To Daniel Elder and any other white male composer who thinks “Equity silences the Muse”

To Daniel Elder and any other white male composer who thinks “Equity silences the Muse”:

There is no muse, only privilege. Your rhetorical choice to place the Muse— and therefore your own success— outside of yourself is a smart one. It allows you to act as if you have been chosen by the ever-elusive force of Inspiration and you would be doing a disservice to it and the world if your music did not shine successfully forth. While I believe that the act of writing music could not be further away from the romantic ideal of diligently answering the call of inspiration, I’ll play along.

Let’s say there is a Muse and as you characterized it, “The Muse sees no difference in us.” This Muse seeks to inspire anyone who will listen to it, and anyone is capable of hearing it. Then it’s completely up to them what they produce in response. You say some people write good music, some people don’t (Alarms are blaring in my head as I write this because creativity certainly doesn’t work this way, but for now we’ll continue with the thought experiment). What happens if two good people, both equally capable of hearing and responding to the Muse, aren’t met with equal enthusiasm from publishers, orchestras, or an audience? Let’s say for this exercise that the two composers even wrote the exact same piece. Do you really think they’ll be given the same opportunities just because they wrote good music? Absolutely not. When we are professional composers, it’s unfortunately not enough just to write a good piece. Your own personal goal of “creating a legacy beyond [your]self” is a noble one, but only possible if your work is preserved through performances, recordings, publishing deals, etc., which you should know from experience are not easy to come by. Or maybe you think they’re a dime a dozen because you underestimate the doors your race and gender have opened for you. There is no Muse, only privilege.

Let’s get back to those alarms blaring in my head. You used the premise of the Muse to conclude that everyone has equal opportunities for success, which conveniently ignores any variables contributing to the characteristics of one’s particular Muse or similar variables that would impact the fate of the work after its creation. As such, my argument based on this premise was only able to address visibility, completely ignoring the fact that two people won’t write the same piece (and “good” is subjective anyway, but that’s a story for another time). There is no Muse, only privilege. You can call it Inspiration if you want, but anything we create is just our brains’ reactions to our surroundings and our learned patterns of synthesizing that information. Whether we strive to conform our music to commonly perceived standards of beauty/pleasantness or we actively work against those expectations, our music is limited by our environment, our experiences, and our reactive tendencies. All of these are finite and shaped by our particular vantage point of privilege or lack thereof; the Muse of Minimalism cannot strike someone who has only ever listened to Puccini. There is no Muse, only privilege.

Along those same lines, music is inextricably linked to culture, which (you guessed it) is similarly connected to privilege. Children who were never exposed to classical music at a young age likely won’t grow up to enjoy it, let alone study it. Families who place more cultural significance on popular music or sports prime their children for different interests and even careers. I recognize that not everyone wants to be a composer—only the crazy few—but this certainly accounts for a cultural disadvantage when it comes to hearing what you call the Muse. On the other hand, one’s heritage may play an important role in the music they grow up listening to and learning to love. Music performed or enjoyed at family gatherings may hold a special place in their creative mind that is unique to them. However, those same people may have trouble presenting culturally-influenced music in certain settings (academic, competitive, etc.) because their music comes with a culture that only certain people can relate to. Does this invalidate their inspiration, skill, and music? No. It simply serves as yet another uncontrollable barrier. There is no Muse, only privilege.

In your blog post, you complained that men are consciously overlooked when equity is at play. On this, we agree. For programming is such that choosing one piece excludes others, and if diversity is a priority, pieces written by cis white men are less likely to be performed than they previously were. Although you use your own lack of artistic growth to imply that the problem lies with this new mindset, I would argue that equity is the solution to discriminatory practices of the past millennia and the systemic lack of access that remains as a result. Women and people of color have long been silenced by the toxic gate-keeping of our field, and developments in the late 20th century could have exacerbated that exclusivity even more: Milton Babbitt and the new PhD, developments in electronic music and the consequent need for particular equipment, not to mention the ever-growing gap between “classical” and “popular” music, which only serves to limit casual exposure to the music you and I undoubtedly take for granted. With all of these new barriers to access, it’s a wonder rich white men haven’t taken over the industry completely. Thank goodness there are a few moments when the rest of us are given an even playing field. There is no Muse, only privilege.

But, Daniel, I have great news for you. While you have bravely launched this campaign for white men, there is no need! While there are no calls for scores specifically for your demographic, you still have so many chances to shine. For example, The Rochester Philharmonic last year programmed an entire concert about Women’s Suffrage, but 75% of the concert was comprised of pieces by men! The most gender diverse programming in 2019-2020 still contained an overwhelming majority of pieces written by men (68% of the season)! If you’re concerned about employment, two of the most notable music schools in our mutual home base Nashville (Belmont and Vanderbilt) employ 11 Composition Professors, with only 1 woman and 1 person of color. If you’re looking to move, you could work at Eastman, Juilliard, or Curtis where out of 10 Professorships, only 2 are held by women and 2 are held by people of color. 

Statistics aside, everyone in the music industry is struggling these days with the loss of performance opportunities due to COVID-19. But it’s not going to be a specific demographic who comes to the rescue. It’s going to be the people who are innovative enough to adapt to the needs of the times. Think flexible instrumentation, interactive open form works, performances that rely on new technological integration, the possibilities are endless. Those composers will be the ones to revive our art, not because of their race, gender, age, or nationality, but because they don’t wait for Inspiration. 

There is no Muse, only you and me and our music. And I am very grateful for the increasing opportunities for composers who don’t look like you, because otherwise it would just be you and your music… as it has been forever.