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Thirty years ago, when I was 18
years of age, I decided to devote my life to music composition
and so began my commitment to this sublime art. The tools of my
trade were paper, pencil, piano, metronome and, of course, my
imagination.
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Today, however, my music studio
hosts a 24 channel mixing board, several synthesizers, two
digital samplers with numerous orchestral libraries on CD-ROM,
and a computer with software for a number of capabilities:
Sequencing music, digital audio recording, music education and CD
mastering. There is also a compact disc recorder, several signal
processors, a sound booth and microphone and my illegible
hieroglyphics are obsolete as I produce my scores with music
notation software. Though imagination is still the essence of
what I do, there are undeniably profound changes in the way I
approach my art. What has happened? Why am I doing it this way?
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In the past, the orchestral
composer, unlike the painter, poet or novelist, could not be the
sole interpreter of his own work. A score was labored over,
sometimes for years, with the result being a symbolic
representation of music, not the musical experience itself. To
transform this score into living music the composer would have
had to organize many musicians, sometimes up to 100 people or
more.
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Like many composers, I find it
difficult to get orchestras to take the time to learn, rehearse
and perform music written for today’s general public.
Approximately 85% of the music programmed by American orchestras
is composed by dead European composers. Where does that leave the
orchestra in regard to a living, creative musical culture? There
are economic, social and aesthetic reasons for this clinging to
the artistic past, and, frankly, at the risk of sounding like I
am betraying the "champions" of new music, I think many
of the works of dead European composers continue to deserve to be
heard—simply because they are that good and that beautiful.
But this advocacy of the best of tradition should not be at the
expense of the music of living composers who belong to the
culture in which these orchestras exist. The composer cannot
compose for long in a cultural vacuum, the appreciation of the
audience, whether large or small, is always the final and
necessary link in the complete artistic cycle. It is my opinion
that the music of many living "serious" composers of
the last 50 years has left large numbers of intelligent music
lovers indifferent and unhappy, and there is a lack of enthusiasm
about hearing new music. This contributes to the "orchestra
as museum" syndrome and has unfortunately been a factor in
why I have chosen to spend the majority of my time in the studio
and not on the phone or in the post office attempting to get
ensembles and orchestras to play my works.
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In considering myself a
"classical" composer I don’t mean that I write
music in the style of Mozart or Schubert, or that I don’t
evolve new techniques to suit my expressive purpose or utilize
new approaches to tonality, harmony and orchestration. What I do mean is that I believe in music as a classical art;
one in
which artistic ideals have a place, and the personal desire to
discover and create meaning in my life often overrules the commercial,
academic and popular notions of what music is about. I believe
music is more than just a career, especially if we define career as concern with the approval
of corporate culture; those who control mass media through power, capital and
influence. Music composition is, by its very essence, a path that
embraces the intellectual and the spiritual, it involves the
entire personality. It is inappropriate to equate it
with the fickle expectations of commercialism or the
old-boy’s network in academia.
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I choose to realize my musical
intentions with digital technology because I am excited by the
new instruments. I compose for sampled instruments because I can
edit and re-work my compositions until I get exactly what I want
without regard to anybody’s time but my own. I love the
challenge of working with the new tools and I don’t have
much tolerance for the frustration of hearing my work played
badly, or, more often, not played at all. But even more important
is the ability to experiment and try out new orchestration, cut
and paste phrases and passages, and do many other things that are
usually prohibitive with a live ensemble.
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Making music with electricity,
like making music with animal gut, bone, metal or wood, is the
process of creating sound by using a natural energy of the
universe. I remember a singer once exclaimed to me that
electronic music was "unnatural". I tried to point out
that her heart was beating because of electrical impulses in the
brain and that electro-magnetism is one of the fundamental forces
in the cosmos. Digital instruments are thousands of years younger
than their acoustic cousins but this is no reason to be deaf to
their possibilities. Today’s audio, computer and music
technology is much more complex and sophisticated than two carved
pieces of wood beaten together in rhythm, but the principle is
the same: Humans make tools and we make music with those tools.
Whether or not fine art will be produced with these tools is
still dependent upon the talent, skill, imagination, idealism and
commitment of the musician as it is on the quality of the tools.
Whether others are sensitive to the efforts of what electronic
musicians are doing is another issue, as we all have our
pre-existing ideas as to what music is and should be. I find
discussing musical taste, for many people, evokes as much passion
and emotion as discussing politics or religion. Some people
identify very strongly with the kind of music they enjoy and,
sadly, in many ways their mindset and hearing is quite limited
when faced with something new or different.
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Even if a miracle happened, and
suddenly orchestras began playing as much contemporary music as
old, there is little doubt I would continue working in this new medium. The
orchestra is a wonderful cultural institution, and the beauty of
tone that can be achieved by many excellent musicians playing
together can never be dismissed or underestimated. But loving the
old does not mean rejecting the possibilities of the new, and
that is what I am most interested in exploring.
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