Just a quick note on the piece I am starting.  I was commissioned by the Liminal Space Contemporary Music Ensemble for a piece for electric guitar and marimba reflecting the instrumentation of its core members, George Heathco and Luke Hubley.  I hinted at how I was going to write this piece in a previous post.  I'll define the project a little more now.

The piece will be called Memory Variations.  The form considerations are simple.  Theme and variations with two sets of material, A and B, fast and slow respectively.  Each set of material is written somewhat quickly and then locked away from me.  I can't look at it again, ever, until the entire process is finished.  After the material is locked away I will wait 3 weeks and work on something else in the meantime.  When it is time to work on the piece again, I will try to only use my memory and write the same material again.  My memory will act as the variation device instead of trying to put the material into different styles or different textures.  Every 3 weeks I will repeat the process, trying to compose the previous version instead of always relating back to the original.  In this way the material will undergo evolution as opposed to development from a single source.  

I think that the beginnings and endings will be very similar to the original.  I think the general shape will stay consistent.  I think the details will change incredibly.  This experiment is similar to an eye witness to a crime (not comparing my music to a crime against humanity).  They are trying to access their memory of a split second in time.  Memory is fallible.  It changes over time.  Details get mixed up, rearranged, reinterpreted.  Instead of resisting this part of human nature, I am inviting the faultiness of memory and using it to write the piece.

When I was a kid I had so many things memorized such as phone numbers addresses, song lyrics, etc.  As technology has invaded our lives and shows no signs of retreating, we aren't using our memory as storage anymore.  I wonder if we will begin to lose it as our species continues to evolve?

As I am nearing the end on my final degree, I've been trying to slip more into teacher mode and also reflect on the things I've learned as a student for the last 10 years.  I'm not an authority on what I am going to talk about.  These are my opinions based on observations I've made during my time as a student in academia.  I practice all the things I am going to talk about.  These are some things that I think composers should learn to do a better job of while they are in school.



1.  Being Social w/ Other Composers and Musicians

There is a lot to be said about building a community of composers where you live and learn.  Usually, this is somewhat built-in due to the fact that you all go to the same school and are in the same classes.  But, being social with your colleagues outside of an academic setting is incredibly important.  As a general rule, composers are particularly anti-social creatures.  We sit in front of our computers/piano/whatever for hours upon hours engaging in a pretty selfish enterprise; pouring our ideas and feelings into a complex and complicated language that mostly only we understand.  At least at the end of the day, musicians go to orchestra rehearsal and play in chamber groups.  We don't even have that.  So, getting out of our own headspace and socializing with each other is important.  Building/strengthening a new music community is good for everyone.  It promotes a supportive environment.  You can even count socializing as professional development for your future self (if you need to rationalize going to grab a drink with your "friends").  This is something you are going to have to do as a professor/teacher/whateverelseyoucandowithacompositiondegree and it is important that you are good at it.  

Also, you never know who is going to help your career down the road.  The more positive connections you make, the more possibilities are out there for you down the road.  This is really a side-effect and not a primary goal.  You shouldn't be fishing for stuff when hanging out with people.  That often leaves a bad taste in people's mouths about you.  

I was recently at a festival and I was talking to a bunch of performers.  One said that they were giving a recital of new music and asked if I knew any pieces for X instrumentation.  Now, I have one.  The stupid thing to do was to just blurt ou, "OHMYGOD I TOTALLY HAVE A PIECE FOR THAT AND YOU SHOULD TOTALLY PLAY IT."  It comes on a little strong.  Instead, I gave them a few other pieces which I loved and could talk about and slyly work into the conversation that they had really influenced my piece in this genre.  The performer instantly wanted to talk about my piece and it ended up being performed (along with the two pieces I recommended as well).

2.  Stop Talking Shop in Mixed Company

We can too quickly get wrapped up in our own little bubble and alienate other people because we are always "talking shop."  I have heard the flip-side from my wife a million times and have experienced it with some of her business contacts - its so BORING to not know what anyone else is talking about.  Try to include the "non-members" in the conversation with questions (just like dating someone).  OR - have other interests that you can talk about.  In a world where specialists are dying out, its probably not a good idea to only focus on one aspect of life (especially music).  Anymore, the job market doesn't demand the "master" but rather the "adaptable student."  I think this is a life requirement as well.

3.  Develop Soft Skills

All of the above so far falls under this category.  I cannot tell you how awkward some composers are.  So horribly painful to speak with.  By soft skills, I mean knowing how to converse effectively with potential students, potential performers, or (even more important) potential employers.  

When I came out of undergrad with a MUED degree and wanted to be a composer, I was looked on with a little disdain by some of the institutions to which I applied.  Dan Asia at the University of Arizona, called me on the phone and spoke to me for about 45 minutes which just started out with, "Hey, I received your application packet and I just wanted to get your story."  So I talked to him and essentially talked my way into a master's degree.  Up until that point, composition was a hobby for me.  

I cannot stress how important interviewing is.  When you apply to grad school or to jobs, they get hundreds of applications that pretty much all look the same.  Looking good on paper gets you in the door.  Interviewing well in person gets you the job.  My point with all this is that I think we are always so focused on putting out content that developing some of these life skills gets swept under the rug and forgotten about until it is too late.  

4.  Have Opinions (but share them tactfully)

First of all, the worst thing in music is indifference.  It is a symptom or not caring or not listening.  If you don't care, what are you doing in music?  Go to business school, make money, and play videogames on nights and weekends.  It is easy to be indifferent because you don't have to explain yourself.  You don't have to back up your arguments.  You don't have to listen and can still shake the composer's hand at the end and say, "nice piece."  

Flip-side.  If you don't like someone's work, maybe wait to talk to them in private and have a conversation.  A composer friend recently told me about a mutual acquaintance who came up to him after his piece was premiered and shook his hand and said, "Not your best work, but ok."  He's lucky he didn't get punched in the face.    

5.  Respect and Listen to the Advice from your Teachers/Mentors

This one always gets me.  You are paying to come to a school with some of the really great composers in the country and then you complain about them and disregard their advice, citing that they don't really know the piece or don't share your style or whatever...

...who the hell are you?

 The best kind of student acts like a sponge.  Take everything in.  Try things.  Make mistakes.  Later, decide what is relevant to you.  How many famous composer's do you see that still claim pieces from their student years?  No one.  You aren't going to write any masterpieces right now.  So why not try out what your teacher is saying and see what comes out of it.  There are things I've learned from private lessons (as well as just from my peers) that I think about every single time I sit down to write.  There is also a ton of stuff I've since disregarded or forgotten.  But, you can't forget what you didn't hear in the first place.

I was in the car explaining to my wife some of the possible reasons why your piece might get tossed out of a national composition competition.  I forgot to get my stuff together to apply for the ASCAP this year and decided it was just as well due to the sometimes quite arbitrary methods of selection (as I've gathered from several former judges of these types of competitions).  Another possible reason is that I've just stopped applying to things that require physical copies be mailed.  This seems a very out-of-date method of delivery, inefficient, and wasteful.  Especially for competitions such as BMI in which you are required to use a pseudonym and print something that says BMI on it.  You can't use that score or recording again.  Anyway, as I said, its just as well.

One competition I am very glad to have applied to is the Frame Dance Composition Competition.  It was announced last Friday that my piece Integrated Elements No. 3 "Divide by Five" was selected as the winner this year!  I got to see Frame Dance perform a piece choreographed by Lydia Hance with music by last year's winner, my friend, Charles Halka.  It was a gorgeous piece and for me, the highlight of the program consisting of six different choreographers.  I can't wait to get to work with Lydia on "Divide by Five."  What I love about this particular competition is that the winner gets to collaborate with Frame Dance.  It is a judgement based on wanting to work with someone.  It is an Artist to Artist type of competition.  This means a lot to me and I am so grateful and excited to start collaborating with Lydia.  

The piece was written for Kyle Maxwell-Doherty, a percussionist currently finishing up his DMA at the University of Arizona (where we met).  It is for gyil and fixed media.  A gyil is a 14-note African xylophone.  It is "tuned" to a pentatonic scale, though no two gyils are tuned exactly alike.  The sounds used on the fixed media track include my own voice, sounds from the gyil (rubbing the bars, shaking the gourd resonators, etc), electronically produced sounds, and sounds from a prepared piano.  

The piano sounds are the most interesting for me.  Alex Wier, Kyle, and I spent a few hours recording sounds from the piano that Alex had been preparing for his upcoming recital in which he was playing a piece he composed in memoriam of John Cage.  We tried of get as many different sounds as possible including different intensities and lengths of sounds as well.  Then we took sounds from hitting the inside of the piano, hitting all 88 keys at once, and the signature sound of the piece, letting the lid of the piano drop.  With just a little audio love, this sound provides the intense hits that set the piece off and give the piece its climatic ending.  

Give the piece a listen and let me know what you think.  

Yeah.  My friend Eryn's girlfriend Regina knows Michael Stipe.  Ridiculous.  But, not the point.

Eryn, Regina, and I went to see Nick Flynn talk about his new book The Reenactments.  Flynn is a poet and memoirist who works at the University of Houston.  He wrote a memoir called Another Bullshit Night in Suck City.  That book was made into a movie with Robert DeNiro, Paul Dano, and Julianne Moore called Being Flynn.  The Reenactments is another memoir about the process of making the movie, seeing your own memories come to life, be retold with actors, and what that process feels like.  These three pieces of work kind of form the infinite view when you are standing between two mirrors.  Life reflected in art, reflected in art, reflected in art, culminating in this discussion today: life.  

He was sitting and talking with a neuro-scientist, David Eagleman, who studies memory and how the brain functions with regards to memory.  It was really interesting to listen to an artist speak with a scientist about the same ideas with slightly different takes on them.  Listening to them really made me want to read his books and see the movie.  Track the progression of all these events and ideas.  I think it is really special what Flynn did.

Listening to this talk triggered a memory of mine about composition that I have wanted to try out for some time but either haven't thought about or haven't had the guts to go through with.  I am not even sure if it would work.  But here is the set-up.

I want to write a piece where my own memory becomes the primary tool for variation on material.  I am formulating the process by which this will happen and I don't want to give too much away before it is even a thing.  But, I think it could be a really cool compositional experiment.  More on this as it develops. 

Memory has been creeping into my artistic vocabulary for some time now.  My piece for string quartet and electronics, The Gate, uses memory from both a compositional and programmatic standpoint.  The three "gardens" which make up the middle section of the piece are my musical representations of my memory of reoccurring dreams that I have.  The first, is a memory of a description I read about a room in John Cage's apartment as told by Morton Feldman.  I based the concept on that memory and wrote with that image in my head.  I later found the quote I was thinking about - I had it very wrong.  But, my memory was overwritten with this idea that artistically, I've wanted to try.  The concept of memory plays into the story of the piece in the third garden in which the character is in a dark room with flashes of different memories being projected onto the walls and ceiling, as if you were seeing home movies that only the mind can store.  

My piece Music Box 9 uses the memory in an immediate sense; the memory of the audience.  It was an experiment in which I tried to make contemporary music more accessible to the everyday listener by teaching them what was important and as Aaron Copland says, "What to Listen for in Music."  By giving them the snapshots of material upfront and out of context, my hope was that when they head the material in context, they would know what is happening.  

Memory, biology, the natural world, poetry, visual art.  These are all things that are becoming more and more prevalent in my work lately.  Notably, not music.  It is almost as if I have been trying to get away from my own art form in order to discover myself in that art form.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Just a quick post.  I finally have started writing notes down on paper for my dissertation.  What was the first note you might ask?

Eb.  Fun fact.  

I have about 30 seconds-ish of music written but I've done a lot of pre-composition so I know where I am going and the things I have to work towards; where to hold 'em, where to fold 'em, and where to smack you in the face with 'em.  

As has been the case with a lot of my latest compositions, this one has an over-riding concept that hopefully holds the piece together but also serves as an a method for me to generate content.  When I get stuck, go back to the concept and try to think my way out of it.  

The concept for this piece is mimicry.  This is an evolutionary behavior you find primarily in insects where one species will imitate or physically evolve its appearance to look like another species.  For example, a harmless butterfly that looks like a noxious butterfly.  Birds know to avoid the noxious butterfly, thus, the harmless one gets attacked less often.  But, mimicry also has a sinister twist to it that I am going to be playing up.  Even the word itself has an edge to it.  It will probably figure in the title in some way but I'm not sure yet.

Title suggestions on the concept of mimicry?

BTW - how cool is the mimic octopus?

I just spent the better part of a few hours preparing materials to send for some competitions.  I was looking through some lists of opportunities and saw a few that fit some pieces I have.  It was a good use of a Sunday afternoon.  I've been entering competitions for 8 years now and its funny to see how your thoughts on them change over time.  

Some thoughts:

1.  If I have to pay a fee to enter, forget about it.  

After shelling out hundreds of dollars (after 8 years I wonder how much it actually it) to be told "no" over and over, as soon as I see an entry fee, I stop reading.  Now, I understand that sometimes this money goes to offset the cost of production of the event for which the call was put out.  But, I wonder if it just as easily gets pocketed.  Or if you are paying so the winner can get some prize money?

Personally, the prize money is often not enough to worry about.  Don't get me wrong - its nice.  $250, $500 is nice.  But, aren't 3-5 great performances over the course of a year just as valuable?  Especially right now when our music is so disposable, I think performances are much more important for young composers.  

Also, kind of related - if I have to send you my life story and proof that I wrote the piece with a photo of me penning the double bar line while standing on a clock, holding a calendar and a copy of that day's newspaper - forget it.  You are supposedly "evaluating" my music.  I shouldn't spend an hour putting together a packet of materials that will never be used for anything else.

2.  Don't put out calls for weird instrumentation/don't write a piece for a call

"We are trying to develop repertoire for the piccolo, banjo, countertenor, tuba, and toy piano ensemble."  And you are trying to do it for free with little intention of playing these works again.  For performers, if you are really passionate about it, commission some composers that you know.  They will do a good job and will be passionate about the project because they know you.  Which brings me to the other point - don't write a piece for people you've never heard of on the outside chance that you might win a competition.  For the amount of effort you put into your music, there is no time for this.  And I've done it before.  Where do you think those pieces ended up?  

NOWHERE.

3.  Send it and forget it.

I actually won a call that I had to go back through my sent emails to find out when I entered the competition because I had no memory whatsoever of doing it.  This helps you focus on what is important, writing music.  BECAUSE...

4.  Competitions ultimately don't matter.

They are completely subjective, assess your artwork that you've labored over in a matter of seconds, and are often judged by people whole aesthetics run contrary to yours -OR- whose aesthetics you could care less about.  You shouldn't find worth from these.  Its true, they can sometimes lead to other opportunities and they look nice on your resume.  

But, they don't make you a composer and they don't mean you are a good/great composer.  It took me a long time to learn this.

For another REALLY GREAT article on a related subject go here: Rachel Yoder