Apt Quote from an Economist

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” 
E.F. Schumacher

Seamus Cater, Viljam Nybacka, and Fritz Welch

Came across these videos and really enjoyed them. Dreamy, noisy, spacious, folky goodness. Enjoy.

Tangent

Another creation between Evan Mazunik and myself.

Tangent (Nathan Pape & Evan Mazunik) by Nathan Alexander Pape

Over the River, Through the Woods

Evan Mazunik and I had a fruitful afternoon yesterday. Hope you enjoy.

Over the River, Through the Woods (Nathan Pape & Evan Mazunik) by Nathan Alexander Pape

There is more music from yesterday posted on my Soundcloud page.

Pare This Down to Something

It is a typical and logical view to see the composer as creator, the one who makes something from nothing – fills the void that was with content, knowledge, purpose. This model lends itself to the soundscape of old, the silent vastness of the farmland where true reflection can be done. The romantic ideal of the isolated genius only immersed in their own thoughts and creations, the outside world is not permitted into this process.

The practitioners of music now, and the listeners as well, are mostly surrounded by the opposite. The loud abrasive city is all around, even in solitude it is heard. The noise of media, advertisements, promotion – even the imagery is noisy. All of this noise is the potential. With all sound as music, music making is no longer creating but editing. No longer is something coming out of nothing. The potential for anything is always present. Even to carry on a tradition is to scrape away to reveal a form. There is the potential for everything, but we look for those that pare this down to something of seeming purpose.

Okkyung Lee video

Thought I'd share this.

Economics and Culture

I'm greatly interested in the influence that economic environments have on cultural stimulation. Naomi Klein has a very insightful point concerning the dependence of cultural institutions on the free labor of interns. This is from her book No Logo.

One thing you can say about the retail and service industries: at least they pay their workers a little something for their trouble. Not so for some other industries that have liberated themselves from the chains of social-security forms with such free-market gusto that many young workers receive no pay from them at all. Perhaps predictably, the culture industry has led the way in the blossoming of unpaid work, blithely turning a blind eye to the unglamorous fact that many people under thirty are saddled with the mundane responsibility of actually having to support themselves.

Writing about his former job, which involved hiring unpaid interns to send faxes and run errands for Men's Journal magazine, Jim Frederick notes that many of his applicants had already worked for nothing at Interview, CBS News, MTV, The Village Voice and so on. "'Very impressive,' I would say. By my quick calculations they had contributed, conservatively, five or six thousand dollars' worth of uncompensated work to various media conglomerates." Of course, the media conglomerates – the broadcasters, magazines, and book publishers – insist that they are generously offering young people precious experience in a hard employment market – a foot in the door on the old-fashioned "apprenticeship" model. Besides, they say, sounding suspiciously like McDonald's managers the world over, the interns are just kids – they don't really need the money.

And getting two "unreal" jobs for the price of one, most interns subsidize their unpaid day job by working in the service industry at night and on weekends, as well as by living at home to a later age. But in the U.S. – where it has become commonplace to hop from one unpaid culture job to the next for a year or two – a disproportionate number of interns, as Frederick observes, appear to be living off trust funds, seemingly without any immediate concerns about earning a living. But just as the service-sector employers will not admit that the youthfulness of their workforce might have something to do with the wages they pay and the security they fail to offer, you will never catch a television network or a publisher confessing that the absence of remuneration for internships might also have something to do with the relative privilege of those applying for these positions at their companies. This racket is not only exploitative in the classic sense, it also has some very real implications for the future of cultural production: today's interns are tomorrow's managers, producers, and editors and, as Frederick writes, "If you can't get a job unless you've had an internship, and you can't take an internship unless you can get supported by daddy for a couple of months, then the system guarantees an applicant pool that is decidedly privileged."

Music video stations such as MTV have been among the more liberal users of the unpaid internship system. When it was first introduced, the music video channel represented a managerial coup in low-cost, high-profit broadcasting since the stations primarily play videos that are produced out of house and supplied by record labels. While some stations, including Canada's MuchMusic, now play licensing and royalty fees to broadcast videos, these pale in comparison to the production costs of the videos in a single top 30 countdown. Inside the stations, on air-hosts, producers, and technicians work alongside unpaid, mostly student, interns who sometimes are rewarded with jobs and sometimes stay at the station for many months, hoping for their big break. Which is where the legendary success stories come in – the famous V.J. who started off answering phones, or the greatest success story of them all: the tale of Rick the Temp. In 1996, Rick won the annual "Be a Temp at MuchMusic Contest" and was welcomed to the station with cross promotional fanfare and branded giveaways. One year later, Rick was on the air in his new job as V.J., but the kicker was that even after he became a big star, he kept the moniker Rick the Temp. There was Rick on TV, interviewing the Backstreet Boys, and although he was always paid for his work, for would-be interns, his success served a daily advertisement for the glory and glamor that awaits if you donate your labor as a gift to a major media company.

Some of the references feel a little dated even though it was only written ten years ago. For example, MTV doesn't seem to play music videos anymore. But her point about only the privileged being able to afford taking part in the economics of cultural institutions is very persuasive to me.

For Satie

Simple sketch for a solo guitar piece. Dedicated to Erik Satie for obvious reasons.

For Satie by Nathan Alexander Pape

The Contradictory Nature of the Free Market and the Creative

I've been thinking over the annoyance that so many appreciators, myself included, of music have with the current hierarchy of the music industry. Though it tends to be the first point that people grasp onto, it is not the profit off of music by organizations that is the issue. If they were truly pushing the art form forward and keeping it abundant as part of our culture while making money, we should have no issue with it.

The issue, however, is linked to the profit making (though said profit is apparently shrinking this century). It is the age old tale of capitalism, to maximize profit one must be able to create a product for less while selling it for more. The idea behind this system is that an entity must conform to the expectations of the public in order to sell a product while simultaneously competing with organizations in the same field. Therefore, quality is upheld by public demand...right?

Well, if the public represents a well informed group of people, then yes, it will all balance out. But if the public is unaware of what actual quality is or has not been taught how to differentiate the many intricacies of a given topic, then it is up to the producers themselves to teach the public, to tell them what is good and what isn't, to show them the many possibilities. This goes for any field, medium, type of product.

Apply this model to music, or any art form for that matter. Consumption of music by the public is dependent upon taste. In a society where art and music are taught less and less in schools, it is up to other sources to generate interest and invariably shape the judgment of potential consumers. Who's influence will ultimately be able to reach more: one who holds a cultural tradition and the continuance of an art form dear or one who stands to profit of the same art form through public consumption? (No these two sides are not exclusive of one another, but stay with me for a second.)

With enough economic backing to support a great marketing campaign, either side could win, but money typically follows paths that lead to more money. Money moving towards cultural stimulation is like pumping water uphill.

So we have a ripe public full of consumers with little knowledge on the possibilities of the art form. What does an organization concerned with its profits produce in order to satiate the public hunger?

1. A cornucopia of options?
2. Or many variations of the same idea that can be marketed to appear as if they represent the spectrum of possibilities within the art form, thus shaping what consumers know to be possible and accept as appropriate?

The analogies to the food industry are plentiful, pun intended. Corn products have been disguised to create the appearance of an abundance of choices. The music industry isn't much different in its tactics, except that it doesn't have poorly designed government subsidies to spur its means of production.

For decades, bad music has been unleashed on the public through the record industry. It is easier to produce much of the same than it is to produce a wide variety.

This has shaped us as listeners in so many ways. For example, live acoustic performance of music has become a novelty in so many ways. It is not the only way to perform music. But it is a marvelously beautiful and important method. David Byrne explained the influence of architecture on music in a very clear presentation for TED.

There are musicians, record companies, and publishers that are expanding musical practices. We should be thankful for their push forward. But, as far as I can see it, this will always be an uphill battle.

Daniel Levin Quartet on October 25, 2010

Daniel Levin - cello

Nate Wooley - trumpet

Matt Moran - vibraphone

Pete Bitenc - bass

Daniel was kind enough to invite me to see him perform at Alain Kirili's loft, the artist's home in Tribeca that has been opened up for performances by many of the luminaries of improvisation.

There are not enough words to praise this quartet's playing. Together they transform phrases and fragments into compelling performance. They tear apart melodies to piece them back together–making everyone present thankful to witness the process.

The quartet has a dynamic energy and definitely has developed their own style. It feels free in a similar way that Ornette Coleman's music does. Free of confines in form, but a definite sound, their own sound. The sound of a group starting somewhere and going in their own direction.

Daniel, Nate, Matt, and Pete have built a language together. They take a jumping off point and go from there without question. No looking back. Pushing forward and inviting the listener along. Recordings that I've heard of them are great, but their music just begs to be seen live.

After the performance, Daniel took a moment and spoke to me about his approach to improvisation. "Do you remember when you were a kid and had a pile of Legos in front of you? You would just grab pieces and put them together!" He takes bits and pieces to construct each performance, just like a child excitedly builds. So refreshing to hear him talk in such nostalgic language. I look forward to witnessing him construct more.

For Jim McAuley

For Jim McAuley by Nathan Alexander Pape

Easy Not Easy Festival on October 7, 2010

The Easy Not Easy Festival is a series of concerts that Roulette is holding to raise money for the new space that they're moving into. The Art Deco theater that they are working on renovating will expand their seating to close to 600. I would estimate that for most concerts now they cannot sit much more than 100. This is a great new move for a great venue. And hell, now they'll be in Brooklyn, and a section of it easily accessible by me!

Due to some travel of mine, I was only able to attend this past Thursday, the first night of the festival. The following was the program:

Radio Waves In the Air

Aki Onda

Four For a Time

Brenda Hutchinson

AK47 with the Pharoah

Justin Frye

Conducing

Andrew Lampert

Pieces from Volac, Masada Book II "The Book of Angels"

John Zorn

Untitled

Shahzad Ismaily

Silence

Pauline Oliveros

Performers:

Aki Onda - tapes, electronics

Richard Garet - electronics

Ben Greenberg - electric guitar

Katherine Young - amplified bassoon, electronics

Sergei Tcherepnin - modular synth

Maria Chavez - turntables

Shahzad Ismaily - bass, synth, etc.

C. Spencer Yeh - violin, electronics

Erik Friedlander - cello

The opening piece by Aki Onda seemed to be a piece where a certain structure of the performance is told to performers and it moves from there. It started with Katherine, placed to the left of me within the audience, playing some long tones and jumping registers in pitches. This was shortly followed by Aki Onda carrying a radio with a small amplifier, contorting the characteristics of the resulting static, and slowly pushing his way through the seated audience–pushing chairs along the floor and knocking over my (thankfully empty) beer bottle. Other performers around the room joined in adding sparse textures.

Of all of the pieces that dealt with the use of what would typically be considered noise (basically everything performed other than the John Zorn), Radio Waves in the Air was certainly the most effective. It worked outside of the typical audience/performer relationship. Since performers were scattered throughout the space, it didn't suffer from a flattening of the aural image (see my previous post). I greatly enjoyed facing forward and listening to the soundscape move around me.

When listening to electronic music, I can't help but think of John Cage's opinion that it didn't make sense to make music in any traditional sense using electronic information. To him, a new medium meant the need for a new tradition. So why perform in front of the audience? Of course you can, but should it be the typical set up? Though a little quirky, I found Aki Onda's approach excitingly interactive.

And as appropriate as ever, the piece ended (possibly by chance) on a rock tune whose content concerned the sweetness of Alabama. I think it was Kid Rock.

Erik Friedlander, as always, did a spectacular job with John Zorn's Masada repertoire. Masada, of course, is Zorn's project that cross pollinates Jewish music along with jazz forms and practices. It is basically a large collection of "tunes", as I believe I once heard him say. These tunes have been interpreted by many different ensembles to great success.

Approaching this music as a soloist, Erik has created a very nuanced approach to music that sounds familiar and new. As a listener, you hear Klezmer, some dissonance, and a healthy dose of interpretation–all executed fluidly but without being too sterile. I cannot say enough about how much I enjoy Erik's work, especially his solo performances. His own series of compositions for solo cello are documented on Block Ice and Propane, an album that spans the breadth of Americana on his very Euro-centric instrument.

I also particularly enjoyed Shahzad Ismaily's piece which was for solo modular synth. Not knowing the inner workings of a modular synth, I could only listen and not analyze the approach. If you've never seen a modular synth...

So the result of all of these wires (at least what Shahzad crafted and Sergei performed) was a pulsating wash of sound, varying greatly in timbre. The piece slowly grew to a high dynamic level with a sound that to me was simultaneously static in its content but active in its internal interaction. It then quieted down to its ending. Judging by Sergei's reference to a small sheet of paper when everyone thought it has ended and then stating that it was over, I'm guessing Shahzad set up a series of directions to be interpreted from there. The end result was mesmerizing. (Perhaps a Stockhausen-esque directional piece? I'm guessing here.)

As for the rest of the pieces, they were somewhat of a wash for me. They all had their moments of interest, but differentiating a performance of Hutchinson's Four for a Time from Frye's AK47 with the Pharoah would prove difficult even after listening to them side by side.

Something that set Pauline Oliveros's piece from the rest was what must have been a direction to stop playing and to allow silence. And then to start again. This broke up the performance in a new way–basically getting people to shut up, which frankly can be a stimulating trick in a group of improvisors.

Lets hear it for Roulette. They continue to allow musicians with new ideas to perform. I'm looking forward to the new space and the new ideas to come.

The Flattening of the Aural Image and Why Many People of My Generation Have Never Truly Heard a Room

All electric guitarists become giddy when they play with a loop pedal. Suddenly, without any other musicians, you can create a huge wash of sound quickly and easily. There are many cliche approaches to these devices, but I stand by the fact that they are very useful. But lets not equate many looped guitar textures (or any musical instrument for that matter) with a large ensemble.

In order for anything to be useful, one must know the limitations. As far as I see it, the electronic devices that have become so prevalent in music making, especially music making for mass consumption, will never replace "traditional" techniques, though they will (and already have) draw attention away from traditional practices and simultaneously create completely new traditions, which we're already seeing. I think it is pretty typical of practitioners of electronic music to sell their medium as an all encompassing musical world with infinite possibilities–every variable of the soundscape can be controlled and manipulated at any moment. No longer is music held down by the strictures of instrumentation, space, the rigor of standard notation methods. Well...yes and no.

(as a side note: Many improvisors try to place their medium within a similar light–they are convinced of a sort of godliness inherent in the practice. I think Derek Bailey's Improvisation makes some similar claims.

In a large part, I disagree, though I still love the practice of improvisation.)

I hate to bring us back to the established western pedagogy, but it serves as an easy enough example. If you listen to an orchestra in a world class concert hall, there are a host of uncontrollable variables that add up to one's listening experience–resulting from the musicians performing and the characteristics of the space. Acousticians have worked to create many different metrics that can act as indicators to gauge good and bad acoustics. Of course these metrics vary greatly for the different acoustical environments that are ideal for a range of musical practices.

The experience of orchestral music within an ideal space (as it exists today) is the sum of centuries of listening to music making where certain variables of sound were held somewhat constant, whether by choice or not. This seems true of all traditional musical practices.

Some limitations posed by choice: tonalities, tuning systems. Some limitations posed by circumstance: the directional characteristics of a violin, different performance spaces acoustical characteristics that were available (something that was somewhat of a crapshoot in the past). With these variables set into their confines, composers then varied other systems: dynamics, harmony, available instrumentation. Each controllable element at a composer's fingertips was really a packet of linked variables. For example, a cello has a particular timbre (spectral content), directionality, and pitch range. All of these specific to just choosing an instrument.

For the most part, you could not greatly vary a particular acoustical characteristic (the spectral content of a sound for example) without affecting other parameters. Because, of course, the easiest way for a composer to change the spectrum of a note was to change the instrument it was played on, which, as mentioned above, changes many other elements.

Now the advent of electronic music, particularly noting the standard interface (the laptop) and its seemingly infinite possibilities. Variables are no longer strictly linked, unless done so by a practitioners choosing. But this infinite availability, in itself, has limitations, which mainly stem from, from what I can tell, how fast people can interact with the new interfaces and from the complexity of the sound sources, which are typically loudspeakers. The proposition that computer music can make any sound experience possible is perhaps–in an ideal world–true, but for the most part there are just completely different limits to be concerned with such as spaces programming this work, equipment availability, the usability of one's interface.

Mind you that I am in no way an accomplished "laptop artist" (for lack of a better term), let alone very familiar with this music other than from general listening.

My whole point here is not to diminish the artistic integrity of electronic music. I just want to point out that, as with any medium, there are limitations. And for every attempt to move past these there will be new ones, however minute they may seem. Electronic music is just different from the easily referenced western pedagogy of art music. Different is good.

Back to the flattening. I'm a guitarist. The historical invention of the amplifier has forever changed the possibilities and traditions of this instrument. A technology that was meant to allow the guitar to be loud enough in ensembles, such as big bands, has morphed into its own realm of practices and possibilities.

So the amplifier in its typical usage today acts not just as a sonic boost, but as the entire source of sound–allowing guitarists to no longer have to worry about being lost in the band, something I'm sure many musicians' neighbors and other instrumentalists could do without.

Now that the amplifier is the primary source, the origin of sound has been removed from the location of the musician entirely. AND the directional characteristics of the guitar (or any amplified instrument for that matter) are now that of a loudspeaker, not of the instrument.

This is a very important point. It has shaped much of the music made since the mid-20th century and how listeners relate to a performance. The first live concerts most of my generation heard were most likely amplified. The only spatial characteristics you heard from a room in these situations were completely unwanted (we are not talking about sound art here).

So someone makes sound (someway or another) with amplification. (S)he uses loops to create textures. Amazing sounds can be made this way. Walls of sound are erected. Here is where the limitation lies. If they are running out of a single amplifier, all of these magnificent sounds (lets assume they're a great musician) have been condensed into one location. The spatial aspect of an ensemble has been sucked into a black hole. Increased dynamic range and controllability of musical textures have been gained at the cost of spatial information.

(Now of course mutli-channel systems can be made to allow a single instrumentalist to move beyond this limitation. Issue Project Room, the venue in Brooklyn, made a 15 channel overhead speaker system. I heard Okkyung Lee perform some amazing music with this system.)

This became about a lot more than just the flattening of the aural image. But my point here is that the proliferation of amplification and the methods that have become standard practice in its applications have drastically changed how we listen, and what, as listeners, we know to be possible. There are certainly people that are completely open-minded and are aware of all of the beauties inherent in many different practices of music. And I hope that somehow more people are exposed to such things.

Music has been transformed in many ways over time, but let us continue to listen to all of the possibilities and not forget the greatness that came before us as we move it forward continue to add to the pile.

Iva Bittova

What a great performance. I'm always stunned by how innovative yet familiar Iva's music is.

October 3

Guitar improvisation I performed today. Enjoy.
October 3 by Nathan Alexander Pape

John Fahey

Just wanted to say that John Fahey is an American treasure.

Christian Marclay Festival 7/10/2010

The Whitney Museum of American Art is currently hosting the Christian Marclay Festival, an exhibition of work which illustrates the intersection of the visual and the auditory. Films of Marclay's are continuously shown, and some of the most respected musicians of the "downtown scene" will be performing (or interpreting) Christian's work through late September.

Christian is credited as being one of the first (if not the first) to use the turntable, not as a playing device, but as an instrument itself. Pretty important musical milestone in the late twentieth century.

His compositions often replace traditional musical notation with visual information and/or instructions. The clear example of this being the currently evolving chalkboard piece at The Whitney. Patrons are invited to add whatever they wish to the length of chalkboard with musical staves adorned on it. They can compose music in traditional notation, doodle, erase, or even write snide remarks–one that comes to mind was something like "woohoo I got a show at the Whitney". Musicians will be interpreting the chalkboard at different times during its existence at the museum.

I'm still not entirely sure what I think about this piece. For me, it invites both interest and derision by using public interaction. What is it about "we're all taking part" art that leaves a bad taste in my mouth? I'm really not that awful of a human being to think that the public has nothing to add, but it just seems so...well...easy. And I HATE saying that, because I know that that is the reaction that many people have to the music that I most admire, so who am I to react to visual art of that nature.

Perhaps its the un-public nature that is actually at hand here. A single person puts up a wall for everyone to interact with, yet its their name that claims ownership. Even with the most caring of intentions, the gallery space never really seems public; it seems more like a signing over of everyone's input to the whole–knowing that you contributed. But, ultimately, its "their" work. It's not the public that is appreciated (they're not the creators here), its the "benevolent" artist that opened their wall to the public. I may be too cynical here. This isn't really what I care about.

My next reaction to the chalkboard is of a musical nature. I am very interested in graphic notation, but due to the logical mindset that often possesses me, I just don't enjoy graphic scores that have no system of communication. By this, I mean pictures or sketches with no inherent directions that are then proclaimed "scores" as opposed to a non-traditional, visual method of communicating a piece. I understand its importance of breaking down the conventional mindset that is Western pedagogy, but frankly, improvisation does a better job of that without, yet again, marrying the musician to the page. I suppose there's more than one way to skin a cat, but this one always makes me a little queasy and then makes me feel slightly conservative for rolling my eyes. But I roll my eyes anyway.

Let me state something before I make it sound as if I despise this show (I actually don't at all): I find improvisation to be one of the most invigorating ways to create and hear music. In some pieces, Christian merely simplifies the instrumentation at hand, which is often a great way to limit improvisors and have them approach music outside of their standard practices. It's my respect for improvisation that results in negative reactions to graphic scores that barely instruct the performer in any way. It asserts the hierarchical roles of composer and performer into a creative process that otherwise would be instantaneous and pure. It continues to assert the visual, both from the public and the performer's perspective, on what is actually an auditory experience. These are the same reactions that I have to some of Earle Browne's early work, December 1952 comes to mind. I'm glad that someone in the classical world appreciated improvisation, but the movement never seemed to move past the page, which seems like running halfway up the hill.

I was able to see two performances on July 10 of Christian Marclay's compositions: Sixty-Four Bells and a Bow and Wind-up Guitar. Both of these works are a choice of instrumentation and the rest is up to the performer. I'm not aware of any graphic information that a musician is to refer to for either of these.

In his Sixty-Four Bells and a Bow, the performer is given sixty-four bells and a violin bow and can create sounds however they wish, including amplification and electronic manipulation. Nicolas Collins performed this piece more as an interaction with the bells and other systems than as the percussive improvisation that one would first assume the piece to inspire.

Nicolas approached the bells in three different ways, the first of which I missed since I was late; I believe it had to do with laptop processing. The second interaction with the bells was using speakers as stimulators. He played a recording of someone talking through speakers on the table and then placed bells on the speakers as they moved or had attachments to the speaker cones strike the bells as they reacted to the speaker's movement. (I should note that I would not have known that the recordings were of people talking if I had not overhead him explaining this to someone after the performance.) His next process was covering two microphones with bells to manipulate the feedback of the amplification system. Depending on the size of the bell and how much he covered the microphones, different pitches were summoned and swelled throughout the gallery–the bell no longer producing the sound itself but influencing the music by partitioning off a resonant volume. The resulting combination of tones were surprisingly beautiful and haunting.

I would still say that the interpretation was a successful venture. (For my own ears, I would love to hear a performance of this where the bells were only shaken, struck, and bowed. The percussive approach. I think that would be a worthwhile, though perhaps obvious, interpretation.) Something that I should mention was the inevitable inclusion of the scrapes of microphones that resulted when Nicolas would make an adjustment to the setup–the unintentional becoming part of the work and adding an eeriness to the ringing of bells, feedback, and the quiet percussive nature of the manipulated speakers. I actually enjoyed its presence.

Wind-up Guitar was performed by Alan Licht. All that I'm aware the performer is given is the contraption of a guitar with multiple music boxes installed in its body with their wind-up keys sticking out. The music is for them to find through the object.

Alan's performance that afternoon was underwhelming. Most of the time he played sloppy quarter notes and would add a music box every now and then. The performance seemed far more like a demonstration of the individual elements of the object rather than a musical piece as a whole. He also added to the instrumentation with a tuning fork and an equalizer which was used to create feedback when he felt the need. It wasn't until near the end of the piece that he decided to go with the fairly obvious method of winding up multiple music boxes at the same time–creating a nostalgic cacophony. This was interesting to listen to, but maybe too obvious of a strategy for him to embrace right off. Frankly, though, sometimes the obvious is the best choice, and the twenty to thirty minutes that it took to get there were mainly superfluous. I'm all for long performances of minute material, but improvisations do require some editing.

Here are three video clips of his performance. Photographs and videos were encouraged by the way.

So overall, I'm glad The Whitney is putting on the Christian Marclay Festival. A small niche of the creative music that has been native to New York for decades is being displayed to the public as opposed to hidden in small venues. I do, however, worry that the ingestion of this work by the public will create misunderstandings of what contemporary music is and will overly generalize one person's approach to be equivalent to all contemporary music. I think this is a legitimate concern since the museum world is, for the most part, not the territory of composers and improvisors. But hopefully this festival will invigorate the curiosity of the public in the practices of creative musicians and encourage them to investigate new music further–there is a lot to find.

Zeena Parkins "Between the Whiles"

I've been attuned to music featuring limited instrumentation lately–groups of singular timbres, soloists, duos, trios. I love hearing what can be coaxed out of a single instrument, or the interplay between two voices conversing. Notes growing close to one another. The slippery form that can morph at any moment to something solid. The single note that pulls everything together.

That being said, the music documented on "Between the Whiles" is not limited to a single sound or instrument. It covers a lot of terrain. But there is something about the nature of the music, it all being made from the thoughts of an individual, that makes every sound heard as if it came from one source. Everything flows effortlessly and has the feeling of an intimate performance.

The best moments are those that seem as if they've gone on forever but never die, always being piled on top of with something new and scraped away from to show the bare beauty. Zeena does some of the most exciting things with the smallest amount of material, and then, out of nowhere, it shines at a new angle and the idea is as fresh as when it started.

Zeena–drawing upon improvisation, minimalism, noise, rock–has developed a singular voice for herself. She summons voices that haven't been heard before and places them within contexts beautiful, abrasive, exciting, haunting and uses them to mold pieces that seem as organic as free improvisation but simultaneously as thought out as through-composition. Frankly, who cares how these pieces were made? The results are tremendous. This recording documents a powerful voice that should be heard.

Some of the Things I Heard, 26 May 2010

• alarm multiple times with 10 minutes of silence in between
• brushing teeth
• walking on concrete
• walking down concrete steps
• subway sounds, which included a very interesting wavering rumble (the train stimulated a resonance of the tunnel)
• fan noise along with the sound of coffee being poured
• crumpling of paper bag
• chewing
• typing and clicking for many hours accompanied by various office sounds and conversations, scooting of chairs, other people's computer interactions, arguments
• carrying a desk loudly in a loud freight elevator
• putting a desk together
• the scraping of heavy shelves pushed on hardwood floors
• more computer interaction
• cocktail party and award ceremony (conversations of my own with others' conversations in the background)
• subway again, no resonances were noticed this time
• the dull hissing and thuds at the laundromat
• Morton Feldman's "The Kind of Denmark" (probably played louder over speakers than he intended for it to be listened to)
• these computer interaction sounds

Seth Cluett featuring Okkyung Lee

A week ago at Roulette, Seth Cluett hosted an evening of his works. What is so intriguing about Seth–and this is apparent from the moment that he starts talking–is that he is actually interested in the audience being as completely inspired as he is by the simplicity and beauty of sound.

To start off the night, the piece Paper and Stones involved the entire audience. He handed everyone in the audience two small sheets of rough paper, except for two members who were given two small stones. The audience was instructed to rub the paper together in a circular motion at whatever speed they felt like. The two stone players were then instructed to tap the stones together once for every time that some member of the audience–anyone of their choosing–completed a circular motion with the paper. To cue the beginning of the piece, Seth crumpled a large sheet of paper very slowly. The audience then followed the simple directions until he crumpled his sheet again, signaling the ending.

The result of this piece was a meditative few minutes for everyone present. The quiet scrapes of the paper changing speed and intensity accompanied by the taps of small stones from either end of the room. I was lucky to be nearby someone with stones–allowing for a contrast between the dynamic levels of the different rhythmic tappings.

This very subtle piece almost begs for one to raise an eyebrow and say "Ok. I get it. Very clever. Can we move on?" But Seth's genuine love for the sounds around him and his want to share this with everyone else through his practice makes this performance as concrete as any I've heard in a while. If you just forget yourself for the moment and listen–as we all should do–some very exciting things happen.

Next was the premiere of Overflow and Drift for cello, sine wave oscillators, and reed drones. Okkyung Lee performed on cello as a drone played through two loud speakers. This piece is an exploration of the interaction between notes and the changes that attack and timbre can make. Okkyung has the ability to coax almost any sound out of her cello, and the musical depth that results from her meditations upon a single note is astounding. The sound of the cello beating against the amplified drone recalled James Tenney's Beast for double bass, a personal favorite of mine.

After a short break, there was a solo performance by Seth on laptop, modified electronics, and amplified objects. As with the previous pieces, single sounds were shown to be far more interesting. The piece started with the the scraping of stone and then was taken over by a beautiful electronic harmony that persisted throughout the rest of the performance with meandering notes coming in and out of focus. I realized how much I was loving the performance when I slightly turned my head and found a whole new sonic universe available within the same space. It became immediately apparent that Seth was using the room as his instrument–turning the oddities of a space into the material of the performance. I wish he had invited us to stand up and walk around in order for us to explore the spatial nuances available throughout the room.

Seth Cluett is the type of artist that I'm truly glad still exists. He is enamored and excited with the sounds that surround us, and he wants to share it with those willing to take the time. Virtuosity is not what is being explored here. Something far simpler, but often under-appreciated, is brought to the forefront in his work.