The composers are deep in the work: writing, rewriting, tinkering with the myriad details that make the piece what it is, and what it will be. But what guides their decisions about how to shape the piece, or what direction to take it in?
The composers are deep in the work: writing, rewriting, tinkering with the myriad details that make the piece what it is, and what it will be. But what guides their decisions about how to shape the piece, or what direction to take it in?
Visit missioncommissionpodcast.com for a full listing of pieces, performers, and recordings included in this episode.
Intro:
This is Mission: Commission [intro]
Melissa Smey:
This is Mission: Commission, a podcast where we demystify the process of how classical music gets made. I'm your host, Melissa Smey, and nd I'm the Artistic Director of Miller Theatre at Columbia University in New York City. For this podcast, I commissioned three composers to write new works of classical music and to do it in six weeks.
Let's start with our first composer, Vijay Iyer.
Melissa Smey:
Well hello, Vijay.
Vijay Iyer:
Hey there.
Melissa Smey:
Well, let's jump right in. How is work on the piece?
Vijay Iyer:
I made something that is basically the shape I want it to be. I think there's a lot of detail work I still need to do. And it's clocking in close to 10 minutes, which might be a little longer than it needs to be, but I also like, kind of, just sitting in it so that I still think it needs a little sculpting. A little sculpting.
Melissa Smey:
Tell me about how that works for you. How do you sculpt it? How do you decide what needs to go? What needs to stay? How do you know, like, that 10 minutes, I mean, 10 minutes is arbitrary, but how do you know that that's too long? What's telling you that that's not the right length?
Vijay Iyer:
Oh, I don't, I'm usually wrong about that. I usually kind of let in too much. It's very much a gut thing. I think it's more like, it's not about the length per se. It's about, like, how much it's doing, you know, and whether it justifies its length. I mean, I made a choice to limit the palette in a very specific way. Like it's very tonal and it's very, it's basically diatonic everywhere. So not even really, like, functional harmony, or anything. It's just consonant slabs.
One after the other. It was kind of more for me about how you then create momentum and change in the context of what feels like stasis. Which is then, of course, about rhythm. I think the last time we spoke, I was talking about drumming and how I kind of wanted this to be like a drum ensemble piece, even though it's for piano quintet. So it's about propulsion. It gets into some pretty intricate pulsed material, and it's intricate in the sense that it's, like, difficult to synchronize as an ensemble. It's kind of like I'm writing to give us all something of a challenge, but also knowing that it's tractable. Yeah.
But I also, like, kind of just deliberately made it, not easy for myself, but it's all familiar to me, you know, all the material that I'm playing is things I might play anyway, you know?
Melissa Smey:
Yeah. Well, so I'm curious about, you said you’d limited your palette and it's tonal. Does that have a connection to then what you're trying to do with the rhythm? Does it free you to be able to do that? Like, so if it wasn't a tonal palette or you hadn't chosen that limitation, would the other decisions have been different?
Vijay Iyer:
Well, yeah. I mean, it would've been about trying to make some kind of a harmonic statement or challenging my ear in terms of how to organize pitch, trying to lead myself somewhere. Yeah. I chose not to do that. I chose at some point not to really try too hard to be a composer, I guess that's what I mean.
Melissa Smey:
In this piece or in life?
Vijay Iyer:
Oh, I don't know. Maybe, I think, I mean in this piece. I haven't yet decided about the second one. I'm still, you know, I write music, so, and people play it. So it's, that makes me a composer. Including me -- I play my own music too. So it's something about composing in the kind of capital C, Composer, Western classical sense of the term, or the contemporary classical, or quote-unquote, "new music," or whatever wrong word we use for it, that it's sort of like it's a auteur-ish in that sense like it's about a composer at the height of their powers, you know? So it's always about demonstrating what a great composer, one, is.
It's kind of a cerebral thing. Like it's, it's about the great mind of the great composer. And since I'm throwing myself in here as a player, I didn't really want to be burdened by that.
But, and then the other thing is like, basically this piece is for Greg Tate, you know, it's for other people too, but I just imagined playing it for him or playing it with him on the bandstand or something like that. Just like being in the room with him and having him hear it and what that would feel like.
Melissa Smey:
Yeah.
Vijay Iyer:
And, you know, he's no longer with us, so, but that was a kind of guiding light for me, a guiding force. It still is. And it kind of relaxes some of those demands around the, the great composer trope. You know, the sort of like, "this is what a composer does and you're not doing it," you know, that stuff. Like, I didn't really find myself thinking about that as I was working because I had made that choice, like, well, I want this, this is literally for him. And so just imagining him here, imagining him listening to it was grounding for me and it made all those choices okay.
Melissa Smey:
But when you're writing other music, is that something that you grapple with? When you're writing a violin concerto, say for Jennifer Koh or, are you grappling with it then?
Vijay Iyer:
I think I become like mindful of my place in the network or whatever it is in the hierarchy. I don't know, like I've come at music in a pretty different way from a lot of composers who write in that format, you know?
Melissa Smey:
Yeah.
Vijay Iyer:
I resisted that term composer because of that. But then I also am indebted to a whole lineage of people who claim that term, even when it wasn't really conferred upon them. I just find myself kind of tangling with it probably more than necessary. And it maybe has to do with some sense of belonging. Like, do I belong in this thing that still is annoyingly called classical music. I grew up studying it and I write for musicians who play it. So that puts me pretty close to it. But it still has felt a little bit out of reach for me, for whatever set of reasons. And, you know, I try to be better. I try to get better. I try to study scores and techniques and so on. And, but I also know, like I have a whole lifetime in music that also counts, you know, and that even if it doesn't get consistently named in that way, I insist on bringing it to the table.
Melissa Smey:
No, and I think that's something that can help listeners and audiences connect to you, and to your music, and then to this idea of classical music, right? Because as a curator and a programmer, my personal passion is about audience development. Like I love music. Music has meant so much to me, and I love connecting people to music. And this idea that classical music should only be for special occasions, and you have to dress a certain way, and spend a lot of money on a ticket, and you're meant to behave in a certain way, and just all of that kind of hierarchy and dogma just doesn't work for me. And the idea that it's exclusive doesn't work.
And so for people to be able to hear the way that you're trying to find where you fit in within this landscape, I think that people can identify with that because, you know, feel like you don't like classical music or that classical music isn't for you. And my hope is always that music can be for everybody, all kinds of music and helping to provide insights into that, I think is a way to help bridge that gap that people can feel.
Vijay Iyer:
Hence the podcast.
Melissa Smey:
Exactly right. Exactly right.
Vijay Iyer:
Yes. Yes.
Melissa Smey:
I just want everybody to love music. Is that...
Vijay Iyer:
Is that so wrong? It isnt.
Melissa Smey:
Is that so wrong? And is that too big of a goal?
Vijay Iyer:
No. I mean, everyone does. They've been, people are trained not to listen to certain things or not to pay attention to certain things, and yet it finds its way into their lives anyway. Even though I grew up, like I said, studying Bach, and Beethoven, and Brahms, and et cetera. So much of my experience of orchestral music is from movies. Like most of it, I'd say. For my, if you like clock it over my entire lifespan there is a sort of easy mapping that comes from like cinematic musical language that just kind of speaks through, I think, a lot of American composers.
Melissa Smey:
That makes sense. Well, I want to change topics a little bit and I'm, I would like to ask you to tell me about your two audio diaries that I listened to this week. I wanted to ask you to tell me a little bit about them and the, so the first one is viola.
[Viola Playing]
Melissa Smey:
Is that you?
Vijay Iyer:
Out of tune viola? [laughs] Yes, that’s me.
Melissa Smey:
It is not out of town. An in the second audio diary, can you tell me what I'm hearing in that second audio diary.
Vijay Iyer:
The second one is a playback of a MIDI version, like a kind of canned synthetic version of the score as it stands for the piece.
[MIDI string quintet]
Yeah. So it basically contains like the ingredients of the piece. Including the way it takes time, the way it lingers, the way it, kind of, things recur incessantly.
[MIDI string quintet Cont.]
Moving from elegy to ecstasy. So it basically has that shape.
[MIDI string quintet Cont.]
And then I added this framing stuff with solo instruments. That's why you heard me fishing around on the Viola. So the whole is dealing with three tonalities. It's basically f minor, a minor and c-sharp minor. So there are three minor keys that are a major third apart. It tends to kind of just, in these big blocks that are very binary, like, four bars or eight bars. They, it sort of just hangs and one of those, and it sort of toggles among them. And so the, a lot of the shifts come from that from just sort of sudden modulations from one to the other.
But then I also wanted to explore moving across all three more fluidly. There's a, I don't know if you know the Coltrane record it's from pretty late in his life called Interstellar Space. It's a duo album with Rashied Ali, so it's just saxophone and drums. There's a piece on there called Venus, which despite its usual description of being free, what he's actually doing is moving through three tonalities that are a major third apart. What gives it the sort of sense of slipperiness is the fact that he keeps shifting among these three and in the same order constantly through the whole thing.
And so that was a, kind of, anchor point for me. I was like, okay, well maybe the viola can do something like that with those three tonalities to get us to the point of ensemble, even. Maybe it needs to not start with the sound of a group, but rather a sound of something more like a soliloquy, or something.
Melissa Smey:
Is that connected to Greg Tate? Is that your voice to him? Is that his voice to you? Is it something else entirely?
Vijay Iyer:
Well, if this is some kind of method of invocation, or prayer, or it seems like we need to enter that space somehow. And I like to enter tenderly, I guess, that's basically the way I would put it.
Melissa Smey:
Well, so what happens next for the piece? What comes after now?
Vijay Iyer:
I always think of that composer on Sesame Street. Do you remember him?
Melissa Smey:
No.
Vijay Iyer:
He's got this, kind of haughty air demeanor and he is like, you know, thinking very deeply about this piece he's writing, but the piece turns out to be Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Melissa Smey:
[Laugh]
Vijay Iyer:
And he gets to like [singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star] "...how I wonder what you..." and then he can't figure out the next sound [laugh]. So then he like bangs his head on the piano. It's comical. That's sort of like imprinted on me from early childhood as like what a composer is. [laughs] So anyway, I'll be doing that, is the short answer. No, a little bit of like banging one's head against the thing.
Melissa Smey:
With also with a little humor is good.
Vijay Iyer:
Yeah, and I think maybe just like being able to sit with it day-to-day and be like, "is this actually… is this it or this not it? Is this, and why, if it's not it, why isn't it, it?" Trying to tackle that as the questions arise.
Melissa Smey:
How do you do that, though? That, I mean, that's hard. How do you make that happen? How do you make those decisions?
Vijay Iyer:
This is what we call aesthetics, right? Like when something, like, bothers you or attracts you, you know, like that's an aesthetic response. It's actually almost like a physiological or like bodily kind of response. Like yeah, my ear doesn't like that, or my gut says "stop" or my heart wants more of this, you know? Like it's really like that. It's, and so it's like listening to your own responses in that way. And then like, what do you, how do you then answer those calls? It's trying to make it be more of itself.
Melissa Smey:
That seems like a really beautiful place for us to pause this week.
Vijay Iyer:
All right.
Melissa Smey:
Thank you.
Vijay Iyer:
Thank you.
Melissa Smey:
And now onto our next composer: Oscar Bettison.
What a week it's been for Oscar. His audio diaries touch on his worry about the compressed timeline.
Oscar Bettison:
This is really worrying me a bit, actually how much time I actually have now to write this piece. That this there is a time crunch with this project sort of built in anyway. And now there's this issue of online school and having younger kids. So that's really what the, what I'm facing at the moment.
Melissa Smey:
And then his entire family got sick.
Oscar Bettison:
Another installment in my composition diary: My whole family, we all came down with flu. Not coronavirus. Which is an interesting plot twist, at this stage. It was really, really bad. We're gradually all getting over it. So I am back working, but my children are at online school and I'm here by myself. So it's proving difficult, but I suppose, you know, last week, you know, I was thinking, well, it can't get any worse, but then it did. So at least we're gradually recovering from the flu.
Melissa Smey:
But not long after Oscar recorded another diary. And it seems like things are looking up.
Oscar Bettison:
And I had a little bit of a revelation the other day about how to get this thing, working with shimmering. Shimmering idea of having the prerecorded things, and then I had a further kind of insight into it yesterday actually, as I started working. So that's what I will be working on, but I'm pretty confident that I have the direction of the piece. I have what I want it to be. So yeah.
Melissa Smey:
Hi Oscar, how has this week been for you?
Oscar Bettison:
Hi. I mean, it's been a bit of a weird week because yeah, we were all sick with flu, but in the end, you know, we're all recovered and actually, you know, work-wise, well, work-wise has been tricky as well also because I'm solo parenting this week and my kids are on Zoom class, but actually compositions weird like this ‘cause sometimes actually when things are not conducive to work is actually when things start working. I feel very good about the piece actually. I feel good about the direction it's going in. So yeah, so sort of a weird week actually.
Melissa Smey:
Okay. Well, so tell us maybe what stage you are in, you know, if you can, within the six week frame or within the lifespan of the piece, which is not yet finished, can you tell us about where you think you are right now?
Oscar Bettison:
I'm not sure where I am right now. I'd figured out one way of doing it, and then I was just sort of struck by a, I don't know, slightly different way of doing it. And I'm, that's the approach that I'm taking. So it's very much, it's really one idea. I mean the whole piece is like one thing. There are sort of, microvariants within that idea, but it's not like the idea at the end of the piece is particularly different from the beginning of the piece. I think the piece is sort of, kind of build-up of things. It's hard to describe it.
So I'm sort of describing something that doesn't really exist and it's kind of abstract, but I've had this thing that I've been obsessed with for years, which is music that's heard underneath or inside other music. So, .I mean the most obvious example, I mean the simplest example to not make it so kind of esoteric is like, if you were listening to something that's really, really loud and then you were to put on something really quiet, you would have that sort of aural echo of that loud thing. So, you know, like an aural kind of after image, you know, that takes a while to go away and this overall kind of texture and these other things that are kind of buried underneath the texture that sort of come in and out.
There is also some kind of different kind of harmonic things that kind of come in and out. So I'm having to build these things up one-by-one, because actually the other thing I should say is that the quartet really function as one unit. As a density kind of drops there'll be things where it will just be one of them playing, but really the quartet, there's no differentiation between the material that's given to, say, the first violin than that's given to the viola or the cello or the second violin. So one of my first drafts is actually just ignoring who's playing what. So I'm at the stage now where I'm kind of actually trying to get, yeah, figure out who is actually doing what that's really where I am now, but it's been a slow process of building this up.
Melissa Smey:
Well, so something that you said in your audio diary that I thought was so beautiful is that you'd had a revelation with this idea of the shimmering.
Oscar Bettison:
I feel the poetry in it, I suppose, is what I would say. I feel the, I can hear the piece. I can really feel what I want it to be. So yeah, that's a positive note. I have to now work out how to execute it. I think that's the problem, is there's a lot of thinking, a lot of trying to find the way to actually execute the idea.
Melissa Smey:
And so when I was listening to that, I was like "ahh" it was like such a "hooray!" that felt so terrific. And what was interesting about it is that you mentioned, if I'm not mistaken, you mentioned that you weren't in your studio, you were, I think you were kind of overseeing kind of Zoom schooling when that came to you. And so then I wanted to follow up to ask you, you know, you were talking about earlier, the idea that if like inspiration visits, it has to find you working. And so I thought that was just such an interesting revelation. And I thought maybe you could talk about that a little bit.
Oscar Bettison:
I've had this idea for a while that pieces, I don't know, I'm quite obsessive as a person anyway. I mean, I just am. You know, pieces when I'm working on something, they sort of, I feel their kind of presence sort of like, I call them like little ghosts. They sort of follow you around in your waking moments. So that means that sometimes you can have a, not a revelation, but you can have a insight into the piece of the weirdest times, ‘cause it's sort of always there.
And that's sort of what happened to me the other day is that I was sort of working, but I was like, you know, not that far away from my two daughters doing school and you know, and I could hear them in a weird way, like not a conducive environment or anything, but yet, you know, the piece is still, you know, it accompanies me somewhere, you know, it's sort of there somehow. So that's really what happened with that is suddenly I just thought, "wait a minute. I should..." And it's really, you know, it wasn't such a big, so much of a big revelation is more like a shift in focus, but sometimes a shift in focus is a big revelation, you know? And that's really, yeah. That's really where that, yeah, how that happened. I guess. Yeah.
Melissa Smey:
I like it well, so it makes me very happy to hear you say that because as a listener, my experience of your music has been, I can imagine like that the piece existed for you in your ears, that it existed and that you were going through a process of trying to find how to realize.
Oscar Bettison:
Yeah.
Melissa Smey:
Right? Like I just...
Oscar Bettison:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Melissa Smey:
...Before This podcast, we had never really had any conversations together, but that was so much my sense of your music. And it's what drew me to want to work with you on this podcast because I just wanted to be a nerd and ask you about it, right?
Oscar Bettison:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this piece is like really very much that, I mean more than, or I don't know, maybe pieces I've written of late have been even more like that. That, you know, I did this opera that really, somehow, even though it was like a couple of, I mean, in the end it was like almost like two years’ work. It was, it was still like, I kind of knew what it was, you know, and it's really strange because at the time I didn't. But then when it comes, you get to the end of it and you sort of like, yeah, it was sort of there somehow, but you just don't realize it at the time, but you know, you can't see the wood through the trees. And this piece is really like, very much like that. The identity of the piece is sort of identical to the sort of process somehow. It's weird. With this one, I let's see. I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's still got a couple of weeks to go, but yeah, I think so.
Melissa Smey:
Yeah. Is it a factor for you knowing that the finished work will be shared with listeners, you know, as part of a podcast, so that listeners will be hearing it in, probably in headphones or on speakers, but they'll be hearing it individually and not say in a concert hall. And so to what extent is that a factor for you in your process right now?
Oscar Bettison:
I'm just enamored with the idea that we can talk about a piece, you know, in this format and we can, and we sort of, you know, of take a sort of journey into the piece and then we'll get to hear the piece as such a kind of powerful way of showing what the creative process is with all its kind of, you know, sort of unvarnished way of looking at the creative process. It's also funny describing a piece that doesn't exist yet and somehow it will exist. And in a way like the, anybody listening to this is one step ahead of me, you know? I'd just be interested to know what I'm saying about it and how it marries up to the actual piece in the end. That's the kind of thing that really intrigues me, you know?
Melissa Smey:
I know. Yes. Same. Well, so I'd love to follow up with a super nuts-and-bolts question. Kind of about editing and, like, really in the weeds of the piece and the creation of the piece. And early on, you had talked about an idea of miniatures, that maybe the piece could be a collection of miniatures. And that was an idea that was discarded. And I'm curious, is it discarded forever? Like it's not this piece, clearly, but is it discarded forever?
Oscar Bettison:
No, it's not discarded forever. I actually really like the idea. I just want to find a context for it. I want to find a home for it actually. No, I, I'd love to do that. Somehow it just didn't, it just didn't work for this piece. Somehow things just didn't line up with that idea, but I'd love to do a piece where there's maybe even there's some bigger movements and some shorter, tiny little movements and they kind of see how they kind of work with each other and I think it could be a really beautiful thing, you know? These tiny little miniatures and maybe things that are yeah, a bit, yeah, like sort of more substantial in how they might comment on each other and how they might, you know, even like create a tension with each other and do something very interesting with timing as well. You know, I've talked myself into the idea even more now! Yeah… some point I will I'll work on that. I'll think about that.
Melissa Smey:
Yeah. And so then for this piece, for the Parker Quartet, you're still kind of working and refining how it's going to be and then to execute it so soon, I imagine you will share some materials with the quartet.
Oscar Bettison:
Yep.
Melissa Smey:
They'll work on it. Will it change after that moment? Like once they have something that they're, you know, music and they're working on it, will you still make changes?
Oscar Bettison:
Yeah. Possibly I'm definitely open to seeing what comes out and adjusting things. Sometimes it, it's just a case of, you know, when you finally hear something and you maybe like something more than you thought you did and like something a little bit less, but it's normally just little things you just, end up liking more. And so you sort of lean more heavily into those things. That's kind of what I'm expecting. But yeah, I'm, we're going to do something in a few days and I'm going to give them some material and just try things out and see what happens. But yeah, I'm open to changing a few things as a result of what comes out.
Melissa Smey:
Good. The next time we talk to you you'll have, have had that experience with them and it'll be fun. Something to look forward to.
Oscar Bettison:
Yeah, exactly.
Melissa Smey:
And now our final conversation for this episode with Kate Soper. Here's one of her audio diaries this week:
Kate Soper:
Something that I have to constantly remind myself as a composer, even after all these years is to keep it simple and be clear. You know, you don't want to be too obvious or maybe that's something I'm kind of worried about. You want to be subtle and scintillating, but it's hard to understand music. It's really not going to be too simple if you're are trying to communicate something. So, but somehow I don't know. I just have to like learn that lesson every time.
So I was just thinking about that because in this telephone piece, I have this idea that the language that, you know, the present is using to communicate with the future kind of gets more complex as we get more versed in it. So I wanted to go from something simple to something complex and that's playing out in the harmony a little bit. So, you know, like a five note chord like this: [strikes a chord on the piano]. Versus you know, something towards the end [plays a different chord on the piano] just with more intervals, more harmony.
But also in the figuration, there's this idea that the chords are being deployed by the quintet. This quartet, string quartet and me, the voice, and that —so they're kind of a static chord with this internal shifting counterpoint. So for some reason I thought this was a simple— I'm just going to sing the voice parts, I’ll put the metronome on—this is my first attempt at this chord, just the voice part: [sings while playing piano chords underneath set to metronome]. So I was typing up my handwritten score and then was like, that's really not that simple. Especially when four other people are also doing scintillating subtle things. So I rewrote it a couple times. I had to keep convincing myself to take more out and wound up, I went from this, which I just played: [sings and plays same example as before] and I changed it to: [variation of the first musical example].
So, you know, you just want people to listen to one and then the other, and have no question about which one is more simple. And actually you want, you know, you want that just to be apparent. No one's going to be thinking about that. You're trying to get something across that is not being proclaimed. That's just there in the music, on the surface. And the more clear you can be within all these variables, the better a chance you have actually being effective, which is hard at like getting something across. So, you know, rewriting and rewriting is just part of the game but I guess will always be part of the game.
Melissa Smey:
Hi Kate.
Kate Soper:
Hi Melissa.
Melissa Smey:
I thought I would start by asking you the same question I ask every week: How has this week been for you?
Kate Soper:
It's been fine. So I basically finished a draft of the piece actually. I emailed the Parker [Quartet] yesterday with the parts and scores, so yeah, I kind of moved into the practical realm a little bit more of, I made some revisions as I made the parts and stuff, but now I have kind of like a draft that exists.
Melissa Smey:
Hooray!
Kate Soper:
Yeah. So that's a nice...
Melissa Smey:
Congratulations. That's big!
Kate Soper:
Yeah.
Melissa Smey:
So you've kind of finished investigative mode and moving into practical mode. And so when you're in practical mode for this piece, you have other pieces where you yourself are both the composer and part of the piece as a musician and a performer. So I'm curious what your role will be in practical mode. Now that it's moved onto that phase.
Kate Soper:
I guess I it's just like, there's a sort of a specific technical thing that I'm wondering if it will work or will need to be swapped out. I kind of feel like with this project there really isn't time to be like, "Oh, I have to start over," you know?
Melissa Smey:
[Laugh]
Kate Soper:
And I, but I'm actually anticipating that. So maybe because I knew that it wouldn't be possible. So I think it will just be "okay, how can I make this the strongest version of what it is."
Melissa Smey:
And so I was listening back to one of your earliest audio diaries, and you had a short sequence of chords that you had played, you were playing them on your keyboard.
[Series Of Chords Played On Piano]
And you were kind of tracing the way that you wanted to emphasize a component of the chord. And like one was for the cello. One was for the violins. One was for the Viola. Has that made its way through, into this finished work?
Kate Soper:
Yeah. That chord progression, once I figured it out, that really is this kind of linchpin. So that's still there and the instruments are still assigned to who they were, what they were assigned to. So.
Melissa Smey:
Well, it seems like this has gone really smoothly. Is that right?
Kate Soper:
Yeah. Definitely. There were no gaps in the kind of trajectory of unspooling it from my thoughts. So that was, yeah. Kind of interesting.
Melissa Smey:
Yeah. What does a creative block look like for you when it does happen?
Kate Soper:
I don't think I necessarily feel like I get blocked like I can't, like, I don't know what to do next exactly. It's usually more like something's not working, so yeah, I think it's the block is more like a problem that I can't solve. I guess that's what people mean when they say block. But it's not like I lose mojo or the you know, the desire to work. It's just that, like, I can't figure out this problem.
Melissa Smey:
And so, I mean, as someone who's nurtured a creative practice over decades, are there any, you know, kind of tips or tricks or practices that you've evolved over that time for how to address that?
Kate Soper:
Yeah, that's a good question. ‘Cause I was just thinking, I was doing this thing this morning and kind of doing like what I tell my students not to do. Like you can't kind of just get mad at it and just sort of like attack it and be like, "damn it!" You know, like you have, you have to have some sense of remove. You can't let frustration be the thing that's like coming out of the pencil somehow. It's not going to work, you know? So I think you can either just think about a different angle to approach it. "Well, What is wrong here? Maybe it's that the register is too concentrated in this area. And I need to think about how to move that around. Could I transpose this? Could I re-voice it?" Or more conceptual like, "what is the problem? The problem is there's too much energy and I need stasis or the problem is I need to..." You know, whatever, or you just like go for a walk and forget about it for a day or something. So, or talk to people like I think when I do I don't, I mean, I haven't had this opportunity much lately, but it can be great to get feedback from your collaborators. "Is There another way you can do this? This is what I wanted, but I clearly didn't manage to make that happen in the writing. And can you help me figure out why this isn't, how did it feel like you to you to perform it? Did you feel like I did that something was not authentic here?" So yeah.
So I think those are the options. Like just passionately look at it like a solvable problem that you have the skills to unravel. But just don't sit there, like digging the pencil into the paper till it rips or whatever, you know?
Melissa Smey:
[laughs] I like that. That's helpful. I'm struck by something that was in your audio diary where you compared this shorter piece to a kind of a, like a picnic blanket
Kate Soper:
In a way this has been a tumultuous six weeks. But it's not the same as writing a piece over three years where you really have to do some work to transport yourself back into the mindset that you were in when you thought of it. It's kind of like in the short timeframe like this, you kind of have the whole piece out on like a picnic blanket and you can kind of see it all in one glance. And it's manageable in that sense, working with the material.
Whereas having a piece you're writing over years is like having a whole house of stuff and there's you know, some room in the attic that you forgot about, and like a weird noise coming from the basement that you have to check out. And it's just a little bit harder to keep every frame in mind so that things stay organized and logical and creative and interesting and talk to each other and that kind of thing. So of course it's also really great to wander around in a house of imagination like that, but it's also nice to just have a picnic, I guess.
Melissa Smey:
Where I'm going with that is then also you had made a reference to kind of like a loose change jar of inspiration that when I, you know, we connected about the possibility of you making a piece for the podcast in a short period of time, and you had had a reference about a change jar of kind of ideas kicking around. Could you reflect on that? It's not a direct question, but could you reflect on that or unpack that a little bit?
Kate Soper:
Sure. I mean, okay, so this is like an example, maybe it'll relate, but I made a bunch of YouTube videos in 2020 just out of like confused desperation. And I made this short series about this, the medieval legend of the Unicorn and the Virgin, which is something that I had been thinking about some kind of allegory for the, I don't know, weird cultural shifts right now. But I'm using some of the music that I wrote for those videos. And as I'm doing that this week, I do have this like kind of queasy nostalgia feeling because who I was in August 2020, it's very different. Like that was such a weird time. And so much has changed since then. It's always unsettling when you get taken back, it's like when you smell something that like brings you back to some like six year old at Disneyland, it's just weird. It's disorienting, to be just launched back into time, that way.
So, and that can also be very interesting because it can give the piece richness and, kind of, dimensionality. Because it reflects some sense of a human's individual growth, not in like a, not too personal really, but just like, this has a long span of thought that went into this. And yeah, that in the sense that was, that's also kind of a loose change jar because now I'm, like moving on to other things and "well, I made that piece, like, that video a year ago. Is there something there? I think I want to explore more."
And for this piece, yeah I had thought about this telephone, I wasn't thinking about it with that title, but this idea of like communication into the future, what does music mean? This kind of idea of this unintelligibility that music has? What if we tried to talk to it or use it as this way to pivot to the future. But writing it, it's like, it's just, there's none of, there's the percentage of queasy nostalgia's very low which is again, it's like, it's not like it's, it's bad. Again, I mean, a lot of things take a lot, many years to make and you don't go around feeling weird about it all the time, but it's just going to be interesting to actually like hear it even next week. Like that's a very short time span to me. So something about it is a little so solid feeling, but yeah, it's all, it's all happening. I can't really look outside and think about it too much, ‘cause it's just all happening within this short half season.
Melissa Smey:
Right. So if we get to next week and you're with the quartet and it's just not— something is not right, then what happens?
Kate Soper:
Well, I mean, I won't, I guess I'll have a little time also it's a little bit weird because, and this is sort of practical, but I don't, I'm not, it's going to be a little weird if we don't have time to rehearse together to have the recording session be also the first time that we've played it together. And that's maybe I can see if I can see them the weekend before or something, but so I, it's not a good, I can't really just like try something wildly new. But I think if the problem is like— this piece is broken, I don't think it will be, but like, I can't really do anything about that. So I'll just have to make a better version of the piece. So it'll just be, you know, I mean, I'm sure I'll make a thousand changes 'cause I always do, but it'll, it'll probably just be trying to fix things so that it can present itself mostly the way that I want it to. And I think that should probably be fine. You know, there's these couple of technical things I'm wondering about, but if they're not possible, I'll just swap it out with something else.
Melissa Smey:
And then I'm curious, has the factor that the piece will be heard in its finished form by listeners as part of a podcast. Has that been in your consciousness at all, as you were creating the piece?
Kate Soper:
A little bit. I mean, I think I was aware of it from the beginning and I think I'll be aware of it as a performer because actually I think 'cause I did have the idea before, but I, there is something about this that seems kind of idiomatic for a podcast because it does have this like narrator person who's like, "so, here we are," you know, "with the telephone" or whatever. I mean, that's not what the script says. But like, there might be a way in which it actually works better as a podcast than a live piece because you can kind of suspend disbelief and take my word for it that we're not listening to a string quartet, we're listening to strange mutterings from the future coming back through this device that I've invented. So I think that'll be good. I'll have to kind of think about like I was sort of thinking about should I, like I was thinking about like maybe I'll talk through my fist, you know, when I'm, or, you know, should I do something to even heighten it more and, and be kind of like cinematic or sound effecty, but I don't really know if I'm going to do that, but so yeah, I think I've been thinking about that, but I think it's going to be a feature and not a bug for this piece.
Melissa Smey:
Yeah. Fun. I can't wait until our next conversation because hopefully at that point you will have been working with the quartet. And of course I’m dying to know what that sounds like.
Kate Soper:
Yeah, me too.
Melissa Smey:
That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
Mission: Commission is a production of Miller Theatre at Columbia University.
Major support for Mission: Commission is provided by the Francis Goelet Charitable Lead Trusts. Support for Miller Theatre is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Support for contemporary music at Miller Theatre is provided by the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Amphion Foundation.
This episode was produced by Golda Arthur and me with Adrienne Stortz, Lauren Cognetti, and Taylor Riccio. Erick Gomez is our sound designer and engineer. This episode featured audio excerpts of pieces written by Vijay Iyer and Kate Soper.
Visit missioncommissionpodcast.com for a full listing of pieces, performers and recordings included in this and every episode. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And, even better, leave a review on Apple Podcasts -- it really helps the show. Thanks for listening. See you next week!