Doug Barrett
Hey
Travis Just
good morning
DB
how's everything?
TJ
fantastic, you?
DB
did you make a cappuccino or an espresso?
not bad
still caffeinating
TJ
first the first, then the second.
what shall we talk about? you threatened that you had notes...
DB
haha
well, i've been going over the notes from our last conversation—by the way, will Kara be joining us?—along with nearly your entire oeuvre...
at least the three pieces i have dvd documentation for
TJ
no, actually...and maybe i wasn’t clear about this...i wanted to have a skype chat not related to that article. talk just you and me about your music, mine, whatever.
sorry if that wasn’t what you expected. we can certainly do something with kara next time
DB
no, no totally fine...
TJ
i did some chats with composers a couple of years ago and wanted to get back into it. kara is going to do some as well.
we think blogs are going to be really hot in 2011...bigger than twitter...
DB
haha
a bit scary
i'm sure you're right
TJ
do you want to talk about the diapason experience?
DB
hmm, well i'm still trying to digest it i think...
TJ
your piece or the entire show/its environment, reception etc...
?
DB
more or less all of the above
did you have any thoughts or eager questions about it?
TJ
how about the piece...D.E.E.D....how did it go after the initial performance?
DB
well, everything actually came together quite well: out of everything that could have gone wrong, it ended up ok; the video recording part worked and then i set up the monitor and plugged the camera in and it worked as a video piece...maybe you wanna talk more about the reception? or a reading of it or something?
TJ
[Doug Barrett’s Violin Tuned D.E.E.D. is a historical revision of Bruce Nauman’s Violin Tuned D.E.A.D. (1969), performed by violinist Tom Chiu and installed as a video work at
Diapason Gallery, as part of “Non-Cochlear Sound”, curated by Seth Kim-Cohen, http://noncochlearsound.com]
DB
;)
TJ
pretty fucking official, right? take that Condé Nast
i am interested in the pragmatic things first off actually...i had to leave the performance because of the environment it was happening in. i was curious whether the sound of the party made it onto the video's audio track
DB
oh yes, it did and that was the intention. at least as i saw it, to inject a kind of (pseudo-)concert situation into an otherwise "gallery" context ("gallery" because diapason also hosts performance events, experimental music and the like); more important was how that situation—with its own set of social factors comes into contact with the art opening environment, all as part of this re-framing, re-imagining of the nauman work.
and to answer your question, the sound of the party/opening did make it onto the sound track—was funny, i got an email back from david kant, "by the way, i can hear you talking"
TJ
it was a very different environment in many ways, physically, culturally, etc...
how has the piece been received?
DB
i think it was well-received, at least a few people remarked that they thought it was interesting...had several conversations during the performance (obviously, with david's remark), and then some while it was installed.
TJ
it seemed like every parameter of the original piece was inverted: a skilled violinist instead of someone who can't play; a crowded, very informal 'art-world' opening instead of an austere empty space; a sense of productivity and outward looking instead of narcissism and 'end-of-art'...
and didn’t you turn the video screen as well?
DB
i guess there was a bit of tension there too; like i wasn't sure how to treat that: in a normal 'concert' setting i would never talk over a performance, especially my own piece. but somehow in this case it seemed ok.
oh, hmm, that's an interesting way to put it, inversion. i tended to think of it as somewhere between plagiarism and détournement, but the idea of it as an inversion i think is appropriate as well. there's a definite emphasis on the shifted social context—the solipsistic artist’s studio-turned art opening/concert environment, along with the latter’s unique set of contingencies and variables
TJ
it is an interesting place to locate a performance, especially since that world has become shut-off to musical practices for decades now. there are complications and questions that go along with it of course.
DB
and i did turn the video screen, in a sense to re-erect what the nauman piece pronounces dead...at least with respect to music’s actional dimension, its relation to lived, musical labor...
TJ
i suppose another iteration could have Tom playing lying down
DB
hehe, i think that was actually his proposal for Mike Kelly's version of the piece for Performa '09
TJ
snap.
DB
stretched out over two chairs...for an hour
TJ
that's the david blaine proposal...
DB
haha
but he would have been frozen in a block of ice of course
or over a pit of burning coals
TJ
so do you have more pieces in this direction? it is an interesting shift from 'sound art' as it has been done recently (digital crowd-interaction, physical objects that reference sound, improv in museums...)
DB
well, i've been interested in two avenues i lately: work that has more installation-like components, that might have an iteratable component imagined for gallery events, and then trying to conceive of the performance evening (the "concert") as a form—putting together pieces and situations based around certain ideas
an example of the latter being the event i did for your series at the incubator arts project. and i have some more ideas that follow from this
TJ
essentially a break between something with a duration/change over time and something static or repeatable?
DB
oh, hmm, i wouldn't say that the structures are exclusive in that sense—maybe it's more practical to use a "loop" for an installation, let's say, but i don't see why it can't be ever-changing like a concert
(if that's what you meant?)
TJ
i think there is a structural difference, from a musical point of view, which is interesting.
at least in how it is presented which to me anyway is exactly parallel to how it is perceived
DB
the presentation context then determining or paralleling the structure of its contents?
TJ
no, the content is irrelevant here. presentation paralleling the perception or reception. the content can be anything of course. it's a ping-pong ball against a wall basically, not a line from artist to audience/viewer. it's like that dumb scene in Forrest Gump. just keeps bouncing back, the same as when it was sent out.
DB
ok, so a certain kind of reception modality. it doesn't alter reception/perception per se?
TJ
i guess what i'm saying is that any sort of content can work in either context and that what seems to me to create the difference is the arena or method in which it is presented. though often the details of these environment are left to happenstance to an extent.
DB
and "either context" meaning a concert or opening?
TJ
yes, or using my earlier terms: dynamic or static.
DB
oh, ok. but i've been wondering, and i'm interested to hear your thoughts, is there some kind of unique kernel of this bizarre social gathering we call concert? i don't want to essentialize what a concert is (there's no reason we can't think of listening to a recording with headphones as a kind of private performance, for instance), but i wonder if there's just something that happens there that has its own weird set of dynamics—and these can work independently of the actual structures of the site's "content", static or moving
TJ
i have thought for a while that it simply has to do with the act of naming it. once language has been applied to something, in this era when anything can be done in any situation, then the residues of that language are in full effect. i have found that operating under these assumptions has been more interesting and productive than trying to define and diagnose a situation as a 'concert' or an 'opera' or 'music'.
maybe that is my naivete though. being a sucker and willing to take people at their word..
DB
that's an important component though, the naming involved. it seems like yours and kara's work presents some interesting questions with respect to this, particularly because you do make "operas" and music and do concerts (by the way, do you think of them as "operas" or operas?) the language thing, this kind of underlying premising function, is powerful...(i'm even prone not to use terms like "concert", often preferring "evening of performances")
(but then again there is language there, in a virtual sense, even when terms like these are not employed)
TJ
it's a question of frame, isn't it? again, content is irrelevant. whether you call it a 'concert' or an 'evening of performances', the same pieces are performed. operas or 'operas'...we decided on the former (and there was a discussion, still ongoing). it seemed more direct to leave the quotation marks, if they existed, to the individuals. i am more interested in what is gained, what is forced, rather than what is lost. production is more compelling than lack, and i think necessary in the artistic climate these days.
DB
—i have in my notes something from the interview with you and kara, "What to do when you're stuck in a system based on productivity: out-produce."
TJ
i cribbed that from Sande Cohen of course. but yes, that is a mantra we have had for years now.
DB
:) yes, a question of frame. i think at the present moment there's a big problem that lies in the re-articulation of such frames. in the sense that one must not essentialize or erect a kind of monolithic autonomy around what it is to make concerts, music (or operas?), but salvage something of those traditions by showing their inherent alterity, non-selfsameness...to show how they operate within and against other media, situations, cultural contexts
that for me is why i choose the "evening of performances" as a way to re-see the concert
TJ
certainly, and that idea i think is mirrored in the content of kara's writing.
you know, lachenmann wrote about his music as the last gasp of orchestral writing at the same time that cage was producing Song Books. i guess i have always been drawn to the latter.
i see DEAD vs DEED in this context as well.
except cage was 40 years ahead of his time as usual.
your reaction to the Song Books show last week was interesting
DB
interesting. what in kara's writing are you thinking of (i read a little of the script to Evoke Memories of a Golden Age last night)?
as far as lachenmann and cage that's funny, when i met lachenmann in buffalo one thing that he said was, "when i was a student this (points to a work of webern) was not considered music. what i tell all of my students is not to make music. make a 'sounding situation' or something. but don't make music." i wouldn't ordinarily think of lachenmann (presently at least) as not making music, but in a way it's kind of good advice. perhaps whereas that was good advice, Song Books was good action...
DEAD vs. DEED as far as context?
TJ
DEAD vs DEED as far as articulating this difference
when i met lachenmann he was railing against 'high' vs 'low' music. a shocking display of conservatism for an old communist.
or maybe not....that's a different conversation ;)
maybe that's the difference: deeds not words (or DEEDs)
it's like the art criticism you come across...the most fantastic, forward-looking ideas are represented in this criticism by completely reactionary artwork: Barthes/Boulez, Lehmann's 'Postdramatic theater' and its suburban-german Stadttheater expression...
DB
yeah, the Song Books show was great, and my reaction i think has more to do with what i'm interested in at the moment: using music or performance to push even further a politicized statement, whether that "violates" the work or not (i like this german word, Musikmissgebrauch, from Christian von Borries); again détournement, but maybe one in which the initial revolutionary impulse is revered precisely by its recontextualization, re-imagining...
i remember lachenmann saying something similar in buffalo i think...
actions/property and not text? i'd imagine that the articulation is a medial one, an intervention producing a way of seeing (in the sense of visibility) "the musical"?
TJ
a musicalization of Nauman? someone should do that to that awful piece that was in MoMA the last few months.
DB
oh, the days of the week piece?
TJ
yes
DB
i admit, i was pretty underwhelmed by it
TJ
so, it seemed, was Nauman
there does seem to be a scraping of the bottom of the barrel of that 60s generation going on.
wringing the last bits of life from anything that can be found.
DB
but nauman is a brilliant genius...sometimes
TJ
agreed
maybe i prefer stupid genius though....
DB
re: musicalization of Nauman: or a Naumanization of music. it's a way of re-seeing something historically, which re-articulates something presently, a relationality...
TJ
right, very much in tune with object collection's operas/concerts/etc
DB
opening something up that was never exactly closed. to see, envision a musical practice that intersects with this particular mode of 60s video performance...not that video performance and musical practices have been or should have ever been separated, but somehow perhaps we've forgotten how richly intertwined things like that once were?
TJ
the presence of the video seemed almost incidental to me, not in a negative way though. the focus seemed to me to be back on the activity, back on the action/deed. the video was necessarily present of course, but its self-fascination with its tactile presence was erased or ignored. this appears to be the best way to work with technology and such things: as fact instead of as surface.
DB
the operas of yours and kara's as a similar kind of re-articulation?
that's interesting, especially given this explicit (again) death opera has supposedly suffered (death part II according to Žižek and Mladen Dolar's book)
TJ
haven't read it unfortunately...to paraphrase a dead 60s icon: opera isn't dead if i say it isn’t
DB
sounds pretty diva-ish. i like it
TJ
i didn't even invent the re-articulation of it. and that sums up the situation today, particularly in new york. in many ways new york is filled with corpses.
DB
...and yet there is still this incessant labor, still musicians and artists producing, working
TJ
well that is the flip side of it. but that incessant labor is all but ignored by everyone who isn't directly involved with it. the fixation on past glories is astonishing, the backwards-looking... this is particularly noticeable in people from out of town, but it infects the city itself.
DB
right, the kind of historical spectacle-fetish
TJ
geriatric star-fucking was a term jenny walshe and i had for it
DB
haha
TJ
but that was after a night of drinking
DB
well one day we'll all have our little black books published somewhere ;)
conducted over internet chat October 15, 2010, Brooklyn, NY.
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
2.11.2008
Jennifer Walshe interview 2.6.2008
Travis Just
good morning jenny
Jennifer Walshe
ok!
TJ
this is a continuing adventure getting this to work
JW
well seems to be going now!
TJ
so...what shall we talk about? i guess a good first question last time was: is there anything that is on your mind (musically or otherwise) these days?
JW
well at the moment i'm in the midst of this big alter ego project, so i suppose what is on my mind a lot is trying to get away from habit.
TJ
yeah, it's interesting that you created 11 non-existent entities to get away from habit. (can we refer to them without giving anything away?)
JW
yes we can refer to them, that's fine. i think part of the issue for me is that i think even with free improvisation (or sometimes especially with free improvisation) there is this problem of falling back on habits, of tricks to get out of certain situations, of certain sounds and sound spaces....
TJ
how do you differentiate those habits from the compositional ones? is it just a question of time/consideration?
JW
what do you mean?
TJ
well there are physical/reactive habits in improvisation and composition doesn't happen on the fly (for me anyway...)
JW
yes, certainly i think that there are physical/reactive habits in improvisation, i also think that when you play with different people more and more you discover that there are compositional or what you might even call structural habits, or developmental habits to do with the material that everyone has, and so i can understand from this perspective why cage was against improvisation, because while opening yourself up to everything allows for the possibility of something you've never heard/done before, it also allows for the possibility of you to keep doing what is comfortable/habitual.
TJ
that's true, the interesting thing for me in that was the pseudo-moral stance that came with it. I mean it's a very human thing to do and it isn't clear that one way of working (composition/improvisation) results in greater changeability. But we don't have to turn this into a “C” vs. “I” discussion...although you are uniquely qualified for such a discussion...
JW
no, i think i share your view also, in that when i first read cage talking about improvisation i thought the same thing, that it seemed a bit patronizing or moralist, but then after a few years of improvising and getting to understand more how the process happens in the moment you start to realize that it is a trap that is sometimes easy to fall into. and also i must say that going to performances of cage's music can also cause this problem - if you leave your score open to chance, if you offer the performer that power, you can often end up with the exact same problem. i've sat through many a cage concert where the performance had the same quality as a bad improvisation concert....
TJ
that's true. I sometimes feel that way listening to Sciarrino or something, even when I like the music.
JW
why do you say sciarrino?
TJ
dunno, a widely performed modern composer with an established performance practice I suppose?
could have been anyone, even myself
JW
i see what you mean. at the moment i'm listening to sciarrino's lohengrin and i just think it is stunningly beautiful...
TJ
what is it that appeals to you?
JW
in the lohengrin i think it's this sense of being inside somebody's head. it's this opera that seems utterly private and close to you.
TJ
that's a unique quality for something that uses such large forces and that kind of cultural arena.
what do you think about the term "opera", you've used it a couple of times.
JW
i think opera is a grand term, and i mean that in the sense of largesse. when you go to an opera at an opera house, you feel like you're watching a hollywood film - they have all the money, power, talent to put on this huge show. but because of the nature of the opera house, the performers are usually miles away from you (i am presuming here i'm in the cheap seats). and so there is this distance. and i know they can try and get around that with video, amplification, etc, but what i like about the lohengrin is that it feels close to you, which is a very special quality. opera i think is an interesting term. i've written 3 operas [XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!!, set phasers on kill! and Motel Abandon], and i call them all operas, but sometimes i do think are they better termed as music theatre pieces...
TJ
yeah, this difference I'm not sure has been made clear here in the States.
JW
where do you draw the line though? when i wrote the barbie opera [XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!I], i was very consciously placing it in the context of opera history. it's a marionette opera - mozart and haydn wrote them - it has characters, a story with a clear classical narrative arc, is in three acts. and of course it takes that and messes around with it by using barbie dolls instead of singers, but it was important to me to think of it as an opera rather than a music theatre piece.
TJ
yeah, sometimes the terminology doesn't reflect the ideas we're working on at the moment of course. There is something about the term 'opera' that just screams "the Past" to me though. And I say this as I am working on my first. It was hard to decide to use that word for me.
JW
that's exactly why i wanted to use it, because it is so loaded. and that's why i have pieces which i call operas and other pieces which i call music theatre pieces. when it's an opera, it knows it's "An Opera" and it's aware of what's going on by being called an opera, and dealing with the past. because if you run away completely from opera, to me that seems a little like a film-maker running away from film and calling all their films videos. also maybe on one level it has to do with who commissions it and where it is being performed - the second opera i wrote [set phasers on kill!] was commissioned by an opera production company and premiered in the hamburg staatsoper, so there was never any question at any point about whether it was an opera or not. we had the full opera house treatment with all the trimmings (people to help us get dressed). but the opera i wrote after that [Motel Abandon] was for three people and it was dogme 95 style opera in an apartment in berlin, and it was important to me to still call it opera. otherwise it's like saying that you can never write one, that it opera is always in the hands of these massively-funded organizations.
TJ
that's true. i mean it's already an act of outrageous insolence in our culture to call oneself an artist. the decision to define these terms for ourselves as composers isn't that much further along that road.
JW
i think you just have to decide to use the terms and not let them be taken away from you.
TJ
how does the music-theater idea work itself into your music? does that mean something in particular in your thinking?
JW
music theatre is just how i think. the cage quote which i use again and again is "what next? theatre. because we have eyes as well as ears." you can't divorce the theatrical/scenic element from the sonic in a performance unless you are brought to the theatre in a hermetically sealed car, manage not to see/hear/smell/touch anything prior to the concert, and then leave immediately without even listening to the applause. you listen to mahler 2 on CD, and it's great. then you go to carnegie hall and you see all the brass players shuffling and re-arranging themselves just before they come crashing in with a huge chord, you see the choir sitting there all quietly waiting til they come in, and it's amazing and exciting. i think a lot of the interest in the theatrical and visual elements comes from two sources for me - one is that my mother is a writer, and when i was growing up she considered beckett, pinter, tennessee williams and other playwrights an important part of my education. another important factor for me is that i was a trumpet player for a long time, and when you play in an orchestras a lot, you look around constantly, you are very aware of what is going on visually. you know when people are nervous, you know when they're about to play loud or soft, you know when they haven't practiced, you know when they are nailing it, you know how different it can sound in heldenleben when the first violinist is having an affair with the first horn.
TJ
right, the difference seems to be that now we work with those ideas directly in the score. instead of having those be (probably undesired) accidents or exceptions, they become specified material that is written in or given explicit space. At some point, something changed.
JW
i make a differentiation in my work - there's the type of music theatre pieces where people are doing certain theatrical things, along a continuum from explicitly playing a role through to perhaps making simple scenic gestures like building blocks in between phrases. then there's instrumental theatre, which is very involved with the performers being performers. and so i end up in these situations where i write scores which are very complex, where the notation of everything from breathing, gesture, when the pages of the part are turned, when a brass-player releases their spit valve is all locked down. [they could laugh smile]
TJ
i guess one question is, what keeps it music as opposed to performance or text? does it matter even? at what point could you simply take away the brass-player and still have a music-piece?
i mean, musicians aren't the best actors always...
JW
i'll answer your questions in order - the first one is what i think people find very problematic. is it still music if the performer doesn't play for a while and reads text? it is if it's called music. is it still music if the trombonist makes air sounds instead of pitched sounds? is it still music if the piano is prepared? i think if you call it music it is, otherwise we'd all be writing for classical ensembles, with no microphones, pitched and traditionally notated music. with the instrumental theatre pieces i write, i'm not trying to get the performers to act, which gets around the problem of musicians not always being actors. i'm just bringing gestures that are a part of performing for them into the piece. it's very normal when you're a brass player to position and re-position your mutes on the floor next to your chair. but when you get someone to do that over and over in a performance, it becomes something else.
TJ
one of the things that I find so interesting in your work is that there isn't an insistence that all of the music necessarily have a sonic element. meaning it can be the re-positioning of mutes for 2 minutes or something. and yet, there is never a question to me that it is an extraordinarily musical situation. (and of course there are all of those pieces that DO work with pitches/rhythms/etc...)
JW
well it makes sense to me that a musician will reposition mutes, and that watching that is a musical experience!
TJ
i don't know if this will be off-topic, or interesting, but how are you finding it spending all of this time in...perhaps even becoming a resident of, New York and the States? Of course you studied in Chicago, but a great deal of your work has been over in Europe.
JW
it's interesting being here. i see the same people i see in europe, everybody seems to pass through new york at one time or another. the funding structure is very different to europe, and a lot of people here have to be very focused on getting their work out because it's not quite as easy as europe (not that its easy anywhere). there's good and bad things about this...
TJ
i suppose 'europe' is a bit reductive, it's a big place...
JW
it is, and it's very different wherever you go...
i mean, how do you find the shuttling back and forth between berlin and here? what would make you go/stay?
TJ
it's hard to say for myself. i go where there is work and interest. right now there are more opportunities for me in new york so I am here more. the lifestyle question is another thing. also, it's hard to be a perpetual outsider for me, sometimes I just really really want to talk about the Mets.
do you find a different audience or different set of expectations for your work? from the musicians even?
JW
i can understand the not wanting to feel like an outsider! i think for me i just want space to work, and that involves a lot of factors. at the moment it's great living here, and in doing concerts in the city it's nice not to have to travel or get on a plane to do them. but i think wherever i go it's the same community to a large extent - there are always new people that you meet but you end up working with people that you will have something in common with, and that usually means that it's part of the community. we're not such a huge global community that everyone is still hidden, and that's great because you always feels connected. i think i would have to go to somewhere very remote like patagonia or borneo to feel that i was meeting people i didn't already know, hadn't already heard their music or even played with them. especially now with the web people have more and more access to what is going on.
TJ
that's true, but there is something different between the web-world and actually being on the street, dealing with the venues, rehearsing with musicians from different places. I find that places are actually quite different and that the world isn't as flat as it's supposed to be. I mean loading into a gig in New York is quite different than loading in to a gig in Berlin. This maybe ties into the extra-sonic elements you were describing earlier in reference to music-theater.
JW
you're right, it is completely different, and the people are different and the streets, the smells, the light are completely different. i find here in new york there are lots of possibilities to play, often for little or no money, and that does change the way i work. it's quite liberating because you view the experience differently - i view it as a chance to try out new works, to try new things, experiment. i don't mean that i don't give time and thought to what i'm doing, but instead that the gigs can become absorbed into the larger compositional process. most of the concerts i do in europe are of commissions, where everything needs to be very polished and so you do not try out things in the incubative phase, you want the end product. incidentally, i was talking to a friend last night who told me a story about a swiss composer who was here on a grant booking a gig in philadelphia at a place that wasn't actually a proper venue - they had a fake web site which made them sound like a university-affiliated institute. he was saying how if the swiss composer had lived in philly or had friends there he would have known what the story was. instead he turned up and was completely shocked to be playing for 5 people in an unheated garage in the middle of winter. so knowing the context is always important!
TJ
i think i might know those guys in philly...context is indeed important
JW
at the end of the day you just want to be somewhere with space and time to work, with an environment that is conducive to that...
TJ
yeah, well we're glad to have you on our turf for a while.
thanks very much for the conversation
JW
thanks to you too!
conducted online, 2.6.2008
good morning jenny
Jennifer Walshe
ok!
TJ
this is a continuing adventure getting this to work
JW
well seems to be going now!
TJ
so...what shall we talk about? i guess a good first question last time was: is there anything that is on your mind (musically or otherwise) these days?
JW
well at the moment i'm in the midst of this big alter ego project, so i suppose what is on my mind a lot is trying to get away from habit.
TJ
yeah, it's interesting that you created 11 non-existent entities to get away from habit. (can we refer to them without giving anything away?)
JW
yes we can refer to them, that's fine. i think part of the issue for me is that i think even with free improvisation (or sometimes especially with free improvisation) there is this problem of falling back on habits, of tricks to get out of certain situations, of certain sounds and sound spaces....
TJ
how do you differentiate those habits from the compositional ones? is it just a question of time/consideration?
JW
what do you mean?
TJ
well there are physical/reactive habits in improvisation and composition doesn't happen on the fly (for me anyway...)
JW
yes, certainly i think that there are physical/reactive habits in improvisation, i also think that when you play with different people more and more you discover that there are compositional or what you might even call structural habits, or developmental habits to do with the material that everyone has, and so i can understand from this perspective why cage was against improvisation, because while opening yourself up to everything allows for the possibility of something you've never heard/done before, it also allows for the possibility of you to keep doing what is comfortable/habitual.
TJ
that's true, the interesting thing for me in that was the pseudo-moral stance that came with it. I mean it's a very human thing to do and it isn't clear that one way of working (composition/improvisation) results in greater changeability. But we don't have to turn this into a “C” vs. “I” discussion...although you are uniquely qualified for such a discussion...
JW
no, i think i share your view also, in that when i first read cage talking about improvisation i thought the same thing, that it seemed a bit patronizing or moralist, but then after a few years of improvising and getting to understand more how the process happens in the moment you start to realize that it is a trap that is sometimes easy to fall into. and also i must say that going to performances of cage's music can also cause this problem - if you leave your score open to chance, if you offer the performer that power, you can often end up with the exact same problem. i've sat through many a cage concert where the performance had the same quality as a bad improvisation concert....
TJ
that's true. I sometimes feel that way listening to Sciarrino or something, even when I like the music.
JW
why do you say sciarrino?
TJ
dunno, a widely performed modern composer with an established performance practice I suppose?
could have been anyone, even myself
JW
i see what you mean. at the moment i'm listening to sciarrino's lohengrin and i just think it is stunningly beautiful...
TJ
what is it that appeals to you?
JW
in the lohengrin i think it's this sense of being inside somebody's head. it's this opera that seems utterly private and close to you.
TJ
that's a unique quality for something that uses such large forces and that kind of cultural arena.
what do you think about the term "opera", you've used it a couple of times.
JW
i think opera is a grand term, and i mean that in the sense of largesse. when you go to an opera at an opera house, you feel like you're watching a hollywood film - they have all the money, power, talent to put on this huge show. but because of the nature of the opera house, the performers are usually miles away from you (i am presuming here i'm in the cheap seats). and so there is this distance. and i know they can try and get around that with video, amplification, etc, but what i like about the lohengrin is that it feels close to you, which is a very special quality. opera i think is an interesting term. i've written 3 operas [XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!!, set phasers on kill! and Motel Abandon], and i call them all operas, but sometimes i do think are they better termed as music theatre pieces...
TJ
yeah, this difference I'm not sure has been made clear here in the States.
JW
where do you draw the line though? when i wrote the barbie opera [XXX_LIVE_NUDE_GIRLS!!I], i was very consciously placing it in the context of opera history. it's a marionette opera - mozart and haydn wrote them - it has characters, a story with a clear classical narrative arc, is in three acts. and of course it takes that and messes around with it by using barbie dolls instead of singers, but it was important to me to think of it as an opera rather than a music theatre piece.
TJ
yeah, sometimes the terminology doesn't reflect the ideas we're working on at the moment of course. There is something about the term 'opera' that just screams "the Past" to me though. And I say this as I am working on my first. It was hard to decide to use that word for me.
JW
that's exactly why i wanted to use it, because it is so loaded. and that's why i have pieces which i call operas and other pieces which i call music theatre pieces. when it's an opera, it knows it's "An Opera" and it's aware of what's going on by being called an opera, and dealing with the past. because if you run away completely from opera, to me that seems a little like a film-maker running away from film and calling all their films videos. also maybe on one level it has to do with who commissions it and where it is being performed - the second opera i wrote [set phasers on kill!] was commissioned by an opera production company and premiered in the hamburg staatsoper, so there was never any question at any point about whether it was an opera or not. we had the full opera house treatment with all the trimmings (people to help us get dressed). but the opera i wrote after that [Motel Abandon] was for three people and it was dogme 95 style opera in an apartment in berlin, and it was important to me to still call it opera. otherwise it's like saying that you can never write one, that it opera is always in the hands of these massively-funded organizations.
TJ
that's true. i mean it's already an act of outrageous insolence in our culture to call oneself an artist. the decision to define these terms for ourselves as composers isn't that much further along that road.
JW
i think you just have to decide to use the terms and not let them be taken away from you.
TJ
how does the music-theater idea work itself into your music? does that mean something in particular in your thinking?
JW
music theatre is just how i think. the cage quote which i use again and again is "what next? theatre. because we have eyes as well as ears." you can't divorce the theatrical/scenic element from the sonic in a performance unless you are brought to the theatre in a hermetically sealed car, manage not to see/hear/smell/touch anything prior to the concert, and then leave immediately without even listening to the applause. you listen to mahler 2 on CD, and it's great. then you go to carnegie hall and you see all the brass players shuffling and re-arranging themselves just before they come crashing in with a huge chord, you see the choir sitting there all quietly waiting til they come in, and it's amazing and exciting. i think a lot of the interest in the theatrical and visual elements comes from two sources for me - one is that my mother is a writer, and when i was growing up she considered beckett, pinter, tennessee williams and other playwrights an important part of my education. another important factor for me is that i was a trumpet player for a long time, and when you play in an orchestras a lot, you look around constantly, you are very aware of what is going on visually. you know when people are nervous, you know when they're about to play loud or soft, you know when they haven't practiced, you know when they are nailing it, you know how different it can sound in heldenleben when the first violinist is having an affair with the first horn.
TJ
right, the difference seems to be that now we work with those ideas directly in the score. instead of having those be (probably undesired) accidents or exceptions, they become specified material that is written in or given explicit space. At some point, something changed.
JW
i make a differentiation in my work - there's the type of music theatre pieces where people are doing certain theatrical things, along a continuum from explicitly playing a role through to perhaps making simple scenic gestures like building blocks in between phrases. then there's instrumental theatre, which is very involved with the performers being performers. and so i end up in these situations where i write scores which are very complex, where the notation of everything from breathing, gesture, when the pages of the part are turned, when a brass-player releases their spit valve is all locked down. [they could laugh smile]
TJ
i guess one question is, what keeps it music as opposed to performance or text? does it matter even? at what point could you simply take away the brass-player and still have a music-piece?
i mean, musicians aren't the best actors always...
JW
i'll answer your questions in order - the first one is what i think people find very problematic. is it still music if the performer doesn't play for a while and reads text? it is if it's called music. is it still music if the trombonist makes air sounds instead of pitched sounds? is it still music if the piano is prepared? i think if you call it music it is, otherwise we'd all be writing for classical ensembles, with no microphones, pitched and traditionally notated music. with the instrumental theatre pieces i write, i'm not trying to get the performers to act, which gets around the problem of musicians not always being actors. i'm just bringing gestures that are a part of performing for them into the piece. it's very normal when you're a brass player to position and re-position your mutes on the floor next to your chair. but when you get someone to do that over and over in a performance, it becomes something else.
TJ
one of the things that I find so interesting in your work is that there isn't an insistence that all of the music necessarily have a sonic element. meaning it can be the re-positioning of mutes for 2 minutes or something. and yet, there is never a question to me that it is an extraordinarily musical situation. (and of course there are all of those pieces that DO work with pitches/rhythms/etc...)
JW
well it makes sense to me that a musician will reposition mutes, and that watching that is a musical experience!
TJ
i don't know if this will be off-topic, or interesting, but how are you finding it spending all of this time in...perhaps even becoming a resident of, New York and the States? Of course you studied in Chicago, but a great deal of your work has been over in Europe.
JW
it's interesting being here. i see the same people i see in europe, everybody seems to pass through new york at one time or another. the funding structure is very different to europe, and a lot of people here have to be very focused on getting their work out because it's not quite as easy as europe (not that its easy anywhere). there's good and bad things about this...
TJ
i suppose 'europe' is a bit reductive, it's a big place...
JW
it is, and it's very different wherever you go...
i mean, how do you find the shuttling back and forth between berlin and here? what would make you go/stay?
TJ
it's hard to say for myself. i go where there is work and interest. right now there are more opportunities for me in new york so I am here more. the lifestyle question is another thing. also, it's hard to be a perpetual outsider for me, sometimes I just really really want to talk about the Mets.
do you find a different audience or different set of expectations for your work? from the musicians even?
JW
i can understand the not wanting to feel like an outsider! i think for me i just want space to work, and that involves a lot of factors. at the moment it's great living here, and in doing concerts in the city it's nice not to have to travel or get on a plane to do them. but i think wherever i go it's the same community to a large extent - there are always new people that you meet but you end up working with people that you will have something in common with, and that usually means that it's part of the community. we're not such a huge global community that everyone is still hidden, and that's great because you always feels connected. i think i would have to go to somewhere very remote like patagonia or borneo to feel that i was meeting people i didn't already know, hadn't already heard their music or even played with them. especially now with the web people have more and more access to what is going on.
TJ
that's true, but there is something different between the web-world and actually being on the street, dealing with the venues, rehearsing with musicians from different places. I find that places are actually quite different and that the world isn't as flat as it's supposed to be. I mean loading into a gig in New York is quite different than loading in to a gig in Berlin. This maybe ties into the extra-sonic elements you were describing earlier in reference to music-theater.
JW
you're right, it is completely different, and the people are different and the streets, the smells, the light are completely different. i find here in new york there are lots of possibilities to play, often for little or no money, and that does change the way i work. it's quite liberating because you view the experience differently - i view it as a chance to try out new works, to try new things, experiment. i don't mean that i don't give time and thought to what i'm doing, but instead that the gigs can become absorbed into the larger compositional process. most of the concerts i do in europe are of commissions, where everything needs to be very polished and so you do not try out things in the incubative phase, you want the end product. incidentally, i was talking to a friend last night who told me a story about a swiss composer who was here on a grant booking a gig in philadelphia at a place that wasn't actually a proper venue - they had a fake web site which made them sound like a university-affiliated institute. he was saying how if the swiss composer had lived in philly or had friends there he would have known what the story was. instead he turned up and was completely shocked to be playing for 5 people in an unheated garage in the middle of winter. so knowing the context is always important!
TJ
i think i might know those guys in philly...context is indeed important
JW
at the end of the day you just want to be somewhere with space and time to work, with an environment that is conducive to that...
TJ
yeah, well we're glad to have you on our turf for a while.
thanks very much for the conversation
JW
thanks to you too!
conducted online, 2.6.2008
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