The Joys and Frustrations of Electronic Music

Even though I graduated with my doctorate in music composition a mere six years ago, the face of electronic music has changed dramatically.  It's become a complex market of software and plug-ins and virtual instruments created from high-quality samples of almost any real-world sound you can imagine.  "Kids" who are barely teenagers are composing artful remixes of popular songs, and professional orchestrators are creating virtual recordings of familiar classical pieces that are in some respects better than a live performance. 
When I compose a piece of music for acoustic performers, I accept that not every note and articulation is going to be the same in every performance.  Not only will different performers put their personality into interpreting a piece, but the same performers won't play a piece exactly the same every time.  It's one of the things that makes live music interesting, actually.  Hearing what a performer brings forth from a piece goes beyond the sterile and absolute ideal of what's on the printed page.

Purely electronic music is different.  There are plenty of pieces (both art music and popular music) that combine the sounds of electronica with aspects of live performance.  My first real exposure to it was Caution to the Winds (James Mobberly) for piano and tape, which I performed on my senior piano recital as an undergraduate.  Since then, the entire "live performer with electronics" genre has grown by leaps and bounds, and it's one of the few areas in which cross-pollination between popular music and academic music makes the boundaries almost too blurry to identify in places.  Some of these pieces incorporate the electronic aspects in such a way that a performer still has a great deal of freedom; a performance of the piece on one night might be completely different from the performance of a piece on the next.  The work that I'm doing right now aims at creating a finished product, though: music to be heard, not performed.

 James Mobberly's Caution to the Winds, as performed by Kristina Sandulova.



Like the music on a CD or one of those orchestrations of a famous symphony with "virtual" instruments, once a piece of purely electronic music is in recorded form, it becomes fixed.  You always know when a particular swell will happen in the tune, because it's recorded and it isn't going to change.  The notes and articulations will always be exactly the same from one listening to the next, although some people may claim that a recorded piece of music can still vary in the impact it has on them, based on their own emotions when they listen to it.  I won't debate that.  I'm concerned with the idea that once the piece is "finished", there is no altering it.  There is no "next performance" to tweak or adjust or "get it right."  There is the obdurate and unchanging sound of the piece, for better or worse, just as it was created.


This has a tremendously attractive side to it.  I can hear what I have created immediately.  When a piece is composed for live performers, there is really no guarantee that it will ever get performed, and in today's bizarre climate of neophilia there is very little chance that a piece will get performed twice.  A performer has to take the music, rehearse it, make some interpretive decisions, and then create something that hopefully has some approximation to the idealized piece on the printed page.  This process could take months.  An electronic piece is immediately available for listening.  I can actually physically hear the piece as I am working on it, and as soon as it's finished, I can send it to other people within minutes.  On top of that, they will hear exactly the same music everything they listen.  They may hear different things within the music, but the music itself will always be available and consistent.
 
As you might imagine, this changes the way I compose a piece.  When I am writing for a live musician, I actually want some of their personality to enter into the sound of a piece.  I might leave some things a little vague or explicitly improvisatory because I'm interested in giving that performer the space to create.  When I'm working with electronic sounds, I'm not creating something that another person will infuse with their personality.  I'm creating the finished product.  It's up to me to get the sound of the piece exactly how I want it to be, and if there's something I don't like, I can't chalk it up to a performer's interpretation.  In some ways, it's a bit daunting, and in other ways it's very satisfying.  Getting a rhythm just right in a printed piece of music doesn't guarantee that every performer is going to play it just right.  Getting a rhythm just right in a piece of electronica means that it will always and forever be exactly what I intended.

But it's much easier to get bogged down in minutiae.  Sometimes, I feel like I am painting a face, but I get drawn into the details of the ear.  And because of the technology, I can get very, very detailed about how the ear looks.  I can fine tune exactly where a little mole is positioned, or how a tiny sliver of shadow falls within the curvature of cartilage.  Then, I take a step back and remember that I have an entire face to paint, and what I've done to the ear has an impact on how the rest of the face appears.  Besides, what viewer is really going to notice how perfectly positioned a tiny mole or shadow is?  Does it really matter?

That last question gets tricky.  Does it really matter in the grand scheme of life itself?  Probably not.  Does it really matter in the aesthetics of the piece?  Maybe it does.  Does it really matter to me?  And there is the heart of it.  What makes the whole endeavor worthwhile is how satisfied I am at the end of it.  If getting a particular sound just right will increase my enjoyment of what I'm creating, it's worth it.  Even if no one else notices, it's worth the time and effort.  And if a detail isn't important to me--if it doesn't really enhance my enjoyment of the process or the final product--I can learn to let go of the minutiae and move on.

By the way, if you haven't already heard the first bit of electronic music I created for the Status Quo project, you can listen to it via the link below, just so you can hear where I'm setting the bar with my current efforts.

Status Quo

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1527746583/the-status-quo-project

Recognizing Opportunity's Knock

Frustrating as it is, it's a bit of a boon when there is too much to write about.  Sometime soon I want to write about the differences between composing electronic music and composing for an actual ensemble of performers.  There are also some other relational lessons I've been getting this week, and I think they could be of value to other people, too.  First and foremost, though, I want to say something about how I got involved with the Status Quo project.

Right out of grad school, I took the first teaching position I was offered, as an adjunct professor making a salary that put me just above the poverty line.  I absolutely loved being in the classroom, although there were some aspects of the environment outside the classroom that were less enjoyable.  When I was offered about three times that salary for a full-time position at a church (based on years of experience and education level), I left that teaching position.  At the time, the head of the music school promised that he would review my curriculum vitae and write a letter of recommendation that would get me hired "at the school of my choice."  After a couple of reminders and gentle inquiries, I gave up on that.

Actually, the whole experience tarnished my impression of academia to the point that my interest in finding another teaching position has been lackluster, even though I have feedback from many students telling me that I did my job well.  I also have very fond memories of the musicians I taught, but instead of focusing exclusively on finding another job in academia, I've spent time searching for other opportunities.

After a year of chasing after a few "career" ideas that were not all I had hoped for, I decided to get specific about what really matters most to me, so I would more easily recognize opportunities that would have real value to me.  What I wound up with was not surprising.  (1) I want to be acknowledged for the things that I do well, for the skills and attributes that set me apart.  After being in unsatisfying situations where I am just a warm body doing the same kinds of tasks that anyone else could do, I know that I want to be using my specific abilities.  I suppose another way of saying it is, I want to be seen for who I am.  (2) I also want to be a part of something bigger than myself.  This seems natural for a composer who writes music for other musicians to perform, but it bears articulating.  Collaboration is energizing to me.  (3) Whatever I'm doing, I want there to be a real potential to make a bit of money.  This seemed shallow to me at first, but some source of money is necessary, whether it's a salary, a commission, ticket sales, or a grant.  Hiring musicians, renting out venues, printing costs, software... everything comes with a price tag.  I want my efforts to at least pay for themselves.

I soon learned that I needed to add another caveat: No church work.  There are plenty of opportunities for me to work in the Christian market, but most of them would require that I pretend to be something that I'm not.  I actually enjoy the sound of a lot of the music, and I enjoy being a part of other people's spiritual growth.  Churches are hotbeds of politics and power-trips, however, and few of them would feel confident with a known atheist at the piano.  So, (4) I won't pretend to be something I'm not.

So, when we moved to Fort Worth in January, my sights were honed in on doing things for which I am specifically skilled, in collaboration with other people, with a real potential to make money, where I don't have to pretend to be something I'm not.  Having that clearly in front of me usually keeps me from being distracted by the idea that I have to put aside what I love in order to do something I don't enjoy to "earn a living".  It also helped me to see a very exciting project that I might not have considered if I wasn't as clear about what I was looking for.  I was actually poking around online looking for other musicians in the Fort Worth area, when I came across an ad for programmers and graphic designers to work on a new video game.  As I read the rather compelling ad, I thought, I wonder if they have someone doing music. 

It took the initiative to write an email and the willingness to let someone hear my work.  It felt like a bold move in a way, but there was really no risk in it at all.  Now, I am composing music for a video game in development, obviously with a team of other people working on different aspects of the project.  The project just went up on Kickstarter.com, which is a way for investors to contribute a small amount to get something off the ground in exchange for some very creative perks.  So, more to come about why composing electronic music has some advantages over composing acoustic music, but for now, I'll leave you with the Status Quo project listing on Kickstarter and you can hear a little bit of what I've written for it.

Musical Safety

Thinking of me only as a pianist and not realizing that I am a composer, another musician told me of his first experience with a professional orchestra.  He was filling in for a member of the orchestra who was away, and he was very anxious about doing well.  A wave of relief came over him when he learned that they were performing a piece by Tan Dun rather than a well-known piece from Mozart or Beethoven.  Why?  Because, according to him, "it didn't matter what I played."  He perceived a certain vulnerability with the standard, familiar works from what is known as the Common Practice Period (roughly from 1600-1900), but there was room to hide in the unfamiliarity of a contemporary piece. 

European music from that three-hundred-year span has become predictable to our ears, we can tell when it sounds "right" and when something sounds a bit off because we have heard enough of it to form clear expectations.  Even when that music takes a surprising turn, it stays within expected parameters.  There is some comfort in that from the perspective of a listener.  Some musicians apparently find it a bit nerve wracking, though. 
Any mistake is much more exposed in music that has such familiar characteristics.  A more contemporary piece that doesn't follow the same expectations can seem safer because most audience members won't detect any missed notes or rhythms.  So a musician's pride is a bit more protected behind unfamiliar music.  Or even music that an audience expects to be dissonant or difficult to appreciate.

As a composer, of course this is all a bit frustrating.  I don't write music with a 17th- or 18th-century mindset, and at the same time, I don't intentionally create music that is challenging to understand.  I want an audience to be able to find value in every moment of a piece, even if different moments evoke different emotions or ideas.  Fortunately, most of the musicians that have programmed my compositions have accurately represented my intentions for the music.  I am grateful for that.  But in that recent conversation I couldn't help but wonder how much public opinion of "modern" art music is influenced by how musicians treat it.

One need not be an advocate of the avant-garde in order to appreciate music, however.  Technology has made it possible for us to have access to an immense diversity of styles, whenever we care to listen.  For many people, there is no need to attend a live musical performance because an mp3 will suffice.  In fact, musicians are gradually becoming obsolete as technology improves as well.  A composer could conceivably record an entire symphony with virtual instruments and never interact with another living musician.  Hatsune Miku, a popular Japanese singer, is actually a hologram whose voice is created by a computer program called Vocaloid, developed by Yamaha.

So where does this leave me as a composer living in a time when some musicians consider new music to demand less accuracy than more familiar works, when audiences are able to get their fill of music without ever attending a live performance (or listening to anything composed past 1920 if they choose), and when computers are beginning to replace flesh and blood musicians?  I start from the purpose(s) behind what I do in the first place:

1. I create because I am creative, and
2. I compose music to share that creativity with other people.

At the end of the day, I hope to have a positive impact on other people, and music is one powerful way I can do that.  Everything beyond that is just details.  There are certainly some things that a computer can do more efficiently than a person.  Embracing that fact offers me a wealth of possibilities.  I believe that live performances can still have great value as well, so I want to distinguish between pieces that lend themselves to meaningful audience experiences and pieces that can be highly satisfying as a downloaded recording.  In other words, I have a purpose for doing what I do generally, and I have a purpose for each individual project.  Beyond that, it comes down to a matter of trust for the musicians and listeners that take over where my part in the process ends.