Although you occasionally include “live” musicians in your compositions, most of your music is written for a virtual orchestra of electronically sampled instruments plus synthesizers. Where does this interest come from? Did you ever consider writing purely electronic music à la Morton Subotick, et al?

I started playing around with tape recorders at an early age, around eleven. I was as fascinated with being able to record sound as I was with music itself. I guess I haven't changed much in that respect! I've written numerous pieces for electronic sounds only, no sampled acoustic instruments, no sampled orchestral instruments. I don't even write a score for those types of pieces. They're always relatively short compositions. I actually talked with Morton Subotnick, as I got a scholarship to attend Cal Arts (California Institute of the Arts, where he taught). But I wanted to immerse myself in classical music rather than electronic music (this was before MIDI, before digital, before sample libraries) so I chose to enroll in San Francisco State University's music program, which was a better fit for me at the time. My education in electronic music didn't really begin until right after I graduated with my Bachelor's in classical music theory and composition.

Sort of. When I write pieces for virtual piano I can write passages that need to be played with 12 fingers or 4 hands. But the real joy for me is more about how to make something sound expressive, intentional and meaningful in a relatively new musical medium. When a great musician picks up a violin and makes magic with it, we usually don’t think about the fact that the violin--made of wood and other materials, doesn’t feel the beauty in the music (at least we don’t think it does) —it takes a human mind to appreciate what the violinist is doing. Same with a computer. I doubt the CPU, audio interface, cables or speakers appreciate the melodies, harmonies and rhythms that the composer is using in his or her compositions. Both a violin and a computer are human inventions, neither occurs in nature but are the creation of human effort and intervention.

For centuries, we’ve made music with bone, wood and metal. Our age has added electrons and bits and bytes to our musical tools. Music is about moving sound through air through the use of melody, harmony, rhythm and tone color. I don’t think of the computer music studio as an orchestra, it is a complex array of tools that allow for multi-timbral composition and recording. What I do is a solo musician’s art; I am the creator and interpreter of my work. It is a studio art, not a performance art, at least not performance in the traditional sense. Though I still occasionally use the term “virtual orchestra” I do so only because of the deeply ingrained association between multi-timbral composition and performance with an ensemble or orchestra. The term should not be taken literally.

No, that is not my hope at all. The acoustic orchestra is a remarkable achievement. The beauty of tone, wide dynamic range, the many colors that can be achieved, the richness of sound—and the psychosocial energies of many people cooperating and listening to one another while making music together—it’s obvious that a great symphony orchestra is an incomparable musical institution. 

In my work I use a sample library called the Vienna Symphonic Cube. It consists of over 764,000 digital samples of acoustic instruments. The solo violin sample set alone consists of thousands of digital samples—each note of every instrument is sampled in multiple dynamic levels and multiple playing styles. What I do is a studio art, I try to create, in a recorded medium, the dynamic range, beauty of tone and timbral variety that makes music irresistible, pleasurable to listen to and meaningful. Not for one second do I consider what I do anything more or less than an ongoing experiment in recording music compositions. One musician cannot be an orchestra.  

Though the quality of synthesizers and sample libraries have improved remarkably over the past twenty years, perhaps listening to music made in a new medium is an acquired taste. When Bob Dylan first came on stage with an electric guitar in 1965 at the Newport folk festival many in the audience were upset and felt betrayed, as though the purity of folk music was under threat. This kind of nonsense is ridiculous, it’s what happens when people take their traditions too seriously. New musical instruments are going to continue to be invented, just as the harpsichord, the electric piano and valves on the trumpet once didn’t exist and now they do. The computer is, at least in my experience, an amazing musical instrument. There’s going to be good music created with it and bad music, just like with any other instrument.    

Why do we make the comparison in the first place? We don’t compare a fine art photograph to an oil painting and dismiss it because it’s not a painting—we don’t even expect it to be a painting, we accept it as a photograph. We don’t compare a film to live theater and then say it’s fake because it’s not a live play. A similar attitude should prevail when experiencing music played on computer-based instruments. Comparing a recording of sampled instruments to a live performance is not useful or even fair in my opinion, there’s no point to it. Comparing a recording of sampled instruments to a recording of acoustic instruments makes some sense, but even then, if one is opposed to sampled instruments on philosophical or ideological grounds there’s no point in trying to convince a person of the artistic merits of the work. The term “electronic music” defines a medium in the same way that “piano music” defines a medium. Within that medium are countless styles, levels of musicianship, compositional originality or lack thereof, brilliance or mediocrity.

For some people, live music is the best possible way to hear music. I get that. I like live music too. But ever since I was a boy, I’ve always enjoyed listening to recorded music and never felt anything was lacking in the experience. Hearing and perception are personal tastes. How we hear music is highly subjective and I assume everything I write will be enjoyed by someone, disliked by someone and leave another listener indifferent. I feel good when others appreciate my work, but I take no responsibility for how people react to my music as it’s out of my control. If my goal were to create a recording that sounds exactly like a recording of a live orchestra I certainly would not go to the trouble and expense of producing music with computers, I’d write for live orchestra! Yet being able to bypass the politics, economics and time-element of trying to get ensembles to play my works is something I value. When it comes to getting live performances by major orchestras, composers are competing with people who’ve been dead for hundreds of years. It’s liberating not to have to deal with that reality and still be able to create complex, multi-timbral compositions and recordings.

No, and I’ve made almost zero attempts to get them performed. Though my talent and training is as a composer, my temperament is more like a poet or painter, I like to create a finished piece and offer it to the world. Depending upon large numbers of people has never been one of my strong points. I’m also somewhat of a computer nerd and enjoy working with technology to invent music with these fascinating instruments. If a conductor offered me a well-rehearsed performance with a fine ensemble and a professional quality recording, I wouldn’t turn it down. But I don’t put my energy into seeking that, I love the medium I’ve chosen to work in.

I studied some non-western music traditions while working on my Bachelors of Music in composition and music theory and enjoyed learning about the use of scales divided into more than 12 notes and hearing different tuning systems. One of the really enjoyable things about working in the computer music studio is that I can combine instruments from all over the world, as I did with the songs in Moon Festival. Raga has a drone-like feel to it and it felt somewhat like an Indian raga, hence the name. 

When I was a boy I wanted to be an astronomer but I didn’t have the gift for physics and mathematics and soon realized that the arts were going to be where I’d find my calling. I’ve been a long-time practitioner of daily meditation and have spent the past thirty-five years or so studying a thick book called The Urantia Papers, while trying to put the teachings into practice in my daily life. The astronomer and teacher Carl Sagan said two things that have always stuck in my mind: Keep an open mind but not so open that your brains fall out, and he also said that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. When it comes to the mysteries, origins, destiny and purpose of the universe, these two statements resonate with me.

The many scores (over 80) I wrote for the Gumby television series stood out at the time, as Gumby was probably one of the first TV shows to feature an all MIDI score, and of course I was heavily criticized for that. I had a lot of fun doing that project, the short Gumby episodes could be very strange and all kinds of music, from atonal to rock to folk were created for that show. 

Usually I bring a singer into my studio to record the vocal part. The vocalist will sing to the sequenced instruments and we’ll record multiple tracks. Then I find the best takes in each track and create a composite track that becomes mixed with the instruments. But with Home & Love we were all in lockdown due to COVID and I couldn’t bring anyone into my studio. I found my vocalist, Kira Fondse, online. She lives in Vancouver Canada and has the voice I thought would work well for this piece so I hired her. She recorded her part synchronized to the music track I sent to her. Then Kira sent her vocal tracks back to me and I mixed them in my studio in San Francisco.

I was looking for a song to write for my daughter’s wedding in the summer of 2020 and found Home & Love online when researching poetry. The wedding got canceled due to COVID but I wrote and produced the song anyway as a gift to her and her fiancé. 

Cathy Colman is an award-winning poet and a long-time friend of mine; we went to junior high school together. She sent me a book of her newest poetry and Body Politics really excited me. The first thing I did was transcribe her recording that was made on a smart phone and created a detailed meter and tempo map based on her timing and interpretation of the poem. I then wrote the music within the confines of the meter/tempo map. Then I cleaned up her recording because she couldn’t come to San Francisco (because of COVID again) to record in my studio and removed some of the background noise and improved the tonal quality of her recording, and finally mixed the voice and music together on my DAW (digital audio workstation).

Two main concerns: 1) is it singable, will it sound good sung? There are many poems that work well as poetry when read, but do not necessarily work when sung. Complex words, abstract concepts and poetry without emotion don’t necessarily make good songs. 2) Do the words resonate with me personally, does the poem reach into my own life experience and give me the motivation to set it to music? If these two requirements are met, there’s a good chance I will set the poem to music.

Since the booklet doesn’t include a detailed description of the symphony, perhaps you could indicate some of the salient points.

My 11th symphony for virtual instruments begins with a gentle theme shifting between D-minor and D-flat major. The secondary material is related to and drawn from the primary theme. This movement is scored for piccolo, 3 flutes, 3 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, bass clarinet, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, tambourine, cymbals, gong, glockenspiel, celeste, harp, Dune (a software synthesizer) and full string section (1st and 2nd violins, violas, cellos and basses).  The synthesizer is used in a rhythmic, percussive role. It ends with the main theme becoming more energetic and dramatic and then yielding to a return to the beginning.  In the second movement I add two more software synthesizers to increase the percussive propulsion of the movement. The primary theme is put through many variations and permutations as the movement progresses. A composer friend of mine commented that this movement sounds "American" to him. The slow third movement uses a considerably smaller ensemble consisting of English horn, harp, Dune, solo violin, solo viola, solo cello and string section. In this movement Dune, instead of playing a percussive role, is playing both a harmonic and melodic one. The English horn plays a dominant thematic role in this movement. The fourth and last movement returns to a much larger orchestration, including four synthesizer timbres and two vocal choirs, both choirs singing Latin syllables that have no literal meaning but chosen rather for their sonic qualities.  For this reason I don't notate the "words" that the choirs are singing.  I hope that helps. I’ve left out a lot of the technical and theoretical aspects, preferring to let the music speak for itself.

Why did you decide to use “a considerably smaller ensemble” for the third movement?

Sometimes less is more. It's not unusual when I write an adagio to reduce the number of instruments to get a more intimate sound.

In his liner notes, David Baer remarks on your use of “choral forces in the final movement,” as well as in a number of your previous works.

For myself, the "families" of the virtual ensemble are sampled winds, brass and percussion, synths, sampled voices and sampled strings. I'll use vocal samples either as solo voices, or as a choir or even as another instrument that blends into the larger ensemble. In the 4th movement of the 11th symphony they're being used mainly as a choir.

The choir in the Symphony and in your Hymn to the Divine was very convincing: how did you program the “machine” to reproduce the sounds of words so faithfully?

Absolutely. Music is about sound, and sound emerges from silence. I am of the opinion that until a musician can fully appreciate silence, their notes just won’t mean as much. The space between the notes is as important as the notes themselves. Meditation can be misused, just like anything we humans involve ourselves with. But when approached rightly, meditation can be a great tool to neutralize stress and help clarify feelings, goals and to see ourselves as we really are. If we bring sincerity, humility and curiosity to the meditation process we can continually adjust our attitudes that bring us closer to living an integrated, loving and more rational existence. We have such little control over so much that happens in life, but the little we do have control over—our actions, thoughts, decisions, our words—they are what makes the difference between growth and stagnation, and between happiness and conflict.