New Music Scrapbook
Music Interviews About

Interview: Jeremy Wagner

Colin Holter interviews Jeremy Wagner.

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On music and society:

Even with my son, when it’s bedtime and I play him the guitar and make him sing along, it’s the best thing in the world—I hear his voice and we’re doing something together. And nobody’s hearing it but us, but that’s why music is so important and so powerful. We don’t sit around fires anymore. We don’t sit around talking to each other—we rarely even sit around and listen to music anymore. I hate the iPod; I hate the idea that music is such a personal thing that you can just stick some earplugs in your ears and have an experience with music. Music is a social phenomenon, and it’s about sharing with each other a certain oral tradition, ultimately. Even when music is written down, having it memorized and performed—there’s a power in that, a communication between two or more people, and having that dynamic is getting rarer in the world, but it’s something I value most highly. >>>>

August 30, 2010
Interview

A Joan That Truly Cares About Y-O-U

A Joan That Truly Cares About Y-O-U

by Nick Zielinski and Ingo Bethke

When I reflect on the best moments of my life, I am struck by the fact that not a single one of those moments occurred while I was alone. In all of them I had someone with which to share the joy. For this reason my primary focus as a composer is on writing music that brings people together. And when I say ‘together,’ I mean together not only in proximity, but in spirit. The togetherness that comes from true cooperation in working toward a common goal. To achieve this I construct musical frameworks where the performers are not only encouraged, but required to contribute, creatively, to the fabric of the music.

About Nick: Composer, drummer and improviser. Descendant of farmers and teachers and meat packers. Likes almonds, dislikes fish sticks.

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August 26, 2010
Music

Interview: Nick Zielinski

Colin Holter interviews Nick Zielinski.

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On being a composer/performer/improviser:

The playing informs the composing, which informs the improvising, which informs the playing, so it’s kind of a circular thing, and it’s all related. These days I spend maybe 25% of my time practicing technique things on the drums and equal parts composing and improvising after that. I’ll say 40% improvising and 35% composing. >>>>

August 24, 2010
Interview

Germination Variations

Germination Variations

by Brett Wartchow

stereo fixed media

I fondly recall moments of total wonderment while standing among the trees of Oregon’s old growth forests. Each tree within the forest is a unique ecosystem hosting a myriad of organisms–from the large to the mossy to the invisible–that share dynamic biological synergies. Yet, the true majesty of each tree is fully comprehended when experiencing them en masse as a vast and ancient botanical multiverse.

Germination Variations is a sonic meditation on this experience. As each subsequent section of the piece unfolds, the gestural contour of periodic rhythmic patterns and granular motivic textures become more and more tightly woven. The piece thus emerges as a flourishing sonic landscape comprised of lyric percussive lines braided in gestural polyphony.

About Brett: I like to make music and drink great coffee at the same time.

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August 18, 2010
Music

Interview: Brett Wartchow

Colin Holter interviews Brett Wartchow.

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On the New Music Scrapbook:

When I was a kid growing up in the resort, we went through some really tough economic times. My dad’s an economist, and probably one of the most creative-minded people I know. I can imagine him having the weight of the world on his shoulders and trying to raise a family with limited means, and he says, “Brett, if a job is not available for you, make one.” If you’re willing to work, there’s always going to be work available for you. I’ve thought about that, and it still befuddles me—is that even possible?—but from a very early age he’s always taught me to be proactive about whatever I’m doing. If things aren’t going the way you like, you do something different to change it so that it goes in the direction that you like. There’s so much back-room water-cooler talk about how things are going here—let’s just shut up and make music. Let’s create something we can all rally around and feel confident instead of victimized. >>>>

August 17, 2010
Interview

Kado: The Way of Flowers

Kado: The Way of Flowers

by Schuyler Tsuda

Schuyler Tsuda, cello

Ikebana, or Kado, is the Japanese art of flower arrangement. While on the surface an aesthetic art form, the practice of ikebana requires one to experience nature in a different way, from a new perspective. Beauty is found not only in the blossom but in the fragile, withering leaf. Asymmetry, so commonly found in nature, is valued over perfect symmetry. Empty space holds just as much importance as the plants themselves. Flowers are arranged not simply to create the beautiful but rather to place them in harmony with each other, in order to allow their natural beauty to emerge. The practice of ikebana opens a space for the practitioner and viewer to see and appreciate all the things in nature that we overlook and ignore in our daily lives.

About Schuyler: Schuyler Tsuda’s current musical interests involve creating new sound worlds through experimentation and discovery of unorthodox instrumental techniques, physical instrument extension, and instrument invention.

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August 11, 2010
Music

Interview: Schuyler Tsuda

Colin Holter interviews Schuyler Tsuda.

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On building instruments:

I started taking art classes at some point. My first class was with Chris Larson, and it was a metal sculpture class. I’m not sure why I took it, to be honest, but I was interested in doing some kind of sound sculpture thing. When I first started, I was sort of a fish out of water because I’d never done anything like it before, but Chris Larson would say “just go ahead and do it.” The class was very heavy on conceptual feedback, which was great, because I got to the point where I wasn’t inhibited about working and learning from other people. That’s maybe the best way for me to work, to be able to experiment safely. The instrument I keep coming back to is the steel cello, which is based on Robert Rutman’s steel cello, which is just a huge steel plate suspended on a frame. I just do it on the floor or hand-held, it’s a smaller version, and I use steel rods on the surface with a spring reverb chamber I put together on top of it. Sonically it’s my favorite because I can do so much with it. But of course I think that it’s probably the least sound-sculpture-like; it’s more of just a DIY instrument. >>>>

August 10, 2010
Interview

HUES

HUES

by Joshua Musikantow

Whitney Noble (cl.), Dan Hedegard (gtr.), Scotty Horey (perc.), Baylen Wagner (vcl.), and Erik Rohde (cond.)

A hue is not properly a color but an equivalence class of colors. A single hue may occur at many different levels of brightness and saturation; nonetheless, it retains a certain nature. HUES coexists in a physical, associative, and sonic space. Specifically, each of its twelve miniatures explores a different physical interaction between players; a different set of subjective associations centered around a particular hue in the color wheel, moving from the warms to the cools (which, in our human perception, cycle back to the warms); and a different set of thematic and timbral materials. These three spaces all vie for control.

About Joshua: Chicago-born (but currently Minneapolis-based) composer, frame drummer, and poet with a special interest in microtones.

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A video of HUES can be seen here.

August 4, 2010
Music

Interview: Joshua Musikantow

Colin Holter interviews Josh Musikantow.

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On pitch and rhythm:

I didn’t actually know how to notate pitches until ninth grade, so I got a late start, but as a kid I was always trying to learn these crazy polyrhythms and odd meters. So when I started to learn about pitch, I immediately saw a discontinuity between the standard tuning system where you basically have twelve pitch classes versus rhythm, where you have infinite gradations of durations and proportions. I guess in high school I started teaching myself how to convert from ratios to cents and I got very interested in that. La Monte Young’s Well-Tuned Piano was a big piece for me in high school, so it was just sort of serendipity that I was exposed to that. Maybe it was the timing; maybe if I’d been exposed to something else at that impressionable age, I’d be doing something else. >>>>

August 3, 2010
Interview

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