Category: Articles

Glenn Branca

Writing for guitars is only part of my work. Of my last 7 symphonies (7 through 13), 4 have been for guitars and 3 have been for orchestra. Actually I have written a number of orchestral pieces many of which have appeared on CD. In fact most of my symphonies have not been for conventional guitars at all. Numbers 2, 3, 4 and 5 were all for various keyboards and dulcimer-type instruments mainly. Of course I am aware of the fact that most people think of me in terms of guitars, but for 15 years now I have worked with a great variety of instrumentation including both standard tunings and various microtonal tunings for both acoustic and electric instruments in the context of small, large, and gigantic ensembles. In fact my early work, before I started a rock band in NYC in 1977, was mainly electro-acoustic and had no connection to rock or guitars whatsoever (music that I wrote for my Bastard Theatre and The Dubious Music Ensemble in Boston circa 1974-1976).

Yes, I love the sound of a loud rock band when it’s good. I also love the sound of an orchestra when it’s playing a great piece well. I’ve heard Mahler completely destroyed more than a couple times.

I’ve always treated my work with guitars, considering the obvious differences in timbre, range and volume, exactly the same as any other instrument.

Dean Suzuki Photo by Ryan Suzuki

After much grousing and bellyaching about the pathetic state of affairs at PBS, at least in their music and performing arts programming two columns ago, and the decline of music programming at public radio stations with the ever increasing all news and talk formats in a column sometime last year, a small, but significant ray of hope has flashed. Minnesota Public Radio in collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony has produced a 13-week radio series devoted to modern and contemporary American music entitled American Mavericks. As some of you already know, the series is underway in a few markets—it started as early as April of this year in some areas—but will enter most program schedules later this summer. If your local public radio has not yet scheduled this series, you and your comrades in arms would be well advised to call them and urge them to carry the series.

Using Michael Tilson Thomas‘s American Mavericks music festival under the auspices of the San Francisco Symphony as a kind of musical and aesthetic springboard, the series focuses on American iconoclasts and downtown types. The former includes Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, Edgard Varèse, as well as Ruth Crawford Seeger, George Antheil, and Carl Ruggles, not to mention John Cage, Morton Feldman, Lou Harrison, Harry Partch, and Conlon Nancarrow, while the latter includes the usual suspects: Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, John Adams, and Glenn Branca among others. One program is given over to jazz musicians and jazz inspired/inflected works by Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, William Grant Still, James P. Johnson, and John Zorn. Some may argue that Aaron Copland, David Del Tredici, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Joan Tower, and William Bolcom are hardly mavericks, yet their music also appears in the series. With information and contributions from the likes of new music champions and advocates Kyle Gann, Charles Amirkhanian, Vivian Perlis, and Tilson Thomas, you know that series will be provocative and fascinating.

While many NewMusicBox readers will already be familiar with much of the material presented in American Mavericks, the importance of this radio series is not that it preaches to the choir. Rather it reaches out to a new audience that might not otherwise have any contact with modernist and experimental music, American or otherwise. Like Ken Burns‘s public television series that have generated so much attention and acclaim, the producers of American Mavericks set out to reach a new audience for new music.

The producers very cleverly engaged singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega, who has long had an abiding interest in new music, to host and narrate the program. In interviews early in her career she often mentioned the influence of composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich in her work. Indeed, Glass later invited Vega to contribute lyrics to his song cycle, Songs from Liquid Days. Her easy going, down-to-earth manner is complemented by her intelligence, which makes for a great combo, a kind of pleasant, almost familiar gateway for new initiates into the world of experimental music. By choosing Vega, many listeners already familiar with her work, or at least her reputation, will identify with her as someone whose taste, integrity, and intelligence they admire, yet, at the same time, is rather like a peer, one not brought up in the world of classical music, but willing to help them navigate the rocky waters of music that is at times difficult and challenging.

The series is devoted largely to discussion of the music, featuring Vega’s narration and interviews with composers and musicians. A good deal of time is spent with Tilson Thomas who is very knowledgeable, articulate, engaging, and a fine raconteur (rather like Leonard Bernstein, though not quite as personable), as well as some archival material such as Cowell’s famed recollection of hearing Ruggles play the same dissonant chord over and over again, for minutes on end (he recalls fifteen minutes here, but other versions by Cowell suggest Ruggles hammering away at the same chord for over an hour), giving it “the test of time!” Music serves to capture the listener’s attention and then Vega and company discuss the composers and their work with the music serving as a backdrop.

Perhaps too much air-time on too many programs is devoted to the most popular composers such as Adams, Glass, Reich, or the towering figures, as well as ear-catching iconoclasts such as Ives, Cage, Partch and Nancarrow, at the expense of lesser known composers, but the program had to balance the need and desire to attract as wide an audience as possible, with depth and breadth.

To their credit, the producers have filled the gap somewhat with interviews available on the American Mavericks website with composers whose work has not had the tremendous exposure and acclaim as the aforementioned, helping to lead the way to a larger, more diverse, and more obscure cadre of musici
ans. Web interviews include those with Anthony Braxton, Wendy Mae Chambers, Ushio Torikai, John Morton, Henry Gwiazda, Alison Knowles, Nick Didkovsky, and Pamela Z, among others and are linked to specific themes of the various programs.

At the website there are opportunities for chatting, listening, and working with sound. As I write, one can play with a virtual Rhythmicon, an invention made by Leon Theremin in consultation with Henry Cowell to accommodate and make viable the then otherwise unperformable rhythmic constructs—polyrhythmic, polymetric, and beyond—dreamt up by the composer in his ground-breaking and very influential book New Musical Resources. One can also sample and “play” a substantial number of Partch’s gorgeous invented instruments. The rather cheesy graphics put the composer/builder himself in action on some of his instruments as you move your mouse or tap on your keyboard. I am not certain how well the sound is reproduced online (my tiny and chintzy speakers could not begin to replicate the subterranean tones of the Marimba Eroica), but where else can the intrepid performer play Partch’s one-of-a-kind instruments? A pioneer in spatial music, Ives left open a variety of possibilities for the realization of sound and its location in space in his gorgeous philosophical conundrum made music, The Unanswered Question. Those who log-on to the American Mavericks website can re-mix the work’s simulated surround sound to alter and sculpt acoustical space as was intended, at least conceptually, by the composer.

In the weeks ahead, you will be able to play a virtual version of Cage’s amplified cactus fitted with a contact microphone and sounded by plucking the needles. Another page will offer a gallery of instruments invented by Arthur K. Ferris (What? No Trimpin?? Admittedly, he’s Dutch, but he makes his home in Seattle.)

Additionally, the Web radio portion of the sit streams audio and offers dozens upon dozens of compositions by a wide range of composers, including many otherwise unavailable recordings of the San Francisco Symphony performing at the American Mavericks festivals and other concerts. For the neophytes, the styles are broken down into two broad categories: “Smooth” and “Crunchy.” There are also rare film clips, interviews, and artworks by and about the composers to peruse and investigate.

One caveat: A few factual errors, as well as subjective opinions presented as fact crop up from time to time. As many of you already know, Cage’s 4′ 33″ was not scored for piano as is clearly implied in the radio series (Vega states that the “keys” are not touched). Rather, Cage left the instrumentation undetermined. While David Tudor gave the work its premiere at the piano, it was not scored for the instrument, yet American Mavericks perpetuates the myth. No, Steve Reich did not study with Berio at Juilliard; instead, it was at Mills College in Oakland. And these cropped up in just the first installment of the series. One might suggest that it is petty to quibble over bits of trivia, but the producers and writers should have been more meticulous in their research.

Though it is a small step in the resurrection and re-institution of new music on the public airwaves, it is a significant and important step that hopefully will be followed up. On the one hand, American Mavericks is a bold and smart step on the part of Minnesota Public Radio and the San Francisco Symphony. The product and presentation is intelligent, listener friendly, provocative, thoughtful, and compelling. On the other hand, it is but a small gesture in the championing, proselytizing, and, yes, marketing of new music. American Mavericks just might open a door for experimental music in public broadcast media, but it is up to more producers and local music directors and programmers to step up to the plate and push the boundaries. At the very least, it is up to public broadcasting, especially radio, to offer up programming where the music discussed in American Mavericks can be heard. My desperate hope is that composers, musicians, producers, and music lovers will respond and that the public airwaves will accommodate more new music.

Daniel D’Quincy Photo from video by Brian Hoopes

On the New Art of Orchestral Simulation

Oh, ye gods! Have mercy for the innovators. What the world likes least is change, even when the status quo is widely held to be unsatisfactory. Better to go on and on, repeating endlessly all the age-old patterns of tired familiarity, rather than to entertain the possibility of something new. Can this be said more convincingly of any endeavor than that of classical music?

I propose in this article to ignore this caveat in order to discuss something that is both new and demonstrably unwelcome: i.e. the new digital art of orchestral simulation. Let’s be clear at the start, I am not referring to the common MIDI orchestration, nor even to the typical ersatz orchestrations that we hear ever more frequently from Hollywood. No. I refer instead to the emerging reality, and plainly evident potential, of a wholly new musical instrument, which we may henceforth call the “synthony“—an instrument capable of being played at the highest standards of artistic excellence.

This instrument is still in its developmental infancy. Yet, already, it has enabled me as a composer to present my orchestral works in recordings, which more than a few sophisticated musicians have actually mistaken for recordings of live orchestras. (Please note that the standard of comparison is the recording, not the live performance.) And, with these recordings, I have brought original new music before the public, at a fraction of the cost normally entailed, and with nary a thought for the political machinations ordinarily required.

One would think that, this being true, composers everywhere would be clamoring to learn more about the synthony. Quite the contrary is, in fact, the case. Over the course of more than a year, seeking support for my own continued research and development, I have tried to inform a great many musicians, composers, and academics about recent advances in digital music technology—advances that place orchestral simulation in an artistic category never before considered possible. Alas, the response has been underwhelming.

On the one hand, some responses simply turn a blind eye to the practical implications of this new technology. Time and again I have heard composers say that they love the sounds of real violins and clarinets (as if I do not), and that they would rather get a real symphony orchestra to play their compositions. Oh, yes, I think to myself, just run out and get a symphony orchestra. Why not? (And then, see if you can also obtain the rights to sell or broadcast the recording if you are fortunate enough to get a performance.)

Then, on the other hand, there are the responses that seem to view orchestral simulation as somehow outside the bounds of any respectable use of electronic instrumentation. I remember the late 1960s, when I was a student composer at a university that was one of the first to establish a studio for electronic music. In those years, only the unaccountable musical kooks of the world had any interest in electronic musical instruments, while most composers turned up their noses and asked, “But is it music?” Today, nearly every university in the land has an electronic music studio, but it is astonishing to discover how regimented the composers in these studios have become, and how ready they are to designate a new generation of kooks. Thus, over and over, one hears the same refrain: “I prefer to use electronic instruments to make sounds that the traditional instruments do not make.” It is difficult to imagine a more pointlessly self-imposed limitation, especially when one considers how the sounds of traditional instruments can be manipulated and employed by the synthony in ways that are utterly unthinkable outside of the electronic studio.

And I shall never forget the words of the “Master Artist” who directed the residency for composers that I attended last year at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, a conductor whose students had nothing in their satchels more recent than Stravinsky‘s Sacre. In his moment of greatest exasperation with me, with veins popping, he exclaimed, “Why can’t you use electronic instruments the way all the other electronic music composers are using them?”

These responses betray a breathtaking conventionality of thought, and a deplorable lack of imagination. But more importantly, they represent indefensible insouciance for the immense musical potential of the most significant new musical instrument of the modern era, i.e. the synthony. Moreover, they fail to recognize the larger context in which this development is taking place, which bodes very poorly for the future of classical music in general. With every passing year, the crisis in classical music has become more acute, and nothing is more central to the problem than the obstacles in the way of bringing new music before the public. Eugene Lehner, of the Kolisch Quartet and the Boston Symphony, recognized this fact in the mid-20th Century. He said that, if he had his way, young people would be introduced to classical music through the works of Webern, Bartók, and Boulez. One could then conceivably hope that the experience would stimulate them to look more deeply into the tradition to which these works belonged, and so listen to Mozart and Bach. He was ignored in that long ago, and his idea is still being ignored, but much to the detriment of the art and its future.

It seems unconscionable to me for composers to be inextricably wed, like abused spouses, to the institutions and methods that have served them so poorly through so many years. Composers bear primary responsibility for carrying the tradition of classical music into the future as a living art. We must justify and make real the ethos and ideals of classical music in the present cultural milieu. Can we afford to turn a blind eye to a technology that may facilitate this mission?

One can readily understand the reluctance of performers to countenance the development of an instrument for orchestral simulation. The recent strike on Broadway that threatened to replace live music with digital sound happened not in a vacuum, but in an environment that is increasingly and everywhere less and less patient with the financial burdens imposed by flesh and blood musicians. As a professional violinist for some thirty years, I think I understand their position very well.

But, as a composer, I have to face a reality imposed on me by the implacable demands of a historical process that cannot be halted any more than the tides. As a matter of historical fact, we know that instruments have come and gone in the course of our musical traditions. Viols and hautboys were replaced in their day by violins and oboes, and I personally know musicians in the domain of early music performance who still regard that fact with scorn and regret. But can they do anything about it?

The compromises to which composers assented during the last centur
y can hardly be considered anything but an impoverishment of the art. Where once the art of composition meant writing for the most part for the symphony orchestra, it became an exercise restricted almost entirely to small chamber ensembles. To compose for a consort of fifteen instruments—or “one of each” as it was charmingly called—was to indulge in almost frightful extravagance. Only when younger composers arrived on the scene who were willing to eschew the technical innovations that made much of the music of the first half of the century so compelling and, face it, so really alive with the spirit of the modern era, only then did we see a half-hearted recovery of orchestral composition. These composers were granted a more favorable reception in our symphony halls, and this stimulated more works. Their more “accessible” styles of composition were surely defensible on purely aesthetic grounds. But, should composers have been compelled to write in those styles simply in order to be heard? One would like to ask Shostakovich and Prokofiev this question (and not the Soviet Commissars who answered it for them). Here, in America, composers were asked to put the practical interests of the art above their purely aesthetic concerns. Budget-minded symphony directors could not be expected to let a thousand flowers bloom. Minimalism and neo-romanticism alone promised to save the day. But did they? And, when compromise fails even to achieve its ostensible end, is it not ignoble indeed?

It has been said that growing old is nothing more than a process of saying good-bye to everything one holds dear in the culture to which one was born. It distresses me as much as anybody to think, as I sometimes do in my darkest hours, that the symphony orchestra is doomed. Fortunately, nobody can tell the future with any real reliability. It is highly likely, however, that if the orchestra is to survive, it must adapt itself to the demands of the present. And this, apparently, it is little disposed to do apart from the ineffectual musical compromises referred to above. A half-century ago, Pierre Boulez put forward recommendations for innovation, which one reads today with a sense of the inherent futility of trying to reinvigorate the doughty old institution. But, as a composer devoted to the still thankfully living tradition of classical music, I see no alternative to innovation of various kinds.

One such innovation pertains to the demands of the newly emerging art of orchestral simulation. For technical reasons that I will not go into here, this new art is dependent on the willingness of orchestral musicians to record sounds suitable specifically for digital manipulation in the electronic music studio. It is a great pity that orchestral musicians tend to regard any activity of this sort as beneath their dignity, if not actually unethical. Were they to view the matter in a different light, they could, with the sale of these recordings, substantially augment the income of the orchestra and thereby further its prospects for survival. And in doing this, they would at the same time enhance the art of orchestral simulation, making it a more viable option for living composers. This would lead to a renaissance of composition for the symphony orchestra. I can envision a time when a profusion of new works heard by the public at first in superior orchestral simulations will result in demands to hear the same works performed by living orchestras in symphony halls. What better way to insure that a new work will be warmly received by the audience? This could resolve once and for all the dilemma faced by orchestra directors who quite understandably fear the uncertainties of performing unfamiliar works. At last they would have a reasonable excuse for sticking to the tried and true, without at the same time harming the interests of living composers upon whom the ultimate fate of the art depends.

This article is a call to composers and performing musicians, as well as those who support the musical arts, to wake up to their own share in the so-called digital revolution. A blanket refusal by musicians to participate in these developments is, under the circumstances, to be like the man who cuts his nose to spite his face.

Self-portrait by Jerry Gerber

A looming debate in the electronic music community has been, for some time now, whether one should stick to timbres that can only be produced by computers, software, and synthesizers or whether all sounds are fair game, particularly digital samples of acoustic instruments. The answer for me is quite clear: Both approaches are legitimate uses of technology, and once again, as in all mediums, it boils down to the aesthetic, talent, and skills of the musician using the technology.

The advances in digital sampling of acoustic instruments has leaped forward with such amazing speed that whatever doubts lingered around five years ago regarding the digital orchestra can now be put to rest: 24-bit recording, higher sampling rates, better analog-to-digital conversion, multi-dynamic sampling, chromatic sampling, and the capacity to do away with looping because memory constraints are no longer an issue have all contributed to the ever-increasing musical usefulness of sampled sounds.

A few months back I was sent a CD from SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic

Music in the United States) and was blown away at the amazing creativity and innovation of some of the pieces on the CD (some were also terrible I must admit). The ones that worked are obviously composed by musicians who ascribe to the side of the debate that believe all (or most) sounds must be created in the studio and that acoustic-based samples have no place in this approach. That is all well and good, and I see the value in what that aesthetic puts forth, but it isn’t my way. I myself am a “harmony addict.” I require harmony and melody in my music and am unwilling to abandon it to the art of sound design, which, for the most part, uses sounds of indefinite pitch and non-whole integer harmonics. Though I appreciate work coming from this perspective, my approach to using the technology involves not abandoning the aesthetic principles that I value, which include melodic and harmonic interest.

Does the virtual orchestra simply imitate the acoustic one? Yes and no is my answer. Yes, in the sense that the principles of orchestral balance, blend, weight and transparency still apply. This is a function of orchestration, but also is a function of engineering and mastering. Whereas in the acoustic orchestra the conductor must interpret the composer’s intentions with faithfulness and precision, in the virtual orchestra this becomes the job of the mixing engineer and the mastering engineer. In my music I often use electronic non-acoustic based sounds mixed with digital samples of acoustic sounds. In some movements or works I don’t make much use of the non-acoustic sounds because I am focused on other elements. The piece I am sending is in this category although other movements of this work make liberal use of non-acoustically based timbres. But the answer is also no in the sense that the acoustic orchestra is more of a “jumping-off point” in which the concept of instrument families (winds, brass, strings, percussion, voice, electronics) is useful, but the actual orchestration techniques vary greatly because of the strengths and weaknesses of this new medium. In other words, digital orchestration involves a very different approach to texture, dynamics, gesture, phrasing, and expression. What can be expressed physically in the traditional orchestra is now entirely conceptual.

Dave Holland Photo by Laurence

When I arrange for an ensemble, I think both about the instruments and the specific players. I might choose a certain instrumentation but then I think about the personal sound each musician makes and consider that when I am orchestrating. I also like to write to feature the style and sound of a musician.

When I am orchestrating I consider what instrument(s) and player(s) in the band would be the best suited to express that musical idea. Certainly, there are times when a musical line is best expressed by a certain instrument. Sometimes the melody is conceived for a particular instrument and/or player. Other times, I consider various possibilities before making a decision.

For the big band I wanted to have the classic sections of trumpets, trombones, saxes, and a rhythm section. I wanted to make the band big enough to achieve the powerful sound of a big band, but small enough to give it flexibility and versatility. I want all the musicians to be featured in a personal way. Within the big band there are many possible combinations from 1 to 13. I like to be able to vary the combinations. I’m still learning about the possibilities. Having such a great group of musicians to write for is a wonderful thing. They make such a great sound individually and collectively.

Maria Schneider Photo by David Korchin

I approach composing and orchestrating for big band in a way that might be considered unusual. Instead of delineating each section, I try to dissolve the obviousness of sections. I look at the band as a chamber group having limitless solo or combined possibilities.

There’s far more than the obvious 13 winds when one considers that trumpets can play flugelhorns and that the all the brass have many possibilities for mutes that can be used in any combination, and that the reeds have many possibilities for doubles. Then there’s the guitar, piano, bass, and drums that I see not just as providers of rhythm and harmony, but also as contributors of color to line and harmony.

When one approaches the big band that way, it can become a very flexible, subtle and dynamic ensemble. The mutes and doubles can be used in different combinations of 1 to 13 or more people. The possibilities are endless, especially when one goes even further to account for all the various individual sounds of the orchestra members. When you start to mix those colors across sections, rather that writing melodic or harmonic ideas within one section, or start to mix a trumpet with a wind or two, against a backdrop of another mixture of contrasting color instead of the more usual brass in opposition to the reeds, you start to find a multitude of unique colors coming in different degrees of opaqueness or translucence. If one adds to that the coloristic influence of harmony and melody, then the possibilities become truly endless.

Usually the big band is approached as if the sections are three primary colors. That makes for a more traditional and very effective sound to be sure. But I’m starting from a different vantage point. Sometimes I come back to unite sections, but more often than not, I’m attracted to searching for sounds one would never imagine could come from a big band.

Carl Stone Photo by David Agasi

I love choral music, ever since the age of two. The first present I remember ever receiving, and one of my best loved, was a recorded collection—of 45 rpm discs no less—of Japanese children’s songs, sung by a chorus of elementary school students. Although now much too timeworn to be playable, I still cherish the disc itself fondly and remember the songs.

I love choral music. If I were stranded in the South Pacific, my list of Desert Island discs—well, these days it might be a Desert Island iPod list—would include Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis, the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir, and Ligeti‘s Lux Aeterna right at the top. There is nothing more expressive than the human voice, and if one voice is beautiful, is not a group of them even more so?

I love choral music but have written none. Why is that? I would welcome the opportunity. Although recent commissions for string quartet, solo piano, and even baroque ensemble belie the fact, as a composer whose output is at least 90% of the time music which I perform myself using computer-based electronics, perhaps I have been type-cast a bit. I would be thrilled if some forward-looking choral director were to ask me for a piece.