Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • WINTER 2017 • sai-national.org 16 L M N Q R S T V W X GRACE NOTE Robert Fleisher, Professor Emeritus of music theory and composition, Northern Illinois University, began his undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado in the summer of 1971. For a term paper in an American music class, Fleisher chose to examine the music of his composition teacher, Cecil Effinger. A transcript of their conversation, recorded on July 6 of that year, appears below. (See Robert Fleisher update in Annual American Composers Update.) Cecil Effinger (1914-1990) was active as a jazz and classical performer, bandleader, conductor, and educator (all without an earned degree in music) before joining the University of Colorado music faculty in 1948. He taught there until 1981 and long served as its head of music theory and composition. A prolific composer known especially for his choral and chamber compositions, Effinger was also the inventor of the Musicwriter and Tempowatch. An online search of his name currently yields thousands of results, including a growing discography. You've been described as having a large output. How do you write? I think the thing that got me off to a fairly good flying start was the interest in making professional arranging for dance bands in the middle thirties. I quit doing dance band work in 1936. That was the Benny Goodman era, and we had some marvelous things going, fantastic stuff going. There, the impetus was, first of all, I was in the business, and secondly, it was pretty good money. And this led to a habit of gathering ideas fast, and working fast. I remember on many occasions I'd do two arrangements and copy the parts and mail them out the next day. Now, this spilled over when I began to write serious music, and it spilled over in two ways — not only in terms of getting the job done in a relatively short time without fussing with it too much, but also being practical about it and doing a piece of work for a given purpose. This was the functional side of the thing. All the output since about 1936, or thereabouts, has been for a specific concert, a specific time, for specific people. At first I made up some of the situations for myself. Like I wrote for my own oboe recital; I'd write music for it. I wrote a lot of music just for my own usage. And then writing for musical plays and writing for ballets, modern dance, and what not. And I would always try to find something to A ConversAtion with CeCil effinger COMPOSING IDEAS

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