Category Archives: art - Page 2

Computers

Posted by on April 5, 2011 No comments

The guitar wasn’t my only interest as a kid. When I was in grade school, first or second grade maybe, my dad got a C/PM-80 computer with two (TWO!) 8 ½” floppy disk drives. It sat on top of a file cabinet in the office space of our house. The case was made from a couple of metal boxes that were spray painted dark blue. The machine was glorious. With a couple of Byte magazines and some books I got from the elementary school book fair I went to work learning BASIC. It was an amazing time.

When I wasn’t messing around with my friends all summer long, I was holed up in that room learning to use and write programs. I learned logic. I began to understand syntax. I was figuring out one of the most important lessons of my life: how to teach myself things. It was my dealing with the bit box that led me to the conclusion that I could probably do just about anything with the right book and some spare time. Thirty or so years later it still feels true.

My dad always made sure that we had a computer in the house. Always. He’s a nerd of the first order but more than that he really understood where the world was going and how it was going to get there. He didn’t predict the timing of the explosion of the Internet, but he knew it was coming. That’s a lot more than most could say since most people didn’t know that there was an Internet until it was on the cover of every magazine and newspaper (remember those? So quaint!).

With a simple upgrade came a modem. With a modem came figuring out how to communicate with one of my nerd buddies down the block over a computer. No one would think anything of a 5th grader chatting on a computer today, but back in the early 80s? No one even knew what that meant (unless they’d seen War Games). And for that I am thankful!

The BBS community taught me how to get my hands on software that I didn’t write. I learned to make noises with that little speaker inside of the PC. By the time the SoundBlaster card (yeah, the original with 8 blazing bits of audio fidelity!) came out, I could write some pretty cool software that made music.

The experimentation that was possible with computers held my attention. I understood what could be. I could someday record my guitar onto my computer. But at 11 MB/minute of stereo CD quality audio, that wasn’t going to happen until I was in graduate school. Nonetheless, I watched and waited. I went to NYU where I could get my hands on all of that tasty technology. I was surrounded by people who understood what could be done with those boxes with the blinking lights. It all made sense.

Some of the software that I wrote back then, in 1995, was pretty cool. It was at that moment that the whale of the Internet was breaching into popular consciousness. More and more musicians and composers were trading ideas. Motion capture, interactive environments, and artificial performers were the hot topics. I was in the middle of it. The things I saw and the people I met inspire me to this day. Oh, and all of that Internet nerdery eventually led to full time, gainful employment. A nice side benefit for composers of unpopular music who like to eat and sleep in warm, dry places.

Computer music dominated my life for most of my 20s. I lost track of the guitar for a while. It sat in a spare bedroom waiting for me. I did eventually find my way back, but it took some time to restore a little balance.
Today it’s hard to imagine music without a computer. After all, what is an iPod? What about your music server at home? Or the entire infrastructure of music distribution? Does anyone buy CDs anymore? I haven’t bought one in close to 10 years. And for a creator of music the computer is almost as important as the instrument or voice. These are and have been amazing times with the best stuff still ahead (I think).

Yesterday on my lunch hour I did something incredible. I downloaded an analog synth program to my new iPad. I made a sequence and noodled with some patches. Then I bounced it down and passed it off to another program that allowed me to process it further. An analog synth that would fill the better part of a dining room table and an 8 track recorder now fit in a package that weighs in at just over a pound and is small enough to be held in one hand. Forget the flying cars, this is the future that I ordered!

Falling In Love

Posted by on March 22, 2011 2 comments

The one part of my PhD that I desperately wanted to finish was the artist’s statement. It’s an essay of sorts that describes why one creates. In a way, it’s a “Why do you exist” sort of exercise. I really, really wanted to do it. I’ve started it a thousand times. It’s difficult. There is so much that goes into why I do what I do and the lengths to which I’ve gone to sustain my creative work. It seems that many of the tough and counterintuitive decisions I’ve made over the last 20 years have all come down to being about my creative work. That’s hard to believe given how destructive some of my choices were. That’s all (mostly) water under the bridge by this point but I do want to take a crack at explaining myself to all seven of my readers (and two of those might be me). My little girl is making sure that this will never be properly edited. Let’s just turn on the fire hose and let it run. Here goes.

I wish I could remember how old I was when I decided that I wanted to take guitar lessons. My parents were savvy and decided to make sure that I had some skin in the game so they told me that they’d go 50/50 on an instrument. I did some shopping around at Woodsy’s Music in Kent, OH and figured out that a starter Yamaha steel string was going to set me back $150. That meant I had to come up with $75. It may as well have been a million, but it was near enough to my birthday that I had a head start. I also had an allowance of sorts and a job helping deliver papers 3 days a week. The icing on the cake was my super secret plan: saving my lunch money.

My buddy Jeremy helped me out by packing an extra sandwich in his lunch. I was making an extra dollar a day every time I didn’t eat lunch and the cash started to pile up. Before too long the glorious day came that I presented my mom with the cash that I had been saving in a coin bank shaped like a Tootsie Roll. She was a little surprised. True to her word, she took me to Woodsy’s that weekend and we bought the guitar and I was signed up for lessons. Classical guitar lessons. She was paying so my dreams of being Andy Summers or The Edge or Jimi Hendrix were on hold – or so it seemed at the time. I was just excited to have the instrument.

We went home and I took it down to the basement. I laid it out on my lap and strummed it in what was an attempt at rhythm. I can still remember it. The open strings rang out and I was struck by the volume of the instrument. It was a spruce top with laminated sides. The finish was glossy and then neck was narrow but chunky. It was a standard issue dreadnought and in the scheme of all of the guitars made in the world thus far it was utterly forgettable. But I fell in love.

The next week I had my first lesson. My teacher, Ken, was brilliant. He started off by getting me hooked. The first tune I learned was “Another Brick In The Wall.” He transposed it to the key of G and taught me different strumming patterns on the simplified chords. I was hooked. I took to it like a fish to water – at least intellectually.

I practiced almost constantly. I would sit in my room alone and strum to myself. I took the chords I learned and arranged them intuitively. Sometimes it sounded OK. But what I learned quickly was that I could make sounds that moved me. I could do something that made me feel very alive and in a way that only an early teenaged boy can understand I felt validated.

When I was introduced the the Frederick Noad book “Solo Guitar Playing” I memorized the exercises I was given weekly as though they were holy texts. In a very real way they became my practice. They were my religion. I intoned them as a way of keeping myself in tact in those horrendous days of adolescence. In the dying days of my parents’ marriage the guitar was my best friend. It didn’t ask any tough questions and always responded to everything that I did regardless of my mood. I could wail on it in anger and it screamed with me. I could touch its strings softly and it would sing me to sleep.

Practicing and lessons were the only non-negotiables in my life. Sports came and went. Drama came and went. Girlfriends came and went. The only real constant in my life was music. More importantly, guitar music.

I have talked with other musicians and heard the stories of how they came to their instruments. Many were forced into lessons (invariably Suzuki violinists (shudder) and pianists) or picked it up and were surprisingly good at it (clarinets and flutes) and just ran with it. I have known a few who shared the passion for their instrument with me and had the almost shamanic attachment that I do. Returning to their instrument daily meant healing and focus. I’ve started to understand that there are many who have a relationship like this with their work. Writers, painters, actors, and creators of all media fall into that trance and experience a renewal. I can’t explain it though I’ve read many books on the topic. I’m not sure that I really want to know what it is about six strings stretched over a piece of wood that excites every fiber of my being. The why doesn’t matter. It’s that it does that counts.

By the time I was 18 it was all over. I was completely in love with the instrument, its repertoire, and its potential. The world of music was starting to open up to me though admittedly through a fairly narrow and highly opinionated lens. My feet were on the path.

making things

Posted by on April 22, 2010 No comments

I took last week off and spent it with my family. We camped for two nights and that was fantastic! We also made a trip to Austin to visit friends and family (they can be the same people, you know). I spent the time when we weren’t traveling in the garage working on my newest guitar. It’s another OM style instrument. This one has higher quality materials and I’m certainly paying more attention to the details since I know where they are now. I think it will be a better instrument overall and is moving much more quickly toward completion than its predecessor.

Building the instrument has brought up a number of issues for me, not the least of which is the question of the artisan and quality. Easy credit and over-consumption has done horrible things to our culture. Everything is a commodity. As a result, there is little to no attachment between people and the things they own. I find that disturbing. Not only do we own too much stuff, we don’t care about any of it on a more than superficial level (how much money and time will it take to replace?). That’s sad. Now, I don’t much care about the perception of others when it comes to the things I have, but I care about my perception and relationship to the things. If I have something that I use every day, I want it to be of high quality and meet my needs in a way that is better than just getting something done. Isn’t it better to buy a hammer that will last a lifetime than to buy one every two or three years?

clamped!

It’s also starting to sink in that objects made by artisans have two relationships that are more and more important to me: the relationship between the creator and the item and that of the item and its final owner. This is a small part of why I drool endlessly over the Saddleback Leather bags. They are handmade by artisans. They are of high quality. They will outlast me. That last bit may be a part of why it’s important to me to build a great instrument. I have the hope that someone will enjoy it after I am long gone. The hope that it will persist. This could appear to be very romantic and silly, but if we don’t have a relationship with the things we make and use, there is less depth and ritual in their use. Is that important? Yes!

An instrument that feels good, sounds good, and looks good can inspire a player. There is a certain characteristic of an instrument that draws a person to play it. There isn’t really any good way to quantify that and we shouldn’t try. What works for me will not work for someone else and, frankly, I don’t care. That give and take is unique and beautiful. Whatever it is in that instrument that inspires joy and literally forces someone to make music doesn’t have a suitable word in English (that I know of) and is more important than the monetary value attached to it or the fashion of the day.

I’m looking at the things in my life and trying to simplify them. I need less stuff, but the stuff that I have needs to be more than just stuff off of some assembly line. I would rather pay more for the character and experience. It comes down to this: if what you’re doing matters, then what you’re doing it with has to be seriously considered. Surrounding myself with inspiration is the surest path to results that I know.

something cool

Posted by on March 19, 2010 No comments

So yesterday as I was pimping my new collection I heard about a really cool new project from some friends of mine. They’re using Kickstarter to get funding for a project. I’m intrigued by Kickstarter in that I’ve seen it work for a novel in progress by my buddy Johnny. Anyway, this Kickstarter thing is pretty cool but what’s cooler is that it provides a framework for people to do things like this:

The new face of Canadian Science Fiction!

You have to check out their video and premise. You can hit their Kickstarter page and follow them on Twitter.

I’m not going to lie. I love science fiction and I have a bit of a crush on Canada. Growing up in Ohio and having lived in Minnesota means spending some time with our neighbors to the north and their quirks. But that’s not what I’m talking about here. What I’m talking about is the chance to help a project with a lot of promise get off the ground. I’ve known two of these folks for a long, long time and even collaborated with Duff on a project or two. He provides lyrics for Jason and me on a semi-regular basis and we turn them into tunes. These are good writers with a lot of drive. I’d be quite excited if I could get a the couple of people who read this blog to click on over and at least check out the project. It’s good stuff! Even if you can’t toss ’em a couple of bones you can always retweet their stuff or pass on a link, right?

It’s nice to know people who are taking risks and, better yet, putting some muscle behind their passion. Thus endeth the promotion.

By the by, is there some new law that says that every time I talk about something cool on my blog I have to say that I’m not getting paid for it? Screw that! People know better than to think I get paid for anything on this site.

what have you done for me lately

Posted by on February 26, 2010 No comments

In graduate school there was a seminar for composers where we talked about our work and personal philosophy of music. One big questions was “are you an innovator or a more conservative composer?” Being as electronic/computer music was my focus I sided with innovator. My argument was that if one traced the history of computer music it was one of experimentation. If a composer wasn’t pushing forward with a new technique then there wasn’t much to hold one’s attention. I felt that it was a culture of “what have you done for me lately.” I still think that was a pretty accurate assessment based on my discussions with other composers and students. We listened for the technique and not for the music.

That should have been a pretty big red flag. After the dreams of my PhD faded and I retreated creatively to my mental cave, I found myself drawn back to the guitar; my gateway to music. And not the classical guitar that was the center of my musical training but the steel string acoustic guitar. Something visceral and very real settled in when I returned to it and I’ve been riding that feeling ever since.

Now, years later, I’m starting to wonder if there isn’t a need to combine the two. That deep passion for music and the deep research that comes with technology and its application. Thinking back to journal articles and more academic discussions makes me think that I really do need more. It’s a good time to take stock and experiment a little. The things I’m reading these days have put most of what I’m doing in a new light. Some of it good, some of it less good, but all of it indicates a need for adjustment if not wholesale change.

Musical development is a road that never ends. I think I’m being reminded that it’s OK to pull over for coffee from time to time but there’s a lot of ground to cover.