i listen to a lot of podcasts. why? because i live in houston which means that i have to drive 45 minutes to get to work and another 45 minutes to get home. this is because the city is a complete cluster to navigate. you could live 10 miles from work and it would still take 45 minutes because the surface streets don’t allow for easy passage. for me it’s 45 minutes of zipping down the freeway/tollway. with that much time in the car, my music collection gets stale so the best solution is to make a playlist of podcasts. it’s like making my own little radio station. this pleases me greatly.
one of the podcasts that i listen to is the interview features podcast from echoes.org. these are the artist interviews with various producers of heavy gauge new age stuff. to be honest, part of the reason i enjoy it so much is because it makes me laugh.
now anyone who has spent any time with me knows that i am a seriously pretentious dude. i went to a conservatory. i used to wear all black and have long hair. for years i sat in a tiny room writing art music that the unwashed masses just wouldn’t understand. when it comes to pretension, i am a master of the craft. but i understand it. i’m aware of it. i’m amused by it and i do my best to amuse those around me with it.
that said, what i find so compelling about this podcast is partly in the voice of kimberly haas. her voice is the voice of your college girlfriend’s roommate. you know the one, the art major who is just one tenth of one percent too hip for you. this may sound mean, but it’s not. every time i hear her voice i flash back to college and i’m falling over myself to get a cappuccino and my free jazz collection. it brings a smile to my face.
the other thing that draws me to it is what started me writing tonight. i just finished up messing around with something that is completely arrhythmic, atonal, and really a timbre experiment. it is unrepentantly static but constantly shifting. nothing stands still, but it doesn’t go anywhere either. imagine watching the oily rainbow in a puddle on the sidewalk with its colors moving like some kind of laconic amoeba. it’s like that only with sound. and no bad similes. it sounds almost like something you’d hear on echoes. almost. what’s the difference? well, this is where it gets a little harsh.
the difference is that it isn’t boring. most of the music that i pick up as a result of these interviews that i hear (and thank goodness for emusic so i don’t have to drop iTunes money on the albums) are actively boring. what i mean by that is the music is trying so hard to make me not listen that it’s distracting. i catch myself locked in a war with the music: i’m trying to focus on any development of themes or shifting of rhythms and it is bound and determined to make my eyes glaze over and drive my mind to thinking about composting or when the last time i changed the oil in my car was.
i should blame myself, but i don’t.
maybe this is music that isn’t meant to be heard. maybe it’s part of a deeper experience that i just don’t get. but i have a pretty decent musical education and all of the comparisons to arvo pärt make me think that they do intend for people to listen to it and believe in it. but pärt they ain’t. or they don’t get pärt and that i can forgive.
why all this ink? because i’m sitting here, listening to this piece that goes nowhere, fascinated with it and wondering. and i’m thinking about those interviews.
the composers and musicians that are featured go into such deep detail about their creative process and their history with the music. each one tries to be ever so much more unique than all of the other composers of similar tunage that i find myself breaking into a smile. i would love to sit down and simply ask, “really? you found some old recordings of a factory fan and decided that it would be the basis for 5 concept albums?” because that’s how it comes across. this guy is trying to sell me on the idea that a 30 year old accident of a tape was worthy of spinning off into 5 albums worth of loops that sound more like the last than the next. the snippets that are played behind the interviews make me giggle. again, not being mean here, simply wondering if people think about the things that they say when put in front of a microphone.
i will own up to being that bad. i was interviewed when i was in school about a piece that i wrote which was performed by a rather prestigious ensemble. the title of the work was “the mirror for string orchestra.” a critic grilled me over the title and its significance. i tried to spin it and in the end he simply told me, “i don’t hear that at all.” and he was right. i was busted. two things happened that day. first, i gave up laying down overly creative and deep explanations of my work and secondly, i stopped titling my pieces. the titles i give to songs now are often the first couple of words i think of when i’m done mixing. that helps me avoid some of the more painful explanations.
this might be my longest post here in the history of othertime. it’s funny how a 7 minute interview piece can really set me off.
now i need to get back to mixing up my art music. it’s an exploration of the greater oversoul of the world wide web and an ode to my sister-in-law’s long dead hamster. not that i expect you to understand.
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