You’re known for teaching your Ensemble to play your pieces by ear, rather than by sight. What’s the benefit of learning music without seeing it?
“This is a big deal question. When music began, and none of us are around, we know that there was no notation. The greatest living musicologist, in my book, is Richard Taruskin, who just finished writing the six volume Oxford History of Western Music. He’s not only brilliant but he’s also a pretty hip guy. He says he’s basically writing at a time when notation began so that he can refer to things that he can see, and he realises that we’re now entering a period where that very notation is in question. Notation starts somewhere around the 10th or 11th cenutry and the notation was quite different then to how it is now; you realise that writing wasn’t the main deal, it was about saving the music for posterity. Really, to begin with, the parts would be sung, and learned that way. Then the idea of notation began to appear in certain cultures.
“There’s no notation that I’m aware of in West Africa, I don’t think there is in East Africa, I think in Indonesia there might be isolated forms of notation – certainly not ours – and I think in Japan they have some notation for gagaku, the imperial household music – very beautiful music, sounds electronic – but it’s a marginal thing, notation. If you take a balloon view of history it doesn’t figure that largely. So when people try to talk to me about pop music and classical music I say, wait, why don’t you just talk about notated music and non-notated music. Of which non-notated music is enormous and notated music globally, historically speaking, is very small – which is not to belittle it, I’ve spent most of my life doing it…but sometimes I wonder [laughs].”
“What I’ve learned that can travel is the structure of a piece of music, how it’s put together. It’s about the structural idea which exists independently of any sound whatsoever.”
You visited Ghana in the early 70s. How did you deal with being so inspired by the music you heard there, and how did you go about making it yours?
“A lot of people of my generation drowned in India or other locations. Because the music of India,the music of Indonesia, of Africa – we’re talking about continents, and thousands of years of music. They’re like an ocean. And a lot of people go wading in as an individual with a whole lot of mistaken ideas, and don’t really get out of it.
“I brought back a set of iron double-bells [from Ghana], and a beautiful rattle which I still have, and I brought them back and thought, I’ll use them with my music. So I got them to New York, and I take them to the piano and I realise OK, these things are out of tune. So what am I going to do, get a metal file? That seems like…not the right thing to do. It became clear to me – I am not an African, I am not going to make African music. But I’ve learned something. And what have I learned that can travel? What I’ve learned that can travel is the structure of a piece of music, how it’s put together. It’s about the structural idea which exists independently of any sound whatsoever. An empty vessel – that’s what can travel. Notes? If somebody gave me a gamelan I’d say thanks very much and give it to a museum or wherever…I’d feel burdened by it; it’s the weight of a culture that’s not mine. I want to go 48th street in Manhattan. And anything that’s in that store, that’s mine.
What did you have to do to ensure that you got the recording of Music For 18 Musicians you wanted?
“Takes. Splice the tape. Reverb. The usual tricks [laughs]. The rasping bass clarinets, you have to mic them the wrong way. The way you’d mic a b flat clarinet, classically speaking, is to go in the barrel. Bass clarinet probably the same thing. Not to get this effect. To get this rasping effect you need to go deep into the barrel, which is wrong. If you go deep into the barrel of a b flat clarinet it’s ‘Ouch’, but if you go ino the barrel bass clarinet, then you get this rasp, by turning up both the high frequencies and the low frequencies.
“Everything else is pretty normal. Judith Sherman is my producer, Grammy-winning, wonderful ears. This recording for Nonesuch was all Pro-Tools. The first recording [of Music For 18 Musicians] on ECM was obviously all analogue, it was done in a pop studio in Paris, on I think 16-track. But The Beatles did Sgt Peppers on 12 tracks so stick that your nose, man…[laughs].
How do you square the conceptual and practical aspects of composition?
“When I write music, I’m alone in a room. And my theory is this: if I love it, I hope you will too. I don’t think there’s any other way….If you’re writing a jingle, which is a perfectly valid thing to do, then you’ve got to satisfy your customer, because if they don’t like it they’ll send it back. And I can respect that. That’s craftmanship, the same thing if you’re writing for films et cetera et cetera. I’m not. I’m in composition, whatever that is…What I will say is that I think people are really very intuitively smart about music, you can’t fool them, and if you try do something that you think is what they want to hear, they smell a rat.”
Original interview by Emma Warren
Special thanks to Red Bull Music Academy
redbullmusicacademy.com
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thevillageorchestra
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syncop8
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Simon Fields
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matthewfarndale