I got in to this work first through formal music study, then by a realization that jazz school was far too limiting and that I had much wider interests I needed to explore before committing to a course of intense study.
When my work is going well, I feel thrilled. I feel powerful. I feel like an explorer discovering something new. I have the sense of uncovering something that already existed.
I am comfortable with the tension between formal study, honing of specific techniques, and the absolute open-endedness of forgeing one's own path. I want to do both. I have a deep respect for tradition, and the value of deep artistic lineage. However, I believe that we are living in a time when artistic lineage is less and less important, and artists are both able and required to choose from among a wide range of artistic lines.
Things I'm not interested in: overtly referencing popular culture, emphasis on process over aesthetics, symbolism.
While much of my toolkit is derived from popular, or folk music forms and easthetics, I consider my work neither a comment on these styles, nor a permutation of them. I prefer, rather, to think of myself as an appropriator, borrowing tools from an array of traditions and using them to explor ideas of my own.
While I don't consider my approach strictly minimalist, I strive to create work which depends on a minimum of recognizable influences, and references a minimum of elements exterior to the work itself, without becoming either austere or severe. One major way I exert maximum ownership over my work, as well as imposing a limit on the range of tools and techniques I work with, is by building my own software. By taking control over the lowest levels of my process, I'm able to create work which I feel I have complete ownership of. This is important to me, especially when using such an open-ended meta-tool as a computer, a device with which many people mistake the learning and acquisition of new software for creative work.
My approach is more aesthetic, visionary and exploratory than expressive. While my ultimate goal is to create fascinating, delightful, beautiful, and deeply satisfying art, my work is not a manifestation of a mood, an emotional state, a feeling any more than the work of a chef is. While some of my work may tend elicit certain emotions, I don't consider it a representation of such a state.
1. What is your favorite tool? Why?
My favorite tool is the computer language. It gives me unlimited potential, but a very limited tool-box. It encourages imagination, and discourages too-browsing.
2. What is your favorite material? Why?
I generally prefer recorded, organic sounds. I think that the richness of the physical world creates more pleasing building blocks than the precision of the computer. However, I'm no purist about this, I simply find sound-worlds with a little grit in them more satisfying.
3. What do you like best about what you do?
I wouldn't know how to stop. Put most simply, what I like best about what I do is the way my music makes me feel. It feels fresh and new to me, a bit like other things, but very clearly its own thing, and it's created exactly for me, to my own very exacting specifications. There may be other music which is more dazzling, more exciting, more impressive, but there's no other music which is so well tailored to my own sensabilities. Other things I like are: the triumph of creation, the way my work allows me to meet like-minded people all over the world, and the discipline of developing the various skills I employ.
4. What do you mean when you say that a piece has turned out really well?
It makes me feel good to listen to it, it embodies a few interesting ideas, and it sounds like nothing else.
5. What patterns emerge in your work? Is there a pattern in the way you select materials? In the way you use color, texture or light?
6. What do you do differently from the way you were taught? Why?
7. What is your favorite color? List three qualities of the color. Consider that these qualities apply to your work.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
thoughts
I've been reading a bit about famous, "important" artists. Damn music is too loud and... not my thing really. I'm interested in reading a bit now. I have time. I may be able to connect my inclinations to established lines of thought. All of the arts have splintered in to a million streams. I'm not sure that paying attention to any forefront is important or meaningful. Certainly not for me. I may be free to work backwards, to build myself a bit of context by casting about in the past few hundred years for people and groups of people whose ideas I like.
I'm interested in continuing to work in a quasi-pop context, using the most general structures and concepts as a container for my ideas. I would like to work to keep those containing structures as light-weight as possible.
At the same time, I aspire to make music that is completely devorced from any pop realm, music with no references.
Having trouble dealing with this music.
Maybe I need to try and write at home. Maybe just do emailing at coffee shops. This isn't working.
I'm interested in continuing to work in a quasi-pop context, using the most general structures and concepts as a container for my ideas. I would like to work to keep those containing structures as light-weight as possible.
At the same time, I aspire to make music that is completely devorced from any pop realm, music with no references.
Having trouble dealing with this music.
Maybe I need to try and write at home. Maybe just do emailing at coffee shops. This isn't working.
Monday, November 12, 2007
the way forward
I want to use this space as a place to document and develop some of my ideas. Perhaps to practice writing a bit. I'm currently facing a number of challenges to my work. Over the next several months I hope to simplify my creative environment, my mental workbench, so that I'm able to work with only a few tools and produce something that is both interesting to me and useful to others.
I'm feeling a conflict between my purely experimental interests, and the world I'm working in, the small audience I've developed. On the one hand, I want my work to be very pure, to be the embodiment of only a few ideas, to be narrow and deep. On the other hand, I resist the idea of presenting the world with art that is too cold, too intellectual, too demanding. I want to make music which makes people feel good. I want to make a CD which people want to put on. I want to make music which people want to live with. And I want to present a clear evolution from the work I've presented previously. I want my next album to sound a bit like my last, but to grab some ideas and take them further. I want to nail that combiniation of intellectual excitement, rigorous exploration, and visceral satisfaction.
I'm intrigued by a bit of what I've read about Joseph Albers. From what I can tell, his values are somewhat similar to those I've been coming to. A few Albers concepts:
- develop imagination, not self-expression. Art is about vision, not expression.
- ORDER CLARITY CLEANLINESS
I see my decision to focus on programming as partly a technique to increase my reliance on imagination over expression. Building one's own tools, whether they be conceptual or physical (a fuzzy distinction inside a computer) is a type of vision. Perhaps it can be understood as the only type of vision. This value emphasis seems directly opposite to the values of the improvising musician. Purely improvised music can be thought of as pure expression, with a complete absence of vision. Maybe vision and expression are two different manifestations of the same thing, distinguished only by the time-frame in which they act. Is vision long-term expression? Is expression short-term vision? By overwhelmingly valuing vision over expression, is Albers valuing thought over emotion? If so, I wonder what his motivation for this is. Is thought somehow a "higher", less animalistic phenomenon than emotion, an indicator of civilization? I wonder...
Order, Clarity, Cleanliness. Such German-sounding concepts! I don't know how much I want to embrace these. Well, actually, I think I want to embrace these quite a lot. I could certainly use a bit more physical cleanliness. Somehow related to these is my feeling for the beauty of complexity arising from the interactions of simple elements. I suppose Albers would probably feel the same way as me about this.
To change gears a bit, I'd like to think about my own current approaches, what's working, what isn't. I'm heavily involved in experimenting with micro-loops now. They create fascinating, interwoven textures. Asawa's knit wire structures feel akin to what I'm interested in now -- heavy emphasis on repetition. Simple structures multipled to create a larger whole. Flocks of birds is a metaphor I continue to return to. Listening to recordings I've made, it's very clear that my textures are interesting only when there are multiple layers. My individual birds are not beautiful. It's only when they move as a group that they become interesting.
While trying to move forward with this focused, somewhat minimalist approach, I'm working to stay within the constraints of the "electronica" genre. This means that I want my music to be physical. It's meant to be played loud. I like for it to rattle the intestines a bit. There are other requirements I feel I must meet. I feel like some of my music must have a pulse. I feel like some of my music must have strong, well-developed melodies. These requirements are based more on my own history, my own strengths, and the current scene I'm operating in, than on any logical extension of the experiements I'm persuing. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I think that this dilutes my work, that I could go farther if I let go of any ideas of which skills I want to use, and what my current (very small) audience and community want to hear. On the other hand, I've been leary of "art of art's sake" for a number of years. I don't mind the idea of seasoning what might otherwise be a rather saltless soup of experimental ideas.
I'm feeling a conflict between my purely experimental interests, and the world I'm working in, the small audience I've developed. On the one hand, I want my work to be very pure, to be the embodiment of only a few ideas, to be narrow and deep. On the other hand, I resist the idea of presenting the world with art that is too cold, too intellectual, too demanding. I want to make music which makes people feel good. I want to make a CD which people want to put on. I want to make music which people want to live with. And I want to present a clear evolution from the work I've presented previously. I want my next album to sound a bit like my last, but to grab some ideas and take them further. I want to nail that combiniation of intellectual excitement, rigorous exploration, and visceral satisfaction.
I'm intrigued by a bit of what I've read about Joseph Albers. From what I can tell, his values are somewhat similar to those I've been coming to. A few Albers concepts:
- develop imagination, not self-expression. Art is about vision, not expression.
- ORDER CLARITY CLEANLINESS
I see my decision to focus on programming as partly a technique to increase my reliance on imagination over expression. Building one's own tools, whether they be conceptual or physical (a fuzzy distinction inside a computer) is a type of vision. Perhaps it can be understood as the only type of vision. This value emphasis seems directly opposite to the values of the improvising musician. Purely improvised music can be thought of as pure expression, with a complete absence of vision. Maybe vision and expression are two different manifestations of the same thing, distinguished only by the time-frame in which they act. Is vision long-term expression? Is expression short-term vision? By overwhelmingly valuing vision over expression, is Albers valuing thought over emotion? If so, I wonder what his motivation for this is. Is thought somehow a "higher", less animalistic phenomenon than emotion, an indicator of civilization? I wonder...
Order, Clarity, Cleanliness. Such German-sounding concepts! I don't know how much I want to embrace these. Well, actually, I think I want to embrace these quite a lot. I could certainly use a bit more physical cleanliness. Somehow related to these is my feeling for the beauty of complexity arising from the interactions of simple elements. I suppose Albers would probably feel the same way as me about this.
To change gears a bit, I'd like to think about my own current approaches, what's working, what isn't. I'm heavily involved in experimenting with micro-loops now. They create fascinating, interwoven textures. Asawa's knit wire structures feel akin to what I'm interested in now -- heavy emphasis on repetition. Simple structures multipled to create a larger whole. Flocks of birds is a metaphor I continue to return to. Listening to recordings I've made, it's very clear that my textures are interesting only when there are multiple layers. My individual birds are not beautiful. It's only when they move as a group that they become interesting.
While trying to move forward with this focused, somewhat minimalist approach, I'm working to stay within the constraints of the "electronica" genre. This means that I want my music to be physical. It's meant to be played loud. I like for it to rattle the intestines a bit. There are other requirements I feel I must meet. I feel like some of my music must have a pulse. I feel like some of my music must have strong, well-developed melodies. These requirements are based more on my own history, my own strengths, and the current scene I'm operating in, than on any logical extension of the experiements I'm persuing. I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, I think that this dilutes my work, that I could go farther if I let go of any ideas of which skills I want to use, and what my current (very small) audience and community want to hear. On the other hand, I've been leary of "art of art's sake" for a number of years. I don't mind the idea of seasoning what might otherwise be a rather saltless soup of experimental ideas.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)