There's been a flurry of activity these days revolving around those buzzwords. Jeffrey Nytch wrote a case-study on how he took an idea for a symphony, and spun it into a commission and performances. If you haven't read it, and gone through all the comments, go for it. It shows some classic ideas in internet-ethics...namely, read the whole article, read the entire reply, and take a moment to think about it. Jeffrey and I actually came to a pretty good understanding, once we got done circling each other for a few test rounds (I'm sure the internet cried...I have a feeling it started out looking like two boxers squaring off, only to go into the middle and shake hands).
Now, to build off of those comments, as well as previous posts. One of the main points I've been making is philosophical, a "chicken and the egg" type koan: piece/idea or consumer first?
I'm purposefully using the word consumer not audience. Yes, it is giving it a negative impression. That was my intent. "You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!" is true of literature, but not of blogs, it appears. No subtlety to be had today.
Many people have said "Why can't you think about an audience? What's wrong with putting them first? Aren't you writing your music for people?" Others point to the "If you write something, and no one hears it because no one will play it, have you made music? You have to make compromises."
Those questions miss my point. We're really dealing with three things: conditions, preconceptions, and assumptions.
First, conditions. I've gotten a few commissions in my life. Nothing fancy, usually a soloist asking me for a piece, sometimes an ensemble. When someone asks me for a new piece, we go into talks--there's the nitty gritty "how many performances? How much can you send me? What's the nicest bottle of wine in your price range? I prefer Jura..." Business is business, for me an unsavory portion of what I do.
But then we get down to what does the performer need, what do they think they want, and how do we come to a consensus. These are one set of conditions.
These conditions include things such as length, instrumentation, and possibly some special requests. When you write for an orchestra, you know, roughly, what instruments are available. However, these conditions are always starting points--"So...you said unaccompanied trombone...how about trombone and electronics?" "You said you wanted it ten minutes...is seven minutes good? This idea has run it's course, so I either have to do another movement and go over ten, or sit at seven." For an orchestra, this could be doubling questions, availability of instruments (So...you're a small orchestra...can I use harp? What about two harps?), and even length issues (Hey, you said opener...you sure? I mean, I COULD do a thirty minute piece...oh, you're sure...positive? Alright, fine...).
I think of these the same way as I think of all the other conditions I set when not writing a commission--I still decide instrumentation, length, and then all the points of the piece. Personally, I always lay down conditions early in the composition process. There may be notes scattered here and there, little motives or ideas, maybe even a sketch of about a minute or so, but those are normally just used to set conditions (pitch, rhythm, form, etc.).
Then we have preconceptions. These are the ideas that we bring to the table thinking we know what's right, only to find out how wrong we were. This may be a special request from a performer (I really wanna do beat-box flute!) that doesn't jive with the composer at all. A preconception is an idea that is malleable. It's going from "I want an extended passage of sound-text in this" to incorporating the idea and technique into several passages as a timbral and rhythmic motive. These are musical preconceptions.
We change our preconceptions on a regular basis. New ideas are presented to us, and our view is changed. It's what happens after that first rehearsal, and you rush to make a flurry of changes, because what you thought a passage sounded like was not what it actually sounded like (and synthesized performance by notation software be damned!). It's hearing rumors about a certain person, being afraid for that first meeting, then realizing they're awesome. Or vice-versa. Preconceptions are bumps in the road, where if we're careful, we could end up flying into a ravine, or flying into the air on a magical carpet ride. (Point...you're totally singing one of two songs aren't you?)
Assumptions are the mind-killers. Business seems to be made of assumptions, this strange idea that, somehow, a person knows exactly what a person needs. Sometimes these assumptions pan out, but, often, they don't. An assumption is a preconception gone terribly wrong.
Apple made a big gamble with the iPhone. Job's wasn't even behind the idea at first, having to come around to it. The idea was simple: people didn't seem to want three devices for making phone calls/getting texts, getting email, and playing media. Those "dark times" pre-iPhone when people carried a BlackBerry, a phone, and an iPod. Then people switched to a BlackBerry and an iPod. Though, if you lived in NYC, it seemed it was a BlackBerry, an iPod, and something to text, usually through T-Mobile.
It was assumed people would want this product. And they were mostly right, though as time moved on, they realized just how much more people wanted mobile computers that could occasionally act as a phone rather than a phone that could somewhat act like a computer. The idea, the basic conditions (make a device capable of these three things) was sound. The assumption rang true. And now the iPhone is lauded in showing how you can identify a market and then corner it (then slowly lose it to Android, because you won't back off from other assumptions, such as "people will only use iTunes.").
But where does this work into music? What is the biggest assumption I see continuously?
"We know what the audience wants."
This is a mighty large assumption. What makes you believe you know what the audience wants? The nationwide survey done by the NEA? There's a big problem with using nationwide surveys to steer a local group--namely your group is not really working for the entire nation.
Or anecdotal evidence. My friends tell me the audience loved this piece. They applauded more loudly for Beethoven than Chittum. Obviously, more Beethoven is needed. There's also a danger here, and an assumption--that all music can be fairly judged on a single listening; that the "audience" for Beethoven is the same as for Chittum; that there is a homogeneous audience for this group.
These are dangers, mostly, of business, and we're seeing them regularly, from programming decisions to lockouts and contract issues. But these assumptions can also be dangerous for composition.
Setting out to write a piece "for an audience" means you have to ask an incredibly difficult question first: who is my audience? Marketing professionals do this all the time, and usually come up with some wonderfully "meaningful" answers, such as "Women, age 30-45, single, no kids, wanting to connect with their younger days" or "Men, age 16-24, hipster." Those demographics then get parsed into stereotypes about the group, and then the idea pandered to their exact wants.
Who is the audience for your piece? Is it the symphony audience? Which symphony? Your local symphony? What does your local symphony audience actually like? How do you know? What's your best guess?
Here's a bit of info that should free you from this question: no matter what kind of music you write, there will be an audience. I went to a metal club last night and saw two thrash bands, Insane (from Sweden), a young group that didn't even look of age to be in the club; and Deathhammer, a thrash band from Norway that was everything you'd expect from a thrash metal band from Norway, including the frontman being on some type of drugs. There were well over 100 people in attendance by the time Deathhammer took the stage.
100 people might not seem like much, but it beats many of the new music concerts I went to in Kansas City. There's an audience for this underground thrash metal, just like there's an audience for the more gloomy death metal I've seen, the most avant-garde of new music, Miley Cyrus, Massive Attack, and Beethoven. They are not all the same audience, though there is overlap.
I take a very different approach. My assumption is that there is someone, somewhere, that will probably like my music. I may not have met this person, but if I keep trying, I will. I assume if I write music that I like, that I find interesting, engaging, and moving, then more than likely, someone else will.
It's still an assumption. We can't be rid of assumptions entirely. And the point of this isn't to say "Do away with all assumptions! Assume nothing! Face all your preconceptions!" I'm not "new-age" enough for that. I accept that I will always assume things, I will always have preconceptions, and I will always deal with conditions. Instead, I offer a different path.
Change the meaning of an assumption to allow for change. Don't base assumptions on incomplete data. Don't let preconceptions become fixed in stone, and ruin meetings over your controlling nature. And push against conditions if your expression is leading you in a different direction, while accepting conditions that cannot be changed. Conditions can lead to very interesting creative moments, after all.
This is why I never think of "what the audience would like" when I set out to create a piece. I don't shoot to create an "audience pleaser." I aim to create something that doesn't deal in assumptions (beyond I assume someone will like this), challenges my preconceptions, and is always built around the push and pull of the myriad of conditions placed upon the piece. To do anything less would be to betray myself and the audience.
The audience is important, and therefore, we should kill the assumption that we know what's best for them. Why not let the audience decide?
11/3/13
How video games save my life
***UPDATE: according to Extra Life, the entire run of the marathon, which was far more than just the RT and AH guys (I didn't explain all of it, but figured you'd see it with the link to their site), had 29,000 participants raising $3,404,486. WOW. That's INSANE
For a break from all the seriousness about the music industry for a different sort of serious.
For the last 25 hours, Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter put on a continuous live stream in support of Extra-Life. Extra-Life is a marathon of gaming that donates the proceeds to the Children's Miracle Network. On top of that, RT put up a poster for sale of the AH gang for $10, with the proceeds going to Extra-Life, and Matt Hullum, one of the top brass, put up matching funds for a fifteen minute period, which was a direct donation of just shy of $22K. Donations are still coming in, but the site currently says they've raised ~$185K, and Jack said the poster sales were in the 15,000 range (I'd have to go check the video), making for at least another $150K raised through the sale of the $10 posters.
First off...wow...Any time I see events like this, I tend to get a little bleary eyed and feeling all the feels. For those not in the know, I am a cancer survivor, ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia), diagnosed about a month after my 8th birthday.
So, yeah, it's a little personal.
Surviving cancer does not define my existence. Neither do the kidney stones I got repeatedly during that time, nor the fact that I obviously have a less than stellar immune system since I get horribly sick several times a year (as has happened this past week). However, it obviously plays a role in my day to day life, whether I'd like it to or not.
And one bit that's a part of my daily life is video games.
I was diagnosed by my family doctor when I didn't feel like staying home while my mom took my brother to the doctor. He noticed I looked "a little pale" and had lost weight. So, he ran a quick blood test. All I remember from that first conversation was him telling my mom "I've already called Riley in Indy. Go home, pack your bags...he'll be there for probably at least a month. Leave SOON, today if you can...I know it can take a while to get things in order, but, do it quickly." I think we left a day or two later.
Somehow, in those two days, I went from feeling a bit tired and incredibly hungry (I remember eating 5 meals a day that summer. Not snacks, but full on MEALS) to being beyond weak. By the time we got to the hospital, I couldn't walk. I still had no idea what was happening, just that I was sick...my Mom more or less dragged me into the ER.
Life is a blur after that. I remember having lots of blood taken, and wondering how much blood my body had. I have a cyst on my hand from my first IV. There's a small scar above my heart from the catheter, though at this point it's barely noticeable. I was in and out of fever, and had a central line implanted. My mom told me stories about things that happened, ice baths and the like, but I don't remember any of it.
What I DO remember, was the NES.
My roommate was nicknamed Trojan. There was an NES game called Trojan, which was where I thought he got the name. Turns out, it was a bit more complicated--something about his urinary system not being properly formed, born with some of it on the outside...and he was in the hospital for his last set of operations to fix everything. The nurses joked that, not only did he play that game a lot, but he'd be able to use a Trojan after this was over.
It was that NES the brought us together, made us forget for the hour we had it where we were and why were there. Trojan taught me to play. Two kids, playing video games and laughing. Trojan was the game I remembered the most from the early times. Later, when I wasn't staying in the hospital but coming three times a week, with a long stay on Friday, I remember playing Gemfire. I loved Gemfire so much that my mom went and found it for Genesis. Yay for cross platform games! I still have it as a ROM, and pull it out when I want to play a quick strategy type game. It's more straightforward than Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and not as huge as Heroes of Might and Magic, but it's that style of game.
At home, I played games almost constantly. My dad and I played a lot of NHLPA '93 and later '94. This was pre-season mode, so my dad made an 80 game schedule for my team (in '93, I was all about Detroit. But after the expansion, I switched to Tampa Bay. but the team in NHLPA '93 was so bad, I couldn't deal with it). We kept track of all of the stats--and that's when I got hooked on stat-tracking sports, which led to Strat-O-Matic baseball being a big game in my life, and short-lived fantasy seasons, where I normally placed really highly...but I got too busy for the rotating daily line-ups of baseball, and fantasy football never interested me as much.
I was an RPG nut--I had played and beat Phantasy Star II-IV on Genesis (II was insanely hard and long! IV was almost too easy. III was the nice medium), Shining in the Darkness (never beat it), Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, Shadowrun (repeatedly!), Sword of Vermilion (so unique!), Exile, Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Traysia, and Light Crusader. Side scrollers like the Sonic games, Rocket Knight Adventures, Shadow of the Beast (Talk about a bad port, so hard!) and many more were "light" games, and always the NHL franchise...and a little Tony La Russa Baseball with it's season mode!
Playstation brought my FFVII, VIII, and IX; Parasite Eve; Xenogears (my vote for best RPG, yes, ove FFVII); and hosts more (Lunar, Arc the Lad, on and on). Later we had Dreamcasts which brought Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, PS Online, Time Stalkers (another unique and difficult title!).
Later came a PS2 (well after it's release), an XBox 360 (less than 2 years ago), and, now...mostly retro gaming on a beat up laptop.
Why the litany? To show a point. For me, video games were about immersion, a life wildly different than my own. To this day, I'm not a huge fan of FPS games that take place in a realistic world. Give me Elder Scrolls games any day. Sports games let me do what, at that time, I couldn't really--I had played hockey till I got sick, and there was no way I was getting on the ice when I was anemic. That took a few more years of recovery. The same with baseball--while I could play, it took a few years before I could REALLY play. There were plenty of times I had to sit the bench and only bat...and sometimes even have someone run for me. It was obvious my tee-shirt had a pouch on the inside to hold my catheter. And when I tripped on a bag once, my mom came sprinting on the field, less because she was scared for me, but because she knew everyone else would be freaking out. She picked me up, dusted me off, and promptly told me to "stop being so clumsy! You'll make everyone worry!" And we laughed...of course I'm sure she was as worried as everyone else, but she never showed it (Yes, my mom is one of those saints).
To this day, video games are my way out of this reality...they help me forget how hungry I am when I'm running low on food and money (the grad student/adjunct life is NOT a glamorous one...and I can't even look at Ramen without getting queasy anymore). And it all dates back to those moments, when I was sitting at home, often mostly alone with my dad in the next room (who, at the same time I had cancer, developed histoplasmosis, and a host of other issues caused by an autoimmune disorder that went undiagnosed for years, even after getting rare disease after rare disease). My mom had to work, since my dad's disability pay was a lot less than his active pay. I wasn't alone, in the sense that, in case of an emergency, someone was around...But I also knew how to dial 911, just in case...
Video games became my morphine. Later in life, when I got "too busy" for gaming, I switched to cigarettes and drinking: neither are as healthy as video games. I've since quit smoking, and nearly quit drinking. I've reached the point where most hard liquor just doesn't sit well in my stomach, and I'm picky about beer...plus, it's all really expensive in Sweden. So, I had to go back and find another way to relax, let me brain work out its issues on its own without the interference from my conscious thought.
Video games.
Yes, I am a musician, and music is fun. But music is also horribly personal. When I'm performing, writing, or listening to music, my soul is bear. When I'm feeling vulnerable, music isn't where I go, unless I want to stare at my wounds. The same goes for a lot of my writing (which is why the libretto is moving slowly these days). Books are good retreats, but I've become so out of touch with reading for fun thanks to years of school and research, that it's sometimes hard to just sit down and enjoy a nice fantasy romp. Hell, sometimes I'm not even sure WHAT there is--it's why I bought old books I loved, and read a huge amount of David Eddings this summer, and then tackled some Tad Williams.
And, again, it's fantasy and sci-fi that draw me in, the worlds unlike what I'm dealing with. But video games have an ability to be so immersive, to bring the player into the world. In Mass Effect, the player becomes Shepherd. The same in the Elder Scrolls games. In Civilization, you're some omnipotent being directly influencing all the strategy, building a world to your choosing. And in the well written games, you want to save the Princess, your father, the kingdom, the world, or yourself. You become the action.
For many, music is this same experience--it can transport you to another world, usually a very personal world. Where video games allow you to leave, music acts as a mirror, forcing you to see yourself in a personal journey. In video games, there's still a sense of separation: while I AM Shepherd, I am NOT Shepherd--our stories are the same only in this brief time. Music, with it's reflection of the self, is always your story, somehow told by someone else, who is leading you down a path of self-discovery...
Yes, that is a Romantic view of music, but it's also fairly true as far as cognitive research has shown. And it's where I get into so many seemingly semantic arguments. Music doesn't tell "a" story, it tells "your" story. Even the most specific instrumental music, mimicking real life sounds, and trying to create a direct metaphor, get switched in our own consciousness. For all the open-ended games out there, there's often a "final boss" or an "overarching plot." There are small stories and big stories, but there are stories you are directly interactive with--you know what the characters say, the words have specific meanings based on context and societal decisions, and the direction you take is laid out from a series of possibilities, carefully determined by a writer. Music is more a sand-box, where you're dumped into a general biome, with a few tools, and more possibilities than their are mobs. You can tell the passage of time (sun rise, rhythms, meters, durations), tell specific elements (trees, chord progressions, a creeper, a repeated and developed motive), and take the journey (even if you take it in a formalist style, as I often do).
In closing THANK YOU JACK PATILLO, THE WHOLE ROOSTER TEETH AND ACHIEVEMENT HUNTER GANG, AND THE ENTIRE RT COMMUNITY! I know I'm far from the only kid that had video games enter their lives at these key moments and become our coping mechanism. To see gamers come together and use that power to give back to the community. Hospitals always need the money, especially to help lower costs and help kids whose family may not have the means to deal with treatments.
And a final note to all the musicians. This blog has talked a lot about the music business recently. One reason is because the talk leaves a horrid taste in my mouth, and I think we, as a community, need to focus on the mission of our art first. So, here's a quote from Pauline Oliveros:
Take a tip from RT, AH, and the entire gaming community--they did something amazing, and changed lives. Let's do the same.
For a break from all the seriousness about the music industry for a different sort of serious.
For the last 25 hours, Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter put on a continuous live stream in support of Extra-Life. Extra-Life is a marathon of gaming that donates the proceeds to the Children's Miracle Network. On top of that, RT put up a poster for sale of the AH gang for $10, with the proceeds going to Extra-Life, and Matt Hullum, one of the top brass, put up matching funds for a fifteen minute period, which was a direct donation of just shy of $22K. Donations are still coming in, but the site currently says they've raised ~$185K, and Jack said the poster sales were in the 15,000 range (I'd have to go check the video), making for at least another $150K raised through the sale of the $10 posters.
First off...wow...Any time I see events like this, I tend to get a little bleary eyed and feeling all the feels. For those not in the know, I am a cancer survivor, ALL (Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia), diagnosed about a month after my 8th birthday.
So, yeah, it's a little personal.
Surviving cancer does not define my existence. Neither do the kidney stones I got repeatedly during that time, nor the fact that I obviously have a less than stellar immune system since I get horribly sick several times a year (as has happened this past week). However, it obviously plays a role in my day to day life, whether I'd like it to or not.
And one bit that's a part of my daily life is video games.
I was diagnosed by my family doctor when I didn't feel like staying home while my mom took my brother to the doctor. He noticed I looked "a little pale" and had lost weight. So, he ran a quick blood test. All I remember from that first conversation was him telling my mom "I've already called Riley in Indy. Go home, pack your bags...he'll be there for probably at least a month. Leave SOON, today if you can...I know it can take a while to get things in order, but, do it quickly." I think we left a day or two later.
Somehow, in those two days, I went from feeling a bit tired and incredibly hungry (I remember eating 5 meals a day that summer. Not snacks, but full on MEALS) to being beyond weak. By the time we got to the hospital, I couldn't walk. I still had no idea what was happening, just that I was sick...my Mom more or less dragged me into the ER.
Life is a blur after that. I remember having lots of blood taken, and wondering how much blood my body had. I have a cyst on my hand from my first IV. There's a small scar above my heart from the catheter, though at this point it's barely noticeable. I was in and out of fever, and had a central line implanted. My mom told me stories about things that happened, ice baths and the like, but I don't remember any of it.
What I DO remember, was the NES.
My roommate was nicknamed Trojan. There was an NES game called Trojan, which was where I thought he got the name. Turns out, it was a bit more complicated--something about his urinary system not being properly formed, born with some of it on the outside...and he was in the hospital for his last set of operations to fix everything. The nurses joked that, not only did he play that game a lot, but he'd be able to use a Trojan after this was over.
It was that NES the brought us together, made us forget for the hour we had it where we were and why were there. Trojan taught me to play. Two kids, playing video games and laughing. Trojan was the game I remembered the most from the early times. Later, when I wasn't staying in the hospital but coming three times a week, with a long stay on Friday, I remember playing Gemfire. I loved Gemfire so much that my mom went and found it for Genesis. Yay for cross platform games! I still have it as a ROM, and pull it out when I want to play a quick strategy type game. It's more straightforward than Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and not as huge as Heroes of Might and Magic, but it's that style of game.
At home, I played games almost constantly. My dad and I played a lot of NHLPA '93 and later '94. This was pre-season mode, so my dad made an 80 game schedule for my team (in '93, I was all about Detroit. But after the expansion, I switched to Tampa Bay. but the team in NHLPA '93 was so bad, I couldn't deal with it). We kept track of all of the stats--and that's when I got hooked on stat-tracking sports, which led to Strat-O-Matic baseball being a big game in my life, and short-lived fantasy seasons, where I normally placed really highly...but I got too busy for the rotating daily line-ups of baseball, and fantasy football never interested me as much.
I was an RPG nut--I had played and beat Phantasy Star II-IV on Genesis (II was insanely hard and long! IV was almost too easy. III was the nice medium), Shining in the Darkness (never beat it), Landstalker, Beyond Oasis, Shadowrun (repeatedly!), Sword of Vermilion (so unique!), Exile, Warriors of the Eternal Sun, Traysia, and Light Crusader. Side scrollers like the Sonic games, Rocket Knight Adventures, Shadow of the Beast (Talk about a bad port, so hard!) and many more were "light" games, and always the NHL franchise...and a little Tony La Russa Baseball with it's season mode!
Playstation brought my FFVII, VIII, and IX; Parasite Eve; Xenogears (my vote for best RPG, yes, ove FFVII); and hosts more (Lunar, Arc the Lad, on and on). Later we had Dreamcasts which brought Skies of Arcadia, Shenmue, PS Online, Time Stalkers (another unique and difficult title!).
Later came a PS2 (well after it's release), an XBox 360 (less than 2 years ago), and, now...mostly retro gaming on a beat up laptop.
Why the litany? To show a point. For me, video games were about immersion, a life wildly different than my own. To this day, I'm not a huge fan of FPS games that take place in a realistic world. Give me Elder Scrolls games any day. Sports games let me do what, at that time, I couldn't really--I had played hockey till I got sick, and there was no way I was getting on the ice when I was anemic. That took a few more years of recovery. The same with baseball--while I could play, it took a few years before I could REALLY play. There were plenty of times I had to sit the bench and only bat...and sometimes even have someone run for me. It was obvious my tee-shirt had a pouch on the inside to hold my catheter. And when I tripped on a bag once, my mom came sprinting on the field, less because she was scared for me, but because she knew everyone else would be freaking out. She picked me up, dusted me off, and promptly told me to "stop being so clumsy! You'll make everyone worry!" And we laughed...of course I'm sure she was as worried as everyone else, but she never showed it (Yes, my mom is one of those saints).
To this day, video games are my way out of this reality...they help me forget how hungry I am when I'm running low on food and money (the grad student/adjunct life is NOT a glamorous one...and I can't even look at Ramen without getting queasy anymore). And it all dates back to those moments, when I was sitting at home, often mostly alone with my dad in the next room (who, at the same time I had cancer, developed histoplasmosis, and a host of other issues caused by an autoimmune disorder that went undiagnosed for years, even after getting rare disease after rare disease). My mom had to work, since my dad's disability pay was a lot less than his active pay. I wasn't alone, in the sense that, in case of an emergency, someone was around...But I also knew how to dial 911, just in case...
Video games became my morphine. Later in life, when I got "too busy" for gaming, I switched to cigarettes and drinking: neither are as healthy as video games. I've since quit smoking, and nearly quit drinking. I've reached the point where most hard liquor just doesn't sit well in my stomach, and I'm picky about beer...plus, it's all really expensive in Sweden. So, I had to go back and find another way to relax, let me brain work out its issues on its own without the interference from my conscious thought.
Video games.
Yes, I am a musician, and music is fun. But music is also horribly personal. When I'm performing, writing, or listening to music, my soul is bear. When I'm feeling vulnerable, music isn't where I go, unless I want to stare at my wounds. The same goes for a lot of my writing (which is why the libretto is moving slowly these days). Books are good retreats, but I've become so out of touch with reading for fun thanks to years of school and research, that it's sometimes hard to just sit down and enjoy a nice fantasy romp. Hell, sometimes I'm not even sure WHAT there is--it's why I bought old books I loved, and read a huge amount of David Eddings this summer, and then tackled some Tad Williams.
And, again, it's fantasy and sci-fi that draw me in, the worlds unlike what I'm dealing with. But video games have an ability to be so immersive, to bring the player into the world. In Mass Effect, the player becomes Shepherd. The same in the Elder Scrolls games. In Civilization, you're some omnipotent being directly influencing all the strategy, building a world to your choosing. And in the well written games, you want to save the Princess, your father, the kingdom, the world, or yourself. You become the action.
For many, music is this same experience--it can transport you to another world, usually a very personal world. Where video games allow you to leave, music acts as a mirror, forcing you to see yourself in a personal journey. In video games, there's still a sense of separation: while I AM Shepherd, I am NOT Shepherd--our stories are the same only in this brief time. Music, with it's reflection of the self, is always your story, somehow told by someone else, who is leading you down a path of self-discovery...
Yes, that is a Romantic view of music, but it's also fairly true as far as cognitive research has shown. And it's where I get into so many seemingly semantic arguments. Music doesn't tell "a" story, it tells "your" story. Even the most specific instrumental music, mimicking real life sounds, and trying to create a direct metaphor, get switched in our own consciousness. For all the open-ended games out there, there's often a "final boss" or an "overarching plot." There are small stories and big stories, but there are stories you are directly interactive with--you know what the characters say, the words have specific meanings based on context and societal decisions, and the direction you take is laid out from a series of possibilities, carefully determined by a writer. Music is more a sand-box, where you're dumped into a general biome, with a few tools, and more possibilities than their are mobs. You can tell the passage of time (sun rise, rhythms, meters, durations), tell specific elements (trees, chord progressions, a creeper, a repeated and developed motive), and take the journey (even if you take it in a formalist style, as I often do).
In closing THANK YOU JACK PATILLO, THE WHOLE ROOSTER TEETH AND ACHIEVEMENT HUNTER GANG, AND THE ENTIRE RT COMMUNITY! I know I'm far from the only kid that had video games enter their lives at these key moments and become our coping mechanism. To see gamers come together and use that power to give back to the community. Hospitals always need the money, especially to help lower costs and help kids whose family may not have the means to deal with treatments.
And a final note to all the musicians. This blog has talked a lot about the music business recently. One reason is because the talk leaves a horrid taste in my mouth, and I think we, as a community, need to focus on the mission of our art first. So, here's a quote from Pauline Oliveros:
If you are a composer, give priority to community building over career building. Find was to collaborate, serve the field, and make it good for your colleagues as well as yourself. Question your relationship to the form of music you are writing. Are you listening to your inner voice and answering it's call? Are you expressing what you need to express or what you have been taught to express by the canon of men's musical establishment? Of what value is the technique and form you have learned to the expression of what you feel and hear as your own voice in music? How would you like for your music to function in your community? In the world?
Take a tip from RT, AH, and the entire gaming community--they did something amazing, and changed lives. Let's do the same.
10/30/13
Refocusing the discussion on Sustainability.
This is the third post in a little series looking at some hot button topics in music these days. The first was an introduction. The second was an attempt to get us past the knee jerk reaction of "how different the arts are today," especially in regards to "full-time musicians" and "entrepreneurs." This focuses instead on sustainability.
One reason this all got started was an argument I had with a former professor about the idea of sustainability. Honestly, I'm sick of seeing the work "sustainable" tossed in with the arts. I'm kind of tired of the idea that orchestras exist to make "hand over fist" large sums of money. Why? Because orchestras don't exist to make money. Orchestras, and the arts in general, are not commercial. What's that mean?
It means that their purpose--their reason for being, is not to make money. Yes, professional musicians can and should be able to make a living performing and creating art. But that's not the same thing. It has to do with a philosophy, an attitude.
I've been recently working my way through the blog (and journal articles) of Jeff Todd Titon. His writings on sustainability, from a cultural, ecological, and financial standpoints are worth perusing. I bring him up because of a series he did back in March entitled "Music is not a cultural asset." In part 1, Titon gives background information, and in part 2 he takes apart David Throsby's arguments about the economics of cultural policy.
I'll let Titon's writings speak for themselves. I agree with most of his points, and definitely see how being tied to corporate structures, and treating music as an asset to be traded in a commodity exchange can cause major issues.. From a more specific standpoint, look at all the popular artists that get discussed as "selling out."
The phrase "selling out" is entirely tied to the idea of commodifying music. An artist creates a piece of work and said work is not "profitable." Let's say, for instance, this is a punk group that is about as hardcore as it gets--screaming, heavily distorted guitars, political statements, everything that is "in your face." They get produced by an independent label, or self-produce, and do alright. An exec from a large label says "we're interested in you, but, you'll have to tone it down one notch. Then you'll go platinum." It's the difference between making a great product, and making a product solely to fit the marketing consensus.
There is a deep philosophical difference between the two issues, the idea of creating a product for it's intrinsic value and finding an audience (or user of the product), and creating a product for the sole purpose of making money, cutting out innovation when needed, and giving users only what metrics define as being "profitable." Companies focused solely on "profitability" often aren't sustainable--look at the bank collapses caused by poor lending practices (which were highly profitable at the time), or companies that find it more profitable to shut down a manufacturing wing because it wasn't making enough money, only to see huge public backlash, and even worse profit margins. Removing the human element, and focusing on "profit" are bad combinations in the corporate world (just ask Hostess), but even worse in the arts.
I've digressed a bit, but here's the main point for me, as an artist--it's about a philosophy and an attitude. Financial sustainability does not cross my mind as I'm working on a piece. It's value as a commodity never crosses my mind. Even similar questions such as "will enough people like this piece?" don't really cross my mind--I accepted many years ago that some people will love my music, others will hate it, and a great many will be indifferent. This is true with all art, no matter if it's folk, popular, or "high." What is on my mind is "how do I create a work that is meaningful to myself, does something that interests me (and thereby, hopefully, others like me), and has some sort of deeper 'universal' quality which is translatable." Granted, that last bit doesn't go into my musical thinking often, but it is a part of what I do as I'm writing (this blog, a research paper, or even another play). Music is, in a way, universal, as well as deeply societally defined...I tend to be more experimental than worry about the tropes, but I have been studying music and cognition a great deal, hoping to unearth something useful (this is, of course, a different topic altogether, so I'll just leave it on this side-street for later examination).
It's this philosophy that's important. Almost all music organizations promote this in their mission statements (except for, maybe, Minnesota Orchestra's old mission statement...oy...). Simple statements like "Great performances for greater audiences" (Kansas City Symphony--though the "we have to make money!" creeps in their statement as well), "To perform, present, and promote music in its many varied forms at the highest level of excellence to a large and diverse audience" (Los Angeles Phil Association), or an even more specific one from the NY Phil:
And now for a local group, newEar from Kansas City, MO:
All these groups are financially sustainable with their current ideas. Looking at their programs also gives a nice idea of what happens when groups focus first on the artistic output, and further down about the financial sustainability. The LA Phil has the Green Umbrella music series--a home for new and experimental works. It's been around for quite a while, and Esa-Pekka Salonen fought hard to keep it running during tough financial times. And what you get is reviews like this, as well as a thriving musical culture always looking forward while still performing "the greatest hits" of past generations.
In summation, it's all about attitude. If an artistic endeavor, orchestra, chamber group, art studio, etc is approached from "how do we make enough money to stay open," what invariably follows is stagnation, conservative programming, and, unfortunately, a loss of money. Sustainability is a quick way to fall away from innovation, away from the Green Umbrella series', and toward a commodification of the art form.
Because if art is simply commodity, just a product meant to be traded with some sort of societally defined financial value, and some harder to define cultural value, then it will cease to evolve. Just like if Steve Jobs thought "I need to think of a product people will want," vs. "I need to think of something that people don't know they want." One statement is innovative, the other not.
And innovation breeds sustainability--by providing new ideas and products that people didn't know they would want, or even need, you can change the world. There's a very old adage "you have to spend money to make money." This is doubly true in innovation, because it won't always work. But if you take a conservative stance, it will, inevitably, not be sustainable. Remember, even though NYCO went under, it wasn't because of their new works. Anna Nicole was, after all, nearly sold out before it even opened. It wasn't the new works that killed NYCO, it was mismanagement (such as going dark for a season, which is a quick killer!).
After all, Beethoven is wonderful, but putting a Beethoven symphony, which the metrics would say sell out every time they are played, is a bad idea. Hyperbole, of course, but the sentiment is similar--"playing it safe" doesn't create a sustainable program. It just puts everything on life support, limping along for a year or two longer...
One reason this all got started was an argument I had with a former professor about the idea of sustainability. Honestly, I'm sick of seeing the work "sustainable" tossed in with the arts. I'm kind of tired of the idea that orchestras exist to make "hand over fist" large sums of money. Why? Because orchestras don't exist to make money. Orchestras, and the arts in general, are not commercial. What's that mean?
It means that their purpose--their reason for being, is not to make money. Yes, professional musicians can and should be able to make a living performing and creating art. But that's not the same thing. It has to do with a philosophy, an attitude.
I've been recently working my way through the blog (and journal articles) of Jeff Todd Titon. His writings on sustainability, from a cultural, ecological, and financial standpoints are worth perusing. I bring him up because of a series he did back in March entitled "Music is not a cultural asset." In part 1, Titon gives background information, and in part 2 he takes apart David Throsby's arguments about the economics of cultural policy.
I'll let Titon's writings speak for themselves. I agree with most of his points, and definitely see how being tied to corporate structures, and treating music as an asset to be traded in a commodity exchange can cause major issues.. From a more specific standpoint, look at all the popular artists that get discussed as "selling out."
The phrase "selling out" is entirely tied to the idea of commodifying music. An artist creates a piece of work and said work is not "profitable." Let's say, for instance, this is a punk group that is about as hardcore as it gets--screaming, heavily distorted guitars, political statements, everything that is "in your face." They get produced by an independent label, or self-produce, and do alright. An exec from a large label says "we're interested in you, but, you'll have to tone it down one notch. Then you'll go platinum." It's the difference between making a great product, and making a product solely to fit the marketing consensus.
There is a deep philosophical difference between the two issues, the idea of creating a product for it's intrinsic value and finding an audience (or user of the product), and creating a product for the sole purpose of making money, cutting out innovation when needed, and giving users only what metrics define as being "profitable." Companies focused solely on "profitability" often aren't sustainable--look at the bank collapses caused by poor lending practices (which were highly profitable at the time), or companies that find it more profitable to shut down a manufacturing wing because it wasn't making enough money, only to see huge public backlash, and even worse profit margins. Removing the human element, and focusing on "profit" are bad combinations in the corporate world (just ask Hostess), but even worse in the arts.
I've digressed a bit, but here's the main point for me, as an artist--it's about a philosophy and an attitude. Financial sustainability does not cross my mind as I'm working on a piece. It's value as a commodity never crosses my mind. Even similar questions such as "will enough people like this piece?" don't really cross my mind--I accepted many years ago that some people will love my music, others will hate it, and a great many will be indifferent. This is true with all art, no matter if it's folk, popular, or "high." What is on my mind is "how do I create a work that is meaningful to myself, does something that interests me (and thereby, hopefully, others like me), and has some sort of deeper 'universal' quality which is translatable." Granted, that last bit doesn't go into my musical thinking often, but it is a part of what I do as I'm writing (this blog, a research paper, or even another play). Music is, in a way, universal, as well as deeply societally defined...I tend to be more experimental than worry about the tropes, but I have been studying music and cognition a great deal, hoping to unearth something useful (this is, of course, a different topic altogether, so I'll just leave it on this side-street for later examination).
It's this philosophy that's important. Almost all music organizations promote this in their mission statements (except for, maybe, Minnesota Orchestra's old mission statement...oy...). Simple statements like "Great performances for greater audiences" (Kansas City Symphony--though the "we have to make money!" creeps in their statement as well), "To perform, present, and promote music in its many varied forms at the highest level of excellence to a large and diverse audience" (Los Angeles Phil Association), or an even more specific one from the NY Phil:
The mission of the New York Philharmonic is to support, maintain, and operate an internationally pre-eminent symphony orchestra in New York; to maintain and foster an interest in and enjoyment of music; to encourage composition of symphonic music; and to instill in its community, and the nation at large, an interest in symphonic music by providing local concerts, domestic and international tours, education programs, media broadcasts, and recordings.
And now for a local group, newEar from Kansas City, MO:
newEar contemporary music ensemble dedicates itself to commissioning and performing music of our time and providing listeners with unique and stimulating musical experiences that are rooted in artistic excellence and enhanced by education opportunities.
All these groups are financially sustainable with their current ideas. Looking at their programs also gives a nice idea of what happens when groups focus first on the artistic output, and further down about the financial sustainability. The LA Phil has the Green Umbrella music series--a home for new and experimental works. It's been around for quite a while, and Esa-Pekka Salonen fought hard to keep it running during tough financial times. And what you get is reviews like this, as well as a thriving musical culture always looking forward while still performing "the greatest hits" of past generations.
In summation, it's all about attitude. If an artistic endeavor, orchestra, chamber group, art studio, etc is approached from "how do we make enough money to stay open," what invariably follows is stagnation, conservative programming, and, unfortunately, a loss of money. Sustainability is a quick way to fall away from innovation, away from the Green Umbrella series', and toward a commodification of the art form.
Because if art is simply commodity, just a product meant to be traded with some sort of societally defined financial value, and some harder to define cultural value, then it will cease to evolve. Just like if Steve Jobs thought "I need to think of a product people will want," vs. "I need to think of something that people don't know they want." One statement is innovative, the other not.
And innovation breeds sustainability--by providing new ideas and products that people didn't know they would want, or even need, you can change the world. There's a very old adage "you have to spend money to make money." This is doubly true in innovation, because it won't always work. But if you take a conservative stance, it will, inevitably, not be sustainable. Remember, even though NYCO went under, it wasn't because of their new works. Anna Nicole was, after all, nearly sold out before it even opened. It wasn't the new works that killed NYCO, it was mismanagement (such as going dark for a season, which is a quick killer!).
After all, Beethoven is wonderful, but putting a Beethoven symphony, which the metrics would say sell out every time they are played, is a bad idea. Hyperbole, of course, but the sentiment is similar--"playing it safe" doesn't create a sustainable program. It just puts everything on life support, limping along for a year or two longer...
10/25/13
A Question As Old As Time
How do we make a living as musicians? Jon Silpayamanant poses the question "What is a 'full-time musician' anyway?" after reading a little blog skimmed from an innocent Quora question "What Kind of Stress do Full-Time Composers Experience." The writer, Andrew Watts, focused on stresses that, to me, were pretty generic--nothing he wrote isn't experienced in many other jobs. I came up with my own list, which I'll post later, but let's just say that my answers fed less into stereotypes ("why don't people understand me or my music?") and more into realities unique to the situation.
But that's not the point of this post. This relates to another series I started last week with a question posed to everyone in this discussion of current trends in post-secondary music education: what do those two words being tossed around so carelessly actually mean. You know the two; entrepreneurship and sustainability.
This post is about the first, and ties directly into the idea of a "full-time musician."
Over at Mae Mai, Jon's blog, I wrote the following long answer, copied here for ease.
But that's not the point of this post. This relates to another series I started last week with a question posed to everyone in this discussion of current trends in post-secondary music education: what do those two words being tossed around so carelessly actually mean. You know the two; entrepreneurship and sustainability.
This post is about the first, and ties directly into the idea of a "full-time musician."
Over at Mae Mai, Jon's blog, I wrote the following long answer, copied here for ease.
Some of the interesting questions I think also need approached include: Is this really a new problem? What have musicians done historically "to make ends meet" while still feeling artistically fulfilled? What do universities need to adopt to help musicians succeed at their chosen endeavors?
One argument I've seen (and that I'm prone to as well) has to do with the challenges of the literature. For instance, let's say you wanted to have an Apocalyptica type career. All the cellist in the group (not sure about the drummer) are classically trained first. Having been to their shows, I can say pretty confidently that their arrangements and originals aren't going to match the level of difficulty of, say, Shosti's cello concerto No. 1. From a performance standpoint, then, do we teach the most technically difficult literature, or what the students want to learn? Or vice versa?
Or is the answer, as it so often lays, in the middle (sometimes I sound like a centrist. I'm really not)? I think the programs like Alternate Strings are fantastic, and it should be part of a universities job to get students to experience as many different styles as possible. With our good ole alma mater, this doesn't just me "world," "pop," or "outsider" styles, but also modern styles (as I said before, we didn't even have a new music group when I was in school, something that at the time I didn't think was odd, but now after 7 more years in academia, I can see makes absolutely no sense).
I think the idea of a "full-time musician" or "composer" is definitely misleading. There are very few times, historically, when musicians can claim to have a single job. Bach wrote music, was the organist, and taught lessons. Mozart performed extensively, conducted his own operas, taught lessons (rather poorly and infrequently) while begging for money from his father between commissions. Haydn was under the employ of the Esterhauzy's, composed, led the orchestra, and taught lessons. Beethoven (more in his youth), performed extensively, was a concert promoter (he staged many works by Mozart and Haydn), and taught lessons.
The question is are university preparing us even for these "traditional" roles?
I think these are pretty important questions to think about. What has a "full-time musician" ever just had a single job? In all of the historical study we go through as classical musicians, not until the 19th century do we even start to see musicians really making it in one specific job. Listz, after all, was a performer and composer, as adept at improvisation and on the fly transcriptions as he was orchestrating (ok, that's debatable, but I think he was a fine orchestrator. Maybe not on the level of his improvisation though). Paganini wrote etudes (which sell quite well). Brahms led a girls choir.
What am I getting at? Historically, there weren't many people doing just "one job" as a musician. There were few "full-time composers," and that's a trend that remains to this day. Those that are the closest are film composers, for instance Hans Zimmer...Of course, Zimmer is as adept in a studio as he is in front of music (maybe more so, considering he reportedly used over 1000 tracks in Cubase for Inception). John Williams also tours as a conductor...Well, seems I'm blowing holes in that idea.
It's important to realize that musicians have always had multifarious roles. The roles haven't really changed, but the implementation has. Even the more "traditional" full time roles, such as orchestral performer, have become just one of several performance jobs (orchestra, and if it's not a major one, two or more orchestras, chamber groups, teaching). On top of that, the rise of technology makes it easier for groups to disperse their work, which has led to a huge growth in the recording industry, outside the major companies. Small studios are popping up everywhere, and recording programs are becoming big money-makers for universities.
Every musician is now able to put up a website relatively pain-free thanks to engines such as Wordpress. Music can be shared via Soundcloud, Bandcamp, YouTube, and Vimeo. Technology is everywhere, aiding young musicians in creating their own personalized careers. And, yet, are we always taught these skills?
Writing music is way many have expanded their roles, be it in the "classical" world or any other. And yet there are schools that don't teach composition to everyone outside of basic part-writing exercises. There are reasons the Beatles sold billions while Chumbawumba was a one-hit wonder, just as there's something to learn from Monteverdi, Telemann, Boccherini, and Bruckner, names that were important in their day, and in some circles forgotten (Singers remember their Monteverdi, but can all instrumentalists say the same? What of Telemann outside flute players, and trombonists looking to steal some more literature? Boccherini outside string players? And Bruckner as anything other than a footnote to Wagner, and the "loser" of the battle with Brahms? and what of Gin Blossoms, Toad the Wet Sprocket, and Dishwalla vs. Nirvana?). There are skills involved, as well as innovation.
I, again, have no answers, just some food for thought. We first need to divorce ourselves from the idea that we are facing a unique problem. There's nothing unique about being an entrepreneur as a musician. It's a tale as old as time. But we do need to see how the industry has changed, and make an active effort to help teach students the skills needed.
I will say that I fall into the trap talking about the "degradation of composition" very quickly. However, I feel my arguments usually have to do with a combination of craft and aesthetics--there are lots of lazy, unskilled composers. And there is music I do not like. I do not like a great deal of post-minimalist music these days. Most of it just sounds incredibly uninnovative, rehashing the same ideas as the "greats." However, I can still appreciate excellent craft when I hear it. It's when I'm presented with art that isn't crafted well, without thought or care, that I have an issue.
It's like the scene in (Untitled) when they go to the studio of the bright new artist, and one of the pieces is a sticky note on a wall. Another is a blinking light-bulb. It was hailed as "innovative and different." But, just like with entrepreneurship, this is just a collective forgetting of history. Is a sticky note innovative post Duchamp?
That's the other big side of being an entrepreneur--being innovative. Black House and the Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance did that when we presented six brand new chamber operas, all with electronic components. Was a night of chamber operas new? No--I was a part of Remarkable Theater Brigades first run of Opera Shorts back in '09, a series that's a mainstay at Carnegie Hall now. Were the operas all groundbreaking in their music? Mine definitely wasn't.
But, for where we were (Kansas City), this hadn't been done. Producing new operas was a rare thing. And producing operas with electronics is still very niche within niche within niche. For our place, in our time, it was innovative. It sold out. The same types of experiences can be produced anywhere, but ardent artists.
But that night couldn't have been pulled off without supreme talent and practice--we had musicians that, mostly, had advanced degrees and lots of work in the area, musicians that had experience in pits, playing new music, singing large scale operatic roles, designing and costuming operas, and directing. We had a large cohort of people working to create as professional an experience as possible. If the quality had been poor, it would not have "succeeded" just because it was innovative.
It's all about that balance--what do musicians need to know to succeed as an independent musician as far as business sense, marketing, etc., and what do they need to succeed as far as skills as a musician? The best musicians sell some records, but not the most. Innovative musicians that lack skills sell some records, but not the most.
Then there's Radiohead, who is considered innovative in the pop world (arguable, of course), and have great skills as musicians, amazing marketing skills, and know how to work the business end. Or Phillip Glass. or Yo Yo Ma.
So, colleges, ask the question: how do we balance all these skills in a single degree? And can we?
Yo Yo Ma and Radiohead (formed in 1985...think about that) were not made overnight, or even after 4 years. And while students should have the skills to start on a career after undergrad, to expect a 4 year degree to prepare you to be an entrepreneur is fallacy.
However, we can do a much better job.
10/23/13
Fulbright Update
Being on this grant has kicked in my "I deserve to be here!" self-advocacy gene into overdrive. Being surrounded by so many talented and brilliant scientists, sociologists and political scientists, and artists can give a guy a bit of a complex.
Some parts of this proposal are going amazingly--namely the music side. It's astounding what setting aside huge amounts of time can do for your artistic output! The interviewing side started out seemingly strong, disappeared, and I'm now starting on what was my "original plan" of finding the underground scene, talking people up, and getting ingratiated into the scene. Had to recalibrate my expectations after the start.
As for musically, I'm on the final page of drawing notation for a commission--I used this commission to work on all the skills I'll need to finish my dissertation, namely algorithmic composition, stochastic control processes, graphic and proportional notation, and translating all my crazy handwritten stuff more directly into a digital score than what Sibelius was ever able to produce. The big things for me were the programming and drawing program use--my control programming has always been shit, with most of my good programming coming in the way of synth building for performance (so putting all the controls for someone else to use, not developing several patches of "if this happens, do these things). As for using a drawing program, well...it's all still really blocky looking, but it's leagues better than it was on my earlier scores where I would do it in Sibelius, export a graphic, import it into another program, resize oddly, etc...It was inefficient and of not great quality. Now I just need to work on making my drawn scores look less blocky, and more fluid. Since I'm not an artist by trade, this will be a huge difficulty...
But with the commission almost finished, thought I'd post this: quick hit list of what I've accomplished in 2 months here
1) realized how difficult it is to get interviews, even from people saying "yeah, totally!"
2) worked heavily on my control programming skills in Pd and Max
3) honed my skills in Inkscape
4) Found a free program that creates VPNs so I can direct connect with people on other computers wherever they might be
5) found a crazy sci-fi epic poem/opera that it seems like every Swedish composer knows about, but no one has ever seen since its premiere. It's entitled Aniara, and I'll be dissecting this bad boy during my time here for sure! And doing my damnedest to stage a US production someday.
6) mastered an album
7) Listened all the way through November twice over a 2 day period. Great album R. Andrew Lee, Irritable Hedgehog, and all the amazing people involved.
8 ) listened to far more contemporary music than I ever did "in school," so much so that I gave up keeping track when I almost finished my fourth page of listing research materials
9) wrote 10 minutes of music, 20 pages on the libretto, and who knows how many pages in blogposts (that are relevant if for no other reason they allow me to gather my own thoughts).
10) watched several documentaries on Scandinavian heavy metal
12) have gone to more live shows that I didn't work in some capacity than I had in the past year
13) Eaten a whole lot of pizza
14) Pulled stops on an organ built in 1728! And explained a bit of the inner workings of organs to scientists who asked difficult technical questions.
15) Applied for a bunch of jobs, because this Fulbright, sadly, doesn't last forever...
16) Read Formalized Music by Xenakis, stole his ideas, and incorporated them into a piece that he would undoubtedly have disapproved of greatly.
Some parts of this proposal are going amazingly--namely the music side. It's astounding what setting aside huge amounts of time can do for your artistic output! The interviewing side started out seemingly strong, disappeared, and I'm now starting on what was my "original plan" of finding the underground scene, talking people up, and getting ingratiated into the scene. Had to recalibrate my expectations after the start.
As for musically, I'm on the final page of drawing notation for a commission--I used this commission to work on all the skills I'll need to finish my dissertation, namely algorithmic composition, stochastic control processes, graphic and proportional notation, and translating all my crazy handwritten stuff more directly into a digital score than what Sibelius was ever able to produce. The big things for me were the programming and drawing program use--my control programming has always been shit, with most of my good programming coming in the way of synth building for performance (so putting all the controls for someone else to use, not developing several patches of "if this happens, do these things). As for using a drawing program, well...it's all still really blocky looking, but it's leagues better than it was on my earlier scores where I would do it in Sibelius, export a graphic, import it into another program, resize oddly, etc...It was inefficient and of not great quality. Now I just need to work on making my drawn scores look less blocky, and more fluid. Since I'm not an artist by trade, this will be a huge difficulty...
But with the commission almost finished, thought I'd post this: quick hit list of what I've accomplished in 2 months here
1) realized how difficult it is to get interviews, even from people saying "yeah, totally!"
2) worked heavily on my control programming skills in Pd and Max
3) honed my skills in Inkscape
4) Found a free program that creates VPNs so I can direct connect with people on other computers wherever they might be
5) found a crazy sci-fi epic poem/opera that it seems like every Swedish composer knows about, but no one has ever seen since its premiere. It's entitled Aniara, and I'll be dissecting this bad boy during my time here for sure! And doing my damnedest to stage a US production someday.
6) mastered an album
7) Listened all the way through November twice over a 2 day period. Great album R. Andrew Lee, Irritable Hedgehog, and all the amazing people involved.
8 ) listened to far more contemporary music than I ever did "in school," so much so that I gave up keeping track when I almost finished my fourth page of listing research materials
9) wrote 10 minutes of music, 20 pages on the libretto, and who knows how many pages in blogposts (that are relevant if for no other reason they allow me to gather my own thoughts).
10) watched several documentaries on Scandinavian heavy metal
12) have gone to more live shows that I didn't work in some capacity than I had in the past year
13) Eaten a whole lot of pizza
14) Pulled stops on an organ built in 1728! And explained a bit of the inner workings of organs to scientists who asked difficult technical questions.
15) Applied for a bunch of jobs, because this Fulbright, sadly, doesn't last forever...
16) Read Formalized Music by Xenakis, stole his ideas, and incorporated them into a piece that he would undoubtedly have disapproved of greatly.
10/19/13
Badminton with Words
There are two words being bandied about a great deal in the classical music community these days: entrepreneurship and sustainability. Neither one are new concepts, with bloggers and modern writers tackling the issue for the past few years. Even more importantly, both have been vitally important portions of music from the beginning of time, and are inexorably linked to creative fields.
However, in the last couple years, we've seen a veritable boom in thinking about these two concepts. Part of it comes out from studies, including National Endowment for the Arts surveys on public participation, studies showing what many musicians have anecdotally known for years: that classical music audiences are older than they were. We've also seen a lot of reactionary material on rethinking degrees and recitals. My own alma mater, DePauw University, just got a 15 million dollar gift to revise their curriculum for musicians of the 21st century. With the failing of two major institutions, the general orchestral crisis with striking symphonies, ailing endowments, and reactions that range from conservative programming, to kitsch and pop driven programming, some national (and international) ire, and tons of local support, everyone has appeared to give their two cents on the subject.
Some people are reactionary (myself included), others have been at the fore in the years preceding the current financial issues. Greg Sandow has done a good job showing trends that may lead to understanding where the failings began with his timeline of the crisis. Jon Silpayamanant's blog has shown how some studies and ideas are red herrings, and his bibliographic timelines are great resources in studying 20th century (and sometimes into the 19th century) trends. And, of course, there's Drew McManus and many more that have graced my own blog over the past year. Maybe someone should put together a large repository of links just to people working on the subject? Not me, not today at least.
For my part, I'm done being reactionary at the moment. Time for some "innovation," if you will. But this innovation isn't about tossing my ideas on "how to fix the problem." Instead, it's going to be innovation on thinking about the problem. And by innovation, I mean changing my own stance and thinking creatively, not necessarily coming up with new ideas.
So, as with any good story, a good place to start is at the beginning. In the beginning of this blog, there were two words: entrepreneurship and sustainability. What do these terms mean? First, let's talk about entrepreneurship. What is an entrepreneur? A simple economic definition is "one who starts and runs a business or businesses." But is that really all an entrepreneur is? Other key components listed in various sites are "leadership, initiative, and innovation." From a business standpoint, this could mean someone inventing a new device, or upgrading a past one, and selling it in their own business--highly touted entrepreneurs (and venture capitalists) include Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X; Henry Ford and the auto industry; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in computing; and many more. Entrepreneurs are separate from researchers who may be incredibly innovative, be major leaders, and even have large amounts of initiative by the simple economic situation--a researcher or scientist may not take the step to start their own business.
So, what is an entrepreneur in the arts? The main focus I've seen is on how artists can make a living. This may include innovation, but mostly innovation from an "economic" standpoint--how do we market better, how do we utilize social media, what do we teach students so they can make a living post graduation? There's also a bit of focus on collaboration, mainly with other artists, as a way to create something "sustainable:" the idea that by working together in collectives, we may have a better chance to make enough money to live.
Then there is sustainability. This is a loaded term with at least two separate, equally talked about areas of study; economic sustainability and ecological sustainability. Prior to the current crisis, there was a lot of blogging and talk about sustainability in ethnomusicology groups. Jeff Todd Titon is a name that pops up a lot in modern research of cultural sustainability, which looks at a combination of economic and ecological sustainability of the arts--mainly of folk traditions.
What I see in modern conversations about sustainability is entirely economical; not cultural, not ecological, purely economical. How do we make enough money? What is enough money? Fundraising ideas? For me the biggest tell of the shift in thinking was in the Minnesota Orchestra mission statement:
That's all well and good, but notice it doesn't actually mention orchestral music, and says quite firmly "within a sustainable financial structure."
Now, I'm not knocking either idea. Entrepreneurship and sustainability are both important to music. However, it's important to think about how semantics can prime a situation. When someone says "sustainability" the current in many brains right now means "sustainable financial structure." When we hear about sustainable financial structure, what comes to mind? Well, if you read the news in the US, it's something that's a highly polarized issue that gets tossed into two broad categories: out of control spending by a large government; and not enough spending by the government to help push economic recovery.
Dichotomy, it's the essence of the human mind. As my playwriting teacher once told me: keep everything to dualistic choices, they're easier for everyone to understand (My edit: mainly in a limited time).
What I'd like to push for is more options and ideas on the subject. My gut reaction is that the conversations about sustainability and entrepreneurship are actually being hampered by the words themselves. We've reached a point where specific meanings of coalesced and we're being split into camps. This is decidedly uncreative, and unbecoming of artists. Really, a field that prides itself on diversity, on proliferating new ideas, we're letting a couple common definitions cloud our judgement? Perhaps it's time to remove the language itself from the equation. So, I'll do my best to avoid those terms, and find terms more specific to the situation.
The second issue I'm seeing, past the semantic, is that of historical context. For many, this crisis is seen as completely unique, something that has never happened before. Have there been no crises in "classical music" before? I can think of several--the move from a patron based system to an independent system (pushed by Beethoven but adopted by many in 19th century Romantic view. And, of course, it's not like patronage actually ended, but the move from a court position to an independent position caused all sorts of interesting battles). Do we forget the troubles and trials of Mozart, who attempted the lifestyle before Beethoven and didn't do such a great job? Or how hard Beethoven fought for his share of the pie? And how, moving into the 20th century, patronage didn't go away, but shifted, from nobles in the 18th century, to orchestras, opera houses, and the state in the 19th century, to academia starting in the late 19th century into the 20th century as support from the state dwindled. This is just one instance where a historical perspective could be very helpful: how did the arts change during these major changes in economic, social, and political change? We see countries moving from monarchies to democracies (or to more heavily structured parliamentary systems), the industrial revolution changing economics on a huge scale (much like the information and electronics age are changing economics, especially rapidly in the rise of digital media and online retailers), and social movements in creating the middle class, the ending of slavery, serfdom, and other forms of indentured servitude, and an increase in freedoms for people through the 20th century. How has art and music transformed during these time periods?
In other words, why are so many people attempting to reinvent the wheel? Why are so many of us (including myself) being reactionary? and even deeper, why are we looking for roots to the problems?
Which is my third issue: we need to identify roots of problems and not just treat symptoms. There are organizations and individuals looking at these problems: Jon Silpayamanant is going in this direction; the NEA published a report on how technology influences arts participation, a study I'm currently working my way through and considering deeply. But many of us (myself again included), haven't always been looking for the root of problems. We've found problems, for instance, the aging audience. However, why is the audience aging? There has been some recent work looking into this, from raising ticket prices to outreach to the distancing from the public. I've posited a few in my posts recently as well.
But now's the time to stop positing and actually investigate and find out why. Time to do studies and see which of these many factors are actually influencing people in specific communities and nation-wide. Before we start leaping into making curriculums (even though I agree we need to create new curriculums in colleges at all levels), we need to identify the root of the problem. Otherwise our changes are nothing more than band-aids tossed on a tumor.
There is a third word bandied about as well: collaboration. It is, also, misused, I think, and in need of some semantic repair. But, at the moment, I think I'll stop and collect my thoughts again--this has been sitting for a few weeks as I worked through my thoughts.
Because it's time we stopped being purely reactionary. There's a time and place for it, but, when we are faced with deep problems, problems of a financial, philosophical (both as far as the place of the arts in society, as well as the roles of various agencies in the arts), political, social, and ecological. Actually, I could sum up by saying let's look at the deep problems of the arts and the world, but that is all at once too broad, too prosaic, and too philosophical.
Instead, let's simply take a breath and act like artists: ask a question, work through that question creatively from many angles, find a deeper, more important question, and come up with several hundred possible ideas to try, then try them, one by one, in various scenarios. Let's step back from the answering phase we seem to be at, and move back to questioning.
Mainly, now that we've identified problems let's ask "What is the root of the problem?"
However, in the last couple years, we've seen a veritable boom in thinking about these two concepts. Part of it comes out from studies, including National Endowment for the Arts surveys on public participation, studies showing what many musicians have anecdotally known for years: that classical music audiences are older than they were. We've also seen a lot of reactionary material on rethinking degrees and recitals. My own alma mater, DePauw University, just got a 15 million dollar gift to revise their curriculum for musicians of the 21st century. With the failing of two major institutions, the general orchestral crisis with striking symphonies, ailing endowments, and reactions that range from conservative programming, to kitsch and pop driven programming, some national (and international) ire, and tons of local support, everyone has appeared to give their two cents on the subject.
Some people are reactionary (myself included), others have been at the fore in the years preceding the current financial issues. Greg Sandow has done a good job showing trends that may lead to understanding where the failings began with his timeline of the crisis. Jon Silpayamanant's blog has shown how some studies and ideas are red herrings, and his bibliographic timelines are great resources in studying 20th century (and sometimes into the 19th century) trends. And, of course, there's Drew McManus and many more that have graced my own blog over the past year. Maybe someone should put together a large repository of links just to people working on the subject? Not me, not today at least.
For my part, I'm done being reactionary at the moment. Time for some "innovation," if you will. But this innovation isn't about tossing my ideas on "how to fix the problem." Instead, it's going to be innovation on thinking about the problem. And by innovation, I mean changing my own stance and thinking creatively, not necessarily coming up with new ideas.
So, as with any good story, a good place to start is at the beginning. In the beginning of this blog, there were two words: entrepreneurship and sustainability. What do these terms mean? First, let's talk about entrepreneurship. What is an entrepreneur? A simple economic definition is "one who starts and runs a business or businesses." But is that really all an entrepreneur is? Other key components listed in various sites are "leadership, initiative, and innovation." From a business standpoint, this could mean someone inventing a new device, or upgrading a past one, and selling it in their own business--highly touted entrepreneurs (and venture capitalists) include Elon Musk of Tesla and Space X; Henry Ford and the auto industry; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in computing; and many more. Entrepreneurs are separate from researchers who may be incredibly innovative, be major leaders, and even have large amounts of initiative by the simple economic situation--a researcher or scientist may not take the step to start their own business.
So, what is an entrepreneur in the arts? The main focus I've seen is on how artists can make a living. This may include innovation, but mostly innovation from an "economic" standpoint--how do we market better, how do we utilize social media, what do we teach students so they can make a living post graduation? There's also a bit of focus on collaboration, mainly with other artists, as a way to create something "sustainable:" the idea that by working together in collectives, we may have a better chance to make enough money to live.
Then there is sustainability. This is a loaded term with at least two separate, equally talked about areas of study; economic sustainability and ecological sustainability. Prior to the current crisis, there was a lot of blogging and talk about sustainability in ethnomusicology groups. Jeff Todd Titon is a name that pops up a lot in modern research of cultural sustainability, which looks at a combination of economic and ecological sustainability of the arts--mainly of folk traditions.
What I see in modern conversations about sustainability is entirely economical; not cultural, not ecological, purely economical. How do we make enough money? What is enough money? Fundraising ideas? For me the biggest tell of the shift in thinking was in the Minnesota Orchestra mission statement:
The Minnesota Orchestral Association inspires, educates and serves our community through internationally recognized performances of exceptional music delivered within a sustainable financial structure.
That's all well and good, but notice it doesn't actually mention orchestral music, and says quite firmly "within a sustainable financial structure."
Now, I'm not knocking either idea. Entrepreneurship and sustainability are both important to music. However, it's important to think about how semantics can prime a situation. When someone says "sustainability" the current in many brains right now means "sustainable financial structure." When we hear about sustainable financial structure, what comes to mind? Well, if you read the news in the US, it's something that's a highly polarized issue that gets tossed into two broad categories: out of control spending by a large government; and not enough spending by the government to help push economic recovery.
Dichotomy, it's the essence of the human mind. As my playwriting teacher once told me: keep everything to dualistic choices, they're easier for everyone to understand (My edit: mainly in a limited time).
What I'd like to push for is more options and ideas on the subject. My gut reaction is that the conversations about sustainability and entrepreneurship are actually being hampered by the words themselves. We've reached a point where specific meanings of coalesced and we're being split into camps. This is decidedly uncreative, and unbecoming of artists. Really, a field that prides itself on diversity, on proliferating new ideas, we're letting a couple common definitions cloud our judgement? Perhaps it's time to remove the language itself from the equation. So, I'll do my best to avoid those terms, and find terms more specific to the situation.
The second issue I'm seeing, past the semantic, is that of historical context. For many, this crisis is seen as completely unique, something that has never happened before. Have there been no crises in "classical music" before? I can think of several--the move from a patron based system to an independent system (pushed by Beethoven but adopted by many in 19th century Romantic view. And, of course, it's not like patronage actually ended, but the move from a court position to an independent position caused all sorts of interesting battles). Do we forget the troubles and trials of Mozart, who attempted the lifestyle before Beethoven and didn't do such a great job? Or how hard Beethoven fought for his share of the pie? And how, moving into the 20th century, patronage didn't go away, but shifted, from nobles in the 18th century, to orchestras, opera houses, and the state in the 19th century, to academia starting in the late 19th century into the 20th century as support from the state dwindled. This is just one instance where a historical perspective could be very helpful: how did the arts change during these major changes in economic, social, and political change? We see countries moving from monarchies to democracies (or to more heavily structured parliamentary systems), the industrial revolution changing economics on a huge scale (much like the information and electronics age are changing economics, especially rapidly in the rise of digital media and online retailers), and social movements in creating the middle class, the ending of slavery, serfdom, and other forms of indentured servitude, and an increase in freedoms for people through the 20th century. How has art and music transformed during these time periods?
In other words, why are so many people attempting to reinvent the wheel? Why are so many of us (including myself) being reactionary? and even deeper, why are we looking for roots to the problems?
Which is my third issue: we need to identify roots of problems and not just treat symptoms. There are organizations and individuals looking at these problems: Jon Silpayamanant is going in this direction; the NEA published a report on how technology influences arts participation, a study I'm currently working my way through and considering deeply. But many of us (myself again included), haven't always been looking for the root of problems. We've found problems, for instance, the aging audience. However, why is the audience aging? There has been some recent work looking into this, from raising ticket prices to outreach to the distancing from the public. I've posited a few in my posts recently as well.
But now's the time to stop positing and actually investigate and find out why. Time to do studies and see which of these many factors are actually influencing people in specific communities and nation-wide. Before we start leaping into making curriculums (even though I agree we need to create new curriculums in colleges at all levels), we need to identify the root of the problem. Otherwise our changes are nothing more than band-aids tossed on a tumor.
There is a third word bandied about as well: collaboration. It is, also, misused, I think, and in need of some semantic repair. But, at the moment, I think I'll stop and collect my thoughts again--this has been sitting for a few weeks as I worked through my thoughts.
Because it's time we stopped being purely reactionary. There's a time and place for it, but, when we are faced with deep problems, problems of a financial, philosophical (both as far as the place of the arts in society, as well as the roles of various agencies in the arts), political, social, and ecological. Actually, I could sum up by saying let's look at the deep problems of the arts and the world, but that is all at once too broad, too prosaic, and too philosophical.
Instead, let's simply take a breath and act like artists: ask a question, work through that question creatively from many angles, find a deeper, more important question, and come up with several hundred possible ideas to try, then try them, one by one, in various scenarios. Let's step back from the answering phase we seem to be at, and move back to questioning.
Mainly, now that we've identified problems let's ask "What is the root of the problem?"
10/13/13
David Byrne, Cultural Centers, and Creativity
In the past week, David Byrne has published two editorials, one on how the 1% is stifling creativity in NYC, the other on how streaming radio could spell the end of creativity. And, as always, I masochistically scrolled through the comments section, running salt over the opened wounds from Byrnes pointed words.
I lived in NYC briefly, most of the time, for about a year. I went to school in Brooklyn, traveled back and forth between NYC and my apartment in South Jersey (Little Egg Harbor, a beautiful place). Byrnes says NYC smells like sex. The commentators were more correct: it smells of urine and sewage. The city is much safer--by the time I lived there in '08, my neighborhood of Crow Heights wasn't so bad. My neighbors were friendly, if a bit reserved with me; different cultural backgrounds can create quite a barrier.
My brief stay there showed two different cities: there's the one Byrne describes, mostly found in Manhattan, but also moving into Brooklyn as well; and then there was the underground, where living, working artists still eked out an existence playing shows and showing art at dingy venues. Sometimes, it was right under the nose the Elite, such as shows at the Yippie Gallery (oh, what a show we had there), or they were further out in Brooklyn. Williamsburg was becoming an in-between zone, where hipsters, creators, experimentalists, and nouveau riche were hanging out at new niche restaurants then some moving onto clubs and bars around the area.
These were the people not associated with "a scene." NYC has their scenes, the Downtown scene, which isn't what it used to be, the Midtown scene with their post-minimalist functions and cross-over acts, and the Uptown scene, with their new experimentalism, avant-garde, and sometime dense and/or meaningless works. (Untitled) encapsulated so much of what I remember in NYC, making great satire of what I felt in my brief stay. Granted, if you don't know the NY scenes, you may not find humor in all the moments.
I was not a part of any of these scenes. Brooklyn College doesn't have the clout of a Julliard, Columbia, Yale, or CUNY Grad. We weren't from out-of-town coming into Mid-town to play concerts with Bang on a Can, nor putting on motion capture suits and using them to trigger electronics (though at least two of us were dying to try). Further out from the center, we experimented, played, found our voices, and had a lot of fun. And, possibly, drank a bit too much.
Rent was high, food was affordable, as long as you didn't want to eat like kings every night, and we got could afford booze and cigarettes. We eked by because we were academics. Loans, grants, and fellowships sustained us. I had a job elsewhere that could pay well enough to subsidize the living, with a little help from loans. If we weren't attached to academia, it would have been entirely different. I actually blogged about my experiences long ago, discussing my masters and moving to Kansas City
Let's just say, many things fell apart in '09 causing me to leave the East Coast. I never really fit into the NY scene(s). I didn't really fit well in NYC at all. My swan song was done at a vocal arts camp run by Remarkable Theater Brigade in July 2009. I wasn't going to come up for the show but decided last minute "why not?" I drove, trained, and subwayed to a performance of I Do Good at Grammar. And the piece, to me, was the perfect way to go out, my own little jab at how serious NYC seems to be, even in the crowds more focused on popular music.
This video was not from that performance, but a more recent version hosted by KcEMA with Brad Van Wick doing a bang up job.
The point was, I left NYC. It was supposed to be the Mecca of the arts, a place where I'd learn and grow, go to concerts, meet people. I found the concerts too expensive to frequent, the underground scene not so inviting to an outsider like me, and the huge amount of time to create my own niche infuriating. It may be the largest city in the US, but it also has one of the densest populations of artists, all fighting over the same little pieces of the pie. I was happy to leave, to head someplace where I could make my own way. Thankfully, as I left, I realized just how decentralized the arts were becoming in the US.
My journey took me to Indianapolis which also didn't vibe--their art scene was too new and lacking an infrastructure and support for art music. It's much more of a folk/Indie/singer-songwriter town. And that's fine, but it meant, again, a huge amount of work I'd have to do to create my scene...which when you're working 40 hours a week at a music store is pretty damn hard.
So, it was, to Kansas City for my doctorate. It was a desperate move, but one that worked out in the long-term. Kansas City was like Indy, but further a long. The art scene had started growing about 5 or 6 years before I got there, so I entered just as it started a booming age. Artists and composers collaborated, little art galleries were popping up everywhere, jazz was everyone. For the first time in four years, I found a group I could play regularly with, Black House Collective. Professionally, my career started to take off. And I still went to NYC for performances--it was easy thanks to non-stop flights via Delta airlines. In just five hours, I could be possibly be from my apartment to the rehearsal space in NYC (time-change not added).
The scene is bustling in Kansas City, as it is in places like Austin, New Orleans, Fort Worth, Greensboro, and tons of other places. Flights make it easy to move around, and if you've got friends all over, or can split hotels between lots of people, you can move from city to city. The last few years I've traveled more than anywhere else.
The arts are becoming decentralized, which I think is a wondrous thing. However, I'm the first to admit that, sadly, my life is tied up in the 1%. Or, really, the 5%, that slightly larger upper bracket. You see, as a non-mainstream artist, I will never sell enough records or make enough in royalties to make a living. It doesn't matter if I live in NYC or Kansas City (where $600/month gets me a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood). My dozen performances a year don't make bank--and let me tell you that in the grand scheme of art music, a dozen performances isn't terrible--I have many friends who do far fewer performances, and are lucky to get one or two self-created performances a year.
Without non-profits, grants, and academia, I wouldn't be able to have a living. Byrne nods to this, that he has friends who teach, who have other jobs. That is a way of life for artists now, and it's not a good way to create.
One commentator said "Good, maybe the arts will go back to being a hobby" (paraphrased). I sincerely hope he was being sarcastic. I did that for a while. The first year I worked for a production company, the first year of my masters I could even argue was more of a hobby. My short stay in Indianapolis as I searched for a job, then finally found one. Art was a back-seat, something I practiced when I had time and when my mind and body felt up to it.
During the year before my masters and 6 months after, I produced 0 works.
During my masters my first semester, I produced 2 works, neither one of high quality. It wasn't until I got into my second year, rented a place in NYC, and really studied nearly full time that I started to make any strides in the quality and quantity of my work.
That's the kicker--artists need time to create. We don't just need time to practice, or a concerted hour that we assign for "writing music." If you haven't watched John Cleese's talk on creativity, do it. One thing he talks about is the "open" and "closed" mode. The closed mode is what we can think of when we're focused at work. Open mode is the curious, creative, and interesting mode.
And later Cleese talks about five ways to get into the open mode. These five things are space, time, time, confidence, and humor.
Create a specific space, a specific amount of time set aside, play with the problem over time, have the confidence to take a crazy chance, and humor.
All five of those things are difficult when you're working a 9-5 job. You spend all day in the closed mode, then you come home and have all sorts of life things to finish--shopping, cooking, family time, phone calls, bills, etc. Suddenly, it's late at night, and you just can't set aside the time. Throw in the anxiety created by creation, the fear of losing what little piece of the world we have for the slim chance of making a change that probably won't have good fiscal outcomes, and therefore be "meaningless" (at least in the current societal view of life being defined by capital expenditure).
So, the idea of being a creative "tourist," or someone that does it in his/her spare time defines that the person must have lots of spare time, an environment free of extreme anxiety, and free from so many life's difficulties.
It's difficult to put that time in. For many working class individuals, this means taking the "easy way" out because then we get to create, and it's done, and we can enjoy it on some level. But it doesn't always create the most compelling art. The same thing happens in a commercial environment. We have deadlines, stresses outside artistic nature (if we don't sell enough albums, we're screwed), and people telling us about the content we need to create.
We're told to be entrepreneurs, start our own groups, put out CDs, but also go to school, submit to competitions, play as much as possible, write as much and as quickly as possible.
At the end of the day, there's hardly time to breathe, let alone actually create. There's a difference between creation and working. We can work at music, stay in the closed mode, and pump out notation. It's not the same as creating. For that, to really come up with novel solutions to a problem, we need time.
This year, I'm on a Fulbright. For the first time in my life, I'm able to focus on research I want to do, and music I want to create. My days are programmed the way I want them. I write emails, make phone calls, try and get the interview thing happening. And I write music.
Since I've been here, I've worked on 2 pieces; my opera and a commission for trombone and percussion. In both, I'm examining all sorts of methods that I've never had a chance to examine. I'm getting to play with ideas. What's this led me to?
My trombone and percussion piece was, originally, going to be pretty straight forward. Then I decided to do a graphic score because I wanted to play with a much more flexible idea of rhythm and pitch. I generated random tables.
I didn't like the end result. It was the first idea, and it wasn't doing what I wanted. I took time to think about it.
Then, I created a computer program based upon probability--the highest chances go to "stepwise" motion in rhythm, meter, and pitch. Decisions are made contrapuntally. It took me three days of 8-10 hours a day to write that program (and it's still buggy and not perfect).
As I was hand-writing my score, I realized this was going to be a huge pain for distribution. I needed to find a large format scanner (ah, how I missed UMKC at that moment), and I'd have to do a "good" copy, in pen, on expensive paper, that'd be perfect. Be thankful none of you have read my hand-written scores. So, deciding that was a horrid idea, I set out to do it in Inkscape (since I don't own Illustrator).
I spent four days figuring out a template: sizes, staff spacings, finding a good music font, testing combinations, etc. At the end of the fourth day, I had one hand-written page done. It took lots of problem solving. huge amounts of problem solving.
These are all things that I could not have done without time...without time where I could work in the open mode, playing with problems, and testing solutions, and in the closed mode, focusing on implementing ideas of long periods of time.
It was not the work of a hobbyist. If I tried to do this as a hobby, it'd be well into next year before the piece was finished. Actually, the piece as it stands wouldn't exist, because I never would have even attempted to do something this "complicated."
So, David Byrne is right, in a sense. He rallies against the idea that hardship breeds creativity and I agree with him. Hardship breeds inactivity. Have you tried writing a piece of music when all you've had to eat was a single serving of Ramen around 3pm, and that's all you're going to eat today? Or painting in a loft without heat? It's been shown in studies that poverty and hardship affects students; it's not much of a leap to say that these issues aren't just for students, but for all people affected by poverty.
I don't bemoan that the nouveau riche don't all understand the idea of social giving. But, unlike the commentator who talked about a "return of music as hobby" who lacked the historical understanding of music and the output of "music as hobby," and the stagnation that comes with the lack of creativity caused by the loss of the setting to be creative.
And I also think that the decentralization is great for the arts. The arts are major job creators, community supporters, and provide amazing opportunities for people of all backgrounds. Having the wealth of creativity spread around the world is a great thing. The problems of NYC in its commodification of art to placate a certain sector and keep donations rolling in is a sad problem. And with the major image problems facing orchestras and art music in general, any other issue can be catastrophic for a local scene.
But, in a way, NYC's loss is everyone else's game. As NYC loses artistic residents to burgeoning new scenes like KC, Austin, New Orleans (is it really "new?" Same with KC. Jazz was kind of a big deal), and other large scenes going strong such as San Francisco, LA, and Chicago, won't these other places be bolstered?
And does Byrne really think NYC's art scene will crumble? No, the allure of that city is too strong, the culture too deeply grounded. It may stagnate as certain turnovers occur, large institutions take on conservative or popular streaks to stay running, but that underground scene, the smaller clubs, venues, and galleries, will always carry on. Even if artists have to move further into the reaches of Brooklyn, Queens, and maybe even the Bronx. They'll still band together and make meaningful art. Outsiders like me will still fly in for the occasional performance, either of a commission or at a festival.
But NYC will carry on, in one form or another. I know too many people fighting to keep the scene alive, fighting for their piece of NYC. The 1% aren't going to find a way to buy out the arts--if anything, the arts will probably find a new way to subvert the 1% out of a nice share of money to put on a display attacking the 1%.
I lived in NYC briefly, most of the time, for about a year. I went to school in Brooklyn, traveled back and forth between NYC and my apartment in South Jersey (Little Egg Harbor, a beautiful place). Byrnes says NYC smells like sex. The commentators were more correct: it smells of urine and sewage. The city is much safer--by the time I lived there in '08, my neighborhood of Crow Heights wasn't so bad. My neighbors were friendly, if a bit reserved with me; different cultural backgrounds can create quite a barrier.
My brief stay there showed two different cities: there's the one Byrne describes, mostly found in Manhattan, but also moving into Brooklyn as well; and then there was the underground, where living, working artists still eked out an existence playing shows and showing art at dingy venues. Sometimes, it was right under the nose the Elite, such as shows at the Yippie Gallery (oh, what a show we had there), or they were further out in Brooklyn. Williamsburg was becoming an in-between zone, where hipsters, creators, experimentalists, and nouveau riche were hanging out at new niche restaurants then some moving onto clubs and bars around the area.
These were the people not associated with "a scene." NYC has their scenes, the Downtown scene, which isn't what it used to be, the Midtown scene with their post-minimalist functions and cross-over acts, and the Uptown scene, with their new experimentalism, avant-garde, and sometime dense and/or meaningless works. (Untitled) encapsulated so much of what I remember in NYC, making great satire of what I felt in my brief stay. Granted, if you don't know the NY scenes, you may not find humor in all the moments.
I was not a part of any of these scenes. Brooklyn College doesn't have the clout of a Julliard, Columbia, Yale, or CUNY Grad. We weren't from out-of-town coming into Mid-town to play concerts with Bang on a Can, nor putting on motion capture suits and using them to trigger electronics (though at least two of us were dying to try). Further out from the center, we experimented, played, found our voices, and had a lot of fun. And, possibly, drank a bit too much.
Rent was high, food was affordable, as long as you didn't want to eat like kings every night, and we got could afford booze and cigarettes. We eked by because we were academics. Loans, grants, and fellowships sustained us. I had a job elsewhere that could pay well enough to subsidize the living, with a little help from loans. If we weren't attached to academia, it would have been entirely different. I actually blogged about my experiences long ago, discussing my masters and moving to Kansas City
Let's just say, many things fell apart in '09 causing me to leave the East Coast. I never really fit into the NY scene(s). I didn't really fit well in NYC at all. My swan song was done at a vocal arts camp run by Remarkable Theater Brigade in July 2009. I wasn't going to come up for the show but decided last minute "why not?" I drove, trained, and subwayed to a performance of I Do Good at Grammar. And the piece, to me, was the perfect way to go out, my own little jab at how serious NYC seems to be, even in the crowds more focused on popular music.
This video was not from that performance, but a more recent version hosted by KcEMA with Brad Van Wick doing a bang up job.
The point was, I left NYC. It was supposed to be the Mecca of the arts, a place where I'd learn and grow, go to concerts, meet people. I found the concerts too expensive to frequent, the underground scene not so inviting to an outsider like me, and the huge amount of time to create my own niche infuriating. It may be the largest city in the US, but it also has one of the densest populations of artists, all fighting over the same little pieces of the pie. I was happy to leave, to head someplace where I could make my own way. Thankfully, as I left, I realized just how decentralized the arts were becoming in the US.
My journey took me to Indianapolis which also didn't vibe--their art scene was too new and lacking an infrastructure and support for art music. It's much more of a folk/Indie/singer-songwriter town. And that's fine, but it meant, again, a huge amount of work I'd have to do to create my scene...which when you're working 40 hours a week at a music store is pretty damn hard.
So, it was, to Kansas City for my doctorate. It was a desperate move, but one that worked out in the long-term. Kansas City was like Indy, but further a long. The art scene had started growing about 5 or 6 years before I got there, so I entered just as it started a booming age. Artists and composers collaborated, little art galleries were popping up everywhere, jazz was everyone. For the first time in four years, I found a group I could play regularly with, Black House Collective. Professionally, my career started to take off. And I still went to NYC for performances--it was easy thanks to non-stop flights via Delta airlines. In just five hours, I could be possibly be from my apartment to the rehearsal space in NYC (time-change not added).
The scene is bustling in Kansas City, as it is in places like Austin, New Orleans, Fort Worth, Greensboro, and tons of other places. Flights make it easy to move around, and if you've got friends all over, or can split hotels between lots of people, you can move from city to city. The last few years I've traveled more than anywhere else.
The arts are becoming decentralized, which I think is a wondrous thing. However, I'm the first to admit that, sadly, my life is tied up in the 1%. Or, really, the 5%, that slightly larger upper bracket. You see, as a non-mainstream artist, I will never sell enough records or make enough in royalties to make a living. It doesn't matter if I live in NYC or Kansas City (where $600/month gets me a 2 bedroom apartment in a nice neighborhood). My dozen performances a year don't make bank--and let me tell you that in the grand scheme of art music, a dozen performances isn't terrible--I have many friends who do far fewer performances, and are lucky to get one or two self-created performances a year.
Without non-profits, grants, and academia, I wouldn't be able to have a living. Byrne nods to this, that he has friends who teach, who have other jobs. That is a way of life for artists now, and it's not a good way to create.
One commentator said "Good, maybe the arts will go back to being a hobby" (paraphrased). I sincerely hope he was being sarcastic. I did that for a while. The first year I worked for a production company, the first year of my masters I could even argue was more of a hobby. My short stay in Indianapolis as I searched for a job, then finally found one. Art was a back-seat, something I practiced when I had time and when my mind and body felt up to it.
During the year before my masters and 6 months after, I produced 0 works.
During my masters my first semester, I produced 2 works, neither one of high quality. It wasn't until I got into my second year, rented a place in NYC, and really studied nearly full time that I started to make any strides in the quality and quantity of my work.
That's the kicker--artists need time to create. We don't just need time to practice, or a concerted hour that we assign for "writing music." If you haven't watched John Cleese's talk on creativity, do it. One thing he talks about is the "open" and "closed" mode. The closed mode is what we can think of when we're focused at work. Open mode is the curious, creative, and interesting mode.
And later Cleese talks about five ways to get into the open mode. These five things are space, time, time, confidence, and humor.
Create a specific space, a specific amount of time set aside, play with the problem over time, have the confidence to take a crazy chance, and humor.
All five of those things are difficult when you're working a 9-5 job. You spend all day in the closed mode, then you come home and have all sorts of life things to finish--shopping, cooking, family time, phone calls, bills, etc. Suddenly, it's late at night, and you just can't set aside the time. Throw in the anxiety created by creation, the fear of losing what little piece of the world we have for the slim chance of making a change that probably won't have good fiscal outcomes, and therefore be "meaningless" (at least in the current societal view of life being defined by capital expenditure).
So, the idea of being a creative "tourist," or someone that does it in his/her spare time defines that the person must have lots of spare time, an environment free of extreme anxiety, and free from so many life's difficulties.
It's difficult to put that time in. For many working class individuals, this means taking the "easy way" out because then we get to create, and it's done, and we can enjoy it on some level. But it doesn't always create the most compelling art. The same thing happens in a commercial environment. We have deadlines, stresses outside artistic nature (if we don't sell enough albums, we're screwed), and people telling us about the content we need to create.
We're told to be entrepreneurs, start our own groups, put out CDs, but also go to school, submit to competitions, play as much as possible, write as much and as quickly as possible.
At the end of the day, there's hardly time to breathe, let alone actually create. There's a difference between creation and working. We can work at music, stay in the closed mode, and pump out notation. It's not the same as creating. For that, to really come up with novel solutions to a problem, we need time.
This year, I'm on a Fulbright. For the first time in my life, I'm able to focus on research I want to do, and music I want to create. My days are programmed the way I want them. I write emails, make phone calls, try and get the interview thing happening. And I write music.
Since I've been here, I've worked on 2 pieces; my opera and a commission for trombone and percussion. In both, I'm examining all sorts of methods that I've never had a chance to examine. I'm getting to play with ideas. What's this led me to?
My trombone and percussion piece was, originally, going to be pretty straight forward. Then I decided to do a graphic score because I wanted to play with a much more flexible idea of rhythm and pitch. I generated random tables.
I didn't like the end result. It was the first idea, and it wasn't doing what I wanted. I took time to think about it.
Then, I created a computer program based upon probability--the highest chances go to "stepwise" motion in rhythm, meter, and pitch. Decisions are made contrapuntally. It took me three days of 8-10 hours a day to write that program (and it's still buggy and not perfect).
As I was hand-writing my score, I realized this was going to be a huge pain for distribution. I needed to find a large format scanner (ah, how I missed UMKC at that moment), and I'd have to do a "good" copy, in pen, on expensive paper, that'd be perfect. Be thankful none of you have read my hand-written scores. So, deciding that was a horrid idea, I set out to do it in Inkscape (since I don't own Illustrator).
I spent four days figuring out a template: sizes, staff spacings, finding a good music font, testing combinations, etc. At the end of the fourth day, I had one hand-written page done. It took lots of problem solving. huge amounts of problem solving.
These are all things that I could not have done without time...without time where I could work in the open mode, playing with problems, and testing solutions, and in the closed mode, focusing on implementing ideas of long periods of time.
It was not the work of a hobbyist. If I tried to do this as a hobby, it'd be well into next year before the piece was finished. Actually, the piece as it stands wouldn't exist, because I never would have even attempted to do something this "complicated."
So, David Byrne is right, in a sense. He rallies against the idea that hardship breeds creativity and I agree with him. Hardship breeds inactivity. Have you tried writing a piece of music when all you've had to eat was a single serving of Ramen around 3pm, and that's all you're going to eat today? Or painting in a loft without heat? It's been shown in studies that poverty and hardship affects students; it's not much of a leap to say that these issues aren't just for students, but for all people affected by poverty.
I don't bemoan that the nouveau riche don't all understand the idea of social giving. But, unlike the commentator who talked about a "return of music as hobby" who lacked the historical understanding of music and the output of "music as hobby," and the stagnation that comes with the lack of creativity caused by the loss of the setting to be creative.
And I also think that the decentralization is great for the arts. The arts are major job creators, community supporters, and provide amazing opportunities for people of all backgrounds. Having the wealth of creativity spread around the world is a great thing. The problems of NYC in its commodification of art to placate a certain sector and keep donations rolling in is a sad problem. And with the major image problems facing orchestras and art music in general, any other issue can be catastrophic for a local scene.
But, in a way, NYC's loss is everyone else's game. As NYC loses artistic residents to burgeoning new scenes like KC, Austin, New Orleans (is it really "new?" Same with KC. Jazz was kind of a big deal), and other large scenes going strong such as San Francisco, LA, and Chicago, won't these other places be bolstered?
And does Byrne really think NYC's art scene will crumble? No, the allure of that city is too strong, the culture too deeply grounded. It may stagnate as certain turnovers occur, large institutions take on conservative or popular streaks to stay running, but that underground scene, the smaller clubs, venues, and galleries, will always carry on. Even if artists have to move further into the reaches of Brooklyn, Queens, and maybe even the Bronx. They'll still band together and make meaningful art. Outsiders like me will still fly in for the occasional performance, either of a commission or at a festival.
But NYC will carry on, in one form or another. I know too many people fighting to keep the scene alive, fighting for their piece of NYC. The 1% aren't going to find a way to buy out the arts--if anything, the arts will probably find a new way to subvert the 1% out of a nice share of money to put on a display attacking the 1%.
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