I never intended to make any commentary about the national anthem protests that started happening as a result of Kaepernick, but recently the ripple effect of this has bled into my profession in the marching band arena. (For those not aware of what i’m talking about, members of the ECU marching band and the SMU marching band have recently created headlines due to individual members deciding not to play and/or kneeling during the national anthem.)  Because of that, I feel a responsibility to voice my opinion in that context as a representative and potential influential voice for band directors, members, athletic fans, and marching band fans.  I preface this with the caveat that this is not meant to disrespect views contrary to my own beliefs on the matter; I respect any organization’s choices for how they run themselves.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that my personal opinion about Kaepernick’s protest is that regardless of the reasoning behind the protest, he is in his rights to protest and express that protest however he damned well pleases within the context of what is permitted in the NFL and his franchise. To me, the protest draws parallels to Tim Tebow’s public expression of his Christian faith, something that I as a non-Christian always found annoying but still respected for similar reasons to this current protest, and it’s clear that in both cases, both players have enough conviction in their reasoning and their beliefs that they are and have always been prepared to deal with any potential backlash. Both forms of expression started important conversations at a national and somewhat global scale, and i give them kudos for being bold enough to risk such a potential negative spotlight because of the strength of their conviction.

I should also say that the idea that all americans should feel pressured to represent their patriotism by standing for the national anthem and to assume that someone who opts not to do so is therefore unpatriotic, unamerican, or anti-military/police makes me immensely uncomfortable. I am a strong believer that one of our country’s strengths is the diversity of our opinions and our ability to freely express those opinions no matter how controversial, and controversial expression does not equate to something quantifiable regarding patriotism.

That said, there’s a fundamental equivalency disconnect between football players who choose to express their individuality by kneeling for the national anthem versus a marching band member or even me as a director.

I got my degree in composition and I consider myself a politically active contemporary art music advocate – my passion for wanting to expose and educate more people regarding contemporary music is why I started nienteForte in the first place.  As the primary music writer and show designer for the Tulane University Marching Band, I could opt to use the TUMB as a vehicle for that political position by incorporating that into my show design – Mark and I had always joked about the idea of doing 4’33” on the field, but more seriously, it wouldn’t be completely outside reason for me to have the TUMB do a classical music show every now and again for my own personal agenda of educating my audience to my field and my passion.

By doing that, i end up placing that personal agenda ahead of the agenda of the TUMB, an organization that I strongly believe belongs to the members and the community more than myself, and that is therefore simply the wrong choice for me to make. This past year, a fan committee expressed about the game day experience that they wanted the stadium and the band to embrace the culture of New Orleans more in their style and their musical choices.  While the TUMB is never going to convert to a show-style band over a corps-style band, we, along with the athletic department, made some executive decisions that fall in line with that desire in our programming choices.  I am a strong advocate for that sort of conversation and that sort of change because I recognize that college marching bands as a collective single entity are a strong brand that belongs to a large body of individuals and entities collectively and equally.

Therefore, my own sense of individualism even as the director of the program is always a lower priority to the brand that I represent for Tulane.  To do a classical or wacky avant-garde show would go against the primary mission of my job, which is to provide excitement and entertainment for our athletic events, to hopefully be the best educator I can be for my students, and to help continue a legacy that will sustain the organization beyond my tenure here, serving the needs of the organization before I serve myself.

As an individual who generally breaks a lot of stereotypes in weird ways, I strongly celebrate diversity and individualism within the members and the staff of my organization.  But the fact of the matter is that the public performance output of the marching band is about the group as a single entity and not about them as individuals.  That’s where the equivalency disconnect between the football player versus marching band member comes into play: the national anthem for a football player is a part of a game’s opening ceremony.  They are preparing to perform.  The national anthem for a marching band member is their performance.  If a marching band member protests the national anthem during their performance, the equivalent for a running back is to decide that he has the right to stop running in the middle of a play if he was crossing over a painted American flag on the turf as a part of his route.  At the point when the helmet goes on and the game starts, individual beliefs – both positive and negative – always come second to the play performance and execution.  And at the point when a marching band member puts their uniform on, they should be held to that same standard and understand the distinction between what is “performance” for a marching band versus a football team.

Is there any place for individualistic expression in the context of a college marching band performance?  I don’t believe so.  The Tulane football program has a had a long standing history of losing records since my tenure here, and even when we’ve been down by 40+ points, the charge I have for myself is that we are Tulane Football fans through and through and we’ll keep cheering, playing, and supporting our team no matter what. I instill that philosophy in every individual that is a part of my program both on and off the field.  You’re not a football fan?  You are now.  You think that the coach sucks?  Keep that to yourself, or spin it in a positive way that’s still supportive of the program.  For me that’s a 24/7 mentality – i’ve been recognized more than a handful of times by random strangers in the New Orleans community as being associated with the Tulane Band program, so I’m always careful about how i approach any commentary I make about anything related to the TUMB or Tulane brand.  It’s only in the past year or so, for example, that I’ve felt comfortable stating publicly that Bob Toledo was a horrible coach for our football team, and his last year here was over five years ago.  Anything that I say or do, anything that the band says or does is under potential scrutiny, and that demands that everyone associated with the program who wants to take advantage of the privileges of being a part needs to fall in line with the TUMB’s brand even if it is contrary to their own.

I think that some would interpret this approach as a position of extreme conformism and compliance; i’d like to instead believe that it’s more about what I feel is a standard of professionalism within our performance art activity and how that links to something that is much bigger than we are as a single entity.  I’m fairly confident that many TUMB members past and present know how much respect I have for their individual lifestyles and life choices. I allow a lot of freedom for individuals to discover themselves, express themselves, and be themselves in a nurturing and fostering community environment whether Trump or Hillary, normative or alternative gender lifestyle, Marvel vs DC, whatever.  But the organization as a whole can only support that level of diversity and individualism long-term when it can rally that diversity together as a unified and cohesive singular when we are representing the TUMB, Tulane Athletics, and Tulane University.  “Roll Wave” is not just a declaration, “non sibi, sed suis” is not just a motto; both are beliefs down to the very core, and i’ll defend the vigilance of those beliefs and everything that they mean in the contexts that I believe best.

Q. Music is a huge part of my life. I have to have headphones on to work or exercise or commute. I aspire to be in a band, but for now I’m a pretty shitty guitar player. I know music is a big part of your life, but I imagine in a different way. Is it mostly about creating, or do you also listen to a lot? Who are your favorite artists? What are your favorite albums?

When i was younger i listened to more music and more diverse music. As i got older, my tastes changed and i devoted a lot less of my time to listening to music and discovering new artists. i’m not quite sure why that is – part of it is that my tastes have established themselves much more, but i think the other part of it is because searching out for new material can seem like a waste of energy. It would take a lot of wading through stuff that i don’t like to find that sliver of something that i do like, and liking something new doesn’t necessarily gain me much more than the stuff that i listen to now. it seems like a lot of investment for very little return. So the reality is that if i happen to stumble upon it, awesome, but if i don’t, then oh well. life is all about missed opportunities as much as made ones, and if i miss out on this great band or that great band, well, that’s just how it goes.

the stuff that appeals to me now falls into probably three different categories: music that affects me on an emotional or a primal level, music that challenges my senses, and music that can do both. This translates mostly these days to electronica and new “art” music (what most people would term “contemporary classical”), with some rap, pop, and j=pop thrown in.

music that affects me on a primal or emotional level is straightforward enough – it’s music, whether simple or complex, that makes me want to dance, makes me want to cry, makes me want to smile – something that triggers an instinct that bypasses the intellectual judgement.

when i was maybe a sophomore or junior in my undergrad at West Chester, i went to a contemporary music concert put on by the composition department. One of the pieces on the concert was what i call a “guided improv” piece; there wasn’t any notated music, there were directions. I remember that there were maybe 10-15 musicians on stage, one of them was one of the professors whose role was to hit a gong. The piece started off with everyone playing a single pitch and playing slow rhythms. everyone played it in their own way and in their own time and space. When the professor hit the gong, it triggered the next section, in which another pitch was added and more rhythm was added. He would hit the gong again, and another pitch or two would get added and the rhythms would get faster and more complex. Every performer interpreted their directions differently; the resultant sound would be a cacophony of musical material that kept on hinting at but never quite reaching a sense of cohesion. i don’t remember how many gong hits there were, but there were at least 15, maybe more – triggers that led to a highly dissonant middle climax before the gongs triggered backwards, leading back to the simple singular note.

i was sitting pretty close to the front and in the center, and at some point while the piece was happening, i closed my eyes against my will because the music started to resonate so much within my being. And then towards the middle of the piece, i experienced the only real instance i’ve ever had of having an out-of-body experience. The music struck such a chord in me that i literally felt like i was floating in the air, high up in the stage hall, looking down at my own body, and feeling the music course through my body and through my soul. it felt like i was floating for hours and i was experiencing so many indescribable sensations. as the piece wound down and i eventually found myself back in my body, i discovered that there were tears in my eyes and my body was completely numb.

that’s an extreme example of how music can hit me on an emotional level. it was a powerful experience i’ll never forget. it’s one of the reasons i switched my major to composition.

for less sorts of extremes, minimalism and post minimalism in general is something that’s always resonated with me. The first piece i ever heard in that realm was the third movement of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint when i was a freshman in high school. I thought it was the most amazing thing that i had ever heard. There was something about the gradual sense of change, the gradual addition of voices, the rhythmic sort of intensity and the inherent groove that i immediately connected with. Steve Reich remains one of my strongest influences in music. Things that have grooving complex rhythms or just a visceral sense of pulse can resonate with me emotionally too.

music that challenges the senses is a little complicated to describe because it encompasses a lot of different elements. As an example, i’ll talk about one aspect: pitch. I have perfect pitch, and one of the effects of that is that i can hear and unravel the ins and outs of music fairly quickly in comparison to others who aren’t fortunate enough to have it. One side effect of this is that there are a lot of times when music doesn’t challenge me. if i can figure out the way a piece works instantly and fail to be surprised as the piece progresses from a pitch and texture context, i may still like it if it hits me emotionally or from a groove perspective or whatever, but the actual music itself will come off as bland and uninteresting.

When i was going through my heavy metal and alternative phase, the groups that impacted me the most were ones that tried to mess with pitch distortion or how pitch was defined, or how lack of pitch in the singing style meshed with the pitches being thrashed out by the instruments. That’s why bands that try to be edgy and angry but do it by playing typical chord progressions that anyone learns in music theory 1 perplex me. As angry as that music tried to be, it was still within a particular comfort zone, still used mostly major and minor chords that went about their business in a predictable and comfortable way. I wasn’t looking for music that made me comfortable, i was looking for something that made me uncomfortable, challenged what i was listening to, made me work for it. That’s why groups like Pantera, Candiria, Meshuggah, and Slayer impacted me so viscerally during that time period, along with groups like Primus. To this day i still get challenged by the bass line for Jerry was a Race Car Driver and there’s not a lot of music that can do that.

in the “classical” realm, the first detailed exposure i had to pitch-shifting madness was with Charles Ives’s 3 Quarter-tone pieces. I remember listening to them in a group composition seminar and then writing pieces for two quarter-tone pianos, and it was fascinating to me because of how much it challenged the normal conventions and expectations of pitch. To most people, that sort of jarring dissonance sounds ugly all of the time, but if you embrace it, get past the strangeness of it, you can find new kinds of beauty that you wouldn’t normally be able to find with a traditional 12-pitch system.

Redefining the expected when it comes to pitch or rhythms or what you hear as traditional instruments is one of the big reasons why electronic music also resonates well with me because the sky’s the limit with that music. When you’re writing for traditional instruments in any genre, there’s a quick establishment of expectation that never breaks. A violin will always sound like a violin. A piano will almost always sound like a piano. but with electronica, all of those preconceived notions of what is expected vs the unexpected is fair game to follow or abolish.

Which is really what it’s about for me. What resonates the most for me in music is the relationship between the expected versus the unexpected and how that push and pull can create something that’s truly meaningful and emotional. In one of the more influential books i’ve read about the craft of music is a passage that defines my entire artistic and life philosophy:

…our whole mental existence is built around our expectations about the normal (probable) continuity of events. We “expect” to get up Monday morning, to eat breakfast, to see that the children get to school, to go to the office, and so forth. But we are as a rule unconscious of such expectations. They are latent expectations, the norms of behavior which are taken for granted once they have become fixed habit patterns. Such expectations become active, either as affective experience or conscious cognition, only when our normal pattern of behavior are disturbed in some way…

…the probability relationships embodied in a particular musical style together with the various modes of mental behavior involved in the perception and understanding of the materials of the style constitute the norms of the style. Latent expectation is a product of these probability relationships. And expectation becomes active only when these norms are disturbed. In other words, such latent expectations are necessary conditions for the communication of musical information, while the disturbances of those norms are the sufficient condition for musical communication.

…Musical meaning arises when an antecedent situation, requiring an estimate of the probable modes of pattern continuation, produces uncertainty about the temporal-tonal nature of the expected consequent.

in other words, the evoking of a meaningful response in music is done when you either do something unexpected or what is expected is ambiguous.

Let’s use a tune like Smells Like Teen Spirit as an example. The chord progression for that entire tune from beginning to the end (minus the short bridge between chorus and verse once or twice) is the same throughout and is also one that’s a common chord progression in today’s understanding of music – i iv III VI, repeat. That chord progression fails to break expectation from the outset because the chord progression in itself is predictable. Then that chord progression fails to break expectation because it never changes. Not that the tune isn’t great in its own right in grunge history and isn’t something that i wouldn’t join a mosh pit for during a concert; it’s just that the lack of breaking expectation and structure makes the music itself bland.

So there are ways in which that music can be made more interesting by breaking up that expectation. (ignore that this would not be appropriate for such an iconic piece of music as this. )The first is to have that chord progression change somewhere in the middle. one time, do a progression of i iv III ii instead, or one time add an extra phrase, do something like i iv III VI III VI before going back to i. changes like that may be small, but they still break the pattern and change what was established in a way that is unexpected and maybe even uncomfortable.

But the fun thing is that once that’s done once or twice, then that mutates from the role of unexpected into the role of expected – something else that becomes established that can then be either followed or broken – and when broken with something new that’s unexpected in the new context, can then be used to create a new sense of expectation and so on and so forth.

That’s part of the joy of creating music in which you challenge the basic level of expectation from the outset. Western-influenced music whether classical or jazz or rock have a defined vocabulary of scales and chords that predefine expectation. When you start off with something that’s outside of that, you defy expectation from the outset with the express purpose of not only abolishing that expectation but redefining and establishing a completely different set of expectations as people listen to the piece. Once you establish that expectation and get the listener to become comfortable with it, you have the means to then fulfill that new redefined sense of expectation or to break it and continually push and pull that relationship in an effort to push and pull the listener along a journey that will hopefully give them a sense of meaning that they would otherwise not get.

One of the reasons that minimalism and post-minimalism has always resonated with me is that that sense of fulfilling and breaking expectation is so gradual and sometimes very personal. One of the great minimalists (i think it was Reich, but it might have been Terry Riley) stated a great thing about repetitive chords. Hearing the same chord happen a second time and a third time isn’t hearing the same chord three times. Every time you hear the chord it’s something different because of the relationship of the times you’ve heard it in the past. Minimalism breaks the norm of expectation generally by “repeating” things to a degree that most music would expect change. Only after that sense of repeat has permeated into your senses does change sometimes occur, and that change, no matter how subtle, can seem like an explosion given how much the music has repeated prior to it. That sort of slow evolution of pitches and chords and rhythm, that gradual sense of change fulfills a spiritual and philosophical part of me that i don’t get with much other music. That’s what makes works like Music for 18 Musicians or Michael Gordon’s Weather (which is unfortunately not anywhere online) so important to me.

So what does all of this translate to practically? as in, “what music do i listen to?”

When i’m out and about casually, i typically listen to one of four things: the electronica duo Plaid, the elecrtonica artist Clark, the iPhone sound augmentation app Inception, or the iPhone sound augmentation app Dimensions. (The latter two are apps that will play some pre-recorded audio tracks on top of realtime sounds of your environment that are then modified by the app. How the stuff is modified is dependent upon conditions in the environment). For a while i was also obsessed with PVT’s album Church with No Magic.

If i’m looking to revisit composers or artists that have had the most influence on me creatively, i listen to or think about works by Steve Reich, Michael Gordon, David Lang, George Crumb, and my old professor Robert Maggio.

If i want to think about other serious classical works that have resonated well with my sensibilities and get my creative juices going, i think about the Bach piano fugues, Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings and his Piano Sonata, Beethoven’s Eroica symphony, the Bartok String Quartets, the Ligeti Piano Etudes, and various works by Stravinsky, John Cage, and Terry Riley.

If i want something that will get me moving or energized in a way that Plaid and Clark don’t, i’ll throw on some Venetian Snares, Squarepusher, Busta Rhymes, or Mr. Bungle/Faith No More.

Albums that i feel nostalgic about but don’t listen to much anymore are things like Pantera’s Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven, Dream Theater’s Images and Words and Awake, Primus’s Sailing the Seas of Cheese and Pork Soda, and various albums by Rush, Yes, Public Enemy, KMFDM, Front Line Assembly/Delerium, Megadeth, Foetus, Laibach, Information Society, Einsterzende Neubaten, XTC, and others.

I’m sure i’m leaving off a bunch of stuff there as i do listen to other things and feel nostalgia for other artists as well as i used to listen to much more music, but that’s the general gist for the purposes of this entry.

Very recently the conductor of the New York Philharmonic stopped conducting during a performance of Mahler 9 when someone’s mobile started going off, and i can’t help but think that the reaction that Gilbert had brings to light a parallel between the nature of classical “art” music and the nature of the scorpion. Of course there’s a precedent set for mobile phones being “rude”; some businesses will have policies saying that they won’t check out your groceries or take your ice cream order if you’re on the phone, movie theaters have multiple reminders for people to mute their phones. Having a mobile go off in an inopportune moment during a piece of music is definitely an unfortunate circumstance, but for the conductor and for the “cultured audience” to crucify the patron for an honest mistake strikes of the very sort of elitism that has helped push orchestras into its current downslide of potential extinction that it’s been threatened with and been struggling to dig itself out of for the past decade.

Let’s assume that you have an impressionable twenty-something who loves music of all sorts and is used to going to jazz clubs or rock concerts or what have you. They’re in their first art music concert because it doesn’t seem like it would be their thing, but they might as well give it a shot. Of course they understand that you should turn your ringer off like you should in a movie, but for whatever reason they forget or the button slips or what have you and it accidentally goes off. The conductor does what Gilbert does, backed by the art music culture who sniff their noses and say “how gauche.” The twenty-something patron who was trying to give this concert a shot and keep an open mind has now been alienated. Embarrassed and humiliated and potentially put into the New York Times for a simple rookie mistake. Is that person ever going to go to another art music concert again? And what sort of lesson does that give to non-classical/art music goers who read about it in the news, a culture that’s used to the idea that if you support your rock band or your sports team, more noise is good?

Now compare this to what happened during this art music concert. A mobile goes off during a performance and the performer himself eases what could be a potentially embarrassing and “gauche” situation by making light of the situation with a quick improv. What’s great about his reaction is that while it’s still clear to anyone that having the mobile go off is interruptive, the musician responds by basically saying, “whatever. you know you made the mistake, i know you made the mistake, no big deal.” The patron whose mobile goes off will still likely take extra care to be sure that their mobile is on mute in the future, but they escape the potential shunning nature of the affair by the gracious and laid back attitude of the musician which the rest of the audience can now follow suit on – which now *includes* the offender as opposed to isolating them and making them an outsider.

Granted, you can’t expect that in a larger ensemble concert which is less intimate than a chamber concert can garner a similar reaction easily; that’s not what i’m implying. But the attitude that an interruption like that which can indeed potentially destroy a moment in a piece of music from an unintentional and non-malicious intent warrants such a judge/jury/executioner serves no one and only perpetuates separation between a style of music and its audience in a way that is counter to everything that i try to promote as a musician, composer, and artist. A couple of years ago i wrote a blog entry that imagined a reinvention of the concert paradigm that could help support and bring in more casual audiences and turn them on to art music and art music concerts, and that entry still feels relevant. I’m not suggesting that the audience necessarily be so casual as to be potentially chaotic, but the attitude of art music shouldn’t be that it’s purely the responsibility of the audience to change its nature to match what is considered “poilte” in the art music world – a set of standards which is antiquated and not relevant to current society in any case. There needs to be some sort of middle ground, a handshake to be made. Otherwise art music will continue to fall into the sort of trap that we still suffer blows from when the 12-tone school tried to elite themselves from even their own populace, and in a world where we continue to strive to accept and include diversity rather than create separation, the only thing that ultimately gets alienated is the accuser over the accusee.

When i switched my major to music composition in my undergrad years at West Chester, my creative force was still in development. I had written random piano pieces and drum cadences in high school, but a lot of that was based on my musical instincts and innate musical talent. I never took a lick of music theory or counterpoint until i was in my undergrad, and the idea of honing my compositional skill through private lessons, seminars, and general exposure to contemporary music and the techniques contained within that music didn’t really happen until my junior year.

My understanding of music notation software and sequencing software was similarly very “basic skills” at the time. I was pretty computer saavy having been an early adopter of networking and on-line communities before the internet became mainstream, running my own BBS and being a regular member of about fifteen others through my high school years, but as it related to the programs being used at the tech lab at West Chester (Finale, Studio Vision, Max), i was starting from square one.

Because of this and because of the structure built by both my compositional/counterpoint classes and my music technology classes, a lot of my initial education was to learn these things well enough for it to become a honed instinct by going through a lot of small repetitive exercises to hammer a concept into my head. Here’s how to do proper voice leading; don’t write parallel fifths when you’re doing harmonic progressions; here’s the shortcuts for speedy entry; here’s how you can manipulate the numbers out of the notein object. And although those would lead to some bigger musical projects, most of those were just that: projects that were written not to be serious works of music but to showcase and exemplify how well i learned the skills that were taught to me.

As a result of that sort of education, there wasn’t a whole lot about Finale that I didn’t know how to do after a year and i had a pretty great understanding of the mechanics of Max and a lot of its objects. But my output as it related to those programs wasn’t that great – a lot of college projects that didn’t have any lasting power because my creative force was still maturing and developing as was my use of the tools to realize that creative force. But as I continued to hone my skills, direction, and vision as a composer/creator, the expertise i had gained in my musical vocabulary and use of technological tools helped accelerate and define that vision in a way that i think i would be lacking or not nearly as instinctual if i didn’t have that sort of education. I recognized this early on and started to adopt this concept when approaching any new skill or piece of technology – learn as much as you can about it, practice it until you become an expert, use that expertise to help create.

When i was in my graduate studies at the University of Oregon, I started getting deeply involved in the electronic music studio there, and there were elements in that studio where i was back at square one. In my undergrad I learned a lot about Max and MIDI and some basic digital audio stuff, but i never used any software or got a grounding education that dealt with sound physics or sound generation/manipulation. I couldn’t tell you the difference between a sine wave and a square wave.

The main program that was used in the studio for sound creation was Kyma. When i first started working with it, I tried to approach the program in the same way that I did Finale and Max – figure out as much as i can about it, then use that as tools and vocabulary to help define my creative voice for the program, then create music. In the meantime, my professor and mentor of that program, Jeff Stolet, had an approach that was very different and tried to convince me to adopt it: find something you like, and just work with that. You can create an entire piece out of one effect. Ignore everything else.

We had some initial arguments about this. For me, it felt limiting – there’s so much that the program could do to manipulate and create, to only use one small slice of the program felt like buying a car with a pimped out sound system and never turning it on. It also had a side effect that a lot of the early pieces for everyone in the studio sounded alike because everyone would latch on to the part of the program that Jeff liked and showed us, which at the time was grainclouds. Sure, everyone had their own take on how they used the graincloud, but you could still tell that everyone used the graincloud. So while i practiced this idea begrudgingly to produce the necessary output for classes, i rejected the concept philosophically in favor of my original credo of “become an expert first, then see what you can do with it.”

After a while, it became evident that this approach that served me well with Finale and Max wasn’t working so well with Kyma. First, i was trying to use a lot of tools that assumed that i had a better understanding of sound generation and sound physics than i already did. I would raise and lower knobs and hear sound change but not understand how or why in a way that would stick, so i wasn’t developing skills as much as just spinning my wheels, doing a bunch of random stuff and hoping that it would come out right. Second, Kyma was a very vast and complicated program and also not the most intuitive. There was no end to what it is you could do to generate or manipulate things, and trying to tackle all of that was overwhelming and wouldn’t produce the sort of output that was expected of me every term for a final project/piece to go on the concert.

It took me about a year or two before i started to really understand Jeff’s approach and some of the Why behind it. Part of it is that using only one slice of a program like Kyma still has more depth to it than, say, learning basic musical compositional skills such as different kinds of cadences, and the use of that one skill really *can* lend itself to the creation of a multilayered work that supports the creative vision behind it. Part of it is understanding that it’s not just exercises and projects that can evolve into serious and respectable works, but it’s also serious and respectable works that can evolve into better serious and respectable works.

But most importantly, there’s a balance that needs to be struck between the amount of time put in to the education of a product with the practical output. If i want to build a big sound effect crescendo with audio samples of voices shouting, there are a lot of ways to do it both simple and complex that can all successfully achieve what i want out of it; how i choose to do it turns into a matter of personal taste, preference, and current knowledge and context, and knowing 10 ways to do it vs 100 ways to do it doesn’t necessarily net much difference. The more i limit my focus to learning all of the small picture details, the less i focus on the big picture, and some principle of “diminishing returns” starts to get greater and greater.

That said, it’s not as if I should completely abandon my education and knowledge of concepts that will help enhance my creative voice, it’s more that one thing shouldn’t have so much importance over the other that the other resultantly suffers, and that I should trust my maturity as a musician, composer, and general creator to supercede some of my more technical weaknesses and allow experiences and my natural constant self-evaluation, monitoring, and development to help deal with those weaknesses over time.

Two practical case in points:

This past marching band season was the first time i ever wrote the drill for an entire marching band and an entire marching band show. I’ve done smatterings of drum drill both for outdoor and indoor, and i’ve done some basic movement for winds in the past, but to truly create and conceive of a cohesive visual program from beginning to end is something that i plunged myself into with little practical experience of drill writing or the drill writing software.

The drill i ended up writing wasn’t a complete success, but neither was it even close to an abysmal failure, and i attribute that to a few things. One, I’ve had a lot of conversations with Mark about how he writes drill as we’ve been very collaborative in our music/drill packages in the past. Two, i’ve always been conscious of the visual package as it relates to music ensemble and staging, and have worked with a lot of organizations that know how to do that sort of thing well. Three, Pyware, for all of its faults, gave me a great playground to help me discover things that worked and didn’t work. And last, i did a lot of big picture conceptual work to try to make the music and the drill integrate together as a whole before i wrote any specific dots or pages, and i that helped me work through the jigsaw puzzle details i needed to make the drill work effectively and practically.

Not that i think the drill was anything close to spectacular, but it was functional and had some great moments that i’m not unproud of, and i know that if i continue to do visual design i’ll only get better.

Second, and the main reason that this entry came about in the first place, i’m currently deep in the throes of writing music for Galaxy Interactive’s launch project, and all of the music that i’m creating is being done using Ableton Live. As a Live user on a scale of 1 (novice) to expert (10), i put myself pretty much in the middle 4-6 category. There’s a lot about the program that I don’t know, and there’s a lot to learn. But that’s not stopping me from taking the stuff that i *do* know and creating the framework for what i hope are some great musical ideas.

And there’s a balance to be struck. While i’m happy with my big picture musical conception, i’m only somewhat happy with my musical output and level of maturity in how i’m using the program to compose for the project. Resultantly i feel like i need more education on the program; not something that would take the equivalent of a semester to learn before producing more output, but there’s a youtube series out there that talks about basic and advanced concepts of Live that I think would be valuable for me to go through that i ultimately think will help me feel much more solid on the program and therefore my output for what will hopefully be a successful global product. Years from now i want to still be proud of this project in the same way that I’m still happy with some of my early compositions. And i’m sure that there will be parts of it that i’ll look back upon and cringe a little, but that’s only natural as i continue to learn, create, and evolve.

Which i suppose is all anyone can ask for, really. To feel good about the contributions that they’ve made in the big picture of society and life.

*laugh*

i’m not sure how i got there when this entry’s focus was supposed to be more about how i learned to forgive myself for not being an expert in something before putting out creative output, but it seems like a good line as any to end this long ramble. If you made it this far, thanks for reading.

As a musician, composer, and educator, i’ve put a lot of thought into the audience of my craft, and recently those thoughts have led me to a radical sort of idea involving audience expectation. Most entertainment contexts these days have either a casual approach to audience protocol or have a more interactive/reactive approach to audience protocol. Sports crowds are a constant chatter of conversation and encourage loud reactions and interactions on big plays. Movie crowds are generally pretty quiet, but it’s still not unusual to get a loud reaction when one is warranted, particularly for comedies. Well-designed marching athletics in all of its forms have “reaction moments” built into the design so that the audience can applaud or whoop and holler if need be. Music concerts, whether big acts in stadiums or small acts in bars are set for a casual atmosphere where people are able to mill about, order drinks, &c.

In contrast, art music concerts have an implied audience expectation and protocol of “sit still and pay attention until we say that it’s okay to clap.” It forces the live concert-goer to completely internalize reaction until protocol dictates the time when it can come out, and to a degree even the manner in which it can come out. While i think that there’s a lot of valid reasons why this is set in place, there’s a part of me that can’t help but think that this rigid structure is part of the reason why these concerts lack appeal for newer audiences. It feels like an old-fashioned aesthetic that lacks context and thus is in its own bubble, which, while once had the strength to stand on its own, is now shrinking and will eventually dissolve into nothing.

Pitched like that, it should be fairly obvious what my idea is: change the protocol. Create a new paradigm for audience expectation for those sorts of concerts to be more casual such as the jazz club bar or the wedding reception band, or more deliberately interactive at times such as the winter drumline/drum corps show, or maybe even completely free such as the big rock concert venue or sports event.

Clearly there are challenges with this sort of shift in audience protocol, particularly as it relates to certain types of concert literature. Some pieces demand a concentrated audience awareness to achieve the maximum effect and would not fare well in a more casual environment, either for the performers or for the audience. I think overall there would have to be some experimentation with different pieces to determine how casual of an atmosphere it could support and the nature of that atmosphere. A couple of years ago the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra did a “concert in the park” deal in honor of a local supermarket opening. The supermarket cooked a huge barbecue and was selling beer/wine/liquor while the LPO played in an ampitheatre area where people could eat and listen casually to the music being played. That worked for that concert because it was free, it was a pops concert, and it was in a large open park area. You wouldn’t be able to pull that off with, say, Adagio for Strings.

More to the point, I’m not necessarily suggesting that the paradigm needs to shift for established works (although i’m not closed to that idea either); it has more to do with new compositions and new composers making an adjustment to how they compose with that paradigm shift in mind, how that changes the nature or character of a piece of music when you plan to write for that sort of environment in the first place. Suppose you have a chamber group of fl, cl, vn, vc, pf, and there’s a section where you highlight an instrument or a duet of the instruments. A jazz club atmosphere would build in them being put more in the spotlight and there potentially being an outro transition moment that could be filled with applause. A large ensemble hit moment could lend to more stage energy from the performers that could support the audience reacting to that moment without it detracting from the music. Thinking about that sort of environment creates a different compositional aesthetic.

Maybe it’s a square-peg-fits-into-the-circle-hole sort of thing, but i think it would be neat to put on series of concerts like that, programmed with a bunch of pieces whether new or old that allows for and encourages the audience to have more freedom, and then gauge its success by the hype, the sales, the reactions. it would surely be awkward at first, but i think it has the potential to gain momentum and change/reinvent the concert paradigm in a way that would resonate more with current audiences and thus maybe provide a context in which the older concert paradigm could generate new life.

Maybe i just need to become a rock star.

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Given those sorts of struggles on top of other small or big struggles that they face, questions arise: should they have stayed in open class? should they have reached for a longer term goal of becoming world class but with more of a full tour model? is this “in between” model that they’re employing a failed model for the world class paradigm?

The answers to these questions are difficult to answer right now because they depends on a few factors: a) what the drum corps community has set as an expectation for the Surf, b) what the Surf itself as an organization and in its individuals has set as an expectation, and c) the fact that the long-term success of this model can’t truly be determined by the results of a single year.

Going back to that first struggle item i talked about in part one, one could argue that even beating a single full-tour corps during Nats Week would be a measurable success – Surf, on its limited rehearsal schedule managed to beat a full tour corps. That says something about the organization, about its commitment to excellence.

But the question is whether that is enough. That the Surf is in their first stint in world class is one of the more interesting things that’s occurred in drum corps this year, and thus has to put them under at least somewhat of a microscope in the drum corps community, and their expectations and projections of Surf may be higher. A more substantial success could also make a strong enough statement to secure more corporate sponsorships and donations as well as member and staff loyalty. Not only that, but it’s possible that if they *don’t* meet that substantial success, it would be perceived as a failure.

As an outsider with only vague ties to the staff, i don’t have a good idea of what sort of expectations Surf has for the next few years; make semi finals in two to three years, and then try to maintain a semi-final placement? Are there higher aspirations for individual aspects of the corps, the drum score, the horn score, the guard score? How does that differ from any expectations that the kids may have, the donors may have?

It’s a tricky balance to maintain because of the struggle between Surf as a pedagogical and educational organization versus a business and corporate organization and how those contradict each other.

As i said earlier, from a corporate standpoint, Surf struggles in a contextual environment of DCI as the equivalent of a small business market amidst a global business market, and by the difference between the two models alone it will never move beyond that. And for some of the individuals associated with the organization, it can be too easy to look at the immediate bottom line and think, “why am i here when i could be a bigger fish in a bigger pond?” And it would be resultingly easy for Surf and the greater drum corps community to react to that and contemplate the idea of changing and evolving their business model towards more of a full corps tour to take it to ‘the next level’. Some would see it as a natural evolution of the corps just as the move from Open to World was a natural evolution.

However, there are a few issues to consider with that. First, although Surf may have limitations as a corporate model for success, i personally think that the Surf model shines from a pedagogical and educational model more than a full corps tour does. When i marched in the Crossmen, i learned that being on a full tour may have taught me a lot and helped give me the tools to be the teacher that i am today, but i also am aware that full tour was an easy escape from reality. For three months you live on a bus and you don’t have to worry about paying bills, making money, doing chores, summer reading, &c. all you do is wake up, run, eat, drum, eat, drum, eat, drum, sleep on the bus or gym floor, rinse, repeat. On the other hand, the Surf model teaches more of a life lesson, how to handle the responsibilities of the drum corps on top of any other responsibilities that a member may have during the week. As opposed to being dictated a schedule because everyone is all in the same place, they have to work out their own schedule, find their own time to practice, otherwise face the consequences of letting themselves and the organization down when they show up for the weekend unprepared. That to me is more analogous to a real-life experience, learning how to juggle multiple responsibilities and be accountable for your own actions by the choices that you make, both within the context of the drum corps and how that fits in with everything else.

Secondly, while there may be members of the corps that may have ‘full tour envy’, the Surf model continues to grant an opportunity for kids that would not be able to afford the money or commitment for a full tour. This may be countered by the fact that there’s still a pretty strong east coast senior corps circuit represented by DCA, but the senior corps experience, while similar, has characteristics to it that are not comparable to a junior corps experience (which is a separate discussion altogether). If other drum corps existed already with a similar model to help fill that void, it would be less of an issue, but as it stands, Surf is the only organization that offers the DCI experience in this way.

Given that, if the Surf were to change to a full tour model, it may garner more success as an organization, but one which potentially sacrifices one of the more important lessons that the members can learn about life and takes away a particular membership pool that would then have an audience only with DCA. Maybe in the long term that decision will be the correct one for Surf, but at the moment it’s too early to tell, too premature to rationalize such a drastic change in Surf history and philosophy after only one year in the World Class market.

So then i return to the other question: is this a failed business model for a world class drum corps? should such a model only aspire to go so far in the world of DCI, stay in the realm of open class?

As the organization continues to grow and evolve and the DCI community reacts to that evolution, the answers will be made clearer at least in the model of drum corps that exists today. But again, i don’t feel like there is a clear cut answer to be made after a single year. Surf and DCI needs a larger and more long-term perspective to determine whether or not it can be competitive in that realm.

Regardless of whether or not it can exist in the world class paradigm or if it is a better fit for open class (or maybe the model itself will inspire DCI to consider another change to its structure, particularly if more corps come out and follow this sort of model in the future), i feel it’s important to pay tribute to and honor Surf for what they’ve already achieved and for throwing themselves into that fire as a modern drum corps history-maker in a way that none of the top drum corps can touch. it serves as an example of a model that may not be something to eventually be absorbed and identified under the current drum corps models, but as the potential birth and inspiration of a new sustainable model, something that can bridge junior corps membership in the context of today’s evolving world and serve as a catalyst and inspiration for other organizations to manage and maintain drum corps that might otherwise be forced to fold.

And despite the fact that drum corps remains and should remain a competitive activity, i feel that the mission of the activity is to provide kids and adults alike a conduit for which they can learn and experience life lessons that they would not otherwise have access to. So if more drum corps could be sustained, revived, or created through alternative models such as this, it is the responsibility of DCI and of the drum corps community to support it and grant it an avenue where those organizations can be successful. Drum Corps changed my life. Without it, i would not be the teacher i am now, i would not have made the connections that i have now, i would not have made the friends who i love and cherish and will for the rest of my life, and i know many people who feel the same. In that sense, there is no doubt in my mind that the dedication, bravery, and vision that has pushed them to this point already made them a world class success even before they took their first step on the competition field in Rome, NY.

originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any comments there.

First, a little background:

Since it’s birth in 1991/1992, Jersey Surf was a Division II corps (now dubbed “Open”), and in the past few years established themselves as one of the more dominant forces in that class, culminating in a 2nd place finish in 2007 (winning both brass and percussion performance) and a 3rd place finish in 2008. Given their success and growth as an organization, they decided bump up to World Class for the 2009 season.

What makes the Jersey Surf unique in today’s drum corps world is their summer schedule. The corps director, Bob Jacobs, has always been a drum corps fan, but was never able to march in a drum corps in his youth because he couldn’t afford to not work over the summer, which took most full-summer-tour corps out of the picture. His goal with the Surf was to be able to give kids who needed a summer job or otherwise wanted or needed their summers free the opportunity that he didn’t have, to give them the opportunity to march in a respectable junior drum corps organization without having to sacrifice their entire summer. Thus, Surf functions primarily as a weekend corps in the summer with a couple of two-week block “tours” that go every day.

Surf has gone through a lot of growing pains in their history, but has steadily matured as an organization culminating to their open class success. I feel that part of this has to do with the focus in recent years to raise the level of professionalism and organization of Surf’s middle and upper management, and thus be able to bring in greater staff talent tha and build loyalty in the staff talent. When i taught Surf in 1999, everyone on staff was volunteer, and that can only draw from a certain pool of instructional staff. Eventually this model changed, and along with that was a gradual changeover of the staff that was able to bump up the vision of excellence and the reputation of the corps as a force that even with its strong running start in its early years continued to build in strength and be a force to be reckoned with, which in turn helped attract a stronger and more loyal membership pool.

Although I don’t know all of the details of the Why and How of Surf moving from Open to World Class, it seems like this was an inevitability given the sort of momentum and evolution they’ve had as an organization. Regardless of this, making this move couldn’t have been easy and deserves a high level of admiration. i’m making an educated guess that it would have been easier for them to stay in Open Class and know that they had the potential to capture their first gold medal. Instead, they decided that they needed to think bigger, and even if there was a risk that it was biting off more than they could chew, they threw themselves into the fire as a new rookie to see where it would take them. In today’s world where it seems like more organizations and individuals focus mainly on stability and creating a business model that they know will succeed with very little risk, Surf needs to be commended for standing against that model and attempting to try to see how far it can push its success.

And now that they’re in their first summer tour as a World Class organization, i think that it’s highlighted some of the challenges that this new kid on the block has to face not only because it is their debut year in World Class, but because of their unique “weekend-only summer” model, the only World Class drum corps tomy knowledge that is functioning in this way. And i think that it’s important, therefore, to take a moment to do some outside analysis on the choices that Surf has made, how that fits within the bigger picture of the current DCI model, musical pedagogy, and life pedagogy, and speculate as to what role Surf has in the future, both for itself and for the activity of drum corps.

There’s no doubt that because of the choices that Surf has made, they’re fighting an upward struggle. Take the shittiest and most inexperienced drum corps out there that does a full tour and pit them against the Surf, and there’s a good chance that the shitty drum corps will beat them purely because of how much more time they practice and thus how much more time they can meld as a collective ensemble from the top down, how much more chops are built through consistently playing/spinning every day, how much more physical endurance they develop, &c. Talent can only go so far behind solid, consistent, hard work.

Top that with the perception that Surf has struggled with for years as being a “gateway corps”, as in kids will come to Surf as a means to build their chops, experience, and resumé to then go march in a full tour/top 12 corps a year or two later. It’s true that every year is a building year, there are always going to be age outs or transfers, but i think Surf had to deal with that more than most because their weekend-only model is definitely seen by some of the membership (although i can’t say how much) as “not a full drum corps experience”, and when they see top 5 corps like Crown or Cavaliers or Blue Devils, they get the grass-is-greener complex, particularly if they feel like they have the talent and the means to be a member of those corps.

Given those sorts of struggles on top of other small or big struggles that they face, questions arise: should they have stayed in open class? should they have reached for a longer term goal of becoming world class but with more of a full tour model? is this “in between” model that they’re employing a failed model for the world class paradigm?

Part 2

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originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any comments there.