Category: Articles

Bart McLean Photo by Hasnul Saidon

The research for this article was prompted by my pondering how my own music would fare in the hereafter. It was soon clear to me that there were very few answers available. As the research grew and as I touched base with many of my colleagues, it was clear that something needed to be done about fostering an awareness of the issues, which have never been raised in the arts media with any degree of comprehensiveness and clarity.

In the course of this exploration, I have had multiple communications from many of the major players in the field (those heading organizations directly involved with archival/custodial issues). I am greatly indebted to their enthusiastic help in pointing me in certain directions, expounding on their own programs, and reading and editing the finished manuscript. Among them have been Betty Auman, Donor Relations Officer of the Library of Congress, Charles Eubanks, Administrator at The New York Public Library, Judy Klein, NY Public Library Consultant on the composers archive, Richard Kessler, Execuitve Director of the American Music Center, Deborah Atherton, Executive Director of American Composers Alliance (along with Richard Brooks, President of ACA), Joel Chadabe, President of the Electronic Music Foundation, Frank Proschan and Jeff Place from the Smithsonian Institution, Marcia Bauman from the Stanford IDEAMA Project, Johannes Goebel, head of the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (IDEAMA in Europe), and Gerald Warfield, former Manager of the Society of Composers, Inc. and Treasurer of the American Composers Alliance, among others. Additionally, I have been given access to a number of invaluable papers given by members of the Society of American Archivists and InterPARES dealing with these issues.

In these uncertain times composers who wish their music to live on after they pass away are in significant danger of their hard-fought life’s work slipping quietly away as the years and decades post mortem relegate their work to leisurely disappearance. This is exacerbated by:

1. the diminishing ability of publishers and CD companies to make a profit on new music;
2. the lack of secure financial underpinning and personnel at these companies, causing many to eventually cease to exist;
3. the rapid change in media technology causing whole formats of music to be discarded due to technological obsolescence (such as the LP record, as evidenced by this author as I witnessed 13 LPs by my wife Priscilla and myself go out of print);
4. societal/cultural factors;
5. At the beginning of the 3rd Millennium the arts/educational community being confronted with an existing body of output from living composers and other artists far greater than all the other composers/artists who have lived since the beginning of civilization.

Our output will certainly need assistance as it finds its place among the deluge of the voices of future generations.

On a more optimistic note, occasionally changing (and more affordable) technology can be a positive force. For instance, I have just become aware of certain CD companies’ commitment toward making their older LP catalogs available once again, through a ‘one off’ process. This entails first digitizing their tape masters along with all liner notes, LP graphics, and then burning them one at a time on a CD-R format on demand. Smithsonian/Folkways has just made its entire catalog available in this fashion, and CRI and Louisville Orchestra Recordings may be headed in this direction. I would urge all composers to pressure smaller CD/LP companies to get on board.

During the next fifty years, the classical arts as we know them and their place in society will be far different, and perhaps even unrecognizable from their present position, as societal, political, and commercial forces shape them in ways that no one can now foresee. Based on my research one could adopt a worst-case premise that most current small publishers or CD companies will be gone in twenty years, most large, well-funded publisher/CD companies will be unrecognizable in thirty years (due to their being merged or bought out, and their contents rendered unobtainable), and most current large arts organizations will cease in 50 years except the very largest and broadest-based, such as the American Music Center. Take the Society of Composers, Inc., one of the most stable and successful in terms of membership and broad-based geographical representation. One could argue that, to project a life of 50 years beyond 2001, one would also have to postulate that the university as we know it, with its elaborate structure of being able to sustain performances, physical housing, etc. will still be in existence, a premise that I am not willing to accept in light of the rapid growth of web-based universities and the ever more burdensome cost to the student of the traditional education model, as well as the probability of a sea change in the societal/educational mission of the university of the future. Of course, I could be wrong about any of this, but that is not the point. The point is that, in order to develop realistic guidelines for the securance of one’s music, one has to start with a best-guess skeptical premise of the future.

And so what can we as artists do to ensure that our creative voices continue to be heard in the decades to come after our death? There are three aspects of how our work resonates in the future.

First, there is the Storage in an Archival Repository of our music, and attendant documents such as letters, biographical material, articles, etc., for research and educational purposes. (I have outlined a series of questions a composer should consider asking an archival institution along with a list of helpful hints for approaching such an organization.)

Second, there is the securing of the Continuation of Publication of scores and aural data (currently in CD format), as well as formats such as video, CD-ROM, etc. (I have compiled a list of technical issues for long-term storage of archival media as well as information about the InterPARES Project whose goal is the permanent preservation of authentic records created in electronic systems, and the Indiana University Digital Library Project which will establish a digital music library test bed, develop appropriate software, and seek answers to the thorny issues surrounding music-related intellectual property rights. I have also recounted the pitfalls that have befallen the International Digital Electroacoustic Music Archive, a pioneering effort to archive electro-acoustic music in 1990.)

Third, there is the matter of what I shall call a ‘Center for Advocacy,’ a central entity which can assure that information and access to and about the composers’ works is maintained, most efficiently at present on a dedicated Web site. Before exploring the exciting new programs offered by a number of arts/educational/archival organizations to implement various combinations of these three criteria, it is important to first understand some basic issues relating to long-term archival repository and access.

[I distinguish between ‘archival’ care, which means preserving the music in its original form with original documents (including the possibility of digitization for research and educational purposes), without securing copyright, and ‘custodial,’ which is more along the lines of a publishing company, with the organization arranging copyright and accepting publisher royalty fees from ASCAP or BMI. ‘Advocacy’ refers to composer membership organizations which provide and update information about composers and their music, and actively promote it, from the composers’, not the institution’s point of view.]

At present there is no one single entity that can or will employ all three areas of service (storage in an archival repository, continuation of publication, and center for advocacy) to a composer posthumously. However, a number of partial solutions are in place or soon to be implemented, some quite promising, and are explored below. Due to constraints of length, I have focused on American institutions. A good introductory portal to international efforts might be the Gaudeamus Foundation’s Web site.

With all the opportunities for one’s artistic work and documents to be preserved after death, I find serious gaps still prevailing. Concerning archival opportunities, where it is certainly possible and advisable to deposit or have deposited one’s CDs and scores in any number of libraries, ostensibly remaining for the indefinite future, this is by no means guaranteed merely by virtue of their being included in the catalog. Libraries also are not composer-driven, but rather are institutionally-driven in their approach. The main exception, the American Music Center’s NewMusicJukeBox program, is certainly composer-driven in that it connects to a central composer Web site with links to other archival and publishing entities. But the AMC is not, in its present plans for NewMusicJukeBox, accepting anything but scores and audio materials, ruling out not only historical documents and non-standard multimedia materials but video as well. And, like general libraries, the AMC is not specifically set up as a posthumous archival program, only a de facto one. True posthumous archival programs such as those at the special collections of the Library of Congress and New York Public Library which do remedy some of these issues, themselves present difficulties in that they will probably not accept most composers as being “worthy” of inclusion into their special collections. And even if one does manage to establish a good relationship with a more local university or community archive, they are, by their very localized nature, not as universal as the LOC or NYPL, and materials deposited in them may never be found by researchers in decades to come.

Regarding custodial membership programs, the American Composers Alliance has taken bold steps toward making the music of its members available via publication posthumously. It is certainly composer-driven as well. But ACA has had recent periods in which it has had to shut down operations due to financial and staff concerns.

Regarding advocacy programs, the AMC and ACA both have components that provide additional information (biographical, other links, etc.) via the Internet, the AMC program accomplishing this with an individualized Web site controlled by the composer (or heirs). But both Web sites are limited in what they will provide. Moreover, both AMC and ACA possess passive rather than active advocacy programs after the death of the composer. That is, the information data banks for individual composers are more or less on automatic pilot once established and will only change when the composer (who is dead) or her heirs contribute additional information. Why is this important? Supposing a publisher discontinues publishing a composer’s score or CD for some reason. Supposing a previously unknown score by the composer was discovered? Supposing an important new book or review is published about the composer. Supposing important news regarding a performance of the composer’s work, such as a 50-year anniversary, is printed in a newspaper. Supposing important new research on the composer’s work was published from, say, a doctoral dissertation. None of this would be picked up on the Web sites of either of these organizations, simply because they are not set up to deal with active advocacy (neither will much of this information appear on search engines as they are now constituted). What is sorely needed is not only an active information advocacy program but also one in which discontinued CDs and scores can be again made available via publication with the advocacy organization acting as the default publisher. The definition of an active advocacy program, then, is one in which the staff ROUTINELY AND FREQUENTLY, AS PART OF ITS MISSION, scans all of these as well as other areas to ensure that all of the composer’s music is being continually distributed and that the composer’s Web site is being continually updated as new information becomes available. I have been talking with Joel Chadabe, founder and president of the Electronic Music Foundation, to determine if the EMF, perhaps in direct collaboration with any one of the organizations mentioned above, could establish a type of hybrid archival/advocacy/default custodial program that will close these remaining gaps in the services now collectively provided by other groups.

It should be mentioned in passing that the American Composers Forum and the Society of Composers, Inc., both have elements of advocacy in their programs as well, but neither of these important and worthy organizations has any interest in archival repository or custodial membership, and so are not relevant to the topic of this article.

What might happen to your music after you die can very well be a crap shoot. It is hoped that this research will empower composers as to what they can do about it by showing how the dice can be loaded in their favor, and hopefully may even propel organizations and individuals who are in a position to contribute to come forward and form coalitions which can close the gaps now evident.

After all, if we work so hard to produce our music, then we should endeavor with equal effort to do whatever we can to ensure that it lives on.

(Petersburg, NY, 7/19/2001)

Criteria for choosing an archival institution:

Since the current and upcoming programs of the American Composers Alliance, the American Music Center, the Library of Congress, and The New York Public Library as well as a proposed program by the Electronic Music Foundation are really not in competition with one another, and since none are exclusive (except insofar as ACA acts as a publisher), my primary advice would be to not limit oneself to any single program. On the contrary one would be well advised to embark on relationships with as many as feasible. Summing up a consensus among several of the composers who replied to my inquiry, John Duesenberry writes that, “I would b
e more interested in having my recordings scattered – like ashes, if you will – to as many locations anywhere in the world as will accept them, including any sort of library, musical institution or archive, broadcast facility, and of course the Web. I believe this increases the probability (already very low) that the work will survive.”

Valuable as this advice is, it is nonetheless important to establish a relationship with one primary archival source to store original documents, letters, and musical materials. Often the very best source will be the local university where the composer has taught, or the local community where she/he has lived and worked. In choosing a source, some questions might be properly asked:

1. Does the primary archival repository have expert staff and an ongoing program of archival support of artists?(I am reminded of one recent unfortunate incident where an old friend, a composer who taught music his whole life at a small college, recently died. His wife sought to place his rather extensive manuscripts, letters and documents in an archive. Finally, due to his stature at the local college (a recital hall was named after him) the local college library agreed to archive and preserve all of his materials. Unfortunately, these materials are now sitting in a darkened room, uncatalogued and inaccessible, due to the lack of an ongoing archival program at the college.)
2. Does the mission of the institution match the characteristics of the materials to be deposited?
3. Does the institution have a history of long-term financial stability? How long has it been in business? What is its history?
4. Does the institution draw on financial support relationships outside its own narrow focus? Is it associated with a larger institutional entity that can maintain stability (as, for example, the Smithsonian Institution or the Library of Congress)?
5. If it is not immediately perceived to exist as part of a larger library, government agency, or museum as noted above, then as a private not-for-profit foundation does it have an ongoing history of securing financing from a variety of foundation and/or government support?
6. Is it candid about divulging its financial and organizational records to prospective participants?
7. Does it have sufficient staff to carry on its mission? Has there been significant recent staff turnover?

Lastly, before choosing one or more of the organizations’ services, it would be very well advised to check with some of their current members (preferably those who are still alive!) to determine how efficiently their services have been operating. Of course, a potential custodial/archival institution may very well be an excellent one and not meet all the above criteria. As always, it is the balance that counts.

Helpful hints at approaching a primary source for archival repository:

Dartmouth College has an excellent ongoing program of archival repository for local composers and faculty, and may serve as a model of how one can approach her/his own local institution. I am indebted to Philip N. Cronenwett, Dartmouth curator of manuscripts and special collections, for the following information and advice, from which I quote:

“We are very interested in the entire corpus of the work of a composer, so we would want to have all that you mention above (scores, audio tapes, videotapes, letters, other documents, photographs, contracts, etc.). I think it is very important to be as complete as possible in the acquisition. It may be bulky and hard to handle, but we don’t know now what will be important in 50 years.”

As to preferred formats, Mr. Cronenwett writes, “This would depend on the stability of the medium. If the original is unstable, we would give serious consideration to reformatting to stabilize. Originals are always preferable, but not always possible.”

I asked, “Do you prefer to work with the living composer, or with her estate after death?”

His reply, “The facetious response is that it depends on the personality of the composer. In reality, it is invariably better to work with the creator of the material as she or he can answer questions and help flesh out the collection (with an oral history, for example). After the composer’s death, it means working with someone who knows less about the material.”

I then asked if Dartmouth had any plans to make any of this material available over the

Web, either a catalog or the actual materials. He replied, “Our catalog is Web-based so it can be used now on the Internet. We also will be mounting finding aids, the detailed listings of the collections, this spring. We do not have plans at the moment to mount content on the Web. We [provide research assistance] by mail, in person, by phone, by fax, and by e-mail.”

Finally, I asked what advice he would give a local composer at his university or in his community on how to approach an archivist? He emphatically replied to “Call the archivist NOW and make arrangements to talk. Have the archivist look at the material you have NOW. In some cases, creators of material store materials improperly and guarantee early degradation. Early discussions can be very helpful for both the creator of papers and the archivist.”

Charles Eubanks, librarian from the NYPL Music Division adds, “Each collection is different, but normally we welcome help from donors in organizing collections. We want to receive a collection as the creator left it.”

Another important factor is cost. Historically, when an individual or foundation donates a complex set of materials to an archive, a financial stipend often accompanies it, recognizing the costs and difficulties of the task. I can certainly attest that, all other factors being equal, one will receive better treatment (one archivist tells me that the material will tend to go higher in the pile of individuals to be serviced) if there is a financial element to the gift dedicated to the cost of processing and continuing the maintenance of the materials. I would strongly urge this, either while alive or posthumously in a will.

The Society of American Archivists (SAA) posts an excellent guide to the broader questions and considerations of archival repository entitled “A Guide to Donating your Personal or Family Papers to a Repository.” It is also available in brochure form from the SAA. Excerpts are quoted below, but by all means read the full text on the Web, or request the brochure:

“Potential donors and repository representatives should review the materials being offered for donation and discuss repository policies and procedures for the care and use of donated materials. If both parties agree that the repository is an appropriate place for preservation of the materials, they complete and sign a deed of gift… The deed of gift is a formal, legal, agreement that transfers ownership of, and legal rights in, the materials to be donated.”

The typical deed of gift identifies the donor, transfers legal ownership of the materials to the repository, establishes provisions for their use, specifies ownership of intellectual property rights in the materials, and indicates what the repository should do with unwanted materials.

The donor formally agrees to transfer legal ownership and physical custody of the materials, including future donations, to the repository. The deed will specify a point in time (usually upon signing the deed or upon physical transfer of the material to the repository) when the materials become the legal property of the repository. It will manage and care for them, employing the best professional judgment of its staff
and according to accepted professional standards and its mission and objectives. Repositories prefer to accept materials through transfer of ownership. The cost of storing, preserving, and making collections available for research is so high that repositories generally can only afford to do so for materials they own. As the professional staff of the repository reviews the materials you donated, there may be reason to reformat some or all of them. Long-term preservation of fragile materials, for instance, is a primary reason for microfilming or copying papers for use by researchers.

An essential mission of repositories is to make their collections open and available for research use. They are able to do this because most donors do not limit access to the materials they donate.

Ownership of intellectual property rights (primarily copyright, but including trademarks and patent rights) may also be legally transferred by the deed of gift. Copyright generally belongs to the creator of writings or other original material (such as photographs and music). Donors are encouraged to transfer all rights they possess in and to the materials donated to the repository; this assists researchers in their scholarship by making it easier to quote from documents. If you wish to retain all or a portion of the intellectual property rights you own, you may include such a provision in the deed of gift, but you and the representative should agree upon a date after which the rights will be transferred to the repository. You are not able to transfer ownership of rights to the works of others found in the materials you donate. These works might include such items as letters written to you by others.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

Foreknowledge of the proper media for ultimate storage of one’s scores, audio/video materials and attendant documents is crucial, since it will often affect the choice of media for one’s current work. Basically, it comes down to two basic issues. First, the storage medium has to be stable over a long period of time (50-100 years, allowing that digital formats will have to be migrated to another format at least once during that period). Second, the medium has to be in a format that can be easily accessed and/or distributed. The first criteria can be satisfied in its most basic sense by merely preserving the score in a dark, humidity-controlled space. But this makes access difficult. Greater access can be obtained by digitizing the score in a format such as PDF, or doing the same with audio/video files on a CD/DVD, all of which can be more easily accessed via a local jukebox configuration or distributed over the Internet. But these strategies have many problems in terms of complexity of administration, along with indefinite long-term viability. You see, operating systems change and playback realization software becomes obsolete, causing tremendous expense as the archival entity needs to continually ‘migrate’ the score or audio/video file to conform with the latest playback technology. As it turns out, these two criteria (long-term stability and accessibility) are usually at odds with each other, and together have formed the basis for an almost complete frustration and lack of progress on the part of the archival communities in library and government who are entrusted with the task of hammering out formats, protocols and standards that can be utilized over the widest variety of disciplines and installed in the most libraries.

To Digitize or Not

The prospect of digitization as the long-term storage and preservation solution hangs as a merry-go-round ring just out of reach for the two principal organizations entrusted with storage protocols, namely the Society of American Archivists and the National Archive Records Administration of the U.S. Government. Their Web sites are replete with forum papers and seminars where they talk around the problem without suggesting solutions due to the sheer complexity of the problem. Before I sample some of the current discussion below it should be stated what we mean by the material we are digitizing. First, of course, there is the artistic material itself, whether it be music, video, photo, graphic, text, or other documents. Second, there is what archivists call the ‘metadata,’ which consists of all the information surrounding the artistic document, including its history, geographical location, storage format, dates of receipt and storage, software and hardware used to retrieve and realize it, authentication (a very real problem with certain types of files such as text, which can easily be altered, thus compelling archivists to establish an authentication/security protocol), to name a few.

The case against digitizing:

The principal case against digitization is not in terms of the feasibility or stability of the storage medium, but rather the obsolescence of the playback medium that the file will eventually be realized on. For example, finding a late-model computer to read a 5.25-inch floppy disk — a format common only a few years ago — or the software to translate MacWrite or WordPerfect 4.0 is practically impossible. On a government and industry level, the retrieval problem is magnified: old DECtape and UNIVAC drives, which recorded massive amounts of government data, are long retired, and programs like FORTRAN II are history. The data stored by these machines in now obsolete formats are virtually inaccessible. Hardware and software manufacturers have shown more interest in discovering new technology than in preserving today’s data.

Margaret Hedstrom, associate professor in the School of Information and Library Studies at the University of Michigan, in a recent address sums up the dilemma succinctly, even if she is a bit biased and overly cautious about the viability of digital storage in my opinion:

“My concept of digital preservation encompasses material that begins its life in digital form as well as material that is converted from traditional to digital formats. Recording media for digital materials are vulnerable to deterioration and catastrophic loss, and even under ideal conditions they are short lived relative to traditional format materials. Although archivists have been battling acid-based papers, thermo-fax, nitrate film, and other fragile media for decades, the threat posed by magnetic and optical media is qualitatively different. They are the first reusable media and they can deteriorate rapidly, making the time frame for decisions and actions to prevent loss is a matter of years, not decades. More insidious and challenging than media deterioration is the problem of obsolescence in retrieval and playback technologies… Devices, processes, and software for recording and storing information are being replaced with new products and methods on a regular three- to five-year cycle, driven primarily by market f
orces. Records created in digital form in the first instance and those converted retrospectively from paper or microfilm to digital form are equally vulnerable to technological obsolescence. Another challenge is the absence of established standards, protocols, and proven methods for preserving digital information. With few exceptions, digital library research has focused on architectures and systems for information organization and retrieval, presentation and visualization, and administration of intellectual property rights (Levy and Marshall). The critical role of digital libraries and archives in ensuring the future accessibility of information with enduring value has taken a back seat to enhancing access to current and actively used materials. As a consequence, digital preservation remains largely experimental and replete with the risks associated with untested methods; and digital preservation requirements have not been factored into the architecture, resource allocation, or planning for digital libraries.”

She further states that “It seems ironic that just as libraries and archives are discovering digital conversion as a cost-effective preservation method for certain deteriorating materials, much information that begins its life in electronic form is printed on paper or microfilm for safe, secure long-term storage. Yet, high-quality acid neutral paper can last a century or longer while archival quality microfilm is projected to last 300 years or more. Paper and microfilm have the additional advantage of requiring no special hardware or software for retrieval or viewing. Perhaps this explains why in many digital conversion projects, the digital images serve as a complement to rather than a replacement for the original hard copy materials (Conway, 1994).”

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the US government agency most responsible for storing the bulk of government records, takes a decidedly conservative approach to digital vs. paper/tape/microfilm storage. In fact, they have not yet implemented any significant effort in digitizing records and disseminating them over the Web, although they have recently developed highly specific and technical guidelines for doing so (go to the NARA Guidelines for Digitizing Archival Materials for Electronic Access). Even so, these guidelines do not include any source material that is time-based (music, video, film, as opposed to text and graphics).

Their Web site includes the following statement of policy: “In an era of digitization, why does NARA continue to microfilm records? Microfilm is a low-cost, reliable, long-term, standardized image storage medium. The equipment needed to view microfilm images is simple, consisting of light and magnification. The medium has a life-expectancy of hundreds of years. Digital images, on the other hand, consist of a wide variety of machine codes that require computer hardware and software to be made visible. To avoid the obsolescence of changing computer technology, digital images must be reformatted periodically. The cost of maintaining microfilm is small compared with that of digital images. Microfilm only needs shelving in a cool, dry place for a very long period of time.”

The case for digitizing on hard drive/optical media:

Two principal benefits accrue from digitizing audio/video sources, images, and paper documents… First, it is generally understood from the research I have done that non-tape digital storage media such as CD, CD-ROM and DVD are more robust than analog or digital tape media. Hard drives, although not suitable for long-term storage, are a good choice for information and files that are regularly read and disseminated. Second, the benefits of greater accessibility and flexibility in handling the data are compelling with all non-tape digital media. Thus, although no single, large-scale program of disseminating digitized artistic material is now in place, a general tendency toward digitizing all artistic output for long-term storage seems inevitable. Even now successful smaller scale efforts, such as the RealAudio Composerver program under the direction of Tom Wells at Ohio State University as part of the Society of Composers, Inc., programs are taking place, although none of these are directly concerned with establishing a permanent posthumous archive (although they conceivably could be).

Another compelling reason for digitizing is the spotty record of traditional storage methods and the instability of traditional media such as tape. In February 1995, National Public Radio reported that their vast audio recordings from the ‘70s were becoming unusable. NPR commiserated that their neighbor, the Smithsonian, had similar trouble with its audio holdings. Moreover, CBS found major degradation in its Viet Nam era video master tapes. Susan Stamberg and Walter Cronkite, lost forever? I personally have seen most of my master tapes recorded on the infamous Ampex 406/407 audiotape during the 1980s become virtually unplayable. Ralph Hodges, in “Things That May Not Last,” (Stereo Review, September 1993, page 128) quoting Terry O’Kelly of BASF bemoans “the tendency of some ferri-cobalt formulations to lose high frequencies with age. This instability, when present, seems to occur whether the tape is played frequently or not, and is not correctable. Print-through, on the other hand, can be addressed through the time-honored method of storing the afflicted cassette with Side A “tail out,” meaning that you’ll have to rewind the cassette if you wish to play it from the beginning. Such storage will progressively erase the print-through that has occurred while encouraging the development of print-through in the opposite tape direction…”

“You can’t say you haven’t been warned and that audio and eternity are eternally incompatible.”

Adrienne Petty, in The Wall Street Journal (October 4, 1993), says, “Contrary to popular opinion, videotape may not last for generations. In fact, it may last only 15 years, and failure to care for it may shorten its life even further.” Similar articles and horror stories about audiotape abound and must be heeded.

Similarly, in the realm of paper documents (musical scores, photos, graphic items), although historical documents have generally held up well under proper care, a new element of risk has been added with the ubiquitous use of computer printing and paper/inks. A number of studies have recently shown these documents to be subject to sometimes even drastic fading over a short period of time (even six months for some ink-jet printer inks). In an era where computer companies are more interested in quick and snappy printer results than in their lasting for 50-100 years, we simply have to become skeptical about any paper document printed on a computer lasting very long in stable condition. Even with microfilm, the method of choice for the Library of Congress, their policy allows for a shelf-life of only 100 years, provided the emulsion used is silver halide (the most common variety now in use). That may be well and good as far as it goes, but if and when the medium deteriorates, and it becomes necessary to migrate the data to another microfilm, generation loss becomes an issue (as it does in photocopying or analog tape dubbing). With a digital medium, there is no generation loss.

To make the case for the desirability of CD-R, CD-ROM and DVD media, one can browse the various technical publications of the manufacturers linked from the CD-Info Company Web site. Here you will also find information about Compact Disc (CD) & Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) in all their forms (physical and data formats), especially how they are manufactured and used for electronic publishing. They also present links to other websites with more information on these subjects. From these one gleans a consensus of a 50-70 year shelf life, longer for read and somewhat shorter for write modes. Another common number bandied about is ‘1000 plays’ with no degradation. A superior link to DVD matters is the DVD Forum. And, for an opposing point of view promoting the new DVD+RW format, visit dvdrw.com.

Although I would not have any hesitation in adopting the CD-R format for long-term storage at this point, there may be reservations about the newer DVD format, namely:

1. the information being much more dense, allowing for less margin of error;
2. the lack of verification of company testing for long-term viability, due in part to the reluctance of individual companies to divulge proprietary specifications of this newer media; and
3. the dizzying plethora of DVD formats available.

To this date there is still no clear winner in DVD formats, especially in the audio world, and one would be foolish to try to choose a single format to project its viability into the future (for a comprehensive look at the current state of DVD, go to p. 144 in the Feb. 2001 issue of Electronic Musician).

As John D. Dvorak says in a recent Forbes magazine article, “Anarchy has reigned over DVD optical storage. Battling formats and technologies are confusing the marketplace. Recently a witches’ brew of a specification called DVD Multi has emerged as a way to end the feuding and halt customer confusion…”

Mr. Dvorak goes on to give a breakdown of current DVD formats:

DVD Video: Used for movies. Total capacity is 17 gigabytes if two layers on both sides of the disk are utilized, but typically only one layer of one side is used, which amounts to 4.7 gigabytes, or about one movie.

DVD-ROM: The same basic technology as DVD Video, with computer-friendly file formats. Used to store data. Should supplant CD-ROM soon.

DVD-R: Developed separately by Panasonic, Hitachi, Pioneer and Philips, this technology has standardized at 4.7 gigabytes. Fully compatible drives should ship by year-end at around $1,500 to $2,000 each. As with CD-R, the user can write only once to the disc. This is the format that was expected to be used to copy movies from DVD to DVD.

DVD-RAM: Developed by Hitachi, Toshiba and Panasonic, this makes a DVD act like a hard disk with a random read-write access. Aopen (Acer), JVC, LG, Samsung and Teac have joined this team. Products should be out by year-end. No prices have been announced. This was initially a 2.6-gigabyte drive but it, too, became a 4.7-gigabyte-per-side disc.

DVD-RW: Similar to DVD-RAM except that the technology mimics CD-RW and uses a sequential read-write access more like a phonograph than a hard disk. Developed by Pioneer. Ricoh and possibly Sony are expected to join forces. Has a read-write capacity of 4.7 gigabytes per side.

DVD+RW: A technology developed by Philips and Sony, initially designed to deliver 3 gigabytes per side, is expected to increase to 4.7 gigabytes. Sony seems to have lost interest in it while Philips announced plans to ship the device someday. No one else is taking it seriously.

DVD Audio: New audio format introduced by Panasonic that arguably doubles the fidelity of a standard CD. Should eventually replace the CD recording. Sony has gone its own way with SuperCD.

HDVD: Developed by Sony and others to present high-definition TV signals from a special DVD. Nobody expects to see this for at least two years. It won’t be included in any DVD Multi specification.

The DVD Forum, a consortium of DVD technology companies, recognizes that the format chaos is costing them a bundle. Consumers are not going to invest time and money on a medium that risks being orphaned a year later. And so DVD Multi aims to deliver a truce that will draw consumers back to the retail counter.

While DVD Multi doesn’t make everyone adopt the same standard, it does intend for a DVD multiplayer/recorder to be able to read and write multiple formats. This kind of thinking years ago would have resulted in a VCR that played both VHS and Beta. It’s a fine idea that should make everyone happy–at a price. A multiplayer will require more components and redundant mechanisms such as multiple heads.

Computer and consumer (as in home theater) DVD drives using the trademarked DVD Multi logo will be required to read DVD-Video, -ROM, -Audio, -RAM, -RW and -R discs as well as standard CD-ROM and CD audio discs. In addition, the computer drive must be able to write on DVD-RAM, DVD-RW and DVD-R discs. If this device comes to market at a reasonable price, it’s what you should buy.

Although recent optical CD media have become more predictable and standardized, there is still a choice between the two dyes used, cyanine and phthalocyanine, and their implications for long-term viability. Dana J. Parker, the co-author of New Riders’ Guide to CD-ROM, CD-ROM Fundamentals, and CD-ROM Professional’s CD-Recordable Handbook, in a posting on the CD Info Company’s Web site writes, “…there are other, very important aspects to evaluating CD-R media besides estimated longevity and a preference for chicken soup or pea soup. It is not quite so cut-and-dried as ‘phthalocyanine discs last longer, so they are better.’ There are far too many CD-R users who, from long experience, swear by cyanine media as staunchly as you and others do by phthalocyanine. As it turns out, they have good reason to do so… It is true that phthalocyanine dye is less sensitive to ordinary light — incoherent, random light such as sunshine, ultra violet, incandescent, and fluorescent light normally found in the real world outside of CD recorders. That means that prolonged exposure to bright light–particularly bright UV light–will render cyanine media unreadable sooner than phthalocyanine. Phthalocyanine will probably last longer and preserve information better under these adverse, but extremely unlikely conditions. If we store information on CD-R media that is so valuable as to merit preservation for a long period of time–say 30 years or more, assuming, of course,
that there will be hardware capable of playing the disc at that point in the future–are we going to leave those precious discs laying out in the light and heat? No, we are going to store them carefully in their jewel cases, away from the light, heat, and scratches that are the biggest threats to data loss. Then again, if an application does not require that the data remain readable 30 days from now, who cares if the data fades in 50 years or 100? The important thing is how reliably the disc can be written and read today.” (That is the other side of light sensitivity, and it’s a significant one… It further ensures that cyanine media offers a higher likelihood of compatibility with more CD recorders…)

“Most existing CD Recorders are designed to record to cyanine media. Some CD players and CD-ROM drives will read discs recorded on cyanine media more readily and reliably than they will read discs recorded on phthalocyanine media. This compatibility is tied in with a little-discussed concept known as write strategy.”

Personally, I would strongly recommend the following for all composers concerned with their work being available in the future: acquire a CD burner and record everything you can as a documentary archive — music, papers, video, images, etc. on CD-R. On a separate CD-R, record in the most standard text file an index of the recordings. Do this on two separate formulations of CD (I am not recommending brands since they change formulations too often) producing two identical collections of documents. Although technical information and the protocols of DVD burning are still in the formative stages, this too may be a good choice for the future, especially for video, but not quite yet for audio.

Preservation of composer-specific formats:

Many of us have produced creative works in non-standard formats which are often driven by custom software, use spatialization and sound diffusion protocols, utilize hardware instruments for sound realization, employ multimedia formats, or work in areas of performance art and improvisation. Even such currently ubiquitous ‘non-standard’ formats as MAX/MSP must be considered, if history has any relevance, to be ones that will almost certainly be worthless as systems for recreating and performing the art work of the present in the posthumous future. I would even go as far to say that the CD-ROM should be considered suspect as a viable vehicle for future realization of current data. Notwithstanding the relative ease in preserving the actual data in these formats, the problem will lie in the lack of a hardware/software/system software combination to play them or realize them on. And it is clear from my research that no arts archival organization or library will be willing or able to deal with the complexities of any but the most standard playback/realization systems. As a general guide to determine which formats will last and deserving of utilization as preservation vehicles, I would employ a simple rule: Use any format but only those formats that are widely accepted in a multitude of educational, societal, archival and cultural venues, and which touch many disparate academic and artistic disciplines.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

It is outside the scope of this article to inquire in great detail as to the various ramifications of copyright as they apply to posthumous custodial/archival considerations. A point of emphasis might be appropriate here though. One views copyright differently from the standpoint of how it enhances and supports one while alive, from how copyright interacts with the composer’s music after death. While alive, the composer requires copyright protection as a basic floor from which she/he can realize income and delegate publication of the music. When the composer dies, this same structure may very well serve to inhibit the dissemination of the music, particularly by an archival or advocacy program, and most particularly over the Internet. For example, a publisher of a score or CD can, and often does, terminate publication, and the masters are often lost or the contractual permission to switch copyright ownership is in legal limbo. Or, the publisher might restrict dissemination of a CD or score via the Internet for research or promotional purposes via an archival service. In fact, some publishers and CD companies have very restrictive contracts in this regard. For this reason it is essential that any composer wishing to establish meaningful availability of his music after death peruse each contract with a publisher and CD company to ensure that, at the very least, she can enter into non-exclusive distribution agreements with archival establishments, so they can make the music available for research and special performances. Dead composers do not need royalties, but their music does need to grow and prosper unencumbered by inappropriate legal roadblocks (to amplify this point, see the section explaining the SAA’s Deed of Gift in Approaching Archives).

To amplify this point, Frank Proschan at the Smithsonian Institution writes to me, “At the LC conference in December, it was pointed out that most European countries in their copyright laws provide for copyright and phonogram rights to be taken over by a third party if their owner neglects them (for instance, if RCA were to decide to sit on Carter Family or Jimmie Rodgers masters, Bear Family in Germany can publish them under German copyright law, while Rounder in the U.S. can only do so with RCA’s permission). The U.S. seems to be the only major country that allows a rights-holder to consign material to legal oblivion.”

A vivid example of this was provided by Marcia Bauman, who worked on the IDEAMA project at Stanford University. About securing permission to secure archival tapes, she writes, “Elsewhere, publishers prohibited IDEAMA use of materials. Such was the case, for example, with the works of Mario Davidovsky.”

I should point out that there is a difference of opinion between archivists and librarians regarding the ownership of intellectual property. Browsing the guidelines of the Society of American Archivists, one will note that the SAA definitely prefers for the archival institution to own the intellectual rights. Betty Auman of the Library of Congress informs me that the LOC and other library institutions prefer to not own these rights. And so, when a researcher wishes to make a copy of any document not in the public domain at the LOC (or most other libraries), they must obtain permission from the copyright holder. It is my impression that librarians are simply not aware of the tremendous roadblock this impediment presents against a composer’s music being fully accessible and available after her death.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

The InterPARES Project is a major international research initiative based in Canada in which archival scholars, computer engineering scholars, national archival institutions and private industry representatives are collaborating to develop the theoretical and methodological knowledge required for the permanent preservation of authentic records created in electronic systems. The resulting 5015.2 standard is now being used by the U.S. Defense Information Systems Agency to certify RMA vendors. This deals primarily with active records and data.

The second phase of the University of British Columbia-based project was intended to address the long-term preservation of inactive electronic records (i.e. records which are no longer needed for day-to-day business but which must be preserved for operational, legal or historical reasons). Some of the issues embedded in these reports available from their comprehensive Web site include: Authentication (signatures); third party digital time stamp (for verification); tagging, codifying, numbering data; administrative, other contexts under which documents were created; technological context of storage (hardware, software, operating system, many more criteria); formats of the data itself (text, graphic, image, sound).

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

Indiana University has just received a $3 million grant from the Digital Libraries Initiative -Phase 2, a multi-agency federal program with funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The four-year grant will allow IU staff to establish a digital music library test bed, develop appropriate software, and seek answers to the thorny issues surrounding music-related intellectual property rights.

An essential goal of IU’s DLI2 proposal is to greatly expand access to the Digital Music Library testbed by demonstrating that users at other colleges and universities can have similar interaction with the digital collections and educational applications as will be available to students, teachers and scholars at Indiana University. Testing and evaluation of such access across national and international networks — including the commodity Internet and experimental high-performance networks — is an important component of this project. Major areas of testing will include: demonstration of interoperability, performance evaluation of network services, tests of usability, and expert evaluation of applications for music instruction and music library services.

Since IU has been in the forefront of developments in areas of digitizing and access, this would be an interesting development to follow, even though it is not directly connected to custodial/archival programs for composers.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

The International Digital Electroacoustic Music Archive (IDEAMA), a pioneering effort founded in 1990 and initially spearheaded by Max Mathews, was a collaborative effort between Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) and Stanford University‘s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics (CCRMA). The following institutions were collaborating as Partner Institutions: Groupe de Recherches Musicales (INA/GRM), Paris; Institut de Recherches et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), Paris; National Center for Science Information Systems (NACSIS), Tokyo; Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Bourges (GMEB); Stiftelsen Elektro-Akustik Musik i Sverige (EMS), Stockholm; New York Public Library (NYPL), Instituut voor Sonologie, Den Haag and Instituut voor Psychoakustika een Elektronische Muziek (IPEM), Ghent. Although the NYPL was listed in this CCRMA web posting as a collaborative agent, the IDEAMA materials have not yet been cataloged, due to their being originally formatted on what, in hindsight, appears to be inaccessible or obsolete configurations.

An initial target collection of 700 electro-acoustic works and auxiliary materials of the early days (up to c. 1970), selected by boards in the USA and Europe, accompanied by a database catalogue, was established and transmitted to the affiliated institutions. On the North American side, CCRMA has been able to contribute approximately 220 works to the IDEAMA, substantially less than the anticipated 400 works that had been targeted. As a “paperless” archive, IDEAMA stored all materials entirely in digital form. The IDEAMA collection was to be publicly accessible, but, because of lack of funding and interest, is now distributed only sporadically in Europe and not at all in the USA, the only American repository being at CCRMA of Stanford University with its access severely limited due to its metadata being formatted on obsolete equipment (NeXT computer) and software (FileMaker Pro on floppy diskettes). In corresponding with some of the principals involved, it appears that all further work on this project was halted indefinitely in 1996. This must be a frustration for those who dedicated so much time to the project. The initial funding from the Mellon Foundation was substantial, supplemented subsequently by funds from the NEA and CCRMA.

What went wrong? My best guess is that they bit off more than they could chew in this pioneering time of the early 90s. Although they succeeded in finishing and digitizing the basic reduced collection, a heroic effort in itself considering the low funding amount for such a large project, the critical point of bogging down came with its organization and dissemination. For example, just consider their mission regarding this second stage as stated in a Web posting:

“Specialists at ZKM and CCRMA are developing a machine-readable database that will be linked with library retrieval systems and accessed by remote locations world-wide. The technology at IDEAMA is based on existing commercial hardware (computers, recording media, etc.), with programs de
signed for public access. Scholars, researchers, and those interested in electro-acoustic music can browse through IDEAMA’s on-line catalog, which is being designed to be consistent with international cataloging standards. Semiautomatic access to archive contents will enable music selections to be heard via jukebox or CD players.”

None of this ever happened, at least in the USA, despite the tireless dedication of some of the staff directly involved in implementing the project. The following narration may be instructive to all those who rush into an archival project without a clear vision of the end game. Marcia L. Bauman, who was most closely involved with the actual implementation of the project, recently tried to access the IDEAMA files and music after a two-year hiatus. Upon arriving at Stanford, she “was ready to log onto the NeXT machine (NeXT had been CCRMA’s platform for development during the archive years). Unfortunately, the NeXT machines had mostly been replaced, the facility is now PC/Linux based, and it seemed as though access to the online archive data was lost. But fortunately a grad student had a NeXT of his own, so we ported the text over to it, de-gibberrished it, and voilà, here it is. It is scary, as well, because the database, using FileMaker Pro, and all the information, lists of works, etc. are on floppy discs, which are becoming obsolete… I guess it’s not enough to preserve music in an archive; one has to preserve the archive with all the changing technology!!! Perhaps in the spring Jonathan will be able to get the key to the metal filing cabinet in which the archive is stored (you would never know what is in there, given how it is buried beneath old equipment and other debris in the basement!) I thought the plan to distribute it in a jukebox for the cost, which I forget, but it was very high, was not the best plan to interest other institutions…”

Other factors undoubtedly entered into the decision to halt the project, not the least of which may have been CCRMA’s institutional mission, which is more along the lines of developing software/hardware systems than fostering the resultant music. In the case of the IDEAMA program, it seems to me that the primary host institutions also lacked the structure of a collaborating library to implement the final phase of the project. My research shows that, no matter how careful the collection is assembled, it is crucial to plug into a powerful library structure at some point. This was done at one point here, when the Stanford Library advised IDEAMA on the MARC format, which is a standard archival format adopted by the Society of American Archivists. The intention to scan information such as program notes and LP jackets was abandoned, as was the original intention to use MARC format. MARC format is designed to catalog physical objects, such as a disk or text, on which information resides. However, in the case of the IDEAMA, it was the information itself that was to be cataloged, although some of the MARC format fields could be used to catalog IDEAMA information. Ultimately, the commercial database FileMaker Pro was selected, with the IDEAMA now envisioned as a simple, stand-alone entity consisting of a computer terminal and a jukebox which could be activated via the computer terminal.

And so, at this crucial point the IDEAMA project decided to abandon the collaboration with the library access structure (MARC) and go on its own, partially due to financing and external circumstances. But this may have been a mistake. Even the AMC archival and the ACA custodial programs are now closely working with libraries and professional archivists. Only libraries and archival institutions are fully equipped to deal with the mind-boggling complexities of how the archive eventually interfaces with the public. As a composer it is important to know this in evaluating the ability of an organization to carry its archival mission to completion.

Preservation is only half the game. Access is the end game.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

For many years the American Music Center has accepted scores and recordings (CDs in most recent years) from American composers to be placed in its library for anyone wishing to peruse the materials on site. AMC members could also request for scores and recordings to be mailed to them on loan. Materials remained with the AMC until 25 years after the composer’s death. After that period, the materials were then transferred to the Americana Collection at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. Most of the holdings in the AMC Scores/Recordings Library are listed in the online searchable catalog.

As of July 1, 2001, the Collection was moved to The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, located at Lincoln Center, and is now known as the American Music Center Collection at The New York Public Library (NYPL). The most significant change in the AMC Collection policy is the fact that the AMC has closed the Collection to new donations of PAPER scores. Although the non-CD recordings were included in the move, the CD collection remains at the AMC administrative offices, and the AMC will continue to accept CD donations from members. The American Music Center Collection at The New York Public Library is, in effect, a collection of works from the 20th century. Under the new agreement, AMC will continue to circulate perusal copies of scores from the Collection throughout the world, and NYPL will house, maintain and make the original items from the Collection available for on-site perusal, listening and research. [Ed. Note: NYPL’s Lincoln Center location has been closed for renovation and will reopen in October 2001. Until then, those wishing to peruse scores from the AMC Collection should make arrangements through the AMC Information Services.]

As for the future of AMC’s promotional service to its members, a new comprehensive set of programs now under development, under the working title of NewMusicJukeBox, will function as a central clearinghouse/portal on the World Wide Web for contemporary American music and the artists who create and perform it. By providing on-demand access to audio recordings, music scores, and core information on new music artists, NewMusicJukeBox will serve as a 24-hour “virtual” listening room for new American music, with streaming and downloadable sound files and score samples for listening and perusal. Using the latest online technologies, NewMusicJukeBox will provide the new music field, as well as general audiences, with unprecedented access to composers’ works in a way that protects the artist and the integrity of the artists’ original work. AMC is making every effort to proactively address the issue of intellectual property rights throughout the architecture and design of NewMusicJukeBox. As a key part of the project development, the AMC will be addressing issues of digital rights management, rights clearance, licensing, etc.

Since this program is under intense development as I write this, there will be some changes from what I describe here to the program as finally implemented. What follows is the compilation of information from many phone calls and emails between the American Music Center’s Executive Dir
ector Richard Kessler and myself, and I am grateful to him for such a comprehensive peek at what must be a defining step for AMC and for all composers.

Regarding the transition to the new program (see below), Kessler writes: “For NewMusicJukeBox, we will accept works written during the 20th century, but only in digital format. As the years go by, we anticipate that NewMusicJukeBox will consist of a significant number of works from the 20th century.”

NewMusicJukeBox is being constructed to serve as that unique and powerful “gateway,” a single site where one can access the works of thousands of composers. As currently proposed, the NewMusicJukeBox website will consist of the following primary components:

• A search engine based on composer name, musical genre, instrumentation, duration, composers’ professional interest or focus; key word, and more.
• An Internet radio/webcast component with curated program themes.
• Links to individual composer, performer, and/or a publisher Web sites, not just to artists and works within AMC’s own Collection, but also to resources outside the AMC Collection.
• An e-commerce component, allowing users to order performance materials for purchase or rental. Here a user could order parts for a particular work, pay the purchase or rental fee online, and initiate a process whereby the parts would be printed out, bound, and mailed by a third party (such as Kinko’s Documents on Demand Center). Payment would go directly to the composers, with the AMC charging a minimal transmittal fee.

NewMusicJukeBox will utilize the most cutting-edge technology available for reproducing and distributing music over the Internet. This will require the creation of a sophisticated architecture of computer hardware, database and digital rights software, and professionally managed web server and hosting services.

NewMusicJukeBox will be supported by its own server infrastructure utilizing the Microsoft 2000 platform. Registered AMC members will use a browser-based interface to administer their works and data within NewMusicJukeBox. Composers will be able to create their own biography, inform users of their performance schedules, provide contact information, and upload audio and score files. By uploading music files with metadata to NewMusicJukeBox’s Windows Media server, members will be able to take advantage of the “On-Demand” and “Webcast” features of NewMusicJukeBox. When accessing the “On-Demand” portion of the site, users will be able to search AMC’s vast collection of works by a variety of queries, such as, composer name, title, duration, and instrumentation. The “Webcast” or “Internet Radio” aspect of the site will offer random and thematic music programming with direct links to promotional information about composers in the collection. Digital Rights Management software will ensure NewMusicJukeBox is a secure environment for composers to promote their works.

Although perusal copies of all existing scores currently in the AMC Collection at NYPL, including those of non-AMC members, will continue to circulate, the acceptance of new “virtual” scores and materials will only be on behalf of AMC members. Similarly, only AMC members will be able to take advantage of the new service. There will also be a modest fee charged for the service in addition to the AMC membership.

Notice that the inclusion of reference scores and audio materials (tapes, CDs) constitutes the body of this project. A major drawback in terms of making it possible to perform a composer’s music posthumously is that only scores are accepted — parts are not. [Ed. Note: The AMC Library was created for the sole purpose of promoting the music of American composers via perusal materials and was never intended as a resource for performance parts. However, it has always been the practice of AMC to provide information regarding sources for parts.] Even scores for, say, instrument and stereo tape will only find the score accepted, even if (as I firmly believe) the composer considers the tape part an integral part of the score. Conceivably the tape part (or its CD counterpart) can be catalogued as a separate work. Also, electro-acoustic and experimental/media composers, although they can include any materials within that traditional framework, will be prohibited from including more esoteric materials such as software, hardware, multimedia, etc., unless it can be documented within the traditional formats. Articles, work papers, diagrams of software, letters, etc. will NOT be a part of the AMC program. Instead, composers will be asked to deposit these in a library or local archive and the AMC program will provide links to these localities.

Once the basic program is in place, there may be a “secondary” thrust to include and catalog video. This will bring in more experimental and multimedia composers (such as documenting a performance using a particular hardware or experimental instrument, or documenting a performance art work).

All scores and audio materials in the program will continue to be serviced after the composer’s death according to current practices, including materials on NewMusicJukeBox (providing the composer is a member of AMC of course). No additional charges will be assessed. And so on the face of it the AMC program, although not specifically advertised as a posthumous archival service, is nevertheless a de facto one. Not being specified as such, it seems to me that could easily change in the future however.

Regarding implementation, at the time of this writing Mr. Kessler writes that “an in-house test of this program will occur in October 2001 and we expect that it will contain the works of a sample base of 25 or so composers’ works.” This is the one that also links to the Web site as described above. The sound files will be streamed in Windows Media format and mp3, and the scores in either PDF (for hand-copied, etc.) or a Sibelius format for scores available in Finale. For more experimental and handwritten scores, PDF format will be employed.

Regarding my inquiry as to exactly how AMC would deal with intellectual rights issues with scores, Mr. Kessler writes, “With NewMusicJukeBox, the copyright owner gets to determine how promotion will be handled. So, if a composer wants to allow people to print out parts from a downloaded Sibelius file–they could authorize that. If they only want people to print out a score or view the score without being able to print it out, they could do that too. If the copyright holder wants to limit access of the score to hardcopy mailed by the composer and/or agent, that can be done as well. Similarly with PDF, people could print out the score or only view it on screen. I am not saying that this solves everything–on the score side–but I think it will work out in most instances.

“On the sound file side, that’s a different question. Clearances will have to be had–I think what we will see will be different approaches depending on the clearances that a composer or publisher has for commercial recordings–whether we stream complete works or just excerpts. On the non-commercial side, where a composer has a live recording of their work, again, clearances will dictate what we can or cannot use. We also expect that there will be MIDI recordings available.”

It should be stated that the AMC programs are not specifically set up to service deceased composers. Nevertheless it is clear that they intend to do so, as Mr. Kessler states in a note to me, “The database of NewMusicJukeBox will have links to both composers’ archives/websites of composers who have work in the AMC
Collection and composers who do not. As long as the archives and Web sites remain intact, the links will remain in the database. An important point is that NewMusicJukeBox’s database will include data on all the works in the AMC Collection at NYPL.

“The works in NewMusicJukeBox (scores, sounds files, etc) will remain in NewMusicJukeBox, indefinitely. At some point, the issue of archiving will emerge–but right now, I anticipate that we will not be removing works by composers who are deceased.”

The AMC has garnered major financial support for this program from several private foundations and government agencies, including the Helen F. Whitaker Fund and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs. In addition, promising applications are now pending to the National Endowment for the Arts and other agencies. In light of these prospects, and AMC’s prior history with its library program, I think we can assume that it will be around for a long time. Mr. Kessler considers the program the “core of what we do at the American Music Center.”

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

The Library of Congress (LOC) is by far the largest archival repository and the one with which most composers are involved, whether they realize it or not. In fact there is some confusion about how this congressional research body works. First, many publishing and CD companies send their output to the LOC for placement in its general collection and obtain what is know as a Library of Congress Number. Composers may check to see if any of their output is in the general LOC collection by checking its Web search engine. If your materials are not there, contact your publisher and request that they deposit their collection in the LOC, since this is the single most important and basic archival/reference entity there is, although it is institutional-, not composer-driven. That is, there are no attendant papers, reviews, links of any kind to accompany the music in the general collection.

Second, the LOC has established over 500 special music collections. These comprise historical materials from not only composers, but critics, performers, conductors, and other music personalities, with an emphasis on ‘historical’ items. Most composers in these special collections finished their activity long before most of us were born, and include Stravinsky, Bartók, Schoenberg, etc. One of the most current composer relevant to composers living today would be Vladimir Ussachevsky, whose collection comprises personal papers, analog audiotapes, educational materials and music manuscripts. None of these are digitized nor is there any present intention to do so. Regarding the LOC’s policy of accepting materials from composers, Elizabeth Auman, curator at the LOC says in a recent far-ranging note (this refers only to special collections, not the general collection above):

“Almost all of our composers’ archives are presented in the context of special collections. Just about the only cases where this is not true is when the materials sent to us by the composer are only in one format (most frequently only musical scores). We certainly accept these, and happily, but much prefer the composer or the composer’s estate be willing to send us mixed format collections–not only music scores in manuscript, printed or computer formats, but also correspondence, programs, scrapbooks, photographs, legal and financial records, engagement books and diaries, their writings and/or lectures about music, sound and video recordings, and the like–the entire documentation of the composer’s life and works. In these cases, rather than do ‘traditional cataloging,’ which would result in the splitting of the collection by format, we create a special mixed format collection for the composer and the materials remain together. Obviously the ‘neatest’ way to deal with this is with the family or estate after the death of a composer, but we particularly enjoy working with living composers who deposit (a legal term for us, with its own kind of paperwork) their collections with us as they are able. The document involved speaks of a deposit with intent to convert to gift (usually upon the death of the composer). This lets us set up the eventual structure of the special collection, and makes archival material no longer needed in its original format by the composer available to scholars and performers within the restrictions set out by the Instrument of Deposit. It is our practice, unless the composer designates otherwise, that what we come to ‘own’ is only the physical property–the intellectual rights remain with whomever the holder normally would be.”

Regarding present composers wishing to donate materials, she continues, “There is no obligation on the part of an American classical composer (or other type of musician) to donate her archives to the Music Division of the Library, nor is there an obligation on the part of the Library to accept such offers. Typically, we look for archives of musicians (not only composers) of a certain stature. There are no firm guidelines. The hope is that there is a certain significant body of works, that–let’s assume we are talking about composers here–there have been professional performances of a number of these works, that there are sound recordings (commercial and non-commercial), that the composer (or other musician) has attained some amount of attention other than in his or her own immediate community.”

The third way a composer will be affected by the LOC is when she/he submits a work to the United States Copyright Office, which is a separate arm of the LOC. Again I quote Elizabeth Auman (to whom I am most grateful for her extensive advice on many aspects of this article), “The Copyright Office is indeed a separate part of the Library, though it is also the source of the majority (in numbers) of our general collections. Theoretically, every score or sound recording that has been copyrighted has received some form of cataloging. The Copyright Office maintains its own catalogs, however, and they are not those available on-line to users of the ‘regular’ Library of Congress catalog. The copyright catalogs can only be consulted onsite, either by a private researcher who can come to the Library, or by a member of the Copyright Office Information and Reference Division staff. Staff of that division will do searches for the public and issue reports for an hourly fee.”

And so, for all composers wishing to ensure future availability of their music, the LOC is definitely a first step. It should be pointed out that the first and third categories of the LOC above are not strictly composer archival programs, since their primary purposes are different. Neither is a new program being launched by the American Music Center strictly designed for posthumous archival repository. But both the LOC and AMC programs, as well as that of The New York Public Library, serve well as de facto archival repositories.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can D
o About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

The New York Public Library For The Performing Arts (NYPL) is quite similar to the Library of Congress (LOC) in its importance for composers wishing to establish their music in an archival repository. Like the LOC, it contains two of the three constituents mentioned above, namely, the general circulating collection of the Branch Libraries which includes scores and CDs, and the non-circulating Research Collections administered by the Music Division, containing historical papers and documents often along with scores and CDs. Also similar to the LOC, the NYPL Music Division Research Collections will reveal, upon browsing its on-line general collections catalog, to have holdings of many composers, most typically catalogued without the special status of being amassed together as a unit with important papers, documents, etc. I was impressed to discover, for example, that virtually all of my published scores were among its holdings, unknown to me.

The Music Division houses a genuine archival repository of composer documents and papers, similar to the LOC in its organization and means of access. Some sample listings include:

• The John Cage Music Manuscript Collection
• The Composers’ Forum Archives
• The William Schuman Papers
• The Henry Cowell Papers
• The Otto Luening Papers

[Ed. note: And, most recently, The New York Public Library acquired the American Music Center‘s historic collection of more than 60,000 scores and recordings of works by American composers, which will henceforth be known as the American Music Center Collection at The New York Public Library.)

Unlike the LOC, there seems to be an emphasis at the NYPL Music Division on more contemporary composers and organizations, although the LOC is taking steps to remedy this, as in its recent collaborations with Roger Reynolds. While there are no set criteria for inclusion in the archives, the Music Division decided to start with regional composers and those whose work was in the greatest danger of disappearing. Preference was also given to those composers without an institutional affiliation.

An interesting new development is the Music Division’s inclusion of electro-acoustic music among its archives. The purpose is to create an archive of electro-acoustic music of prominent regional composers. All materials will be collected, including composers’ work notes and work tapes and, of course, the music itself. Whenever possible, the original documents are kept in the form in which they were created (i.e. paper documents–notes, etc.). All music, work tapes, etc., were originally digitized and cataloged on DAT or ADAT, with plans to transfer them to hard disk. As with all research collections, they may be consulted only in the Library’s reading room.

This ambitious project is still in its early stages, having gone through changes in administration, levels of funding, and digital formats. To date, none of the half dozen or so composers’ digital archives originally slated for this project have been completed, due largely to the enormous expense involved, and the program awaits further commitment and funding.

My advice to all composers, similar to that given for the LOC, is to contact your publisher/CD company and urge that the music be deposited in the NYPL. Before offering to donate one’s archival material, however, I would strongly suggest browsing its Web site to determine if one’s output is consonant with NYPL’s institutional mission (always good advice for any archival repository). Additionally I would recommend contacting a curator at the NYPL.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

According to its Web site, the American Composers Alliance (ACA) Custodial Membership Plan, “guarantees the continued availability of a composer’s music for performance, recording or publication and provides other related services for the dissemination of the composer’s works after his or her death. (Note that the composer need not be a composer-member of ACA.)

Specifically the plan:

• Acts as a publisher, maintaining score and part masters, distributing scores and parts for sale or rental, and royalties as a publisher would.
• Provides information to musicians and the public regarding the composer, the composer’s works, and the availability of works for performance, publication or recording whether or not those works are distributed by ACA, along with maintaining an ACA catalog of the works.
• Provides a place where the heirs or estate may bring questions regarding any aspect of performance, publication, copyright, or recording of the composer’s works.”

In response to the above, I wrote the Executive Director of ACA, Deborah Atherton, posing a number of thorny questions. I include her response below (which are edited for brevity) with my thanks for her taking the time for such a comprehensive reply:

“Unlike other publishers of music, we are fortunate in being able to offer a wonderful archival state-of-the art repository for their works at the University of Maryland. We encourage our composers to make separate arrangements with the University of Maryland for the originals of their works and for any papers, documents, recordings, or photographs associated with their careers that they would like to preserve. But ACA is currently committed to being, not an archive, but an active publisher. Our job is not to preserve the original physical work (except insofar as it is needed for publishing) but to keep the music itself in circulation and available. It is important to emphasize that we do not own copyrights, and do not own the original work. We are not a non-profit organization, but an association incorporated to serve our members. Our income is from our members, through dues and through the annual publisher’s share of royalties from BMI.

“Consequently, we do not have a separate non-profit organization established for custodial membership. There is a separate interest-bearing fund for custodial members fees, and very careful bookkeeping, which shows interest and amortizes the membership as the initial deposit or deposits are used. If ACA was forced to close at some time in the future, all remaining funds would be returned to the designated heirs, while the deposited works would remain at the University of Maryland. ACA takes a tiny administrative fee for administering this fund and program, one-half of one percent
of interest earned, and this, in fact, is one of the issues currently under discussion as we take a look at ACA’s future. But we encourage our composers to find a home for their original scores, papers, and recordings, in all formats; we would greatly prefer NOT to have the only original copies in our possession.

“As to the future of ACA… There is no completely safe place for art–libraries feel quite free to de-accession work they no longer want to hold (although I confess I was shocked when I first learned that). Even the wealthiest non-profits sometimes run into trouble–it wasn’t too long ago that the NYPL was in deep trouble–and for small arts organizations the future always has a big question mark. ACA is set up in such a way that both the funds and the musical works revert to the custodial members or their heirs in the case of ACA’s going out of business–and all the scores in our possession are preserved at the University of Maryland’s Performing Arts Library. Composers and their heirs will never lose anything by their arrangement with ACA, and are in fact, guaranteed a place in the University of Maryland’s collection. I think it’s a pretty good deal, though I agree, that if we could establish a very well-funded archive for contemporary music, to be held in perpetuity, it would be an even better deal. However, I would add that ACA has been in existence since 1937, and we cheerfully anticipate being in existence in 2037.”

ACA has only a BMI license, and is not licensed as an ASCAP publisher. As such, ASCAP composers are allowed to join its Custodial membership program but not ACA itself. ASCAP composers will have most privileges that BMI composers have. In return for ACA’s loss of income from publishers’ royalties of ASCAP composers’ music, ASCAP Custodial Membership composers will need to pay a somewhat larger startup fee.

The ACA Custodial membership Program is probably the only one of its kind in existence. Its goal is laudable and ambitious, and its concept is one that is sorely needed in our world. Additional correspondence with present and former officers of ACA has turned up some more thorny issues that need airing. Nevertheless, and with thanks for the honesty with which all the people responded, I will just cite some areas that composers should be aware of. First, there has been some history of the regular ACA membership program borrowing from the custodial program to meet current expenses. I am told that this is not so much an issue at present, but it is not prohibited in the bylaws. Second, ACA has undergone a bit of turmoil during the past few years, in terms of change of staff, financing and overall questioning of its mission. During that time it ceased to service current ACA members’ scores for over a year. There has also been a somewhat unsettlingly high degree of turnover in its personnel, and as of this writing, it is once again seeking another executive director (Deborah Atherton, the Executive Director quoted above, has recently resigned and a new director is being sought as this goes to press). Unlike the American Music Center, ACA’s sources of income seem to be largely derived from members’ fees and the BMI guarantee, which has been somewhat reduced over the years. One should embark on this journey (as all other journeys) with eyes open, and judge the long-term viability of any program on the total weight of the evidence.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

The Electronic Music Foundation seems a natural fit for establishing a type of hybrid archival/advocacy/default custodial program, perhaps in direct collaboration with one of the organizations that already has a custodial program in place, since it can effectively deal with the problem of creative formats that are virtually outside the realm of the other programs — formats such as CD-ROM, other multimedia, video, etc. It also has a history and reputation in complex web information distribution technology and programs. Whether or not this actually comes to fruition will depend on a number of factors, including the response to readers of this article (emails to me are welcome). Ideally, a prominent composer organization could take on the administration of the program, with EMF being contracted to implement the various components. The broad outlines of this very tentative proposal are as follows…

Primary Goal: To ensure that the composer’s output, research materials, history and biography be readily available to the future public. All other goals, such as financially serving the composers estate, shall be secondary insofar as they conflict with the primary goal (note: this would be a complement to the exactly opposite ACA approach). In other words, this is primarily an archival approach, and only secondarily as a default publishing approach, with the primary goal of aiding future students, researchers and devotees in the process of obtaining a comprehensive picture of where the composer’s materials may be found and accessed.

Primary strategy: To act as a composer-driven central clearinghouse, linking various sources of the composer’s music, bios, written materials, archives, etc. To implement this strategy, it would be important to encourage the member to, before formally joining the program, ensure that her/his physical works and documents (scores, CDs, letters, contracts, other papers, etc.) are deposited in one principal archival institution, and also available in as many libraries as possible (and/or be a member of the ACA custodial program and the AMC program as well). EMFCAAMP would then ideally link up to these sources rather than store the materials itself. EMFCAAMP would, however, serve as a publisher of last resort in the event of a CD or score being out of print, or the publishing/record company ceasing to exist.

It should be emphasized that, unlike most institutional archival programs, this would be totally composer-driven, in terms of the nature of its Web site, the creative output to be serviced, etc. This would come at a cost steeper than that charged by an institutionally-driven program. This cost should in large part be borne by the composer member, as the price to pay for the ability to shape the future of his artistic oeuvre.

Services Provided by EMFCAAMP:

Maintain Web site of a composer, and update into new digital formats. Periodically scan Internet, prominent doctoral dissertation archives, publications, performance venues, and find new research concerning composers’ works. Integrate any new articles, research into site with links or direct posting.

Part of this Web site would establish a list of “core” libraries. These would be large, well-known libraries which have a database of holdings searchable from the Internet (a feature which is increasingly becoming available). Incidentally, although it’s possible to log onto a particular library of this nature and search its holdings, these holding usually will NOT appear in a general Web search (say, a search under a composer’s name). That is why this service would be so important. For each custodial member, list all of his/her holdings at the core libraries in this Web site. Supplement this with a list of additional libraries that the member him/herself designates, along with its holdings of his works, this supplemental list to be provided by the member. This feature would encourage members to work with their local and regiona
l libraries to provide as much storage and archival services away from the EMF site as possible. ACA might be one such primary source to which the database could refer.

Maintain an online (streaming or download) archive of all music, video, software with development and implementation notes, media materials the composer releases to EMFCAAMP. This material must be capable of being easily digitized and must be able to be read on standard, currently available end user formats. Regarding music requiring non-standard means of technical realization (such as MAX/MSP or C language software), the primary goal shall NOT be to be able to realize a composition in live performance at a date far into the future, but rather to aid research into how the composer constructed the work. EMFCAAMP shall stay clear of archiving hardware associated with a particular performance realization, or any other type of software or hardware that required specialized maintenance skills, apart from those of maintaining and updating media in standardized formats readily playable on current technology platforms. EMFCAAMP has the sole option of accepting or rejecting any part or all of a composer’s submission of output, based on the selection criteria established above.

One aspect of this digital archive would be to make available all CDs that have gone out of print, along with other files the composer may designate (rehearsal tapes, performances, work tapes, etc.). Before death, the composer would deposit two copies of each CD to be maintained, along with a nonexclusive distribution agreement signed by the current publisher and composer, or a copy of the contract between composer and publisher which states that the composer has these rights and can release them to EMFCAAMP pending demise of the publisher or the CD going out of print.

Maintain presence of composer in the CD catalogs (equivalent of Schwann).

Develop an on-line mailing list of performers, libraries, composers, music departments, institutions, etc. Periodically send them a newsletter on-line, apprising them of the existence of each member’s work, research about her, and the availability of her work. This will keep the member’s name in front of the public. It will also serve to advertise the existence of the program, and will attract new members.

In the event of a CD (or video) company ceasing to distribute a composer’s work, the EMFCAAMP, according to a legal document set up originally between the composer, record/media company and EMFCAAMP, shall make the CD or video with liner notes and graphics available, either through the streaming/download archive, or manually via analog copy sent through mail. This would potentially mean that the copyright on the recording might revert to EMFCAAMP, and all monies accruing as the result of distribution and performance of the work would go to EMFCAAMP. (This clause inserted not to enhance EMF’s coffers, but rather to spare the EMFCAAMP from the time-consuming task of setting up a royalty distribution system to pay the estates of the composers sums which would be rather inconsequential anyway). In order to implement this particular feature, the composer would, at the time of initial commitment, need to pay an additional fee to cover the costs of a potential additional administrative burden on EMF. This fee might be on a sliding scale — sort of an insurance policy against obsolescence. It would be solely based on the potential expenses incurred by EMFCAAMP in implementing the service.

(In researching this point, all composers contacted said that they were far more interested in the ability of their work to exist and be available in perpetuity than they were in maintaining copyright protection which would only net a very small sum to their heirs and may very well complicate the process to the point of their work’s continuation being unaffordable).

Maintain an archive of paper scores either in PDF or microfilm format with digitized audio files (CD/DVD) for purposes of research and limited performance. In instances where an organization will want to perform the work and it is unavailable from the publisher (who may have ceased to exist or to publish the work), EMFCAAMP shall make it available on rental to that organization, provided the organization provide the full cost, including labor, materials, mailing, overhead, etc.). Thus, if the EMFCAAMP had in its possession a work which required an outdated hardware or software component, or extensive research into its realization, the requesting organization’s budget would be the factor determining whether or not the EMFCAAMP would make the work available. Additionally, the composer herself has the ultimate say as to whether or not her work in a non-standardized format will be performed in the future, by allocating an additional sum consonant with the complexity of maintaining any additional hardware or software necessary for the future realization of the work.

In the event a composer’s publisher of scores (and scores plus tapes) shall cease to exist, or shall return the work to the composer’s estate, EMFCAAMP shall serve as de facto publisher, maintaining this work in the archive as stated above, according to prior agreement between the composer, publisher, and EMFCAAMP. EMFCAAMP would then own the copyright, and all royalties accruing from the performance would go to EMFCAAMP.

The EMFCAAMP would take out BMI, ASCAP, SESAC licenses as copyright owner and as publisher, and would receive royalties thereof, which would go toward operating expenses of the program.

EMFCAAMP shall monitor the public domain status of all composers’ materials and as soon as a work becomes public domain, EMFCAAMP shall so clearly indicate in a prominent area on the composer’s Web site.

In the event of termination of EMFCAAMP, ownership of all materials deposited, and all digitized material related to the composer’s output, with all rights thereof, shall revert to the composer members’ heirs, as specified in the original agreement.

Before I recommend that the Electronic Music Foundation explore relationships with other composer organizations to implement some or all of these tasks, we should await ongoing developments, particularly those at AMC. It may very well be that AMC would in fact assume many of these tasks as the broad outlines of its NewMusicJukeBox jell into reality.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

Barton McLean has experienced both the academic and the professional worlds of the composer, having had a 20-year teaching career in theory/composition in which, as director of the electronic music/music technology programs at Indiana University-South bend and the University of Texas-Austin he and his colleagues pioneered the first large-scale commercially-available digital sequencer and sampler, and with his wife Priscilla produced 14 recordings, some of which have become staples in electronic music courses. In 1983 he and Priscilla left academia to develop their electro-acoustic duo The McLean Mix, which has proven itself in hundreds of concerts and installations throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Pacific Rim.

Barton McLean’s music is characterized by the integration of nature sounds into the web of traditional and non-traditional structures, the use
of technology to articulate ideas based on environmental and cultural concerns, and the development of new instruments such as the recent sound/light project the “Sparkling Light Console.” A signature McLean Mix collaboration, Rainforest Images, has been released on compact disc by Capstone recordings. This 48-minute major work co-authored by Priscilla McLean uses resources on four continents, eleven organizations, seven live performers, and five major studios and has taken five years to assemble. Also even more recently on the Capstone label appears Gods, Demons and the Earth, and The Electric Performer. The two most recent CD releases have been his Song of the Nahutal and Etunytude on CRI, and Ritual of the Dawn, Forgotten Shadows, and Happy Days, also on CRI, both funded with grants from the Virgil Thompson Foundation. Of the four ‘signature’ Capstone recordings, Ray Tuttle writes in classical.net: “Again and again, The McLean Mix comes up with awesome sounds and textures — and I mean ‘awesome’ quite literally. Even though this is modern music that places communication with a non-specialist audience high on its agenda, listeners will get no free rides from it. They’ll have to put aside their prejudices and hear it for what it is.”

Most recently, Barton and Priscilla have collaborated on a grand multimedia installation commissioned by a consortium of universities and museums, called “The Ultimate Symphonius 2000,” premiered in 2/2000 at the Massachussets Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), and subsequently taken on tour. In addition to over 100 recent residencies at universities, and an equal number at arts centers and museums in the USA and abroad, the McLeans have recently completed residencies as guest composers at the Asian Composers League in Manila, and at the Universiti Malaysia – Sarawak.

Barton McLean is also a widely-published and respected writer and lecturer on various aspects of composer issues, esthetics, and music technology. Articles originally published in journals such as Perspectives of New Music, Leonardo Journal, SEAMUS Journal, Electronic Musician, SCI Newsletter, Sounds Australian, Music in New Zealand, and others featuring various composer issues can be read on his Web site.

From What Might Happen To Your Music After You Die and What You Can Do About It
by Barton McLean
© 2001 NewMusicBox

D.C. Culbertson over the years Final photo by Mark Longaker, others unknown

By D.C. Culbertson
© 2001 NewMusicBox

“Act your age!”
“Age is nothing but a number.”
“With age comes wisdom.”
“He looks good for his age.”

People talk a lot about age. They speak of golden years, midlife crises, middle-age spread, callow youth, being young at heart, and nurturing the inner child. They debate the issue of physical vs. emotional vs. psychological age, speaking of “youthful” people in their 70s and “old” people in their 20s. A doctor writes a book on how to determine one’s “Real Age” based on one’s physical condition and lifestyle. And on and on… But is the issue of chronological age important when speaking about composers? Does a composer’s age influence the type of music he/she writes? At what point is one no longer considered a “young” composer, and can a composer who is chronologically “old” write in a young way?

For example, some believe that 40 is a pivotal age when a composer comes into his/her own stylistically, pointing out that Philip Glass and Steve Reich wrote their most significant works (Glass’ Einstein on the Beach and Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians) shortly before their 40th birthdays. But others are quick to point out that fellow minimalist Terry Riley wrote his most significant work, In C, before he even turned 30. Others point out composers like Pauline Oliveros, who is nearly 70 but still exploring new musical avenues, and 92-year-old Elliott Carter, who recently completed his first opera and is believed to be composing some of his best work at present.

Going further with this idea, can any generalization be made about composers from the same age group? If there is, how does their music compare or contrast with composers of another generation? Or is every composer so different that no real generalization of any kind can be made, regardless of age?

When exploring such a concept, there are a lot of different elements that need to be considered. Take musical form, for instance. Is opera popular among one age group and virtually ignored in another? Does one age group favor traditional forms like sonata-allegro or theme and variations, while another almost entirely disregards them? We hear from time to time about the impending demise of the traditional orchestra or the difficulty in getting new works for orchestra performed. Does this correspond with an increasing drop in the number of orchestral works composers have been producing over the past 50 years or is there no apparent basis in fact for it?

Is there a predominant musical style among any particular age group? For instance, is serialism more common among composers who were active during the height of the Darmstadt school–or later, or earlier? During minimalism’s heyday, the names of Philip Glass, John Adams and Steve Reich were tossed around a lot, but were most of their contemporaries also using it? And what about aleatoric music or neo-romanticism?

What kind of musical influence is evident? While one generation draws heavily on European classical traditions exemplified by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, does another prefer to look back to an earlier time and draw on medieval and Renaissance traditions? What about music from non-Western cultures, particularly if it reflects the composer’s ethnic heritage? Or American folk music? Or jazz, or rock?

Do current events, cultural or social issues show up in any particular generation’s music? Can one see the effects of events such as the Korean War, the outbreak of the AIDS epidemic or the civil rights movements mostly in the age group who lived through them, or in later generations? What about influences from the composer’s own world–poetry they’ve read, movies or paintings they’ve seen, or even dreams they’ve had?

And what is the music scored for? Does one generation favor traditional ensembles such as the string quartet and piano trio? If they do use traditional instruments, are they used in non-traditional ways, whether it be bowing the interior strings of a piano, extended vocal technique, or playing only the head joint of a clarinet? Do others concentrate on electronic and computer music? Who primarily uses instruments not normally associated with “serious” or “classical” music, such as the banjo or toy piano? What about the use of ethnic instruments or ensembles such as the gamelan? How many composers choose to disregard any tradition and use instruments of their own invention, either exclusively or in combination with traditional instruments? And which go even further and make extensive use of things not normally considered instruments at all, such as plants, turntables and auto parts?

Armed with a copious list of American composers, I explored these factors and more among the age groups under under 40, 40-60, 60-80 and over 80, to see if any generalizations could be made along these lines. (Just for the record, I decided to limit my research to living American composers who write music that can be labeled “serious” or “contemporary.”) I read books, checked numerous websites, watched videos, combed through LP and CD liner notes, and sent numerous e-mails. What follows are a series of purely unscientific–but, hopefully, well researched–findings.

It can be a tricky matter to track down young composers, because most are not widely recorded or performed. But if the recent spate of awards given out by ASCAP and BMI are any indication, there are an enormous amount of composers under 30 writing an equally enormous amount of music. In addition to the 19 main winners of ASCAP’s Morton Gould Young Composer Awards this year, four others received honorable mentions, and seven special ASCAP Foundation Awards intended for composers under 18 where given, as well as five Honorable Mentions. Nine others were honored at the 48th BMI Student Composer Awards last June. Take into consideration all the schools and conservatories in the U.S. that offer degrees or private study in composition, not to mention young composers who are writing on their own, and the logical conclusion is that these winners must represent only the tip of the iceberg, numerically.

Despite their youth, some of these composers already appear to be well on their way to having distinguished careers. For example, 15-year-old Julia Scott Carey, who has been composing since age 5, received her first commission (from the Wellesley Symphony Orchestra) at 11, and over a dozen orchestras have performed her works to date, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

However, although it may be fairly easy to get an idea about how many young composers are out there, it’s anything but easy to make generalizations about the forms they prefer or the styles they write in. There are exceptions, such as Carey, who speaking by phone from her home in Massachusetts, describes her style as “lyrical” and “tonal–with a lower-case T.”

Some composers who are getting closer to 40 have established a trademark sound such as neo-romantics Lowell Liebermann and Daron Hagen, both of whom turn 40 later this year, neo-modernists Augusta Read Thomas (b. 1964) and Anthony Cornicello (b. 1964), or post-minimalist Michael Torke (b. 1961), whose distinct style involves frenetic rhythmic patterns, and whose pieces are often based on his musical interpretation of colors. But far more often the writing of composers under 40 shows a wide mix of styles and influences, sometimes from piece to piece and sometimes even within the piece. For example, the three movements of Voices, a clarinet concerto by Derek Bermel (b. 1967), are based, successively, on speech sounds, an Irish folk song, and Jamaican rap.

The instrumentation of these young composers’ pieces is often as eclectic and varied as their musical style. For example, the compositions of Annie Gosfield (b. 1960) include works for detuned piano, the ensemble Newband (which is primarily made up of instruments built by Harry Partch), and a work for solo piano and baseballs created for the 100th anniversary of the unification of New York’s boroughs called “Brooklyn, October 5, 1941,” after game 4 of the 1941 World Series between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees.

It seemed, in this regard, that it might be a good idea to ask one of these composers, particularly a well-connected one, why they think so much variance among this generation. One likely candidate was Adam Silverman, 27, a Yale graduate and co-founder of the New York-based Minimum Security Composers Collective, which has presented works by over 20 composers in three years and who says, when asked how many composers he knows personally, “I can’t even imagine…I could rattle off 50 names easily.”

Silverman believes that one reason composers of his generation lack any kind of common language is because they’ve grown up with easy access to many different types of music through media like recordings, radio and Internet sources like Napster and mp3.com. (His influences, for example, include Ligeti, Stravinsky, Schubert, the Beatles and Torke.) They’re also the first generation to have grown up with easy access to computers, which they can use as a tool for composing, either through software manuscript programs like Finale or through music editors and sequencers. Another reason may be “possibly a negative reaction to the example set for us by the oldest living generation, who harshly divided modern classical music into uptown and downtown camps, West Coast, and East Coast, American and European… In the last 35 years, however, there has been a slow rebuilding of musical openness, starting with that of the minimalists. Today, with no chips on our shoulders, young composers stand on their legacy; not having strongly experienced this musical chauvinism from our musical peers, we are free to concentrate on the important task of developing our own styles and personal modes of expression form whatever sources we see fit.”

Many of these young composers also differ from their older colleagues in a way that reflects a pre-20th century tradition: actively pursuing careers in performing as well as composing. Bermel, for example, was the soloist when the American Composers Orchestra premiered Voices. Gosfield, in addition to frequently collaborating with artists such as John Zorn, also directs her own ensemble. And New York-based Dave Douglas plays trumpet in no less than six ensembles, from a jazz quartet to Sanctuary, which he describes as an “electric octet.”

However, most of the music of the under 40 crowd does not seem to draw on political or social issues. Two exceptions to this are jazz composer Don Byron (b. 1962), whose outspoken political views inform virtually every composition he writes, and Robert Maggio (b. 1964), who said in his notes to the CRI disc Gay American Composers, “I write music that matters to me–music that explores my internal emotional life and the relationships between individuals. As with all important facets of my identity, my homosexuality has an influence on my music, at times directly affecting the pieces I write.”

Composers born during the 1940s and ’50s came of age in an era where the barriers between “serious” and “popular” music, as well as jazz and avant-garde music, started to break down drastically and there was a noticeable increase in the use of experimental techniques. Not every composer born during this period chose to follow these trends, naturally. Some even reverted to more conservative idioms. For instance, while the early works of John Adams (b. 1947) like Shaker Loops (1978) are minimalist, his more recent ones, like the 1991 opera The Death of Klinghoffer, are more through-composed and in a more conservative, post-modernist style.

But many composers in this age group have found a signature sound world and have pretty much remained identified with it. Glenn Branca (b. 1949) writes for “orchestras” of up to 100 guitars, many of them altered or specially built in different keys. Stephen Scott (b. 1944) started composing for “bowed” piano, where a group of pe
rformers use fishing line or horsehair to bow the piano’s inner strings, in 1976. Ellen Fullman (b. 1957) has been primarily associated with The Long String Instrument, a wooden box with 85-feet wires that creates tones with deep frequencies. Stuart Saunders Smith (b. 1948) frequently incorporates non-traditional percussion instruments into his music, from kitchen utensils to pieces of scrap metal to tree branches hung with glass wind chimes. Since 1990 much of Phil Kline‘s music has been composed largely for “boom box orchestra,” a group of portable tape players. Meredith Monk (b. 1943), who has been associated with extended vocal techniques since the 1960s and has created a significant body of works exploring this terrain for her own ensemble, has only recently explored the possibility of writing works for other ensembles including the orchestra.

Electro-acoustic, electronic or computer music are the preferred mediums for many of composers in this age group such as Daria Semegen (b. 1946) and Pril Smiley (b. 1943), both of whom were associated with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Although composer and electric guitarist Paul Dresher (b. 1951) has created works for conventional instruments, some of his most important scores, which he performs with his own ensemble, combine electric and acoustic instruments to create a new type of chamber music. Another electric guitar playing composer Steve Mackey has also developed a unique style through combining the electric guitar’s sonorities with those of acoustic instruments. Scott Johnson (b. 1952), since his John Somebody (1980-82) in which an electric guitar imitates repeated fragments of voice recordings, has continued to explore and refine the technique of turning pre-recorded conversation into recognizable melodies through repetition and imitation for the past two decades. Charles Dodge (b. 1942), since his landmark Earth’s Magnetic Field (1970) in which the musical material from computations involving changes in the earth’s magnetic field, has been creating provocative music with computers incorporating such diverse ideas as synthetic speech-song to altering historic recordings of Enrico Caruso. Another computer composer who has been obsessed with the fine line between verbal communication and music-making for many years is Princeton-based Paul Lansky (b. 1944). Laurie Spiegel (b. 1945), who began her career performing folk and bluegrass music on the banjo, and began exploring the possibilities of computers in works such as Appalachian Grove (1974), has rarely gone back to acoustic instruments since then.

Other composers who initially concentrated on electronic and electro-acoustic music have modified or grown away from their original approach. For instance, Ingram Marshall (b. 1942), whose earliest compositions involved tape experiments, now frequently mixes live acoustic instruments with electronic processing. And Elodie Lauten (b. 1950), who originally worked exclusively with the Fairlight Computer Music Instrument (CMI), now composes for a lot of music for solo acoustic piano and has even created a work for Baroque period instruments.

Rock and popular music is also a strong influence in much of the music written by this age group. Glenn Branca (b. 1949) and Rhys Chatham (b. 1942), who were both originally performers in rock bands, have been created large-scale compositions using rock aesthetics and rock instrumentation for decades. Bonham for eight percussionists, by Christopher Rouse (b. 1949), was inspired by the late Led Zeppelin drummer. Julia Wolfe (b. 1958) described her Lick as being directly inspired by the Motown and funk music she grew up with. (Wolfe, along with fellow Druckman students Michael Gordon and David Lang, also founded the Bang On A Can Festival, with the aim of trying to break down the Uptown-Downtown polarity, in 1987.) Laurie Anderson (b. 1947), who like Philip Glass has enjoyed great commercial success, frequently works with rock musicians such as Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and Adrian Belew. However, as she said in John Schaefer‘s book New Sounds, “I don’t think of [my music] as rock in any way, but it’s sitting in the rock bins in record stores, and there are people on it who do rock.”

It’s also not uncommon to see works inspired by current events and popular culture, both serious and frivolous, among composers of this age group. Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) is a particularly good example of the latter, with extroverted works like Desi (inspired by Desi Arnaz) (1990) or Elvis Everywhere, whose scoring includes four Elvis impersonators. Many of Laurie Anderson’s pieces include satiric or humorous social commentary, often with a feminist slant, such as Beautiful Red Dress. A number of African-American composers have written pieces inspired by important figures in black history; including Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941) and Anthony Davis (b. 1951), whose opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, was composed in 1985. And it was primarily composers of this age group who contributed to The AIDS Quilt Songbook, a cycle of 15 songs commissioned by the late baritone William Parker in 1992.

Many of the prominent American composers between the ages of 60 and 80 continue to pursue the trademark styles and techniques for which they initially became known. These styles and techniques, however, are as varied as the entire field of American music.

For a significant number of composers in this age group, serialism remains a vital compositional frame of reference. Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt were extremely influential teachers for a whole generation of composers and their compositional legacy continues in the music of Charles Wuorinen (b. 1938), whose music is as structurally complex and demanding as that of his teacher Babbitt while as classically balanced as that of Sessions. Donald Martino (b. 1931), Benjamin Boretz (b. 1934), Henry Weinberg (b. 1931) and Peter Westergaard (b. 1931), all also former Babbitt students, have each remained strict serialists throughout their careers. Although in recent years, even composers as uncompromising as Mario Davidovsky (b. 1934) seem to have softened a bit. Curiously, Babbitt’s most famous pupil Stephen Sondheim (b. 1930) never composed serial music but has continued to cultivate a unique personal language for the Broadway musical for over 40 years.

During the formative years of the composers born in this generation, the most viable avant-garde compositional alternative to serialism was the music and philosophy of the late John Cage whose advocacy of indeterminate musical processes still informs the works of his disciples Christian Wolff (b. 1936) and Earle Brown (b. 1924). The Fluxus movement of the early 1960s, which took Cage’s compositional methods to an even more extreme realization, led to confrontational works by Yoko Ono (b. 1933) and George Brecht (b. 1925), but nowadays there are few strict adherents of the Fluxus aesthetic these days, although the singular career path followed to this day by La Monte Young (b. 1935), often cited as the founder of minimalism, can be traced to his earliest conceptual pieces during his involvement with Fluxus. Cage’s experimentation and the Fluxus movement both played key roles in the development of the so-called “Downtown” music scene in New York during this time as opposed to the more established, academically-oriented “uptown” one. And while the uptown-downtown divide is no longer a geographical reality, the aesthetic divide still informs a great deal of the music of composers of this generation.

Arguably the most important new style that emerged and has continued to flourish from composers of this generation is minimalism. La Monte Young and the three other composers primarily associated with the minimalist movement in music–Terry Riley (b. 1935) a classmate of Young’s at UC Berkeley, and two Juilliard trained composers: Steve Reich (b. 1936) and Philip Glass (b. 1937)–were all born within a couple of years of one another. All four were strongly influenced by non-western music: Young, Riley and Glass by the music of India and Reich by African drumming and Hebrew chant. And while the austerity of each of their early styles has blossomed into musical languages that are far more malleable, each composer retains an instantly identifiable signature sound.

Of course, a great many composers of this generation neither adopted minimalism nor followed the avant-garde paths of serialism and indeterminacy, but either remained adherents of or defiantly returned to the American tonal tradition of composers like Samuel Barber and Howard Hanson. Dominick Argento (b. 1927), Ned Rorem (b. 1923) and Lee Hoiby (b. 1926), all of whom are primarily known for their operas and songs, have consistently created music throughout long careers in a neo-romantic, conservative style. Although David Del Tredici (b. 1937) began his career writing atonal music, his style also switched to neo-romanticism after he began an 18-year series of pieces based on Lewis Carroll‘s Alice books, beginning with Pop-pourri (1968).

Others, whose style has been labeled “post-modernist,” including six prominent composers born within a year of each other–William Bolcom (b. 1938), Barbara Kolb (b. 1939), John Harbison (b. 1938), John Corigliano (b. 1938), Joan Tower (b. 1938) and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)–write music which reference a wide variety of style
s incorporating such diverse idioms as romantic orchestral music, dissonant modernism and jazz, into an predominantly tonal idiom. One of the most difficult to categorize composers, George Crumb (b. 1929), whose music is equally related to neo-romanticism and post-modernism as well as to the legacy of John Cage and experimental music, has throughout his career pursued a unique musical vocabulary with incorporates unconventional musical notation, unusual instrumentation–for classical music, at least–such as the banjo or the toy piano, or unorthodox methods of playing.

Finally, many of these composers, have pursued lifetime careers in electronic music, a field of music that was essentially born as many composers of this generation reached adulthood. Morton Subotnick (b. 1933), who in 1967 created the first piece of electronic music commissioned for commercial recording, Silver Apples of the Moon, on the Buchla synthesizer, has built his entire compositional career on exploring the possibilities of electronically-generated sounds. Experimentation with electronically generated or manipulated sound has also been the major lifetime focus of Gordon Mumma (b. 1935) and Alvin Lucier (b. 1931). Most compositions by Jean Eichelberger Ivey (b. 1923), founder of Peabody Conservatory‘s Electronic Music Studio and one of the first women active in this field, are scored for one or more instruments with tape. The works of several other women who use tape as a primary medium reflect an interest in the concept of music as a meditative or healing medium, such as New Zealand-born Annea Lockwood (b. 1939), whose sound sources are often drawn from nature, her life partner, Ruth Anderson (b. 1928), and Pauline Oliveros (b. 1932). Robert Ashley (b. 1930), who has been at the forefront of electronic music for the past half century, has over the past two decades, refined his electronic sonic vocabulary to create a unique new form of opera in which he performs with a regular ensemble.

Social awareness has played a key role in the works of a great many of these composers, stretching across all of their stylistic differences. Ashley’s recent opera Dust takes on the issue of homelessness in America, while Joan Tower’s series of Fanfares for the Common Woman celebrates womanhood. African-American Valerie Capers (b. 1935) based her dramatic work Sojourner (1981), which she described as an “operatorio,” on the life of ex-slave and abolitionist Sojourner Truth. Reich drew on both his childhood memories of bicoastal train trips between his divorced parents’ homes during World War II and the trains that transported Jews to death camps for his Different Trains (1986). And gay composer Corigliano was one of the first composers in this age group to write a work dealing with the AIDS epidemic, his Symphony No.1 (1990).

Perhaps the real secret to a long life is not vitamins or exercise, but composing. After all, there are at least a dozen composers over 80 in the U.S. at present who continue to be active while many of their contemporaries in other fields have long since retired. (Leo Ornstein [b. 1892], the eldest of these “elder statesmen,” stopped composing in his 80s, but continues to thrive in other ways at the ripe old age of 108.)

All these composers except Ornstein came of age during the late 1920s and early 1930s, when a number of significant groups and publications devoted to new music, such as the International League of Composers and Henry Cowell‘s journal New Music, were appearing. Radio and recordings were making all types of music more accessible to the public for the first time. And during the 1930s a number of significant European composers including Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Krenek and Bartók settled in the U.S.

One thing all these men have in common is that each has mapped out an individual path and established a distinct style of his own. (Sadly, Vivian Fine, the only composer qualified to be an elder stateswoman, died in a car accident last March at the age of 86.) Sometimes these paths have resulted in a respected career in academia, and sometimes a style that adheres strictly to an established tradition. Other times it’s resulted in a maverick.

Leon Kirchner (b. 1919) is one composer that fits the first category. Although his style has never adhered to one particular musical fashion, he has always placed great importance on basing a piece on a sound musical idea and adhering to equally sound principles of structural development. David Diamond (b. 1915), who taught at Juilliard for over 25 years, also stressed the importance of a solid theoretical background, both in his and his students’ music. Ironically, although Elliott Carter (b. 1908) also enjoyed a long career at Juilliard and has won two Pulitzer Prizes to date, his teachers during his undergraduate years at Harvard were less than enthusiastic about his radical, uncompromising music–possibly influenced by his friendship with Charles Ives, who he met at age 16–eventually sending him to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger. The trip resulted in a brief fling with neoclassicism, but soon Carter returned to his old style, characterized by metric modulation, pitch organization, partitioning of various musical aspects and the concept of mathematical vs. psychological time, feeling that it provided a more appropriate way to depict the atmosphere of post-World War II America.

A number of these elder statesmen are primarily associated with the use and development of serialism. The 3 Compositions for Piano (1947) of Milton Babbitt (b. 1916) was one of the earliest examples of total serialism with regard to pitches, durations and dynamics, and the work which immediately followed it, Composition for 12 Instruments, serialized timbre as well. Despite the fact that he has also written electronic music and influences from other music, such as jazz, are evident in pieces like All Set, Babbitt continues to espouse the importance of serialism. George Perle (b. 1915) also continues to write in the 12-tone style, although he describes his music as “twelve-tone tonality” rather than serialism per se.

George Rochberg (b. 1918), on the other hand, switched from strict serialism to a neo-romantic style after his son’s death in the 1960s, a move which generated a great deal of hostility from some of his colleagues and was welcomed by others. In fact, although Rochberg himself discounts it, he is often considered the founder of the post-modernist movement. However, although he may be modest about his influence on younger composers, he is far from hesitant about criticizing them. For instance, in his 1972 essay “Reflections on the Renewal of Music,” he put down what he described as “the gross, generalized, nonspecific principles of today’s avant-gardists,” adding “There can be no justification for music, ultimately, if it does not convey eloquently and elegantly the passions of the human heart.”

In contrast to these, Henry Brant (b. 1913), while he did teach briefly at such August institutions as Columbia and Juilliard, has been a radical since he began writing music for pots and pans as a child. Most of his music is scored for huge, unusual ensembles–one example is Orbits, for 80 trombones and organ–in equally huge and unusual spatial arrangements. At age 80, he went even further afield and invented a Tenor Cello and Mezzo-Violin, for which he has written several ensemble pieces. The highly eclectic style of Portland-born Lou Harrison (b. 1917), who early on abandoned the New York scene for California and was especially influenced by a 1962 trip to the Far East on a Rockefeller grant, has included everything from music for gamelan to a symphony featuring vocals by pop singer Al Jarreau and texts in the universal language Esperanto. Harrison is also highly unusual for this generation regarding his personal life; not only did he come out openly as a gay man but, starting in the 1970s, began to publicly support the gay rights movement.

Even more interesting is the case of Gian-Carlo Menotti (b. 1911), who has been criticized in some circles for music that is too accessible and tonal. His output, which consists almost entirely of operas–for which he writes the librettos, another factor that has earned him criticism–was disparaged in conservatory circles for years. Recently, however, although his production of new works has slowed down considerably, a number of his earlier operas have been revived successfully and have been taken more seriously. The Consul, for example, in which a woman in a nameless Communist-like country repeatedly tries and fails to get her husband released from prison, seems far more relevant to recent political events than it may have been when it premiered in 1950. And it’s a rare city where at least one performance of his 1951 Christmas opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, isn’t held every year.