02.19.10

Last night's music rehearsal was super stressful for me and also really great. As this year-long process comes to a close, I'm starting to have all those thoughts about what I could have done differently, done better. At the same time I'm trying to stay present in the here and now and focus on figuring out how to make the here and now work. Last night we crammed all four SuperGroupers plus Jeff Temple (our Marimba player) and River Cook (our Bass Drum player) into our small yet very acoustically lively dining room to hammer the music for the show and to work out some of the bugs. I felt unprepared for the rehearsal, trying in the planning for it to strike a good balance of time between working with just the "band", just the singers, and with everyone all together. There were several moments when I felt insane as I tried to sing my part, follow along with the master score, cue the musicians, keep track of the tempo, all while trying to maintain some sort of objective eye (or ear, rather) to what the whole was sounding like. It was ultimately a really helpful, informative rehearsal. I learned a lot about what was actually realistic in this final week before the performance, what parts I needed to let go of, and perhaps most importantly, I started the process of letting go of musical control. A couple weeks ago I had the realization that although I wrote all this music and have directed the musicians in how I want it played, etc., come performance time, my sole job would be performing in the show - not directing the music, not taking notes from the audience. Now I have turn my trust over to the musicians, to the music and have faith in the piece as a whole. It's hard to do, and it's one of those experiences that is so unique to the collaborative experience. It's that whole is the greater than the sum of it's parts phenomenon though that gives collaborative work it's vitality, it's strength and it's surprise. The risk that an individual takes when they decide to give up their control to the group.

I feel very lucky that that trust and faith is coming so easily, and that is a direct result of my collaborators.

I also am finding great comfort in the fact that our great friend and colleague Abigail Browde is coming in from NY to be our eyes and ears as we go into this final week. I know with her intelligent, thoughtful artistic sensibilities care-taking the piece from the outside, I'll be able to relax into my role as performer and find the pure joy of performing new work.

01.23.10

In rehearsal the other day I came up against the tension that our process has created between individual artistic impulse and group collaboration. It arose because I had broken a rule - the rule that the timing of the piece would be 40 minutes. I had been working on the piece of music called Rich Parents/Anthem Finale that would end the performance for a while and got caught up in what I wanted artistically and let timing slip out the window. The timing for this last piece is challenging because it includes a beginning section that is purely instrumental and completely independent of anything else happening, but then transitions into two sections that have to be exactly timed to match up with text that is sung/spoken in a tight, but somewhat improvised way. The second sung/spoken section then needs to transition into a completely sung composed section of music that corresponds exactly to the accompaniment.

While writing the music, there were certain musical themes that had occurred previously that I felt compelled to bring back, so I started adding them in. One problem was that what was happening in the sung/spoken text sections was so complex to listen to, that I didn't want the music to also be complex in those parts. My solution was to add an interlude between the two text sections that was solely instrumental and would highlight the themes I hoped to repeat. Getting caught up in my artistic fancy, I brought in a final product that ran 42:12 seconds. 2:12 seconds over? Not a big deal I thought. Though of course I was thinking only about the presenters and the time limit they had given us, not about my collaborators who were building their timelines based on a rule of 40 minutes. Not quite realizing this fact yet, after rehearsing with the 42:12 minute version, we decided that if we were to keep my music as is, then Sam would have to add two minutes of movement on to the end of the piece (which was possible in theory, but we decided would prove to be a bit difficult to learn under our current time constraints). I decided that I would cut my timeline down to 40 minutes.

Not wanting to let go of any of my artistic creation, I decided trim down to 40 minutes not by cutting music, but by cutting the silence right before the final music. Easy I thought: if their is 4 minutes of silence, I'll just cut it down to 2 minutes and voila!

When we rehearsed with this change, however, we quickly figured out that by cutting silence, I had also cut into Erin's monologue. As a group we discussed how we could all tweak our timelines to solve the problem: Sam could add an extra minute to the "slow spread", Erin could make do with less time between her monologue and the beginning of the next text, (Byrd could take a few minutes of the costumes (joke)). They were all being so helpful and I think I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself for ignoring what we had all agreed upon. At one point in the conversation, feeling mad at myself and feeling the time crunch, I offered to just cut the 2 minute discrepancy out of the music and be done with it - even though just a few minute before I had told the group how cutting the music would be something that I would really like to avoid. Sam called me on it and questioned if I really wanted to do that. He was worried that making a hasty decision now would make me regret it later. Ultimately we decided on a compromise: I would cut as much as I could from the music without compromising my artistic choices, but at least 1 minute, and Sam would add the remaining time to the movement timeline.

It is a hard task to move between personal creation and collaboration. What is your responsibility? What is the group's? If you screw up, who fixes it?

12.02.09

My apologies for my lapse in writing. For a while I went through a time-scarcity phase feeling like any time I was going to devote to Shouldwetitleitnoworwait should better be spent making music, not blog writing. An excuse, to be sure. It is hard to have courage to talk about a process while in the process (maybe anytime for that matter), especially when at a point I've been at lately of being terribly unsure of how to proceed. Actually I'm sure there is great value in the writing down of thoughts, to lubricate the thinking process, and to become as specific as possible about what to do next...

We had two recent showings of our work where we had the great opportunity to receive feedback from our peers, mentors, friends: one at the Southern for a select group and one at the Bryant Lake Bowl as a part of 9x22 Dance/Lab. One thing that I've realized since doing both of these presentations is that it seems very important for the presenting artists to be very clear about why they are sharing pieces of their work and what they (very specifically) hope to get out of the exchange. I know for myself I did not go into either of these events as prepared as I think I should have been. Because we did not have really clear hopes or goals in terms of showing, I think we fell into a dangerous territory of "tell us what you think?" Not necessarily a bad question to ask, but certainly very general. I think it also sometimes is a question that begs of an audience member to come up with some sort of "thesis" or sound bite that encapsulates the entire work shown. It was interesting, or it was boring, or it was confusing are acceptable answers, but ultimately not super helpful. Anyway, we did get past the general into more specific content, and got some really great feedback. I just wish we would have really done a bit more organizing of how we wanted to focus the events (esp. the Southern event, which we had much more control over).

Also concerning the feedback we received, I was a surprised at how different the feedback was in the two events. During the first showing at the Southern, our audience had a tendency to really fixate on the text portion of what we presented, which tended to not be the case at 9x22. Of course their were many different factors at play, three of which I'd like to talk about.

First, at the Southern, perhaps unwittingly we ended up highlighting text. Of all the elements we are working with, text was the only one allowed to be presented on its own at that showing, and more than once. We read three different text pieces without the benefit or juxtaposition or competition of other elements occurring at the same time, which I don't think will probably ever happen in the final production (provided we stick to our timeline). RIght there we sent a message (albeit subliminal) to our audience that afternoon that text was more important to us (at least by way of presentation) then perhaps the other elements. Without the foresight of knowing that our showing would be text-heavy, it's no wonder that text is where our audience tended to hover during the feedback.

Second, the context and production value at 9x22 was different. We were showing much less work (about 10 minutes compared to 30 minutes at the Southern), and it was a "polished" 10 minutes. Meaning no scripts, no pauses during sections. A seamless presentation. We also had full lighting at 9x22 as well as music being played through the sound system (we used tiny ipod speakers at the southern). In the feedback there, even when asked specific questions about text, the feedback was much more about the interplay between elements, the connectedness of the group, and the tension that was aroused in trying to experience different media that was sometimes working against each other.

Third, the impromptu facilitation of the feedback session at the Southern was led by me, and I don't think that is a great thing. I found myself too caught up as an artist/performer to really step out and facilitate in a relaxed, objective manner. Whereas at 9x22, Laurie Van Wieren was posing and fielding questions, which not only freed up the members of SuperGroup to really speak singly and thoughtfully about the work, but I think also may have created a more comfortable buffer between audience and artist, in which viewers could express their thoughts more openly and honestly.

These points I'm bringing up are not to say that one experience was more valuable than the other. In fact, I think their close proximity to one another actually increased helpfulness overall. If anything, they were a reminder that as a creating artist, I/we have control over many things, and I think it behooves us to acknowledge that and be intentional about as many things as possible. That said, there are also myriad factors we could never hope to control, and that is when we go back and find faith in and ownership of our work.

I've been fascinated by reading the 2009 Choreographers' Evening blog the past few days. Art can be a very controversial thing, and rightly so. It is a personal experience, both for the creator (even when working in collaboration) and for the viewer. Certainly we all bring our own thoughts, opinions, experiences into the room with us, and therefore we relate to what we experience in extremely unique ways. As an artist, to pretend that I can give every audience member a wonderful, exciting, fun, meaningful, [insert adjective here] experience (or any prescribed experience for that matter) is, I think, extremely presumptuous. Of course, denying that the audience will be there perhaps is not an effective choice either (perhaps with this thinking, eventually they won't be). So it is a fine line to walk between maintaining the integrity of what I've set out to make (and honoring the choices I've already made, often for very good reason, even if that reason is still a mysterious one) and allowing the excellent feedback of trusted friends and colleagues to impact what the work will become.

10.22.09

Tonight the members of SuperGroup are having their timeline "throwdown". This is basically where we put the artistic process into the hands of sheer physical strength. We will all present our desired timelines for how we want to structure the show, how we want to assemble all the parts together, and then we will wrestle each other. I'm predicting that Erin will probably win. Unlike the rest of us she has been training for this moment for last couple months by going to Body Pump class at the Y (she calls it 'body poomp', with an eastern european accent- I think just to intimidate the rest of us). It's working.

But seriously, SuperGroup is a collaboration and we are making art. There is no winning and losing, and certainly no wrestling. We would never want to risk injury to our honed and toned performer bodies. Besides, we get injured enough doing contact improv in nylon/lycra. So tonight we will all present our desired elemental timelines and I think we will actually chart them on poster paper, just like in elementary school when you drew the timeline of the lifespan of a duck billed platypus. Once they are all charted we will look at the show we have created. To be clear, the goal of the meeting tonight is basically that. It will not be about analyzing the timeline and making artistic judgements of it, but rather noticing what happens when four individual artists working in four different mediums for several months, then collide their final visions together. The discussion that will most likely ensue would be about making logistical judgements of what can and cannot physically happen on stage at the same time. There very well might be a moment when I would like everyone belting out an amelodic singing phrase, while Erin wants us all to recite a conversational dialogue, while Sam wants us to be executing a fast-paced foot phrase, while Byrd has just turned off all of the stage lights. In a situation like that, something will probably have to give, and that is when we will discuss, compromise, and rehash our individual visions. But for the most part, if it's physically possible for us to execute it as performers, we'll do it.

• Irrational numbers, mainly pi
• Obfuscating what is expected to be, or perceived as important.
• Systems that create distance (physical/emotional)
• control without knowing it

10.08.09

We've been having some conversations in my house lately (read:always) about art: it's value, who gets recognition, who gets paid and why it should exist. It's hard to evaluate, art is. Hard to quantify the outcome of, measure the impact on an audience, measure an impact on the creator. These conundrums become even more acute when the art is experimental or abstract or illogical. I think we've been trained to engage with things that make sense. A leads to B, B to C, and so on. This is perhaps why we get so much satisfaction from stories. We can relate to them in a logical way and therefore we can feel in a logical way. The reason I love this blog is because I feel there is so much value in knowing about artistic processes. We as audience get the final result, the finished product, which certainly has a value all its own. But what about all the steps leading up to that point. How does something get made? What effort and thought and research and organization went into that creation. And what is there to be learned/shared/passed on from that. During this process of not only creating music for a performance, but also creating a system in which to create the music for the performance, I am excited and curious about the challenges that art making presents. Often times in my process it has been absolutely essential that I have to create problems for myself, impose seemingly arbitrary limits on myself not only so that I have something to push against, but also to create a sense of safety from feeling like the sky is the limit. It's odd and strangely wonderful, this creating of problems. In so many other aspects of my life I am trying to avoid problems and conflict, and it seems to happen on a broader cultural level too. Deal with a problem if/when it occurs, but don't create problems - that's crazy! Isn't it all about prosperity and enjoyment. Though maybe we are creating problems everyday and aren't necessarily aware of it. But, fantastically, the great thing about problems, no matter how they are created, is that then you get to solve them. And maybe the stranger the problem, the more creative the solution can be?

A link:

09.24.09

We've spent the last few rehearsals delving into a little singing, and I'm very excited with how it's going. Erin and I have been slightly collaborating with music and text in order to make songs with lyrics. The most developed piece is informally called "which train". I'll tell you how it developed. As my previous post implies, I got a little infatuated with this rhythm structure that involved 24 beats separated by "dadadadadada". I asked Erin if she had any (or could create) some sentences that had 24 words, or 24 syllables or (my favorite) 24 monosyllabic words. She delivered. I took the 24 monosyllabic word sentence and set it to a melody to create a mini-song. I gave the mini-song to Erin and asked her to expand the text while listening to (or inspired by) it. She did. Next I created a chord structure on electric guitar that accompanied the mini-song, and as I played the chords, Erin improvised singing the new text she had written. We did this 3 times and we recorded them. My goal was to create an entire song that the whole group would sing, using all of Erin's text. I cut and pasted sections of the 3 recordings randomly, based on what Erin had improvised, with minor tweakings here and there to create the final melody for the full-song. I also created a harmony line simultaneously with creating the melody line, which makes the song richer and also sound even more country than it already did.

09.12.09

24 Rhythm Structure (Decay/Rebuild) [I like the number 24 because it is divisible by 1,2,3,4,6,8,12 and 24] Each number equals a quarter-beat and each da is an eighth-beat. It is done in canon with A beginning and B coming in four beats after, etc. It goes a little something like this:

PART A
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21-22-23-24
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21-22-23-24
dadadadadada

PART B
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21-22-23
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7
dadadadadada
1-2-3
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21-22-23
dadadadadada
PART C
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21-22
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6
dadadadadada
1-2
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21-22
dadadadadada

PART D
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5
dadadadadada
1
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17
dadadadadada
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12 -13-14-15-16-17-18-19-20 -21
dadadadadada

09.05.09

Pi = 3.14159265358979

Each # (1-9) represents a note, in this case, on the C-minor harmonic scale. When a zero is present (which does not occur in the first fifteen digits of Pi), it will be represented by a quarter-rest. The decimal point, as it only occurs once between the first and second digits of Pi, for now means nothing.
0 = rest
1 = C
2 = D
3 = E-flat
4 = F
5 = G
6 = A-flat
7 = B
8 = C (octave above)
9 = D (octave above)
. = nothing

Ef - C - F - C - G - D^ - D - Af - G - Ef - G - C^ - D^ - B - D^

08.29.09

Up until beginning work on Shouldwetitleitnoworwait, my approach to music creation and composition has been very lyric-based. When writing songs, I would either start with lyrics and create music around them, or create the music and text simultaneously. In creating music/sound for Shouldwetitleitnoworwait, since I have no control over text (see Erin's column), I have been exploring a highly structured composition technique in which I create intricate, but arbitrary, codes that seem to allow me to create music that has an objective origin as opposed to an emotional inception. I have been exploring this method primarily with the irrational numbers pi and phi, as well as with written language, with hopes of breaking away from my habitual modes of music creation.

At this point in the process I'm trying to make a decision about how the sound/music will be conveyed in performance. One option would be to have all the sound come through 4 voices, a marimba and perhaps some other simple percussion instruments (oh and also maybe an electric chord organ). Marimbas are big (9' x 5'..?), which might be a logistical problem.