Composers: Nick Norton

Nick Norton, another fellow Twitter friend of mine (known as “@NickWritesMusic”) is a composer, has 2 indie rock bands, writes material for his website, is a Vice President for a musical therapy organization called Music To Heal, and is also the Music Director of PR firm Pavement Press. Aside from the seemingly-hectic lifestyle he has, Mr. Norton’s studies have taken him all the way to Europe and back again earning him several awards and grants, and has had his works performed and workshopped by various orchestras and ensembles. Thank goodness there was some spare time to do a Q&A!

CM: Nick, after studying guitar you played in punk rock bands before you went to university both in your native California and then Paris to study composition. Were you always thinking of that even during the punk years or did you get swayed by classical music later in life?

NN: I think I discovered what we might call formal composition by accident. I was very, very involved in political and social activism in high school, as was a lot of the music I was listening to and playing. I figured for college I would double major in music and political science, and then either write well-informed sociopolitical music to effect change, or go into politics and be a voice for the underrepresented…I think the interest in that in particular came from seeing punk music as sort of underrepresented and misunderstood by mainstream culture.

I’d always had an interest in classical music, and enjoyed going to hear orchestras, but I think that came from an interest in the arts in general. Going to class in college, early on, I found a lot of the theory and music history boring. I still find the large majority of baroque music that I hear totally boring, and a good bit of the standard canonical repertoire too. It sounds extremely pretentious, but I felt like my (and most of today’s listeners) ears had evolved to listen for color and rhythm and texture, not so much how a theme is developed and modulated in the kind of Germanic tradition. By this time I had moved away from punk a little bit, and into more esoteric types of rock…noise rock, glitch, post-rock, stuff like that. I didn’t find the palette of sounds that traditional classical music used to be capable of holding my attention, since I’d grown up with the complete range of audible sound available to be used musically.

I can pinpoint the exact moment that I suddenly became interested in the whole “classical” world. I took an introduction to composition class with Harvey Sollberger, and our first assignment was to write a piece for flute using only five pitches. Harvey was an incredible flutist, and said he would play our pieces in class the next week. I was kind of always into science and math and engineering and stuff like that, so exploring the permutations and structures of what one could do within a set of parameters like that was really interesting to me. I went home and ended up writing six or seven minutes of music for solo flute. I wasn’t really expecting much when I took it into class the next week, but about twenty seconds into his performance I was on cloud nine. I was like “this is amazing! Those black dots I wrote down on paper are generating actual sound and human activity! I want to do this forever!” And I haven’t really looked back. I didn’t see much of a future in politics, after having studied it, and writing music was a lot more fun, so I applied to some grad schools, got into a summer program in Paris and then King’s College London for my masters, and here I am.

On a side note, that’s right when my music history classes were getting up to the twentieth century, and the leap from the esoteric popular music I was listening to to classical modernism was an easy one from there. Then I just started studying the canon in kind of reverse chronological order. I feel like I’ve still got a lot to learn.

CM: What would you say was the moment your creativity had reached its maturity/breakthrough?

NN: I know the exact moment on that one as well. I was very into coming up with really elaborate structures and arguments for how to write music, after reading some of Boulez’s early essays and his correspondences with John Cage, and hearing about the ideological battles going on in places like Darmstadt. Being a hot-blooded post-teen pseudo-punk-hipster-intellectual, I was like “I can get on board with that! Screw the past! The only music that matters has to invent something at every second! I need total control as a composer!” I think my professors nurtured my passion, but it created some very drab music. I still think what I wrote then was important, because it was indeed inventing new sounds for me, but I was both fifty years late and totally out of touch with most listeners. Most of my friends didn’t like it too much, but were supportive, and said things like “well I don’t get it, but you know what you’re talking about, and maybe you’re just 100 years ahead of us”.

Nick Norton: On The Beach

Before I started in Paris I had a talk with who would be my professor in London, a composer named Rob Keeley (who just released a CD, by the way). I was talking about all of the systems in place in a piece I’d just written, and how important they were, and he said “well that’s all well and good, but what does it sound like?” That hit me like a ton of bricks. I’d kind of forgotten about that, and about the fact that whether it’s illuminating some dark aspect of the human psyche or just giving you a beat to dance to, music and art must in some sense be enjoyed by those who are perceiving it. So in Paris, I tried writing a piece with no system, just picking the notes I thought sounded good. It was scary…I think I almost passed out in the spot right after the music stops before the audience claps at the premiere…but the crowd absolutely loved it, and that piece has been performed a whole bunch now. I didn’t feel like I was pandering, because I was writing the music that I wanted to write. And that was the aha moment. I realized that absolutely nothing is off-limits as a composer, and that I could do whatever I damn well please. I still want to create new sounds and move our art forward, but if listeners have no way of connecting with it at all, then it won’t affect them and the whole effort may as well have been in vain. So since then, my guiding principal has more or less been to ask myself “Does this sound good? What do I want to hear?”. I’ve had a lot more success since then than ever before, so someone seems to agree.

CM: Your music does appear to have a significant voice and pattern. There’s an interesting turn of phrase on the 3rd and final movement of the String Quartet #1; The last 40 seconds of the piece, the quartet plucks dissonantly and then dissolves. That’s quite perplexing to me!

NN: Ha, my girlfriend had some questions about that ending too. There’s a piece for four guitars by Leo Brouwer called Cuban Landscape With Rain that is absolutely gorgeous, and then this storm of snap pizzes kind of destroys it. I liked that idea a lot, and love Brouwer’s music…I think his guitar stuff from the sixties and seventies had a lot to do with how I think about blending disparate musical elements. Anyway, that might be me succumbing to a pre-composed structure a bit again. I had wanted to create this sort of meditative, tentative mood in that movement, and then go BANG to it. Might’ve been a young unknown composer begging for attention there a little bit.

Nick Norton: String Quartet No. 1: Movement III

When I went to the first rehearsal for the recording, and they got through that movement and got to the last chord before that section, it was like this big beautiful sigh of release and calm. And I was like “man that’s a nice ending. Oh wait, here comes-” and then it explodes. So I was a little bit torn about whether to keep it in there, but the musicians all really enjoyed it, and the producer, Nick Tipp, really liked it, as did my friends who were acting as my second sets of ears for the session, so I kept it. I’m back to liking it a lot now, especially with what Nick did with the presence and reverb on the recording. That moment suddenly feels pretty claustrophobic. I dig it.

CM: The piece titled “Moon Songs” is a really interesting concept and another great example of the worlds of music and literature coming together. Can you talk about how it came about?

NN: That’s my first commission, and I somehow have to indirectly thank Eric Whitacre. Being somewhat outside of the world of classical music I spend a lot of time submitting things to calls for scores, because I don’t have a lot of friends who are conductors. I was about done with that, since nothing ever seemed to come of it, and he had published an article in the American Composers Forum newsletter saying that even if you didn’t get picked calls for scores were a great way to motivate yourself to keep writing, and you never knew when an individual judge might program a non-winning piece later. WomenSing had a call for samples out so that they could commission a young composer from California to write a piece using text from a library of poetry written by children. It was literally the last day of the deadline, and I said, “Fine, Eric Whitacre, I’ll give wasting money on postage one more shot.” I submitted a piece I’d written for a workshop with Exaudi, called Elevation Morceau, that was never actually premiered.

Lo and behold I got the commission, which involved doing a public workshop and a bunch of consultations with the artistic director, Martin Benevenuto, and their composer-in-residence, Libby Larsen. Then a few weeks later Charles Bruffy, the conductor of the Kansas City Chorale, who was on the judging panel for WomenSing, wrote to me to ask if he could premiere Elevation Morceau with Kansas City. Of course I said yes!

Things moved along pretty smoothly from there…instead of picking one poem I picked five, I wrote the music, had the public workshop, improved the music, went back up to the Bay area for the concerts. It was awesome. They were awesome. The whole experience, really. I went to Kansas City too for that concert, and they took me out for dinner and drinks and I felt like some kind of famous guest artist. It was really cool. I think the whole deal has opened up a lot of doors for me. I wrote Eric Whitacre to say thanks, but I don’t think I’ll ever hear back.

CM: [Still on "Moon Songs"] I like that in the midst of that choral piece suddenly there is what sounds like a welcome element of pop music when the drums kick in. Would you say that there is (or has been) a tendency for new classical music and other genres like pop and rock (indie rock especially) to start meshing together?

NN: That’s my favorite part of that piece, although the altos are about ready to pass out at that point so I don’t think they like it as much as I do. I think that tendency has always been there…Mahler 1 has klezmer-y sounding folk tunes in it, Where I End and You Begin has Mahler 1 in it. Alex Ross could point out a million examples of this. I mean, listen to Sigur Ros! Or perhaps listen to some Phil Glass, immediately followed by Godspeed You Black Emperor. There’s no difference, save for marketing, and I for one enjoy the concert experience of an early Dillinger Escape Plan show way more than I’ll ever enjoy that of a Brian Ferneyhough recital. The musical meat is not all that different. I think we’re noticing more crossover now for a few reasons though. One is that orchestras are trying to attract younger audiences, and younger audiences tend to like pop and rock and whatever else. I think the bigger reason, though, is that a lot of composers today grew up listening to more pop and rock. Honestly, I don’t think about it too much. I’ve only got one set of ears, it’s all vibrating air molecules that my brain has chosen to interpret as music. Any difference is all in context. That’s why the drum set sounds so out of place or shocking there…it’s not because it doesn’t line up, or isn’t rhythmically expected (it’s 4/4 on the kick and snare, after all), but because we’re trained not to expect a drumset in choral music. Or expect to hear Bartok quartets being performed amplified in a bar before a rock show. I’ve seen that too, and it’s awesome.

Nick Norton: Moon Songs

CM: Okay, so you are a composer AND you work in not one but two rock bands (Honest Iago and Better Looking People With Superior Ideas; I like that name, btw). When you go back to your fellow bandmates, do they poke fun, or are they much more respectful?

NN: The thing I love about playing in Honest Iago (besides the fact that we’re all close friends) is that the band was formed in order to take rock and and really try to contribute something new to it. Originally we all had a rotating lineup, and would invite a bunch of different instrumentalists to play with us, so that every show was different. One time we played with two guitars, bass, drums, keys, clarinet, assorted percussion, and stand up bass. At a couple of shows we’ve handed out hand percussion to audience members. We’ve had a few visual artists in the lineup too, who would paint onstage, most notably Alex Chiu, who has been getting all kinds of well deserved good attention lately. Since doing our first record and getting out of college, it’s mostly been the four or five of us (I never know which). But everyone is very open minded. Usually it’s a bit of a battle, but a positive one. Matt, our singer, writes the most amazing hooks with simple chords, and then asks me to “Nickify” them. It works for us. We got asked in an interview once what it’s like to be in a band with a composer, and the other guys said “it makes him harder to ignore.” It was a joke, but I think there’s a grain of truth to it that makes our music more than just your run of the mill rock and roll.

Honest Iago: All Prophets In Their Houses

Better Looking People With Superior Ideas started in a kind of funny way. It’s a duo right now, just Honest Iago’s drummer/my roommate Craig Vermeyen and I. Craig’s very talented and plays a lot of instruments, and seems to like pretty technical music like I do. So with Iago, it would always be he and I trying to complexify things up, while Matt was writing catchy hooks. We one day said “We’ve got to figure out how to write a three minute pop song.” Some people said, “No way, you guys will always be trying to blow people’s minds instead of just writing a melody.” Well turns out they were right, doing this stuff well is really hard! We wrote two or three simple songs that I’m really proud of, just guitar, drums, and lyrics, or organ, drums, and lyrics, but then when we moved in together we started adding stuff and writing electronica and whatever else. So the music is yet again complex. But I think it’s really cool stuff we’ve been doing lately. We’ve almost got enough for a record. Unfortunately there’s nothing I can share publicly just yet, and we haven’t played any shows yet because we have to coordinate quite a lot of instrument switching and loops, but that stuff is definitely on the way.

CM: There’s the 2 bands, your new-classical projects, AND your duties in Music To Heal and Pavement Press, plus you blog in your spare time. Do you sleep??

NN: Not enough. Sometimes things I’d like to be doing get put on the back burner, unfortunately. I’d like to dedicate more time to Music to Heal and Pavement Press and really don’t get to. And I could really use [some] exercise once in a while. I miss that. My other roommate plays basketball once a week, and I was thinking of going with, even though I’m terrible. I actually started specifically scheduling down time about a month ago, where I would swear to myself that I wouldn’t do anything for an evening, and would just have a beer and watch The Wire. I finished the series, but it’s still sort of working. Sort of.

NickWritesMusic.com
Nick’s official website

Nick’s Soundcloud Page

Music To Heal
Organization Nick is VP for that specializes in music therapy.

ensemble et. al.

per·cus·sion [per-kuhsh-uhn] –noun
1. The striking of one body against another with some sharpness; impact; blow.
2. (Medicine/Medical). The striking or tapping of the surface of a part of the body for diagnostic or therapeutic purposes.
3. The striking of a musical instrument to produce tones.

ensemble et. al., a New York-based percussion ensemble that is the brain-child of Ron Tucker (Who’s aided by J. Ross Marshall and Charles Kessenich) have created some very peaceful, yet thought-provoking dulcet-toned tracks that almost invoke what Teiji Ito would make if he were to record a Christmas album.
Their latest EP, When The Tape Runs Out is the closest one could get to that.

“The ensemble’s sound is really a product of the diverse genres I have explored in the past,” explains Tucker. “A lot of percussion music can be overbearing, loud and dense–without any real sense of melody or structure. By contrast, ensemble et. al.’s compositions strive to incorporate melodic and harmonic motifs and to employ a simple, intimate, and delicately beautiful asthetic. My goal is to create music that is quietly and subtly moving, and that achieves its emotional effect in a simple, elegant manner.”

The EP’s 4 originals (as well as a cover piece; We’ll get to that in a second) are all very intimate and beautifully aesthetic, indeed. According to the group’s press release the recording features glockenspiel, vibraphone, and marimba, as well as metallic, wood and glass objects for their tonal resonance.

Of the 4 originals, my personal favorite is the second track “In a Crowded Room With Nothing To Think About” as lyrically this is very much my life story, but I also love the rhythm of the piece.

If New York Times writer Allan Koznin was quoted as saying “Drums are the new violins”, it would be crazy if he hadn’t heard this recording before then as it materializes as a audio cubic painting of a chamber ensemble.
The 5th track is Tucker’s arrangement of Arvo Part’s “Fur Alina”. The original being a lonely, stark piano solo piece, EEA’s version with the resonant chimes sounds like a more chilling loneliness.

Tucker needed the best possible circumstances during the recording of the EP. “I composed, recorded, performed, engineered, mixed and produced the recording myself in the ‘comfort’ of my small rehearsal studio in Brooklyn (Greenpoint). The 5 songs were recorded on my MacBook Pro using Cubase. The difficult part of recording in a rehearsal studio is finding a time when the space is quiet. Other rooms in the building where my studio is located are filled with indie-rock bands and unfortunately a very loud death-metal band is next door to my studio. Therefore, in order to track very delicate glockenspiel parts or resonant vibraphone tones, I would have to go into the studio in the middle of the night or extremely early on Sunday mornings. Since I handled all aspects of the recording while working a full-time job, the album took 5 months to complete. The tracking of the EP took about 3 months and the mixing and mastering took another 2 months. The EP was mastered by John Cohrs of Speenless Mastering.”

ensemble et. al.: In a Crowded Room With Nothing to Think About

ensemble et. al..com Official website
EEA’s Band Camp page

Composers: J.M. Gerraughty

Sometimes, it just starts with a horn.

Composer J.M. Gerraughty, known to friends as Jason, was a New Hampshire horn student that had quite an educational upbringing through his experiences as a marching band musician, and today is making a lot of compelling compositional music. Having been taught and mentored by many great teachers in the music education system, even now he continues to study composition at Stony Brook University and also teaches privately.

CM: You had gone from a student of the horn to assistant conducting the Hollis Town Band and already composing by the age of 13. What made you decide to compose around that time?

JMG: I owe all of my early musical achievements to a local music teacher in the town I grew up in, named David Bailey. He was the kind of teacher that rolled with whatever I decided to come in to learn that night, be it horn, conducting, or composing. Extremely supportive of my musical career, he gave me my first conducting gigs, as well as my first premiere. As for the specific impetus as to why I started composing then, my parents bought me a new horn when I was thirteen. In the case was some blank staff paper. I looked at it, and had an epiphany:”if this stuff comes blank, why not try to fill it?” I brought Mr. Bailey the first thing I wrote (a duet for horn and trumpet, because Mr. Bailey was a trumpet player), and the rest is history.

CM: You continued your training in composition at The Hartt School. What did they have to offer you that was significant in your maturity as an artist?

JMG: The Hartt School significantly shaped my career as a composer. At Hartt, I studied privately with Ingram Marshall, Robert Carl, and Stephen Gryc, although I found Dr. Carl to be the most influential of the three. His advice to me was to spend time experiencing art from all places. As a result, I spent as much time looking at art from the Wadsworth Atheneum and Real Art Ways as I did in a practice room. At the Atheneum I saw my first Rauschenberg (Retroactive I), and it was one of the most significant moments in my young career.

CM: Among your works, the piece that caught me the most by surprise was “Say Nothing” (scored for 14 saxophones/narrators). It is still a very polarizing thing to hear voices in a piece that aren’t showcased as singing ones, but voices that are shouting. After hearing this and experiencing some of the music I hear at Bang On a Can and from other current composers, I get the sense that theatre has been making its way into a lot of new music composition styles.

JMG: I understand what you’re getting at, but I wouldn’t necessarily call what you’re experiencing to be “theatre”. I think that a lot of the indie/alt/post/something-classical composers (like BOAC), in their integrating of popular music’s constructive devices, have also integrated popular music’s embracing of the performative. As classical musicians, our assumption is that meaning can only be derived by the music itself, not the conditions under which it’s played (by whom, where, why, etc.); this is not the case in popular music. As for Say Nothing, it is striking to us as classical musicians that the saxophone players speak, but only because our expectation is that they won’t. But there’s no reason why they can’t; not telling them to speak is the same kind of aesthetic decision as what notes to play, or what instruments to play. More recently, I had composed a piece for 4 vocalists, alto flute, bass clarinet, bassoon, and offstage trumpet, titled Slant of Light (Check out the recording on my site!). The vocalists all double on harmonicas in different keys. When the premiere came along, the piece was originally criticized for being gimmicky: there were auxiliary instruments, “exotic” instruments, the singers have to speak, there was a “theatrical” offstage trumpet. Some composers acted like I had somehow cheated by expanding the limits of the instrumentation I had been handed. But had I not used the forces that I did, the piece would have sounded completely different, and I probably wouldn’t have been satisfied with the results. As a friend of mine put it, “We study pieces for their gimmicks, not for how well they fit our expectations.”

CM: In the 2002 work “Suite” I heard a direct quote from the Scherzo movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony! Was this shout-out to Dvorak your way of connecting the old and new worlds of classical music?

JMG: You’re right, there’s a direct quote from Dvorak in my Suite for Chamber Orchestra. There are other quotes in the middle movement of that piece as well, such as Debussy’s La Cathedrale Engloutie. This was the first piece of mine to use quotations, and considering that it is an early piece for me, I’m not quite sure I had gotten it right yet (I wonder if I’ve even got it right now!). Growing up involved in drum corps from the age of thirteen, I had always been interested in the way that corps manipulated established repertoire toward its own ends. They were always taking popular pieces and cutting them up, re-scoring them, re-ordering them, and re-contextualizing them, all with expressive ends in mind. In this fashion, they were able to create a sort of new language (or at least a new dialect) from these well-worn classics (I could easily talk for days about the importance of drum corps as an American musical form, and how it is vastly under-appreciated by classical musicians, which is too bad). At the time, I was studying how composers in the Twentieth Century were doing the same thing, in a different way. Hearing Berio’s Sinfonia for the first time at Hartt was a tremendously important moment for me. I’ve been obsessed with that piece since then; every time I listen to it, study the score, or analyze it, I learn something new.

CM: I really like the idea for the chamber suite “4 Children’s Questions”. Was this based on actual questions that children asked?

JMG: Unfortunately, I didn’t interview any kids for the piece. I came up with the questions on my own, trying to think about how children might see the world. The piece is pretty uncharacteristic of how I think of my “sound” to be, but it was a good thing for me to write because it was an exercise in patience, negative space, and some softer pastel colors that I hadn’t been using in other pieces. I remember having to tough that piece out.

CM: Do you have any future dream projects or collaborations you’d like to share?

JMG: I can’t think of any “dream projects” right now, except for that coveted orchestral commission that many of us composers seem to always be wringing our hands for! I don’t really dream of pieces until I know whom/what/where/why I’m writing for; in that respect, I guess I’m more of a collaborator than I give myself credit for. I like active back-and-forth feedback with the musicians that I write for; I often send them partial scores during the composition process that help to shape the piece in the end. When I think of a “dream project,” it feels a little like I have some piece already written in my head, which is very rarely the case for me. I would like to write for larger ensembles, and at the moment wind ensembles seem to be more open to that than orchestras. I have recently finished a piece for wind ensemble and electronics, called TWEAK, for conductor David Vickerman at The Peabody Institute. I’d love to do more work like that.

J.M. Gerraughty.com (Official website)
EDITOR’S NOTE: My apologies for the absence of video clips of Jason’s works, but please check out his music on his website (Click on “about”, and then “music”).

Musicians: Jasmine Reese

Jasmine Reese, yet another Twitter cohort of mine, is of great interest. Being a violinist, she has not had the more traditional route of early training, but quite a different calling altogether. After having the desire to learn the violin later in life, she had the idea to help others in this same situation. This has since evolved into a multi-tiered campaign in which she would be not only aiding her own musical training but also her health needs and supporting music education in general. Lets hear from her, shall we?

CM: Jasmine, what is Late Starter Musician and how did the idea come about?

JR: I started violin at 14 which is considered late in the classical music world. Since starting at 14, I’ve had two “professional” musicians tell me late starters could not master their instruments. Well, I am a rebellious and stubborn person. So, since the age of 15, LSM has always been an idea. At that age, I started asking numerous musicians whether or not they agreed with the notion of age and its correlation to musical capability. I was sad to find a majority of musicians did agree. That’s not fair! People discover their talents, passions and dreams later in life sometimes. They should not be denied the opportunity to at least try based on something as trivial as age. However, society places great importance on age and physical characteristics.
So, my blog is my continual personal journey to set an example for accomplishment. We can accomplish our dreams, even with limited resources, time and support. Although since starting the blog, I have a lot of support. I am still a poor college student, though. I hope to be doing some great things with LSM in the next year if I can get funding. Ideas are invisible necessities. When you have money, they become continual sustenance.
I am 22, so I’ve been playing violin for eight years. However, three of those years was without a teacher. So, I like to say I’ve been “learning” violin for five years. The three years without a teacher, I only dreamed and hoped I was learning something.

CM: You are embarking on what seems to be 3 journeys (or a 3-part one); Mastering the violin, a weight-loss journey, and a bike ride across America. It sounds like a promotional gimmick but is there also a connection between the 3 goals?

JR: No, it’s not a promotional gimmick. These are personal dreams and goals. I only recently decided to make them public. I like seeing people accomplish their dreams. We all do, so I thought it would be fun to share my experience. I am most definitely not in it for the views or publicity. My BAM and violin goals are going to happen, regardless of who’s watching. It’ll be a journey I’ll never forget along with some of the other adventures I plan to go on before I reach the age of 30. And yes, losing weight and biking are interconnected. Subconsciously, I think it’s connected to the violin mastery as well. I want to be able to look good in my first significant recital gown!
In all seriousness though, life has been a bit rough for the past few years. My grades started dropping, the economy effected my family and we’ve had a lot of loss. This journey is about not losing hope, always having something to continuously work towards. You won’t be depressed if you don’t have time for it.
The only reason I am advertising it and trying to promote it is because I recently decided to bike for a cause; Music education. I hope to bike specifically for the funding of teen and adult music programs. We’ll see if this is possible. If anything, the bike ride will raise awareness for music education for teens and adults. So, yes, now there will have to be more of a promotional element to the biking part of my journey.
As far as the weight loss goes, I am on a genetic nutritional supplement called “GeneWize Body Genius”. It requires an active lifestyle and a strict food plan. The company who sells it, Genetic Sports Nation, is going to sponsor my bike ride across America if I lose weight and get over 1,500 subscribers on my YouTube channel. Gosh, that would be very helpful!

CM: You’ve made yourself sort of an open book for the public as there are people that are giving you advice on your violin playing and skills and even sending you videos of their ideas.

JR: I have a great relationship with the musician community. I have a little over 8,000 friends on facebook. They are all musicians. It took me a year to build up those contacts. They are all very nice and helpful. Many of them support the idea of LSM, and like me, wait for it to evolve into a great resource for teens and adults. I was always too scared to speak for myself. I am a perfectionist and always dissatisfied my with progress as a violinist. So, the videos I recently posted on YouTube is the first time many of my FB friends have even heard me play. They mostly know me for LSM. Their feedback has been encouraging and valuable. I am currently studying with Hrachya Harutyunian. We have our lessons through Skype. I will be posting snippets of these sessions on YouTube at some point. He is an amazing violinist. I hope to be half as good as him someday.

CM: What are your plans for music after this has been accomplished?

JR: I am trying to reach the ultimate level as a violinist. Right now, I play like a student. I am a student. However, I want to reach a level of a wonderful, professional musician. So, I am trying to master the violin as opposed to knowing how to play the violin, sort of….
I want to compete in the Sphinx Music Competition before I turn 26. Hrachya is helping me with this. My goal is to be at least one of those people on that narrow list of late starters who did something of note in the classical world.
It really is a courageous goal. We could compare my classical violin playing to an extreme makeover. Right now, my violin playing is like a 500-pound woman who wears god-awful clothing and has smudges of dirt on her face. Hrachya is the host of this show. It will take me some years, but hopefully, I will come back 300 pounds lighter, wearing the latest fashions and sporting good hygiene. [laughs] I appreciate any one who sticks around long enough to see the transformation.

CM: Very sorry for the recent loss of your dog Xheus. Would you care to share your memories of him?

JR: At age 15, we lost our home. We had to live in a motel. The highlight of my stay in the motel was visiting my dog in the kennel. We insisted on keeping her because she was a rottweiler. We were afraid if we put her in a shelter, she would not get adopted and be put down. That was a rough year and a half. I graduated high school that same year. I remember waiting for the bus two hours each day to head off to college and go practice my violin in the practice rooms. I studied for my SATs and ACTs, applied to Universities and completed exams all on a motel, twin-size bed. Needless to say, rottweilers and violins became an obsession. My violin would take me away from the situation. My rottweiler loved me no matter what. You can’t always find those qualities in humans. The rott who recently passed, Xheus, was always very happy. It’s infectious. They are a wonderful breed, especially when in the care of good owners. It’s too bad they have a bad reputation. They are protective, loyal to a fault and beautiful.

CM: Do you have any fantasy music projects or collaborations you’d like to share with us?

JR: Chris, I am still very much so a student. I am not sure when I will make that cross over into feeling like more. So, I will say my dream collaborations are really working with people I could learn from, such as my current “collaboration” with Hrachya Harutyunian. Also, Anne-Sophie Mutter inspired me to play violin. I love her vibrato, musical style and fashion. She’s just an all around violin diva. If I could learn from her or just get an internship where I am working closely with her, I’d be happy. Now if we are going to talk fantasy, I have one that probably won’t come true, but it doesn’t hurt to wish. I am still assembling a team for my bike ride across America. Since this will be done in the name of music education, I would love for one great violinist such as Hilary Hahn or Sarah Chang, the list goes on, to come along on the ride. I could learn so much musically from such a biking buddy. Not to mention, the publicity from such a famous person would raise either the much needed awareness or money. We would stop at schools, nursing homes and colleges. (I am going to be doing this myself, by the way. I plan to stop at a lot of hospice hospitals and nursing homes.) We would be busking as well which would rival Joshua Bell’s little experiment a few years ago where he busked in a subway station. Of course, that’s a true fantasy. Not everyone is up for the adventure of a lifetime!

Violinfanatic (Jasmine’s YouTube Channel)
Genetic Sports Nation is going to sponsor Jasmine’s bike ride across America if she can get 1,500 people to simply subscribe to her channel, so, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE to Jasmine’s channel as it costs you nothing. Your support means everything.

Jasmine’s Race Against Time
Jasmine’s blog (Please subscribe to this too! )

Late Starter Musician.com

Bang On A Can All Day

Jessica Schmitz (left, playing piccolo) and The Asphalt Orchestra performing outside the World Financial Center at the start of the Bang On a Can Marathon in NY, June 19, 2011 (Photo courtesy of Phoebe Zhang/Epoch Times)

‘Are you experienced?’~David Lang

I’ve come to the conclusion that the Bang On a Can Marathon (And any of the other events given by BOAC’s many artists like “Banglewood” and the various stand-alone concerts) is like a compositional music Woodstock for the mind (You can even quote me on that). Having volunteered for merchandise sales duties for the marathon 2 years in a row now, just within slightly distracted ear-shot I have heard a huge cross-section of the different ideas the new music makers have presented. There’s music that outright spooks you, forces you to think about why it’s spooking you, delights you, makes you happy, makes you dance, makes you sad, makes you despise it, bores you, and sometimes pieces that even all of the above applies to, depending on what you go for. Even though the music and the composers’ styles are all quite different (Composers that range from BOAC founders David Lang, Julia Wolfe and Michael Gordon, to Evan Ziporyn, Todd Reynolds, Toby Twining, Yoko Ono, Bjork, Frank Zappa and Philip Glass just to name a giant handful), the common denominator is that they are all composers of contemporary music. So if you expect to hear Mozart or Mendelssohn at this show, this might not be your cup of tea.

Philip Glass: Closing (Philip Glass, piano, and the Bang On a Can All-Stars, World Financial Center, NY 6/19/11)

There were a few people that felt strongly enough to complain to us, the people seated at the merch table, as if we could possibly adjust the music somehow to their liking. One guy was trying his best to explain to me completely on his own volition why he thinks Philip Glass’s compositions don’t work as we were being shushed by audience members standing nearby that did get Philip’s music.
“The audience tends to enjoy the concert overall, but much of the music is very polarizing.” explains BOAC’s store manager and bookkeeper Brian Petuch. “When you perform Iannis Xenakis and Philip Glass on the same bill that is probably inevitable. Overall though I would say most people enjoy the diversity in the programming and we have many diehard fans. One of my favorite things to witness are the tourists and regular mall shoppers that stumble upon this massive event where strange sounds are being blasted throughout the mall. They all have looks on there faces as if they stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone.”

David Lang: Sunray (Bang On a Can All-Stars; filmed at MIT circa Apr. 2011)

Another great thing to admire about this day-long show is the musicians. The Asphalt Orchestra, an eclectic marching band (Very similar in nature to Chicago’s Mucca Pazza), played outside and walking into the center at the beginning of the marathon and again in the middle of the center by the flat stairway (That was a treat! I know my friend Scott Parker, who’s a Zappa authority, would have loved their take on ‘Zomby Woof’). Cellist Ashley Bathgate, whose dad started talking to me about her when he saw my BOAC T-shirt while standing in line at the nearby Starbucks, sounded gorgeous among the BOAC All-Stars during their collaborative set with Philip Glass. Even though I missed his set at the marathon (Reason being that I was downsized to 2/3 shift when they cut the merch table to one this year), electric violinist/composer Todd Reynolds is always a pleasure to hear. And it really was an incredible experience to see The Sun Ra Arkestra for the first time ever; Even though Sun Ra himself died in 1993, his group carries on their traditional blend of free-jazz and big-band with electronic noise thrown in.

Sun Ra Arkestra (Photo courtesy of Tim N.)

Then there was Glenn Branca. I admire him immensely as a musician, an artist and as an historian for punk rock, but his “Ascension II: The Sequel” (Said sequel to his 1981 album) sounded like a repetitive punk jam. Philip Glass makes beauty from repetition as he did with his opening piece “Music In Similar Motion”, but Branca’s 6-piece group felt to me like some dudes wanted to rock out in the key of E all night long. My apologies to Branca enthusiasts. I hope I can make my way back to his music the same way I did for Schoenberg.

I have to say there’s many reasons to come to the marathon; It’s free, it’s a great place to see, hear and even meet various composers, artists and musicians. And those palm trees are so nice in what kind of looks like a giant sanitarium!

Zappa: Zomby Woof (Asphalt Orchestra; This version is from Le Poisson Rouge Jan 2011; They performed this in the middle of the hall at the marathon)

Bang On a Can.org

Musicians: Erica Sipes

Photo courtesy of Kingmond Young

Erica Sipes is yet another of the fine folks I know from both the Twittersphere and blogosphere. Being a dual-instrument artist (Pianist and cellist? UGH I’m a bit jealous of that! :p), she displays a formidable prowess as a seasoned musician. Married to vocalist and teacher Theodre Sipes, they have a daughter together named Emma, and with those responsibilities Erica even finds time to write a blog, and do an interview like this one.

CM: Erica, you are trained both as a pianist and a cellist. Which of these came first, and which of the 2 do you prefer?

ES: I seem to have come full circle. I started out with piano at age 5, walking into my first lesson declaring that I wanted to learn how to play the Mickey Mouse Club theme song first. After eventually learning that (It took a bit longer than that first lesson) I quickly fell in love with chamber music and found myself playing in chamber groups with string players all the time. When I was about 10 or 11 I was working with a violinist colleague of mine and apparently I was quite fond of letting her know when she was out of tune. I think that is what inspired our coach, a wonderful violinist that I worshiped, to suggest that perhaps I too should take up a string instrument. Perhaps she thought I should get a taste of my own medicine. I picked the cello and continued to do both piano and cello for a few years. In high school I couldn’t keep up both instruments. One day my mother, who was doing her best to keep me on track in regards to practicing, told me that maybe I should just quit piano. I knew that she didn’t really mean it and that it would kill her for me to follow through so like a typical teenager I saw the opportunity and said I would. I called my piano teacher, who I admired dearly, and quit. It pains me to think about that now; Piano had always been a source of therapy for me. But at the time and even now, I think it was the right decision. I needed to make that choice for myself and I still see that time as crucial in me figuring out my musical self.
I finished out my high school years on cello, found myself competing in quite a few competitions, and then auditioned as a cello major at several music schools – Juilliard, New England Conservatory, and Eastman. I ended up at Eastman studying with one of the most incredible cellists I’ve ever known, Paul Katz. His sound made me melt, made me fall in love with the cello all over again. That first year was a tough year for me for many unmusical reasons and it was during a particularly tough time that Paul discovered that I also played piano. He heard me accompanying another cellist from another studio and I remember him asking me at my next lesson why I had ever quit the piano in the first place. I told him my whole rebellious teenager story and he said quite simply, “Well, that was one of the stupidest things you’ve ever done.” Within the next few days or weeks he had me signed up to audition for the piano department. After not practicing piano for years, I put together an audition and surprised myself by getting in. At the time, Eastman did not typically allow anyone to be a double performance major so I had to write an essay stating my case which I then had to present to the president of the school. That was intimidating! And it was quite the interesting meeting. In the end he agreed to let me be a double major for one year. By the end of the year I had to choose one or the other. I didn’t even make it that long. Having not played piano for a long time, I concentrated on piano and by the middle of the second semester Paul Katz told me that he thought I should make the choice then and there. So I did. Piano. In all honesty, I don’t know whether or not it was a difficult decision. I knew that piano was the practical choice since as someone who loves collaborating I knew I’d have a lot of career opportunities. But there is no doubt that the cello meant the world to me as well, with its unique ability to transmit vibrations from the instrument straight into my own body. So that’s it, really. I consider myself primarily a pianist now but since becoming a mother 6 years ago, I have brought the cello back into my life, playing in orchestras, chamber music, and sometimes even solo. As a collaborator and coach, I never turn down working with a cellist; It’s the next best thing to playing the cello part myself. Recently, I’ve also started playing around with accompanying myself on the cello, thanks to the joys of modern technology. It’s quite the interesting experiment and I plan on doing more of it soon.

CM: Are you comfortable juggling your multiple duties as a musician and a mother, and a blogger on top of those?

ES: [chuckles] I love the word “comfortable?”! Well in all honesty, no, I’m not at all comfortable juggling everything. And I have to say that I’d throw “wife” into that list too. But I take great comfort in knowing that there are so many other women who do just as much juggling as I do and that we all find it incredibly fulfilling albeit challenging. There is a quite a network of us on twitter and I depend on them on a daily basis for encouragement, shared laughs, insights, you name it. It’s a wonderful place, as I think you know yourself.
I have also undergone somewhat of a personal evolution over the past few years and much of it has been sparked by my blog. I have always loved to write but never been good at the old-fashioned spiral-bound journal thing. When I discovered what a blog was a lightbulb went off in my head and I thought, “This might be the ticket!” I started “Beyond the Notes” as a place to dump all the stuff that buzzes around in my head all the time – It truly gets painful sometimes if I don’t. I’ll never forget one post I wrote a while back that was mostly about my struggles with being a mom and feeling guilty for wanting to practice and perform rather than be a mom. One of my readers instantly contacted me and gave me the most wonderful advice. I don’t remember it word for word but it was basically something like, “You have a gift and kids are smart. Your daughter probably recognizes that you have something very special going with your music. There’s nothing wrong with her seeing that passion. I bet it’s even a good thing for her to see you work as hard as you do and with such determination”.
I treasure those thoughts to this day and point to those comments as the spark that got me on the track that I’m on right now. So in spite of the difficulty of balancing it all, I wouldn’t change any of it, really. Each role feeds into the next in a wonderful, fulfilling way. Hopefully, through practice, I’ll get better at being more comfortable with juggling it all.

CM: Something I always wonder about classical musicians and their origins; Were you always a fan of classical music from the beginning of your career?

ES: Oh yes. My parents have always been classical music junkies and they even dabbled around in it themselves while I was growing up, not on a professional level, but just as avid fans. Growing up in San Francisco, they dragged my brother and I to many concerts early on, mostly chamber music concerts and it was the combination of piano and strings that made me feel like I didn’t have a choice; I was blown away by the sound, by the communication that could happen in such a non-verbal way. So at the beginning of my musical life, classical music was basically all I knew. It wasn’t until I was older that I started really listening to other stuff. In spite of my first musical love, I do have a secret desire to someday be a jazz pianist too; I have so much admiration for jazz players and I really love listening to it. I took a semester off from Eastman to work in a restaurant in San Francisco and then in Switzerland and it was when I was working both places that I befriended some amazing jazz pianists. Whenever I had a break I would go and visit with them, listen to them, and ask questions. For someone that grew up learning a musical language that seemed full of rules and perfection, this new world was incredibly appealing and seemed so much more personal in ways. So who knows. Perhaps someday I’ll get to add “jazz pianist” to my list of roles.

CM: You definitely appear to be all about making the music experience a happy one. Was this something you always believed or was there something in your life that cemented this for you?

ES: I’m so glad you brought this up, Chris. Yes. For me, music isn’t worth it unless it is a happy one for whomever is involved in the process; The student, the performer, the teacher, the audience member. I am shocked, really, at how many professional musicians have a hard time performing and that are consumed by nerves yet still go out on stage night after night because that’s their job. I don’t think I could put myself under that type of pressure if I didn’t truly enjoy what I was doing. And what gets me is that I really don’t think it has to be this way. I think we, as a profession, have backed ourselves into an almost impossible corner. Most of us are perfectionists to some degree, mostly to a high degree; That’s what gets us to the level we’re at. But I think we easily forget that performing is a different thing than practicing, largely because performing involves an audience, a magical interaction between generally unrelated people. Forget perfection, just share yourself! So what got me to this place? I definitely didn’t think about any of this when I was younger. I was your typical performer that would walk off stage and frown, say negative things about myself and my playing, slink out of the green room with hardly a word for the audience. But there were two things that happened that have influenced the performer and musician I am today. The first thing happened when I was still a teenager living at home. I gave a recital at our house which of course, wasn’t perfect. Apparently I was quite clear about this thanks to the scowl that was on my face when it was done. A neighbor, who was not a classical music fan, wrote me a note the next day that said he enjoyed my performance immensely until he saw the look on my face. He requested that next time, I smile. That note angered me at first but he was right and I’m so glad he had the guts to give me his honest reaction. I believe that note is still in my mother’s files at home, it meant that much to all of us.
The second thing that happened was a biggie; My daughter being born. She was not an easy baby in just about every way imaginable and I suffered from severe post-partum depression and anxiety for several years. This wasn’t just mild, it was really, really horrible and could have been dangerous. But we made it through and it was that dark time that made me realize how much music, performing, and playing music with others means to me. I need it in my life. And now that I am a mom and a wife I don’t have time to be a “perfect” musician. Playing all the right notes isn’t even an option since practice time is so hard to come by and in working through all of this, I’ve realized that nobody else cares or even knows whether or not I’m missing notes here and there. Even I don’t care as much because what I know is that I simply must play or risk being a truly unhappy person. So what a relief! And with that relief comes an incredible joy that translates to those that listen and it’s their constant positive feedback that has shown me that I’m on the right track.

CM: We’ve seen some interesting examples of classical players trying new things outside of the box; Along with the interest in jazz music you had brought up earlier, do you ever think about doing collaborative music with outside genres, like with a folk or rock musician or group?

ES: Definitely, but I’m pretty shy and also a bit chicken. We live in Appalachian country and are surrounded by incredible fiddlers and folk musicians. I just found out that one of the young cellists I regularly work with has been invited by a celtic band in town to join in with them at gigs and I have to say I’m a bit jealous. I’m thinking that I might have to accidentally show up with my cello to see if they might invite me in as well. And as I mentioned earlier, I would also love to get into jazz someday. I’m pretty good at “reading” jazz from a transcription but that’s not the same; I want to experience the real stuff. I want to sense a string bass’ vibrations underneath the piano’s sound and the drummer’s rhythm inside me…it’s hard to get that type of physicality in classical music and it intrigues me.

CM: Do you ever worry about the state of classical music as a business, or do you think it’s still holding steady?

ES: That’s a popular question these days and I really think it’s a tough one to answer. I do think that the classical music world, as a business, is bound to change in the next few years. But my guess is that it has been constantly changing ever since “classical music” became labelled as such. There have always been the traditionalists that like to keep things as they’ve always been and the innovators on the other side. I don’t think these two camps will ever go away, personally. But I should also add that I’m certainly not an expert, especially living in a small town in southwestern Virginia. I keep as up-to-date as I can through twitter and the web but it’s difficult for me to really understand what the major cities are going through, especially the larger performing organizations. What I do know is that in our neck of the woods, if musicians present an offering of classical music to the public, there will always be new folks that will listen and enjoy. Music of any type draws people in because I believe there is something about it that hits a nerve in everyone; It is infectious, whether it’s jazz, gamelan, classical, bluegrass. The most important thing to me is that classical music is always out there in the real world and available in an everyday way and with a spirit of excitement and passion. Who cares if my performance isn’t note-perfect? Who cares if I play on a clavinova instead of a concert grand? Who cares if I play an odd assortment of repertoire? Who cares if I’m not playing alongside the most talented musicians in the field? If I am constantly out there making music in any way that I can and I’m excited about it, not worried about it, I feel that I’m doing what I can to keep classical music in people’s ears. Even better, I hope that my doing this will cause others, young and old, to be curious enough to try playing an instrument themselves or to pick it back up again. Music is a gift for all, whether it’s in the playing or the receiving and we can never have too many gifts of this nature. Fortunately, I think there are many musicians out there right now that have somewhat of a similar philosophy. That gives me great hope for the future.

Beyond The Notes (Erica’s webpage w/blog)
Erica’s YouTube channel

Composers: Thomas Deneuville

Photo courtesy of Axel Dupeux

My first interview for The Glass! Hopefully the first of many!

Having been both a fan of compositional music and a longtime member of the Twitter and online community in general, I came to know a gentleman by the name of Thomas Deneuville. He goes by the name “tonalfreak” on Twitter, possibly to inform us of the fact that he is a strong practitioner of keeping the melodic element in the world of contemporary music, and this he does very well. Having been invited to come see one of his premieres in NY (This one being of his cantata titled Waiting For Thoreau, programmed in a recital along with some of his other works), I was very humbled to see a quite laid-back presentation of compositions arranged for both classical instruments and those that are more typical of rock like electric guitar and a drum kit. At the end of his Summer Miniatures suite he even has a transcription of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android”.

CM: Thomas, you taught yourself guitar as a rock musician, and you went from that to studying classical violin a few years later. Was that an easy transition?

TD: It was actually a relief. I remember struggling with theory for a couple of years on my own while I was teaching myself guitar. Going to a music school brought me to another level. I immediately fell in love with solfege and literally ate the violin methods that were put in front of me, tackling second and third positions after a year. On the other hand it was also my first contact with the French music education system that still owed a lot (in spirit) to the 19th century. The same system pushed me to leave France years later.

CM: When did you decide you wanted to compose music?

TD: It was not really a decision. As soon as I was able to play chords and melodies on the guitar it was obvious that the next natural step was to compose, regardless of my technical level. What else was one supposed to do with one’s musical chops? Immediately after, I spent my spare time recording my compositions in my bedroom on a DIY multi-track system made of two boomboxes and using as many instruments as possible: violin, bagpipes, mandolin, snare drum, guitar, zither, recorder, etc. The white noise level on these recordings was unreal. In retrospect, they were very funny too.

CM: Did you ever feel pressured to imitate or write in a certain style? Or did you know what your voice was when the music came?

TD: When I was still interested in indie pop, I used to try to emulate the sound of my favorite bands (The High Llamas, The Divine Comedy, Tahiti 80, etc.) as I wanted to fit the Parisian underground musical scene. Apart from the fact that I actually never got a band together (I left France to study voice in Italy), it felt wrong and contrived, and I learned from this experience.

I am not saying anything new by claiming that the concept of style is outdated. Composers have a vast palette of techniques, tools, aesthetics they can illustrate their (musical) ideas. I believe that very few composers define themselves as “purely” minimalists, serial, spectral, etc. but most of them borrow whatever they need from these “schools” to build their own sound.

The important thing for me is to find an emotional place where I feel honest, that seems to reflect the Zeitgeist and also contains an element of risk for my writing (Just outside of my comfort zone). I don’t really know in advance what the next piece will sound like, but I know that this is the place I want to be in to write it. One would call this a “voice’, but a vibrant, changing evolving voice.

Delicate Structures; David Pearson (sop. sax), Ryan Shapiro (piano)

CM: Why Henry David Thoreau as the subject of your cantata?

TD: A year or so ago, I decided to focus on my growing concerns about the prevalence of technology in our society. Years of experience provided me with an insight into I.T.: I took my first programming class at the age of 8, and I currently work as an application trainer, web designer/coder, and social media consultant. These experiences have left me wondering about technology’s impact on our well-being. Are we not experiencing a collective loss of savoir-faire (As craftsmanship, cf. Richard Sennett) and savoir-vivre (Of civic experience)? How can we, as composers, raise awareness of such issues?

The underlying ideas for my cantata came to me when I got acquainted with Thoreau’s philosophy. Even though I had studied French literature extensively in high school and college, the Transcendentalists were unknown to me before I moved to New York (Surprisingly enough, I discovered Thoreau through Gandhi’s writings).

Waiting For Thoreau is a 5-movement cantata whose texts are drawn from Transcendentalist literature, New Thought tenets, and a web-based “bragging generator”. The textual contrast is reflected in the instrumentation: 3 winds (Flute, oboe, Bb clarinet), soprano, baritone, harpsichord, viola da gamba, and drum kit. I was really excited to write for viola da gamba: Ever since my teenage years, I have emotionally associated the sound of the gamba with an age when craftsmanship was valued, long before the advent of the digital era and its consequences on our lives, on the arts, or on cognition (cf. Nicholas Carr).

The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to [Samuel] Beckett’s play. The ideals that Thoreau believed in could be reached nowadays but at the price of a deep introspection, through a fair critique of technology and faith.

CM: How do you feel about the current and future situation of classical/contemporary classical music and its audience?

TD: There’s never been a worst time to be a musician. There’s never been a better time to be a musician. The industry is not going well but we often don’t really need the industry. I believe in DIY and most tools a musician needs (Recording, promoting, selling, etc.) are largely available for very little money, if not for free.

Like many others, I also witness a shift in {new} classical music to something that’s hipper and appeals to larger audiences. Borders are blurred: Sufjan Stevens, Owen Pallett and Joanna Newsom were recently listed among the 100 Composers Under 40 by Q2 [Online substation to NY's WQXR-FM], while Nico Muhly collaborates with Bjork or Bonnie “Prince” Billy.

I am both excited and worried about this: I enjoy the new energy and the experiments in new classical music, but I anticipate some empty fads. Nothing new, though. I’m pretty sure that people during the Baroque era, for instance, were facing the same challenges. As long as composers stay honest and never forget that music is intended for an audience, we should be fine. Easy on the synths, though…

Cyclothymic (Love) Diaries; Amanda Hick (soprano), Walter Aparicio (piano)

ThomasDeneuville.com
I care if you listen(.com) (Thomas happens to be an avid blogger as well! )

An Open Letter To The Estate (Or The Next of Kin) of Eric Siday

To whomever it may concern, I am very interested in finding out more about Mr. Eric Siday.

The man who played hot-jazz violin, cut many recordings with London-based jazz-bands in the 1920′s and ’30′s, and utilized a chromatic playing style technically advanced for its day. The man, who in later years after emigrating to the US had also developed electro-acoustic music and the television logo jingle; THAT Eric Siday.

The Rhythm Gangsters: Blues (Odeon A 272 138; Mx. No.: CE 8882-1; Originally recorded for Parlophone; R-2505)

I am really filled with joy, wonderment, frustration and sadness all at the same time that there was this amazing person that made such incredible advancements in both jazz violin and experimental music, and yet he is virtually forgotten today. His now infamous Screen Gems logo music frightened an entire generation of unsuspecting kids (Myself among them) when our favorite shows were signing-off. Consisting of what is believed to be a combination of a recorded violin phrase on reversed tape (For the first six notes) and a moog (For the last six, in harmonics), the Screen Gems piece is creepy, yet very distinctive and quite memorable.

Screen Gems logo (1965)

I would hope that someone out there that knows more about Mr. Siday will offer more material about the man we know very little about. For there to be the kind of effect that even his logo music had on people, he deserves to have his legacy retold in a documented fashion. If it wasn’t for filmmaker Rodney Ascher’s short thriller/documentary “The S From Hell”, I never would have been compelled to find out more about him.

I think it’s time that the world recognizes an untapped genius.

Yours Truly,
Chris McGovern

Piccadilly Revels Band: Jog Jog Jogging Along (Featuring Eric Siday, violin; Columbia, circa 1927)

NET logo (1969)