In a previous post, I wrote about my response to a listener who emailed me to criticize my music. But the conversation didn’t end there.

He wrote:

“I understand, i respect your view on this genre.

Here’s my thought, if you want to get big and more famous, have an actual audience … wouldnt you want to sacrifice the ‘extreme’ side of your music for a little ’normality’ and still love what you do?

This is a question I’ve answered before and even ask myself once in a while. I tend to ask it more at times when I’ve felt compelled to make a stylistic change or when I feel people aren’t responding to my music. So I thought I’d share my response:

“Nope. I spent most of the 90s writing and recording synth-driven rock songs. I could have pursued that music (I had interest from a few labels) and tried to get “big and more famous.” But I got interested in creating a different kind of music. I don’t have any interest in going back. I realized long ago that I wouldn’t enjoy “faking it”; in fact, I’d hate it. Maybe I’m wrong about that but I haven’t been willing to find out.

I came to accept that I’d probably have to make a living doing something else while creating the music I really wanted to in my free time. In that regard, I’m no different from the vast majority of musicians (even in more popular genres) who haven’t gotten a lucky break, regardless of their talent or originality.”

In most cases, I can’t rewind the clock and find much inspiration in the music I favored 15 years ago.

I also know a lot of New Music performers and composers make ends meet partially by being stylistically diverse, embracing many genres and fusions, both within and outside of the “New Music” spectrum. (Jean Cook talked about this in our interview.) This diversity, in many cases, informs their personal style so there is often no conflict. Playing/composing in several genres may be equally desirable (or tolerable) and combining them may be just as good or better. I don’t begrudge anyone this musical path; it used to captivate me. But to a composer like myself, who is not trying to do this for pay (if it comes anyway, great) and is not currently interested in using attributes of “styles” and “genres” as music-making tools, there is a conflict I choose to avoid. Many people have areas of their lives in which they are uncompromising; mine is in how I compose.

(Written 4/18/12)

I’ve been sketching out a longish piece over the last week or so which I hope to start realizing in my studio before the end of the month.
But directly beforehand, I felt like I was having a little bit of a creative identity crisis. The explanations I can concoct for this might just be convenient tales to explain my creative inactivity – I had spent very little time working on my music in the first quarter of 2012. As after many important or symbolic events in my life, the birth of my son, Ellias, in February resulted in a phase of introspection and self-questioning.

I came back to many familiar questions: what musical approaches, for what audience and in what community, with what relationship to the culture market. The various answers I considered also reflect on my decisions about what kind of site I’m creating and blogging for. (I’ve been working also on several new features for this site – each of which was also called into question.)

With no real answers forthcoming about the rightness of my path, I decided to get organized and even read two (short and simple) books on the topic. I began decluttering my life – creatively and otherwise. I filed or discarded hundred of papers, emails, and computer files, gaining an overview of the many paths I had considered but not taken. I reviewed earlier assessments of my goals and aesthetics and found both guidance and naivete in my own prior realizations. I found inspiration for numerous future blog posts in my past journals, letters, emails, notebooks, clippings, etc. I restated my primary influences and the principle features of the music I am attempting.

And long before my project of getting organized was complete (well, I’m still not done – but much closer!), I found myself composing again. No grand decisions needed to be made about the rightness or wrongness of how I go about composing or presenting my work. Instead, shorter-term creative goals became immediately compelling and actionable once I was able to obscuring clutter. Just as I take walks to clear my mind and put me in a state-of-mind where composing is easier, it seems that literally clearing away loads and loads of clutter may also open my mind to a more creative state.

A few days after posting about the lack of feedback I was receiving for my music, I got a random email with some completely negative feedback. Because the writer took the time to contact me and wished me good luck, I took the opportunity to attempt to quickly defend my work and put it in context. While his comments seemed like they were meant to be hurtful, I chose to interpret them as coming from a place of ignorance and try to respond to them as a “teaching moment”. I actually feel pretty good about the whole thing and wanted to share it.

Here’s how it went down (I removed the writer’s name out of respect for his privacy)…

Critical email:

randomly searched your website and didnt know what ta heck i clicked on. I’m 22 and i love music. but just for some feedback… your stuff sounds like a 6 year old kid playing on an electric piano with wayy to many functions he doesnt know how to use.

i can kinda sense your unique style approach, you are aiming at nine inch nails kinda style but you are just soo far off from everything, its just painful to listen to your stuff. really try to get some sort of rhythm and normality to your sounds. PLEASE.

best of luck though.

My reply:

Thanks for taking the time to listen and give feedback. Sorry you didn’t like what you heard.

I fully understand all the electronic functions I utilize to create my timbres and effects. Rhythmic predictability and “normality” are a large part of part of what I’m purposely trying to avoid in recent years. I suppose if their absence pains you then you might not be a part of my intended audience.

My music is more grounded in experimentalism, minimalism, and other (post-)classical avant-garde styles than in industrial rock. I’m not aiming for a “NIN kinda style” – though Trent Reznor was admittedly a big influence on the stuff I was making in the mid-90s (some of which I still make collage pieces out of). I know from interviews that Reznor and I share some influences and methodologies but I think generally we’re doing fairly different things.

I’d be happy to share more about my influences if you are interested. I’m guessing they include many artists and styles of music you are not yet familiar with, though I’m also doubtful if you’d be more receptive to their work.
Thanks again for reaching out. I hope your love of music takes you places you find more rewarding than this encounter.

Yup, another post influenced by my reading of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan. The chapter entitled Living in the Antechamber of Hope (and part of the following chapter) provide an excellent portrait of an artist’s trials in dealing with a lack of acknowledgement in a society (ours) where only the extremely lucky find their creative talents appreciated.  Meanwhile, internally and externally generated  comparisons abound – their value seemingly constantly weighted against that of more “successful” people in the creative person’s field as well as people who chose more conventional careers with more clearly delineated measures of success and rewards.

This stuff hit home on a lot of levels.

For example, at the beginning of year, I released a new album. I blogged about it, tweeted about it, emailed about it, and posted on facebook about it.

The response:
My mom said she hadn’t listened to it yet but asked how I found the time to do it.
That’s it.

No one said they liked it.
No one said they found certain aspects interesting or confusing.
No one said it sucked.
No one told me to give up on music.
No one said they preferred what I was doing 1, 5, 10 , or 15 years ago.
No one said anything.
It’s like it never happened. It’s like it never existed.

As an artist, you have to wonder if you want to continue to pursue a creative direction greeted by deafening silence, even if you find that direction – and the logical extensions of it you thought you wanted to pursue next – fascinating.

But what do you do instead, especially if you don’t really WANT to redefine yourself (again)? Do you remain true to yourself? Who does that badge of honor impress!? There is truly no satisfying answer.

So… in all the time I could have been composing this year, I’ve been questioning my methodology, taste, style, media, feeble attempts at publicity, etc. In other words, torturing myself for no good reason.

Because what I really want to do is write the next piece, the one that logical follows the last one, begins my style into sharper focus, introduces new ideas long percolating, synthesizes my language…
Maybe that piece will get a response.

Honestly, if I sound bitter… well, I am, a bit… but I understand.
I sometimes fail to respond to work of my friends and peers too.

Sometimes it’s because I feel like I need to have the perfect thing to say to them so I don’t come off sounding dumb or like I didn’t listen closely enough.
Sometimes I think it’s because they just took a crap in my ear or didn’t do anything original or keep writing the same piece over and over again.
Sometimes I don’t know if I’m supposed to take them seriously, or if so, how.
So I understand that what I do may elicit similar responses from different people.

And yet I want to be a better friend and peer than that. Perhaps I should further develop the habit to telling people when I like their work. (I feel like I used to be better at this… ) Maybe those people, and others, will respond in-kind. That’s a comforting thought. If a tree with good karma falls in the woods, perhaps someone will bother to be there to hear it and report if it made a sound.

Recently my friend, composer Adam Overton sent me a copy of his paper, Ripe For Embarassment: For A New Musical Masochism. It’s a fun read with some very clever ideas and analysis. (I didn’t see a copy online and I’m not sure if he plans to publish it. If interested, try contacting him directly.)

In the essay, Overton outlines many “punishments” a composer may (willingly or otherwise) be subjected to as a radical re-envisioning of musical indeterminacy. Like many composers, I have unwillingly and/or unwittingly suffered some of the “punishments” he suggests. One of these, which I experienced at the hands of a teacher who was perhaps a little too obsessed with precise notation, came during my earliest attempts at composing notated pieces for others to interpret. This punishment still afflicts/influences my compositional sensibilities today in numerous ways, all of which are too boring for me to share here.

One of Overton’s points I found particularly illuminating is that composers’ primary concern with performers historically is that they will ignore instructions (or otherwise fail to execute them) and thereby perform the piece incorrectly. In comparison, few composers give much thought to the idea of performers looking for loopholes in a score’s instructions which they can use to subvert the composer’s intent. It is interesting that my few personal experiences with subverted intent featured other composers as the performers. This is also the case with Overton’s example of John Cage’s angry reaction to one Julius Eastman performance of his work.

What follows below is less a critique or refection on Overton”s essay than a collection of random musings it inspired…

Many of Overton’s recipes for musical masochism involve the use of meta-scores (scores that tell you how to perform other scores). This got me thinking more about meta-scores so I cobbled together a few recent “conceptual” musings wrote a meta-score of my own:

Eight Impossible And/Or Unlikely Scores

1) For a pure music: Compose a piece in a void, without references to anything, including any past musical practice. To appropriate: Compose a second piece referencing the former.

2) For a music with a potentially bad ending: Compose a piece while attemping to live in constant acknowledgment of all internal and external suffering.

3) For a music of planned obsolencence: Compose a piece you know you will later regret and disown. Publish it. (Example: This piece.)

4) For a musical soundtrack to pornography from oblivion: Compose a piece charting the imaginary slope of infinite pitch and no time.

5) For an alternative to music: Compose a piece which leaves you co-opted and silenced.

6) For that which can not be translated: Compose a piece for a post-linguistic gathering (by which I mean a party in a time after language has disappeared).

7) For the past never ends: Compose a piece as an admission that there’s no such thing as closure. Title: Construction with thematic reflux.

8) For a musical object lesson in futility: Compose a piece epitomizing the zeitgeist of a fossilized now (and all eventually).

In the process of writing the above masterpiece, I ruminated a bit about a few compositional schisms:

• Much “conceptual” music is music-about-music (in theory, practice, history, socio-political contexts).
• One could unfortunately argue from a postmodern perspective that all scores are music-about-music. Scores can not easily be separated from these considerations (theory, practice, history, socio-political contexts) . It could argued that this is even the case even if one simply listens, writes, or performs with an empty or open mind because that decision can only be made in response to the previously mentioned considerations.
• Prejudices: Writers of primarily-note-scores often perceive writers of primarily-text-scores as charalitans. Writers of primarily-text-scores often perceive writers of primarily-note-scores as conservatives. Both are often right and often wrong. But I believe there is an overlap with the same ideas sometimes being conveyed in different languages. But is musical intent the same as music?
• Among composers who consider themselves experimental for one reason or another, primarily-text-scores often intend to push the boundaries of how we think about music while primarily-note-scores often intend to push the boundaries of the actual sounds produced. The are numerous counterexamples and overlaps; this is a fairy useless and cliched over-generalization. Ultimately, a composer usually chooses one method or the other for the majority of their work, finding their “voice” doesn’t sound as fresh in the language not chosen.

A few of Overton’s ideas revolve around the so-called “third level”, in which a composer coaches a performer before they present the piece to an audience. A few thoughts on the “third level”:

The need for a “third level” may indeed be the result of a composer not hearing the piece fully-formed. In the past, I have workshopped pieces that had alleatoric elements and then edited the scores to reflect what I found worked or didn’t work. I initially thought I wanted to allow more “possibilities” or “freedom” than I truly wished to hear in the end. Such a workshop environment is a luxury not usually available so some “finished” scores we composers produce might require this third level for the composer’s intent to really come across. From this perspective, the third level is not “guiding a performance” (as some composers would like to think) as much it is the last unwritten part of the compositional process.

The third level may also encompass the process in which of the last variables are nailed down. This can also be done by the performers or a conductor and usually is. These decision may be influenced by the performer’s particular sound or abilities, the audience or program, or the performance space itself. For example, a tempo that sounds great in one space might be awful elsewhere due to the degree of reverberation. However, this is not truly what is meant by the third level. The third level is, in fact re-composition or revision that takes place only after a composer sees how various “human factors” affect their work and imbues the piece after-the-fact with formerly absent elements of personal taste.

Unrealities of Narrative of Life and Music

Reading “The Narrative Fallacy” chapter of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s The Black Swan (a book that explores our relationships with major random events) on the heels of Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality (a book about multiple realities and parallel universes in cosmology) brought me back to considering the various unrealities or multiple realities that narrative can create.

I’ve encountered this idea in the past in books surveying postmodern theory. (These surveys are generally easier to digest than books by actual postmodern writers or critics and more likely to hold my interest as a casual reader. While some composers gush over every word written by Derrida, Barthes, Bergson, etc. and base their work on them, I prefer to look back once every few years on surveys written for dilettantes such as myself.) Often these books stress the idea that the integrity of a narrative is undermined by the voice and perspective of both the narrator and the author. Their prejudices may render the whole narrative suspect (intentionally or otherwise).

This viewpoint is made clear to me whenever I write about myself. My story changes radically based on my focus, nearly to the point of becoming unrecognizable.  I can tell my story in numerous ways. Sequences may be put forth in myriad ways including:  creative successes (a bio), jobs (a resume), all my creative work listed chronologically (a C.V.), failures, pursuits of bad ideas of dead ends, playing to my strengths, avoiding or confronting situations that expose my weaknesses or gaps in skill or knowledge, or perhaps a clear and simplified but ultimately untruthful description of my development as a step-wise linear progression (a sales-pitch). The purpose and resultant outcome of each narrative is different. Each would have me occupy a different place in my career, creative development, personal and intellectual growth, and emotionally state. Each is carefully structured to convey an impression or support an idea about who I am. And while it’s cliched to quote Walt Whitman’s famous line, “I contain multitudes,” I still find it applicable.

The impact of multiple narratives has been perhaps most apparent in my love life. I met my wife online on a dating site where I used to tweak my dating profile on a weekly basis. Each version was “true” but over time I emphasized different aspects of my personality, history and desires while de-emphasizing others. Would she even have taken an interest in me if she had encountered an earlier draft? Or vice versa? Who can say? Why did the successful narrative work when others had failed? Was it chance? Would I be married to someone else if a different “right person” or “soul mate” had seen one of my earlier profiles?

In music, the problem of narrative rears its head most in the use of forms and structures. The imposition of these ordering devices on sound is arguably an artificial construct (uh, not that “Music” isn’t!). That doesn’t make it bad. But it does explain why sometimes sounds doesn’t co-operate in pleasing the ear (or mind) when “forced” into the “wrong” contexts or sequences. Just  as a certain narrative may not describe a person well enough to win over an prospective employer, mate, or grant committee, a particular sonority may not be the right fit for a structure or form (or vice versa).

Sonorities don’t necessarily lend themselves to development, narrative, story-telling, or climaxes. The context must be carefully constructed for them in particular, not for a theoretical model of what would be interesting. In a sense you must play the role of seducer.  You may have an idea of what you want from a sound but rather than simply demanding it, you will most likely have to adjust your approach as you gain an understanding of what the sound is and how it relates to others before it warms and submits to your intentions. (I do not mean to necessarily sexualize the process – there are many other forms of seduction in social interaction.)

This seduction is what is often meant when one speaks of “sensitivity” in music. Even many virtuoso technical performers and world famous composers have lacked this trait or failed to understand and make use of it. It appears abstract and merely poetic or mystical until you actually develop the degree of sensitivity to appreciate it. To do so, you must detach from thinking only in form, structure, and the mathematics of music. But composing in any style of music ending in the the letters “I-S-M” may by nature preclude this.

I collaborated on this post with comic artist Colin Tedford. I sent him a rough post (below) from which he abstracted the comic above.

Recently, my wife told me an anecdote she’d heard about Paul McCartney:

McCartney drove with his wife went to an appointment she had. He waited in the car while she went inside. A half-hour later, she came back and he had written a song while he waited in the car.

I don’t know if this was supposed to be a particularly good song but the point of the story was that he wrote it so fast. My wife and whoever she heard this from were impressed with how quickly and easily McCartney could write a song. Personally, I wasn’t surprised by the story since most experienced songwriters I know have written just as fast (though perhaps not as frequently fast as McCartney has been rumored to write).

Still, this story made me think about facility and partly inspired my creative explorations last fall (when I originally wrote this post and which I posted much about then).

But why did McCartney in particular trigger this?

First, I have a confession. For the last two years, one of my guilty listening pleasures has been the post-Beatles studio albums of PaulMcCartney, including those with Wings.

Why a “guilty pleasure”?

I had heard many people denounce McCartney’s post-Beatles pop/rock career as a waste of his enormous talent. Without realizing it, I had adopted that opinion – for many years – without actually giving much of the music a chance. When I finally decided to listen to his catalog, I found a lot more to like than I expected. Even those songs that weren’t up to the same standards as music I’d normally listen to (purposely) had a quality that kept me coming back. Hence the “guilty pleasure”. (I haven’t braved his “classical” music yet, which I’ve heard even worse reviews of.)

Eventually, I realized what the “quality” that “kept me coming back” was. Facility. Everything (composition, performance, recording) sounded almost effortless, regardless of the quality of the individual songs (how interesting, original, or well-constructed they were). More effortless, in fact, than just about anything else I’d been listening to.

I think this appealed to me because I had settled into composing in a very slow and involved manner. Extreme concentration and effort was required to figure out what each piece “had to say”. It was the opposite of writing a song in your car while you wait for your wife to come back. And part of me missed having that ease, facility, and effortlessness that I’ve had in the past. When I realized this was missing, I knew I needed to make a few changes. So, thank you Paul McCartney for starting me on my way back to facility.

I talked with Jean Cook last October after hearing her speak on WNYC’s SoundCheck, hosted by John Schaefer. They discussed her work researching artist revenue streams with the Future of Music Coalition. While most information widely available on making money as a musician largely focuses on or caters to indie rock bands, this discussion intrigued me because it seemed to embrace all professional and semi-professional musicians, regardless of genre or style.  So I contacted Jean Cook to ask her a few more questions about it and her other musical activities.

In addition to her work with the Future of Music Coalition, Cook is a musician and the founder/director of Anti-Social Music, an NYC-based composers/performers collective. She has performed in a large variety of styles and  hybrids as a violinist. Her wide range of music experiences include producing and hosting radio programs, curating concert series, participating in political actions, and producing recordings and an opera.

The survey we discussed which the Future of Music Coalition was conducting on artist revenue streams closed at the end of October. You can read what they’ve learned from the survey here. She says they will continue posting new analyses through July 1. The page also includes a breakdown of 42 revenue streams for musicians.

I’m delighted to share that I haven’t gotten a chance to write in a while (my last few blog entries were scheduled well in advance) because on Feb 25 my wife, Briana, gave birth to our son, Ellias.  Both are doing well.

More music-related posts are in the works…

One ancient form of writing was called scriptio continuum.

ITWASINALLCAPITALLETTERSWITHNOSPACESORPUNCTUATION

Sorry, I meant to write that it was in all capital letters with no spaces or punctuation.

Unfortunately, this reminds me of quite a lot of music.

I firmly believe that music needs to breathe.

Rest is essential, even if there are no “silences” or conventionally-notated rests needed in a piece. Many forms of stasis, sustain, repetition, or decay can be akin to rest within a given context.

A piece without rest can still be great if the scale and duration of the piece are appropriate to the musical statement and materials.  And a piece can also rest too much, which is not to say that a piece has to “go somewhere”.

This is all subjective, of course. The tolerances of the listener and composer for continuous information or rest, as well as the characteristics of the musical materials and their deployment across time will play important roles.

It can be very exciting to rush around without pause for a while. But if you don’t stop, you die.

Some music keeps rushing around way too long, even after “death”.