open to influence

Posted by on March 2, 2010 No comments

I have a nasty commute. 40 miles each way in Houston is about two hours on the road daily. With that kind of time my very large catalog of music gets dull quickly, so I rely on podcasts to fill the gap. I have to say that of all of the things The Almighty Internet has brought, radio is the best. Wait. What I meant was that I listen to a lot of podcasts on a number of different topics. When I have exhausted the reserves of a given set I will go in search of new life and that’s how I found Radio Lab [http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/]. It’s a great show that deals with science and art. Mostly it’s radio shows the way I would do them if I had the drive. Every show is really a long piece of music from the way the interviews are edited to their presentation. It’s brilliant.

This morning, I pulled down a couple of their older shows to fill the gap and there was a short about Terry Riley’s “In C.” A group of composers was asked to remix it and the results were pretty exciting. For me, they were perfectly timed.

Last night I spent my time in the studio pulling apart a couple of tracks I’ve recorded over the past couple of weeks. All of the tracks were acoustic guitar. Using a variety of simple techniques, I managed to obliterate any reference to the actual instrument and instead created a smear of sound. The structure of each piece was left in tact, but the effect was entirely different. I did the work hastily and without too much thinking. That’s more difficult than it sounds given the nature of software and user interfaces. It’s really hard to simply react with software the way one can with a musical instrument. There’s a lot of work to do in that area. In any case, the results were interesting but there was something missing.

And that’s why “In C” was a good thing to hear this morning. The approach taken by the various composers suggests solutions that I might not have come to as quickly. It’s relatively exciting.

Half of getting good creative work out the door is being open to different ways of thinking about it. I’m intrigued by how events and input that could be taken as random really aren’t (in this case by virtue of the fact that I’m me and I chose to expose myself to a given piece of material) and exactly how important that is to the development of the work.

possible interactions include

Posted by on March 1, 2010 No comments

The opinion is beginning to form in the back of my mind that perhaps books should have labels not unlike drugs. “Caution: this book has been known to derail creative thoughts and cause endless anguish.” Or maybe “Do not operate recording equipment after reading.” Maybe I should learn not to mix manifestos with deep creative work. Timing is everything.

Last week I finished Jaron Lanier’s “You Are Not A Gadget” and now I’m reading “Reality Hunger” by David Shields. These are not the books for me to read while doing creative work. Especially when I already charted my course. They certainly would have served my process last summer or (likely) in the coming hot season. Both books beg the question of innovation and look critically at the work being done by creative people today. In “Reality Hunger” there’s the sneaking feeling that too many people are losing sight of where we are culturally and the impact that art is making right now. It’s a great book, by the way. I don’t know that it serves the reader when read front to back but given its design one could easily pick it up, flip to a page, and get something from it. I’m at the 80% mark and would recommend it.

What my reaction to these books has done is place an additional burden on my current process. I’m suddenly very aware of what I’m doing and whether or not it is bringing anything new to the table. Everything is overly self-conscious and I have deep fears about what that will mean to the work. I probably should have picked up a novel instead, but the fact of the matter is that I’ve been waiting for books like this. It’s troubling to need something that gets in the way, in the short term anyway.

amateur

Posted by on February 27, 2010 No comments

There are few pleasures in life like being an amateur. And I don’t mean that in the way that we have come to collectively view the term. An amateur isn’t a wannabe. Those are two totally different things. An amateur loves something deeply and participates in it for purely personal reasons. I’m not sure why we assume that an amateur doesn’t have to be good at said activity because I have known many amateurs who would put folks who get paid for the same thing to shame. So let’s get our terms together and go back to an amateur being one who is a true enthusiast. The more amateurs in the world the better!

That said, I got a pile of wood last night that I will turn into a guitar. Building an instrument is a challenge that I relish like few others. It forces me to stretch myself in areas in which I do not excel and even better, building an instrument lets me work out some intellectual and physical muscles that don’t get the attention they might in the course of my daily life. I don’t know if a professional luthier sees a pile of wood and gets romantic about it or just goes into the practical aspects of the build the same way that I do with a given problem in my professional life. If so, I’m doubly glad to be an amateur builder because the simple sense of wonder I experience in the sight, feel, and smell of the materials brings pure delight.

sides

With any luck, I will get some things set up today and tomorrow so that at least the sides will be ready to rock in short order. I’m looking forward to carving the braces and tone bars. That means some quality time with some stock and the bandsaw followed by carving. I love carving (especially since I invested in some good tools). My son is already excited to go work in the garage. That’s the bonus to the work: the opportunity to teach my son some traditional skills that will come in handy later in his life.

I truly feel sorry for people whose spare time revolves around the television. Humans are by nature creative. Failing to make something on a regular basis leads to a hollow existence and a lack of internal quiet. If more people could accept that you don’t have to make money at something to create something of value I think that there would be more contentment.

what have you done for me lately

Posted by on February 26, 2010 No comments

In graduate school there was a seminar for composers where we talked about our work and personal philosophy of music. One big questions was “are you an innovator or a more conservative composer?” Being as electronic/computer music was my focus I sided with innovator. My argument was that if one traced the history of computer music it was one of experimentation. If a composer wasn’t pushing forward with a new technique then there wasn’t much to hold one’s attention. I felt that it was a culture of “what have you done for me lately.” I still think that was a pretty accurate assessment based on my discussions with other composers and students. We listened for the technique and not for the music.

That should have been a pretty big red flag. After the dreams of my PhD faded and I retreated creatively to my mental cave, I found myself drawn back to the guitar; my gateway to music. And not the classical guitar that was the center of my musical training but the steel string acoustic guitar. Something visceral and very real settled in when I returned to it and I’ve been riding that feeling ever since.

Now, years later, I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a need to combine the two. That deep passion for music and the deep research that comes with technology and its application. Thinking back to journal articles and more academic discussions makes me think that I really do need more. It’s a good time to take stock and experiment a little. The things I’m reading these days have put most of what I’m doing in a new light. Some of it good, some of it less good, but all of it indicates a need for adjustment if not wholesale change.

Musical development is a road that never ends. I think I’m being reminded that it’s OK to pull over for coffee from time to time but there’s a lot of ground to cover.

style and progress

Posted by on February 24, 2010 No comments

I finished reading “You Are Not A Gadget” by Jaron Lanier. I don’t know to whom I would recommend the book, but I’m sure people should read it. He’s critical of technology in all the right ways and while I don’t agree with everything in the book (a manifesto) there was plenty that made me think. There were two big sticking points for me that got the wheels turning. He mentions that if he went back in time and told people that in the promised land of the future the best that our open culture would create would be a UNIX derivative (Linux) and a new encyclopedia (wikipedia). That stopped me dead in my tracks. He’s right. We’ve come up with a lot of “new” ways to do the same old thing. A bit depressing, that.

The other thing he mentioned was that the ’90s really lacked a musical style. I tried really hard to find some music from my college years that stood out and had a feel that couldn’t have happened in any other time and I was stumped. Maybe the ’90s and much of the ’00s were some sort of vacuum for music. A rehashing that has led us to a culture of mash-ups and re-contextualization that have been a kind of creative doldrums. It’s also possible that this assessment is missing a greater narrative that we’ll only see a decade or so from now. It does leave me wondering what’s being done now that is going to lead to the next leap. After all, in years, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix weren’t that far apart but stylistically they are different planets. Where is that now? Somewhere.

This has definitely colored the way I’m treating the work I’m doing now. I’m ignoring certain notions that I once had and am taking a more extreme approach to my next offering. I had imagined doing something simple and acoustic but I’m second guessing that now. There’s an urge to chase an older stream of work I did and combine it with my recent sketches to see what comes out. In the end it’s alchemy that will lead to the next quantum leap.

There’s so much to think about while doing the work. And that’s the key: The Work. It can’t stop. But it can change.