is what is the vibe and you know dealing with performers different when you're a undergraduate composer versus a graduate composer?

[Justine] For me, it's a little bit different since I did my undergrad and grad degree at the same school, so I already had connections going from undergrad. But there isn't so much of a difference I would say. I guess I just, I know my my footing a bit more now, I'm not afraid to speak up on things that I want changed or like oh you need to play this a little differently I say it nicely, of course I'm like you do that now. No, I don't do that. But honestly the main struggle is finding performers to do anything. Once you have them, they're great to work with. I've never had a bad experience with an FSU performer, finding them is a different story though. 

[Aaron] No, no, okay I kind of I think I know where you would go with this, but I just have to ask why is it difficult? If they're, if they're you have a massive program especially FSU, you know at University of Florida. It was a relatively small performance school, but FSU's massive in most instrumental departments. Why is it so hard to find performers?

[Justine] They're always stretched in every other direction. Everybody needs performers at all times and like I don't like I hate to say this, but the departments are a little bit territorial. They're just like some of them, some people don't like oh new music, it's meh, you know? We need to stick to traditional music, whatever, but they they're always doing so much. They don't have time for anything else on their plate. 

[Aaron] Will, as someone who did not do their undergraduate degree at Florida State, what's your experience been?

[Will] My experience, I guess in finding performers. Well, so I did my undergraduate at Ohio University and the music school is definitely smaller there and there was a larger focus towards music education. And so getting a piece performed by individuals who are looking to seek performance in their career was really really hard to do. But because there were so few of them there were a couple performers that were just great friends with the composition department and you would end up kind of writing for an individual rather than writing a piece and then trying to find people to do it.

[Aaron] Now tell me, tell me if I'm wrong, but that almost seems like it might be mildly damaging to your development, if you rely, if you end up relying on that crutch. If you're like, okay I'm gonna write something that has strings in it. I know this one violinist. I know their strengths. I know their weaknesses I'm going to rely on that. 

[Will] It's not necessarily like writing towards strengths and weaknesses. It was mostly just this guy's so good and he likes playing new music we're going to take advantage of that. 

[Aaron] I thought you were about to say he's so bad.

[Will] No, but like because of that you create this bond with these performers that are really into new music that down the line, and may like once we're all out of college like may, I may just be able to email him and be like hey I wrote a piece for like your instrument and a few others. Would you be willing to play it? And those kind of stronger bonds I'd say are more important than like a bunch of like acquaintances. And I think I think that's been my experience at FSU so far and I think that's mostly because I've been there for one year, and so it's been difficult finding a chance to interact with performers, other than their recital when they're talking and like hugging their family and like out of breath and exhausted and high on adrenaline and I'm like hi I'm a composer. And it's it's a little difficult, a little more difficult here I also spent four years at Ohio University and so I got to work with, I was in classes with uh performers and I think it's mostly just a kind of a time thing.

[Aaron] Yeah, and you know I can relate to the experience of this with University of Florida, the whole composition department and performer the composer relations was exactly what you were saying right there. For example, I most people thought I was a violist for my first year at University of Florida because I was known as the one guy who could play viola for compositions. And it's just that not that there weren't violists who were available, I was just the only one that was most adjacent and acquaintances with composers that they felt comfortable with asking. Uh, even though if they wouldn't got a violist, they probably would get a better result. But it's just that I was there. I was in class with them. They heard oh you play viola and then they'd see me perform in a new music concert and they're like, oh yeah can you play viola for this or whatever and so that that's funny. 

[Justine] So you became viola guy?

[Aaron] I did I did, and so when I said oh no, I play violin, too, oh, okay. Cool. So but forever then they would think violin is my secondary instrument even though I'm in the studio, but okay. So personal relationships essentially building trust and having a network of people of your own in an academic setting. Here's the hard question and, trying to get as specific as possible, how do you get those foot holds in the first place? Uh, let's talk about undergrad. Uh, you know because graduate school is a very different beast. But Justine let's, how did you find your first collaborators? Uh your first performers at Florida State when you were an undergrad.

[Justine] So in the composition studio, we have composition recitals that uh happened twice or three times a semester. And we have a lot of different things that we do in the composition studio that happened twice or three times a semester and um, we have to find our own performers, but we do get some help from the society of composers student-run organization that that's that's there. And um, you know for the first two years of my undergrad I just, I had nothing on those concerts because I couldn't find any performers, like so I started knowing people I was in uh a non-major's orchestra playing a cello. And I like met some people through there, and so that's how I built connections like reaching out to people by myself. And then also getting help from SCI saying like hey, I really can't find this one last performer. Can you help me? They give me a list of names and then then I find people from there. But people saying yes or no you have like a set amount of people that you know will probably say yes. So like there's the very small list. 

[Aaron] Other than a kind of obvious result of not having things performed, you know, you need to get performers, you gradually are getting friends and connections. But what was the breaking point to where you're like, okay the comfortability to ask just asking? What's your advice on that, Justine? Then we'll get to you, Will.

[Justine] I guess it wasn't exactly a comfortability thing. You know, I still reached out when I wasn't comfortable, but at one point I was like I'm sick of this. I'm not having anything performed. I mass copy and pasted like all the violinists in one of the orchestras and just be like, please play for me right now and then they're like no one answered, so then I went to a violin studio class and I was like, hey please play for me. I'll pay you and, 

[Aaron] You went to the studio class?

[Justine] Yeah, I went it was it was, 

[Aaron] They let you in there? 

[Justine] Yep. They did, they did. 

[Aaron] I would, I just want to say that Dr. Lower, I I don't know if she would let you through the door at the University of Florida if she did that.

[Justine] I was in full panic mode. My senior recitals coming up. I needed two violinists. Violinists are the hardest people to find when performing music. 

[Aaron] Why is that? Why is that?

[Justine] Yeah, everybody wants a violinist. There's such a popular instrument to write for and they're always needed in every orchestra. Violinists, we appreciate you. We need more of you. 

[Will] I think also part of that is it depends on how old their repertoire is. Um a percussionist plays a lot of new music because they don't have anything older than a hundred years. But with violinists, they're like, oh I have to practice the Mendelssohn and I have to, I have to practice this Bach and I have to um, and they have all these like recitals coming up and their language is pretty far removed from the new music sphere. And so if somebody isn't familiar with any of that and they see some sort of extended technique they it's just a lot of work to get in there. Well, and then on the other hand there's like saxophone players and percussionists and stuff like that who, part of their education is modern music and it are like these extended techniques because so much new music is being written for them. So it's kind of this like cycle of like oh percussionists will play our music, we'll write a bunch of music for percussionists and then percussionists are like, oh we have to learn how to play this music. And so they get really good at playing it. 

[Justine] Yeah, I will say saxophonists and percussionists are the coolest people to work with for new music. Definitely. 

[Aaron] Well, I I will say as a violinist reppin the high, you know, it's kind of funny is that there's always jokes that violinists are a dime a dozen, but yet they are rare.

[Justine] Exactly, right.

[Aaron] But you know, I think if we're going to talk about concrete issues as to why, pedagogically and you guys pointed out a good one is the repertoire. There's such a depth of repertoire that goes back so far. That's true. 

[Justine] But pianists also have, 

[Aaron] I I was, Yeah, I was gonna pivot around and say that. I, in my experience, seeing others and dealing with others that pianists are usually an easier ask than string players. So maybe that's a culture thing.

[Justine] I also feel like there's, there's more new music written for piano than there is for violin. It's a very accessible instrument. You know, there's like, you get the whole range you have so much to work with, so it's it's pretty easy to write for and there's a lot of new music for it. 

[Aaron] That is true, violin is many things but accessible is not one of the words I would use to describe it. In my in my studio at University of Florida, the only two people who frequently played new music were myself for reasons you can see and another colleague of mine, Amelia Ulrich???, who the reason why is because she was a composition major and she was in the violin studio. And she is also coming to Florida State. She's going to be first year masters in composition so you'll be able to be able to meet her. She's very cool. 

[Will] Oh great. 

[Aaron] So there there's some institutional barriers with things of that sort. This is kind of jumping ahead, but I'm just curious, what does composition prefer? I mean you can talk about Dr. McClure at uh, Ohio or uh any of the professors at Florida State, what are the things that they say? How do they recommend approaching collaboration with performers? What structures do they set up? I guess Will let's let's go with you first.

[Will] Well, I would say a guerrilla warfare mindset is ideal.

[Aaron] Is ideal?

[Will] Yes, you, there is always like emails, emails are great right. Emailing, if you know a specific person emailing them directly probably works better than a mass email, but emailing the chair of the or the head of the like violin department or something like emailing them, they they're usually pretty helpful and giving you like information you need or like if anyone's available. But what's more effective is just going up to people in outside the practice rooms and just asking stuff and getting like getting to know people or like can I hear you play this thing I wrote real quick? Or like you just have to be really really forward and super nice and don't expect anything at all because you're asking favors all the time as a composer, but.

[Aaron] Yeah, no pressure. 

[Will] Yeah

[Aaron] Yeah, well, I mean just Justine went to the the fountain of youth known as the violin studio and begged. She got it. 

[Justine] Groveled on my knees and everything. Yeah, sorry. 

[Will] They scared you, they did.

[Aaron] Continue Will, you had more to say?

[Will] Yeah, it's it's kind of interesting because the like archetype of the composer is a very like introverted scared human being. And that's at least one thing that like Robert McClure taught me a lot at OU is that you have to yeah, you have to write music and stuff, but like the other half of being a composer is like just being a human-being people enjoy. And that's so often a little hard to do. It was like, I'm still working on it immensely, but I was such a scared quiet student when I started OU.

[Aaron] It is kind of, it is kind of amusing like the dichotomy of the, as you were saying, the fabled archetype of a composer. Dark ,mysterious, lonely, genius, dark academia sort of like vibes, and all that. But really, you know the expectations of the modern, tell me if Justine you can jump in on this, tell me if I'm off track here, but it seems as though the expectations of the modern composition field, and I'm going to say also other areas of music, but especially composition heavily favor extroversion and don't have much forgiveness for neurodivergency or people who are not well accustomed to that. And if you don't jump onto the train quickly enough, you might get left behind if you don't develop those, not just social but like as you guys are describing extreme extroversion skills. I know some people at UF who you know, god bless them I love them, but I think they would rather go through a sinkhole than walk into the violin studio and offer money for play, you know, that's just especially for an undergrad. That's a really big deal so what's your take on that, Justine? 

[Justine] Yeah, that was that was about the last thing I wanted to do at that point. I am 100% an introvert and was even more back then, but it's you know what you said is true, if you don't jump on the train it will leave without you. So you either stay scared and get nothing done or you get over it and get stuff done.

[Aaron] Damn that's gonna get clipped. That's gonna get clipped.

[Will] That's the clip for the episode.

[Aaron] Just that no context it's literally just that. All right, so here's something that both of you. Well, I know for a fact Justine, I'm gonna bet Will. The case is to one more thing with collaborating with performers. So we've been talking about in the context of the halls of the people within your university, which is how a lot of this gets done, especially for people starting out. But what about outside performers where you can't get to know them personally? Justine, you just finished that project, although it is a university film grouo, it's still it might as well be an independent film studio outside of the school of music. And Will, I'm sure you have some sort of experience but what are your guys's takes on collaborating with people that are outside of the student atmosphere? I feel like that's a whole different ballgame.

[Will] Well, I don't know. It's hard It's just kind of like good luck. I think that's why it's so important to be in academia as a composer, at least for a little bit, but as long as you can really and just keep making connections because it is so much easier in an academic setting because everybody, you're just surrounded by musicians music people. And you're going to run into a musician like downtown probably or something and they're just everywhere. And once you leave that and I mean I've experienced this over like winter, summer break or something. I'm like nobody nobody here knows about like Aaron Copeland. Nobody knows about that guy.

[Aaron] How dare they

[Will] How dare you. I mean, yeah, but that's why it's so important to like get as much, just build as many bonds as you can with the people here. Not like necessarily not for like the like Machiavellian like I need to get performers so I will talk to them and be friends with them and and be nice to them so they will play my music. But it's more like you just want more music people friends, and if that results in a performance, that's great. But it's just casting as many fishing lines out into the big wide ocean as you can and something will eventually bite, but it's really really difficult outside the music setting and that's why like a lot of composers get academia jobs because they get to stay in that setting for even longer and make even more connections.

[Aaron] Justine, do you have something to add to that?

[Justine] I mean that was that was good. Yeah. 

[Aaron] Yeah Yeah, I agree. It's great. Yeah, I will say in my personal life with this podcast, I started it at the end of the semester essentially, but you know, I had you guys, we're friends. Honestly, one of the reasons why I thought it you two for the roundtable the first roundtable is we had these sort of conversations like at Calvin's across the street getting coffee. So this is a pretty normal setting for us. But I you know being away from the physical location of Florida State, it made me you know, it can't be too far outside my comfort zone to record my own voice almost on, basically on a weekly basis, edit it, and upload it. Which I will say, myself esteem has gone down for sure with that but. You know, I've attempted, because I just I don't want this just to be the Florida State show, so I've gone very far out of my comfort zone. You know with you know, there's tons of people who post like oh new album out, oh, look at this performance. You know, I'll actually click on all of those links. Believe it or not, people do click on those links so keep posting them. You know and reaching out to complete strangers. Within a week's time meeting them face to face over zoom and then deep diving into like their personal way. It's an acquired skill, it's an acquired taste too you know? Clearly I'm some level of extroversion or I wouldn't be doing this, so I can't speak too much from experience. You know, it's funny that you said that "I'm an introverted person", Justine. I never I mean, I guess I didn't really I just didn't guess that, so that means that you really broke yourself out of that however you were before because the in time that I knew you were I didn't really bill you as that so. 

[Justine] Yeah, I was dragged out of my shell more than broke out of it, but yeah, yeah.

[Aaron] Yeah, fair enough fair enough. 

[Will] I understand that

[Justine] Yeah, I mean just like talking to random people as well. You never know who you might run into. Actually have a pretty crazy story, I was on a flight back from Australia one day. It was like 15 hours in the in the sky, and the guy that was sitting with me was like oh chatting. I was like, okay, what do you do? And he was like, oh look I run a website and like I post like videos and you know, we always need music and composers for it. I'm like, oh my god. I'm a composer! He's like great I'll give you my business card and I was like, wow, look at that a connection already. I reached out to him and he didn't he didn't get back to me. But you know, I made that connection without meaning to it was just a conversation. It was crazy. 

[Aaron] Yeah. Yeah. Well before we move on to the second subtopic here and before we continue this conversation, in post we are now going to break away to a special announcement by well, it's me again, but it's me from a different time. So stay tuned for that special announcement right now. Hello, this is Aaron for the special announcement. You can now support the work of the Theorist Composer Collaboration through donations on Buy Me A Coffee with one time small dollar donations to monetarily support the show. And you can find a link to the page to donate in the description of this episode through any of the platforms you may be listening through. These donations will go a long way towards the monthly expenses of maintaining the release schedule of the show, both through paying for podcast distribution network fees as well as the, for at least one person, large amount of time dedicated to the production of the show. Now while a monetary donation would be unbelievably appreciated, I want to add the disclaimer that you should never feel pressured to donate and that all content is remaining free and accessible to everyone at the same time as always. If you're listening to this there's a fair chance that you have some connection personally or professionally to the world of the arts, and we all know that donations are scarce and highly sought after. And I don't want this show to ever feel transactional in any sense. Although a donation would be highly appreciated and constructive to this podcast, so is your continued support of the show. Although a donation would be highly appreciated and constructive to this podcast so is your continued listenership and engagement with the TCC. I also wanted to say that I waited to establish something such as this for a big reason, the show has now been going on for 19 episodes and that's about 19 weeks of content production and improvement before ever asking for financial support. I wanted to provide proof of consistency and quality throughout the content of the TCC. While there is always room for improvement I feel proud to say that I think the Theorist Composer Collaboration has grown at a healthy and steady pace, both in audience and quality. I want to express my gratitude to all listeners for their support over these months. Again, if you so choose and can, the link to the TCC Buy Me A Coffee page will be in the description of this episode. But your continued listenership is just as appreciated. Thank you for listening to this announcement and back to the show. All right, and we're back. Thank you for listening to that special announcement once again.

So the next area I want to talk about with you guys Is collaboration with peers within your area and so in that case, uh, we'll get to me in my case that would be music theory, and in your guys's case, that would be within the composition studio and within the student within SCI with the other graduate or even undergraduate composers. When I was thinking critically about what does collaboration with your fellow composers even really like what? What does that actually manifest into other than just looking at each other's music?

[Justine] I have some experience with collaborating with other composers. I worked uh on two student films with another composer Philip Temple. Check him out. He's awesome, he's not in the composition studio. He's a commercial music major, but he composes and he likes to compose film music. So we worked together on that and it was awesome. It was a great experience, but I did find myself compromising some of my ideas to suit not to like match his ideas, but we both kind of like dulled our creative style so we could match in the middle. And it was interesting like we created something cool, but it's probably not what I would have come up with if I were by myself, in like a neutral way, not a good or bad way, but just it was an interesting experience.

[Aaron] I was gonna ask, dulled has a negative connotation to it. 

[Justine] Yeah, exactly. It wasn't dulled, it was just kind of like evened out from like too Justine and too Philip, you know? It was kind of like somewhere in the middle.

[Aaron] Fair enough fair enough. Will, what's your experience?

[Will] Well, I don't know. Let me think.

[Aaron] I'm gonna leave that little that little thing.

[Will] Excellent. Awesome. At Ohio University, we had a thing called Phenomenology, I think that's the word, I have trouble pronouncing. 

[Aaron] A femininomenon?

[Will] A femininomenon. H-O-T-T-O. It's, I know who you're talking about yeah, you know you get.

[Aaron] Yeah, like the most popular artist right now.

[Will] Yeah, so okay little indie artist. So at Ohio University there's phenomenology, which was basically multiple composers would work on one piece and they would either write a certain number of bars or they would do different movements or they'd collaborate in certain ways. Then that piece and they would they would uh reach out to other studios. And so there was one point where there were miniature like films and each person scored one of those films, and so I I wasn't able to participate in that, but I've talked with some my like composer friends on the possibility of like everybody takes a movement or something. So there's there's always that um, I mean most composers grew up playing an instrument and so writing for each other's instruments is always is always an option. Just getting together and like organizing a night where everybody just plays each other's music. I think that'd be really fun. I'm working with Noah J. Gruenberg who is a composer colleague of mine at Ohio University who is now pursuing electric violin performance and so now I'm working with him and he he's who I'm writing the concerto for. But it just boils down to more more connections, more friends.

[Aaron] So what what I'm hearing is essentially, that collaborating with your peers like composer-to-composer is done more on the abstract side. It's not necessarily a core portion of what you're doing, which I suppose makes sense because part of the reason why you're doing what you're doing is to develop your own skill your own skill set. So tell me if I'm wrong, it sounds like that sort of working together is not necessarily incentivized but more happens on the margins.

[Will] Yeah, yeah, I mean to like collaborate on like a piece or something, that's kind of uncommon. But another way that composers should and often do kind of collaborate with each other is just boosting each other's works and each other's like self-esteem, and just gassing each other up. Just like sharing music with each other as well is also it's super helpful for me to get like a composer's another take and we, you end up like giving each other like little mini lessons almost. Or like oh it'd be really cool if you did this here like something like that. And I guess I guess that's more the more common form of collaboration, although it's not as apparent. 

[Justine] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I get it. I was part of an improv group at one point, we weren't all composers but we all composed if that makes sense? Because we all improvise at the same time, and so we would just get together like a random jumble of instruments whoever was present that.

[Aaron] I thought, I'm not gonna lie. I get my mind, I thought you were just part of a comedy improv group. I thought, that's me, sorry go on.

[Justine] We all like improvise on our instruments and like sometimes I was on cello, sometimes I was on like electric keyboards, sometimes we had a real piano and then I could play with the inside of the piano. That was fun. But we had flute, bass, saxophone, sometimes drums. It was like crazy. Whoever wanted to be there was there, they brought their instrument and it was wild but we ended up making some really cool stuff. Just composing at the same time and being like looking at each other like, okay now that now this oh that sounds great, do more of that.

[Aaron] Yeah, that is really cool. That is really cool and to flip around I guess, you know only I guess only I can I mean ask you guys what you think but, we're talking about collaborating with peers when it comes to music theory. It's odd because in concept, in theory even it is. I know, I know that's pretty good. But in theory it is easier to collaborate with scholarship than it is a composed piece of music in you know, just in concept you would think so but there is, in my opinion, basically no culture of collaboration in music theory. Why that is? I'm not a hundred percent, that's not to say that doesn't happen. People co-author things people, you know and I would almost say the way that peer review and co-authorship works. It almost feels like that's barely even collaboration because if you like correct some sentences or add footnotes or whatever yeah, you're collaborating, but it's probably just over email and you hardly talk, and you just like add your portion to the paper or correct something. But it that's that's good you should do that. That's how you get good scholarship. But, not that you know, none of the peers at Florida State University, I love all of them, a great group of people, but it's just not something we do, and certainly not encouraged. In my personal cynical opinion of the music theory industry, I think it's some of this like, you know if you are the only author on something and especially if you're like the only prominent author, you can say this is my theorem. This is my idea. And I have come up with this grand thing. You know it allows you to project your own name a bit clearer when there are less names in the subheading. So that, that's kind of a cynical reason. I don't know. What are you guys's opinions on that if you have any?

[Justine] I don't, I'm not really part of the whole music theory thing. I hang out with you guys because you're cool, but I don't really know how it how it works on the inside. But I don't yeah, I'd like I don't, besides like peer reviewing and like maybe writing a book together, I don't really see how it makes sense or how it's beneficial to theorists to work together. I don't know if you have an opinion on that.

[Aaron] I think it's beneficial. See, we're trying to focus on the concrete. I'm not even sure how to concrete, how you would concretely do this. I think it's beneficial, in that especially when it's analysis, discussion, and critical things said about art. Is that you need to have another pair of eyes or ears in the room, not all the time, but not literally even that would be kind of uncomfortable, but you know like to make sure that you're not getting lost in the sauce.

[Will] Yeah, yeah, I mean I feel that with composition especially like,

[Justine] I guess that's why we have teachers. Yeah.

[Will] Yeah, yeah, if I'm stuck on a piece, I will just show it to somebody and ask like thoughts? What's wrong with it? It, getting another set of eyes is incredible. I mean, especially when engraving you hand a fully engraved score to a peer and they will tear it apart and you will be like you will question if you are blind or not.

[Aaron] I dislike the engraving process so intensely much. Uh, it's uh, and but by engraving you mean like when you're creating the parts from the score, right?

[Will] Right or creating either the score or the parts. And just creating a readable nice piece of paper that a performer will not think about yeah, and they can just take and just consume.

[Aaron] Um now that, this shows how I don't have much reverence for my own art as a composer because I'm not one. But I have legit, I finished a piece of music basically and just shows how not experienced I am. I didn't look at any of the auto-generated parts until the incredible end, and the first violin part made me want to put my head through the wall. It was just so damn ugly on the auto-generated part page that I fundamentally changed part of it so it would graphically look good.

[Will] That's crazy. What notation software are you using? 

[Aaron] Sibelius.

[Will] I won't say anything else

[Aaron] I will. I think, I will. I think Avid is a terrible company. Sibelius it's itself is a is a fine program. I think it's quite good. Maybe not intuitive, I think it's very good. Avid, yeah, I think I think I told you guys this before but they do yearly binded contracts that you can only pay monthly.

[Will] Unbelievable with avid. 

[Justine] I have to pay yearly for Pro Tools. It's stupid. 

[Aaron] Oh, no. Oh you have you use Pro Tools? So you understand the fear.

[Justine] I avoid using it if I can, but I do have it.

[Aaron] Yes, Avid is a near Ponzi scheme with that. And I don't mean that literally, I just dislike them strongly. But, so come at me Avid cease and cease and desist the TCC.

[Will] You're about to get so many lawsuits.

[Aaron] Please don't do that. Please don't do that. I am nothing

[Will] I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking.

[Aaron] All right. So because it's what I'm feeling, this was going to be subtopic, uh, the last subtopic but I kind of want to jump to it because uh Justine as made a mention. That's why we have professors. Let's talk about that. This is what, in my opinion, is the scariest kind of collaboration especially in grad school. With undergrad it's a lot more limited and the expectation is different, but in grad school and beyond that expectation goes up much higher. Which is collaborating with faculty and professional level people who are past academia or at least are done with their schooling that that's terrifying. It, so before I get into any specifics, anybody have some thoughts on that right off the bat?

[Justine] I actually see it kind of the opposite way. 

[Aaron] Oh my goodness. 

[Justine] I know I know, it's weird. Um as an undergrad, I was just like I have no idea what I'm doing, I gotta fake it and it can seem like I know what I'm doing. And lessons were so stressful. Teachers were awesome and they were always supportive and kind, but just like I was I felt like, you know major imposter syndrome I was like, I don't belong here. What is this? And as a grad student, I've kind of found my style that I like to write in and I'm pretty confident in my music. It doesn't always work but composition lessons are really the highlight of my week. I love working for them. It's great. 

[Aaron] Absolutely wild. Will, do you feel the same? 

[Will] I think you're, you who have taken instrumental lessons and well, I have too, but have only taken instrumental lessons. I understand how you're surprised by this but composition lessons are way nicer. Yeah.

[Aaron] Yeah, no, no, no. Okay. Okay. Okay. I took composition lessons at State College of Florida, my community college.

[Will] Oh, that's right

[Aaron] But it's not the same because there was no studio as one of two students and so it's yeah, anyway. But I like your joke about instrumental lessons. I, again bless Dr. Lower, she did a lot for me. But oh my goodness some of the most dramatic days at University of Florida were my violin lessons. 

[Justine] Oh, yep feel it. Yeah, it's

[Aaron] Instrumental lessons are something different. 

[Justine] Oh, seriously. 

[Aaron] Well, okay so just to make this question more difficult then, I'm going to disqualify composition lessons. And the reason why is because that is a degree requirement. That's essentially like a class almost, but the expectations you know, we're talking about collaboration. So steps further than just class. Steps further than just going to the lessons. What is how does that manifest in graduate school?

[Justine] I guess there's not that much collaboration when you work together on something. It's really just teacher student. I guess the closest i've come to that is the echo ensemble at FSU. Dr Goodbrook trolley??? runs that and we we don't like work together on writing a piece of music, but we definitely work together playing new music. Like graphic scores like strictly graphic, it's just squiggles and lines and stuff. So we have to figure out how to play that, we decide on chords together, we decide like we just improvise together say oh that was good. You do more of that oh, I like what you did there. That's probably the most collaboration I've done with the teacher and it was pretty fun.

[Aaron]  How about for you will personally? 

[Will] I haven't done a whole lot outside of class.

[Aaron] That's not true. I know a specific example of something you applied for this past year. 

[Will] Oh, that's right. Well, yeah, yeah. 

[Aaron] Yeah. No. Oh, that's right. Will Davenport here proposed an entire festival to Florida State University with the help of Dr. Uguay???. So how about you talk about that? I was literally I was thinking that was one of the things I had in my I mean I didn't tell you but I was thinking about oh we need to talk about that. You didn't even remember it.

[Will] 
I I didn't remember it because it did not happen, but.

[Aaron]  Yeah, but you worked, you worked pretty hard on that for quite a while.

[Will] Yeah, so I did work with Dr. Uguay on a um a grant proposal to have an electric string festival at Florida State University and it was so ambitious. They gave it to somebody to travel to check out some books at library. Hey, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not bitter about it. I'm

[Aaron]  You're so bitter that you closed it out of your mind.

[Will] Yeah I know. You've reopened this wound and now I,'m furious, but we we worked together on that quite a bit and she was able to point me towards like faculty and other resources that the school would provide in like grant writing and stuff like that. And I now know a lot more about grant writing and feel like I can do a successful one now thanks to the help of Dr. Uguay and everyone at FSU. But I made some mistakes with the first one a a five week fest or no not five week a five day festival. Five week festival is the next.

[Justine] Great time that's crazy.

[Will] Everyone's just exhausted by the end.

[Aaron] Then workshops every day.

[Will] Yeah, you have to go to them. It's eight hours every day. Including weekends.

[Aaron] You're proposing a work camp. A performer mill.

[Will] You will become my electric orchestra, whether you like it or not.

[Aaron] Okay, let me take, let me look at my notes so we can get back on track. What's I guess this question, because we we deal with performers or no we deal with faculty. We deal with our teachers, professors hopefully on a very regular basis. With our classes and of course you guys have lessons so of course you're going to collaborate with them in some abstract way and you're going to be working with them and so on. That's the point, why you go to school and especially grad school, especially grad school because you're working much more directly with them. But I guess this is a question of how to get the best out of that time and how to get the best out of those relationships. I always have had, even though I describe myself as pretty extroverted, or at least I'm comfortable putting myself out there. I personally even now get very uncomfortable with people in authority, I just get very self-conscious. It's very difficult for me and I clam up and I just don't ask, you know, we were talking about earlier the issues of just asking and so, you know a lot of what the possible collaboration for is is just asking for extra guidance and extra assistance. And what are some of your guys's tips, if you were to say because quite frankly out of, even though I'm doing all this podcasting and so on, I'm still not very good at that with faculty and professors personally. What are some of your guys's experience or tips overcoming that and dealing with it and getting the best out of your the relationship with your professors?

[Justine] I guess it's just realizing that they're there to help you You know, they're not there to baby you along the process. They don't do everything for you, but they are there to help you if you get stuck. They're there to offer guidance if you need it. There's always something that they can help you with if you ask and I think that's just that's the main thing just realizing that they can help you and not being afraid to ask for help. Of course, which that's a longer process, but uh but yeah. 

[Will] For sure. Yeah, especially in grad school and as your relationship to your professors slowly morphs into colleagues, but not quite just yet. It is kind of a strange relationship. And then have a new one to get used to where these people are here to help you and you're paying to learn from them, but they're also they're they're treating you close to colleagues a lot of time. And so it's it's a little it's a little odd.

[Aaron] I think I get uncomfortable with that. It's hard because some professors are more comfortable with that than others. So then it's like yeah, like okay, I'm in colleague mode, I'm in student mode, I'm in peon mode. I'm in like, you know? 

[Will] Yeah, yeah for sure. It's it's very strange and it's different with each professor. I I think my number one tip is that they they will give you as much as you give them. If you just go in and passively take lessons and stuff like that you will get a diploma and you will get some pieces out of it, but if you go in with like I want to do this, how can I, how can I achieve this? Who do I need to talk to? What resources can I get these resources? When can this happen? If you come to them with questions, they will answer it, but they will rarely just give information randomly because the those kind of specifics and getting like larger projects done, there are just so many little intricate details that you have to be aware of uh writing for the creating the presser grant, uh. What is it called the presser grant thingy? Application.

[Aaron] I mean, no one's going to call you out on it. You're the only person who knows about this So you can call it that.

[Will] Writing for the presser grant application, I I found myself looking up how much it would be to rent a van from the university. Like give you that information randomly, but these are like random little things but.

[Aaron] You get you look up the did you did you factor in the gas?

[Will] I had to factor in everything like hey, making a budget is so hard you guys. I had no idea.

[Aaron]
Will put an on fire festival. Van rentals, 

[Will] But it's just the random crazy little things you don't expect. But you just have to, you just have to have something you really want to do And they're they're super happy to do it, but they can't come up with it for you. 

[Aaron] So here this this is a very loose question, and you know not to spotlight negativity, but it's just a lot of people in graduate school may or may not go through which is how do you know when a professional relationship is just not working for you? The obvious telltale sign is you're miserable. They don't like you, you know I think those are pretty you know if you can do a yelling match with someone or if if you want to like delete Outlook every time you get an email, that's probably a tell, probably a telltale sign that it's not going great. But how do you maintain healthy professional relationships? Not just okay, let's expand it past professors just in general, you know? That's there you're gonna run into professors is a really difficult one because there's only so much you can do. They're they're they're not going, you're going they're not uh, but uh, but you know peers performers. Just you know, that is a hurdle that none of us necessarily want to totally discuss all the time because it's not pleasant to think about we're trying to be a friendly community. But can you guys, I'm not asking you to call out people, how have you dealt with collaborators at whatever levels that you found difficulty with? Either in a healthy way ending that collaboration, fixing it, moving on, you know part of it is conflict resolution skills, but this you know, it's not fun to talk about but this is an issue that a lot of people either worry about and a lot of people do deal with on different levels.

[Will] What comes to mind for me is working with performers. Perhaps well, there's two things there's working with performers that you're having trouble getting the piece in shape because of, that is difficult. And then there's also you know, there's some like colleagues in the not necessarily composition studio, but the composition studio like broad horizons that like oh the this person you've had to interact with them or you've had some sort of interaction with them where you kind of wish you didn't have to.

[Aaron] It happens, you know in any career you go into you're gonna it's you know, that's life. 

[Will] Yeah, exactly. And I think the general rule is just don't Um talk, uh, you just.

[Aaron] I'm gonna put that in the episode description. Actually, no, it's gonna be cut up against Justine saying deal with it and then you say. Anyways, continue continue .

[Will] Should I say that in a better way? 

[Aaron] No, I love it.

[Will] Is this a pg-13 podcast?

[Aaron] And that was a good one. I'm gonna, I always censor. I mean it's it's like, it's like .

[Justine] I don't censor the transcripts like, I believe. No.

[Aaron] That's that is news to me, all right. Collaboration in action. Just be like, I don't know you do it so well. I don't like really.

[Justine] Okay, maybe you didn't ask me to.

[Aaron] Fair enough fair enough. 

[Justine] I don't always censor the words. You don't always sense them. You censor some of them.

[Aaron] No, well it it's like degrees of stuff. It's like that's true. Okay, that's true. It's like, I'm not gonna give examples. I would just make the problem worse.

[Will] Yeah

[Aaron]  Yeah, and okay, let's, let's go back. So, okay. yeah, not bad mouthing probably let's go with that. Yeah, let's go which to criticize us, Are we bad mouthing people or you know? 

[Will] I would say not, I would say not. I'd say there's a difference between like bad mouthing and just insulting behind back. Well, it's a fine line. There's a difference between talking behind somebody's back and insulting them and discussing it and finding solace or maybe like so like just like am I crazy or is this not a great situation or something like that? And so I think there's a difference there's a fine line, but if like somebody mentions their name and you're immediately like oh, I hate that guy, which maybe I have done in the past.

[Aaron] Trying to patch together, patch together your uh, uh yourself right now Will that's okay. Hey, we're I mean we're all guilty of that. It's not actually yeah, you know sometimes it's constructive, sometimes it's not, sometimes it's venting. Sometimes it's, yeah. So treating people with respect essentially is what you're saying? 

[Will] Yeah, to like focus on whatever I was trying to say um like working with performers who, and I've had this before where either the performer is just not used to some modern music notation or playing styles or something, or they're just overworked or something and you just, you just have to like get to a point basically where it's either the piece is going to perform be performed bad and it's their fault or you're gonna you're gonna change something in the piece and it's not going to be your exact creative vision. But it's gonna avoid the problem. It's gonna make everybody happy and the piece is gonna, you're gonna get a much better performance out of it if you just kind of sometimes work with those people and realize that it's like maybe they're being a little snotty at the piece or something, but they're probably just a little scared by all the box notations or something. 

[Aaron] Well, I mean wouldn't anybody in my opinion? But well, okay just Justine, I'm gonna pose a hypothetical to you. Hypotheticals are a beautiful thing because you can make them whatever you want. But okay let's let's take a perform a composer-performer angle here. And Will I'm thinking about not not that you told me that your performers were bad or something, but I remember when we in your episode Will with uh, "Reed Quintet No. 1" when we were talking about aleatory sections, you know, there were some difficulty in some of the rehearsals. Just because you weren't really sure how to handle it. The performers sometimes weren't, not that there was some relational, you know issues whatever. But let's pose this scenario to Justine here. So let's say you have small ensemble and you have an aleatory section. That's something that a lot of performers, I maybe only have once or twice but that was for a compositional like practice thing, have ever experienced something like that and not a lot of people have .And let's say you have a specific performer who has a specifically difficult part or whatever, but they're just not getting it like it's like day or two before the performance even. There's just, it's just not happening. So you pull them aside. You have that gingerly conversation of hey, look, I understand, you know, you're doing your best. It's a lot of pressure I really need you to lock in here. Like but even after that very ginger conversation, it's just not happening. Now, honestly if I was the composer in that situation. I just grin and bare it quite frankly, but uh, what would your response be to that?

[Justine] I would probably change the music I've done that on many occasions when like, especially during the senior recital, you know struggling to get performers. We didn't have much time, the cellist was struggling with her part. I was like, okay, let's cut notes. Let's make it easier, get the idea of it instead of the exact notes. I like my music to be based off of like feeling an idea versus like this note needs to be right here, you know? So I don't mind if I need to compromise my music a little bit as long as it doesn't change the tone of it. I would say, you know, try to do it, but if not, we'll cut the notes like every other note. We'll just play the stuff that's important. Hopefully the other stuff will cover it enough and it'll be fine.

[Aaron] Fair enough, that that was a I think that's very good. Will so I kind of used a hypothetical of what yours might have been. Again, it's not like you told me that something bad happened. But uh, you know, let me pose that same scenario to you.

[Will] Right, especially with box notations, usually the problem resolves itself which is like explaining it my reed quintet, the the performance at FSU was, they were so nice. They worked so hard on it and they did a great job. But right at the very beginning, it was it was way different from what I had meant, imagined and so explaining that and then recreating, re-engraving parts to match more specifically what I'm talking about. Oftentimes, it's it's kind of the composer's fault. But like in this situation where like if it's if it's just not happening, I probably just I really don't know It depends if it's like a solo piece and it's it's not happening, that's that's a little difficult if it's one person in like a Pierrot ensemble or like a six to eight person mix ensemble and their part isn't exactly, they they just can't get it, sometimes you just you just kind of just accept it. And just know that like I i'm going to try and get this piece performed again anyway so it's what happens happens at the performance. And I think that's more common in academia more so in the quote-unquote real world, but I've only obviously had experience in the academia and that does happen because you're working with students. And sometimes if there's not enough people you have to work with some like lower classmen or something that have no experience at all in box notation, or like any extended techniques and and you just kind of have to take a step back and realize like you are not working with insane professional musicians that can play anything. You're writing for students and you're writing for real people that need to play the instrument. And so, 

[Aaron] What a crazy thought.

[Will] I know. You are write, you are writing for people. And if it's a real world you don't really change the music permanently. Maybe you do for the performance. But a lot of the times, and especially like early on when I was beginning to write, if if a performer says like something isn't working for them or it's not idiomatic. It's often at it's my fault for writing that part like that. 

[Aaron] You know, it's kind of funny. I'm gonna give a couple anecdotes about, as a performer in undergrad playing new music. One of them will be named one of them will be not but I will not be well, I have to name one of them because if he listens to it, which I'm pretty sure he listens to the show. He knows what I'm talking about. Russell of Avellanosa, a very good friend of mine from University of Florida, he was on the podcast a little bit ago I think episode 13 of the show, I don't quite remember but great guy, great composer really love him. In second year of my time at University of Florida, he was having a piece performed at a undergraduate composition concert. And it was a variety of failings with the ensemble, himself, and all of that and the scheduling part of it had to do a big part of it, had to do with. Securing a room for a rehearsal was terrible at that point. It was the point in the semester, should he have had everything done sooner? Yes, but you guys know things happen and also he was trying to collaborate with five people at once near closer to the end of the semester and it was it was just a cluster of different things. I'm not saying oh Russell has to do with the but it it actually was a really cool experience. This sounds like a nightmare, but sitting but it was really really cool was sitting down and with a, what is a piano quintet when it's a string quartet and a piano? 

[Justine] It's a piano quartet.

[Aaron] Oh fair enough. There's four members. Yeah piano quartet. Uh, it was a piano quartet. Russell was playing piano, I was playing violin. And we learned it and practiced it the hour before the concert.

[Will] Oh my god.

[Aaron] Yeah, so absolutely wild. And what's even more wild is it had a lot of different extraneous newer composition things uh, like there was some yelling at the end which was fun to choreograph like a couple minutes before the concert started. Absolutely was a great time. The piece was called "Pocket". Love you Russell, I'm not calling you out I'm just saying that that was absolutely wild. At first it was really frustrating but after like 30 minutes in and you all are kind of hazed it's just you're just in the trenches together at that point uh. And the other one is because I was uh good friends with a lot of the composition people, I, this person I'm not going to name. Many times there were composers who, a lot of them were not string players, they would come up and say hey, do you think you could you could take a look at this for a rehearsal next week? And it's like the most insane thing you've ever seen like it's just the most impractical bullshit on the planet and I'm like, I don't even think people would play this if you paid them like that. It's just why did you write it like that? Well, it's what my vision is. And I'm like well, that's I'm sure it's a great dream, but it's gonna stay that way, you know? Like it's just, 

[Justine] Yeah, I've been a performer for some some composition students as well and they're like they'll ask me like hey, can you have this ready for a rehearsal in a week? And I'm just like no, no I cannot that is insane. What, if it were like easy, I guess but I'm not a performance major in any sense of the word. And it's like the most crazy stuff you've ever seen. I'm like I cannot play this on a good day, like if I had a year to work on it, I could not play it.

[Aaron] Yeah, so it's like the collaboration goes both ways essentially, you know, you gotta you know you you hope as best as you can to find the people that are going to work with you as best as possible. But of course, I'm I don't think either of you would disagree with this. You need to work with them too. 

[Justine] Yeah, absolutely Yes, we need to give them time. Time is important. 

[Will] Oh my god. Yeah, 

[Justine] I always try to give my performers as much time as possible Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. But you know, I try at least I try i'm aware that it's difficult.

[Aaron] Okay, so, you know, it almost feels weird to end this because you know, it's what it's supposed to be a casual conversation. And if anyone knows us three or any of us in real life, we could probably keep going on for a while. But I'm gonna come to the end of the very first Theorist Composer Collaboration Round Table talking about collaboration in reality. But before we go uh first how about, what, since we started at the beginning with you Justine, Will is there another element of collaboration or if you want to reiterate something or you know bring up something you've been thinking about when it comes to this topic?

[Will] I think overall it's it, you just have to remember that you're working with people. I mean especially as composers you can, you can put anything you want into the notation software and it'll play it perfectly. Um, but that's just not how it's gonna sound and and oftentimes like the human element is like so, it makes it so so much better But people often write for the like perfecting where each note it goes. And you just have to remember just like be nice to your performers. They are doing you a favor often. I was gonna say something else. 

[Aaron] Well, I thought that was very good. 

[Will] So yeah, be nice.

[Aaron] I agree. I think I hope everyone agrees with that. All right Justine. Uh same question to you anything else on your mind?

[Justine] I guess just don't be afraid to reach out to everyone and anyone, you know. You never know who might respond. If you get rejected, oh, well, it's a part of life. I guess, you know, it's a good skill to to be rejected as well. Yeah, don't be afraid to just get out there.

[Aaron] Okay, indeed. Don't Fear the Reaper has Blue Oyster Cult would say.

[Will] There's a good song.

[Aaron] It is a good song and a good reference if I do say so myself. Well, so this has been a great time. I'm really happy with this format. This is something that's a bit outside of the box so far. Uh, yeah, I think this is great. Thank you guys, Justine de Saint Mars and Will Davenport for coming on to uh, the TCC Round Table episode 19 of this podcast and Collaboration in Reality. We learned a lot. We talked about a lot. I found out that my transcripts are not are not censored. But the episodes are and that's not your fault, Justine. 

[Justine] Thank you for partial blame.

[Aaron] Oh, yeah. Well, I get but like I didn't ask you to and you're doing me a huge you're doing the show a huge favor thank you again for that. Um Um, but that's all right. That's all right. There will be fun little surprises when people are reading. Anyhow, anyhow, all right, uh, we're gonna go on there will be a recorded in post outro uh, but thank you everyone to listening to this the very first episode of the TCC Round Table. These will be infrequent uh occasional casual listening episodes and I'm excited for the next one. But thank you again Justine de Saint Mars and Will Davenport for coming back onto the TCC and uh taking a chance on this new format. I'm happy to have you guys here. 

[Will] Thanks so much. It was a pleasure as always.

[Justine] Yeah, thanks

[Aaron] Hello, this is Aaron again, and I want to thank you for listening to this episode of the Theorist Composer Collaboration. I also want to give another big thank you to Justine de Saint Mars and Will Davenport for joining me on the first TCC Round Table on Collaboration in Reality both Justine and Will's contact info is listed in the description of this episode. I would really appreciate it if you could show them some support. You know in reflection of this, I think I think this was a lot of fun. I have a great time talking to Will and Justine in real life. We have these sort of conversations very often. It was great to catch up with them after the summer and I think we had a very productive conversation talking about the realities of collaboration and how it actually can positively affect your career, your life, and just the enjoyment of the arts community in the future. For other TCC Roundtables, which as I said, you know, they're going to be occasional episodes. It's not going to suddenly become every other week or once a month. There's no solid schedule for that it's just whenever I'm able to line up panelists who fit the bill for whatever the subject is. You know, I'm thinking about different things like talking about the classical canon and the different controversies that go with that things such as that. So some different elements of that are in the works, but for the most part these round tables are going to be special little events that happen every once in a while. But I really enjoy the casual tone not that, you know, the regular episodes are really strict or something but it was nice to almost kick back a bit and just shoot it back and forth talking about the different things that affect us in daily life. And you know that's great to do with friends and that's great to do with future collaborators. So I just want to again give a very very special thank you to the composers Justine de Saint Mars and Will Davenport for returning to the TCC for our first round table episode. It was a great time for further updates and notifications on the Theorist Composer Collaboration. Make sure to follow our instagram and FaceBook pages. Relevant links in the description you can also listen to future episodes through our host website, Spotify, Apple Podcast, Amazon Music, iHeart Radio, and YouTube so make sure you subscribe to the platform of your choosing. Again, all relevant links are in the description. TCC episodes are posted weekly on Mondays and don't miss our weekly blog posts which go live a few days after a new episode is added. I'm also excited to promote our next featured composer is Michael Dixon and his piece "Albireo". There will be more information on this in the upcoming blog post and of course in the next full episode. Make sure to follow our social media accounts and relevant streaming platforms because you won't want to miss it. But until then this is Aaron, and thank you for joining the TCC.