studioHEATHCO

I failed to mention that Slumber might have another performance in September, on percussionist Luke Hubley’s doctoral recital. The piece is for voice (baritone) and marimba, and the text was written by Benjamin Cunningham, the vocalist for The Pant Factory. The first performance of Slumber was on my graduate recital this past Spring. I wasn’t particularly proud of some of my writing in certain sections, particularly in what I felt was the middle section (of some sort of ABA form). Neither the voice or marimba part were very clear nor idiomatic, and it was just more complicated than it needed to be. It meandered harmonically and the phrasing didn’t make any sense. Ultimately, I decided to rewrite the entire section and tweak the outer moments to make the piece a little more cohesive. I haven’t heard the results sung or played (beyond my midi renderings) yet, but I definitely feel more confident in the parts. I’ll post the recital date as soon as I find out more details.

I have had the fortunate opportunity to come in contact with many awesome musicians and artists over the past year, and I’m even more fortunate to say I’ve got a laundry list of badass projects that I’ll be involved with over the next year or so.

I’m going to be working out several small vignettes for an Autumn soiree put on by Misha Penton at Divergence Vocal Theater. The performances for this will be on October 14th and 15th. I get to work with a tabla player and play electric guitar on the same program as Donizetti. DVT is awesome and is doing some great things in the Houston music community. If you get a chance to check out any of their performances (especially at the DVT venue), then I highly recommend going. On November 12th, Scordatura Music Society will be premiering six new compositions (of which I am one) and six new paintings as part of their 12 X 7 Commissioning project. I have only just begun writing the piece, which is scored for violin, viola, and piano. There will be a number of videos that each of the involved composers will be making leading up to the performance. On February 19th and 20th, the University of Houston’s contemporary music ensemble,  AURA, will be performing a new work of mine on a program that is tentatively titled “Topography.” I only just received the details, and I can let a cat out of the bag for my writing plans: there may or may not be some Yes and Roger Dean album art involved.

I have been working with a poet/hip hop artist/social worker named Christopher Perri on a piece called The Capital of Punishment, which is about the juvenile justice and delinquency system in America. The work centers around a spoken word piece that Christopher wrote, and will feature a largely electronic score and possibly a video element. There is no set date for a performance as of yet, but we are working on it. If the piece is anywhere as intense to others as it has been to me, then I’m sure that it’ll be received rather well.

Lastly, I am going to be writing a bunch of music for a dance production, to be premiered in over a year. The music will be performed by a new ensemble that I am assembling. The details are few for this at the moment, but I shall be finding out more over the next few months.

I’ll update again soon, to give a little more detail about each of these things.

This past year went by FAST. It seems like yesterday that I was bitching about having to write 40 minutes of music and praying for the possibility of dreaming about the end of grad school. It is all finished now and the dust has only begun settling after the whirlwind year I’ve had, only to reveal a completely new set of hurdles. This past year has marked the biggest leap of progress I think I have ever made, provided me with absolutely amazing opportunities, and giving me the extra boost of confidence a freshly graduated classical music composer in the 21st century should have to go barreling towards a life of road blocks and banana peels. Taking the necessary steps to embark on my next phase in life feels like I’m riding my bike again for the first time in 10 years. Actually, this is an amazing analogy for how I currently feel. Allow me to indulge in a rather unnecessary story:

I rode around the neighborhood for hours when I was a kid, and was quite daring at that. When I was in high school, my focus shifted heavily towards practicing my music-ing and driving automobiles, so my bicycle took a backseat (pun definitely intended!) for quite some time. Fast forward almost 10 years.  Soon after I graduated with my bachelors, I decided to buy a new bike and take up riding around the city. Everything basic in life follows the old adage that these things are “like riding a bicycle,” because picking it up again after a lifetime of neglect is supposed to be quick and painless. The initial ride made for a great second honeymoon, until the moment my legs lost all energy to continue after 3 miles. The ride back home was way more of a workout than it would seem a 24 year old should endure from a 5 mile bike ride. The real fun came the following two days, when it felt like an elephant had punted me right on the tail bone. It certainly made the next bike trip feel like I was sitting on an up-turned 2×4. From then until about 6 months later, I rediscovered that wind was invented because God hates cyclists, going downhill makes the bike travel faster and scarier, and that if I ride out too far, then I struggle the entire ride back home. Only after months of rigorous riding, did I start to develop the stamina for longer rides and greater distances. Fast forward 4 years. 25 miles is my standard ride, and my endurance for wind and mild fatigue is greatly improved. I ride more now than I ever did as a teen.

I have “planned,” for years it seems, to piece together an ensemble for the purposes of performing new and contemporary music. The first time I ever had the thought of such a ridiculous thing was about seven years ago, after listening to some some orchestral Zappa records. The idea was awesome enough to entertain for all of the 35 minute drive from my parent’s home in Katy, Tx to where I lived just west of downtown Houston. The idea didn’t recur until a few years later, when I had decided to take up composition as a possible career path. I was playing guitar in a tech-metal band at the time (which I only quit doing so a year ago, by the way), and had some difficulties “getting my way” musically in the band when it came time to write music. I remember reading about Philip Glass and Steve Reich having their own ensemble’s as outlets for their music and thinking instantly that I needed to do the same. When I combined this with my love for Frank Zappa’s music and his many incarnations of live ensembles, I was led to the conclusion that having my own “modern classical band” was the real solution to my problems (because starting a band is always a great solution to something else).

As I began my graduate studies, I quickly noticed that I was following an all too common pathway for young composers. I discovered that many of my now favorite composers had really began their careers with the same intentions as me. What a great way to affirm my mostly intuitive compulsion! The day I realized what Bang on a Can was, and that one of its co-founders, Michael Gordon, was going to visit my school for a premiere and listen to my music during a masterclass was absolutely mind blowing. Looking back, I wasted a great opportunity to ask him some great questions about starting up the group: It seems all I have right now is a bunch of paper work and bullshit to wade through. Did BOAC have similar issues?

As graduation drew closer and closer, I realized that I would soon be faced with the reality that time had run out and I would need to either shit or get off the pot, as they say. I began asking around for some minor advice and for some players to jam out with me. I was faced with real decision making for the first time. What the hell kind of ensemble was it? What is the instrumentation? Will it play only my music? What is the name? Where will we play? Who will play? HOW IS THIS EMEFFER GOING TO BE PAID FOR? Only a year ago did most of these questions present themselves to me. A FREAKING YEAR! Shouldn’t I have considered some of this shit before then? What the hell was I doing with my time, besides having a family, working full-time, and going to grad school?

I’m proud to say that most of these questions have been answered. I have some players. I’ve got a plan. I have some repertoire. I have potential venues. I even have the outlines for a sweet educational outlet. But, where’s the name? Where’s the money?

My Masters recital is fast approaching. Next Sunday, March 27th is D-Day! My week is filled with rehearsals and last-minute tweeks and edits, and an assload of coffee. The program will include:

Turbine, A Short Movement for Piano and Percussion, Flow, Solo for Double Bass, Guilty by Association, and the premieres of Slumber, Brass Quintet, and Tendril.

I made it onto No Extra Notes!, a weekly podcast that features young, up and coming composers. I say “up and coming” because most of the composers are just that. I don’t know to what extent my “up and coming” status can and should be applied. Also, if you listen to my contribution, be prepared to listen to me yap on and on about myself. Friends and family, do I do this often? I try to remain modest, but perhaps I have failed. Anyway, the podcast is put together by Richard Zarou, a composer from Virginia.I haven’t heard much of his music so I can’t comment on that, but he is doing a great job in featuring new composers.

I am starting a small chamber ensemble. Look for more info in the very near future.

So, six posts in a little under a year ain’t half bad, right? I apologize, world. You deserve better! This will be a quick update on what’s been happening in the world of George:

-January 29th: Duo Scordatura performance of Turbine. This was a great performance of my piece alongside several other mighty fine works. I felt a little insecure about my work, but all was great and I received some awesome feedback.

-February 12th: DaCamera Young Artist performance of my piece for children, Alpha-Beta, one, two, TREE!. This was the third run of the piece and was really fun, despite my onset of laryngitis and a real lack of knowing how to control an audience of children! (side note: don’t bump into priceless artwork with music stands, unless you WANT you stomach to churn endlessly).

-February 20-21st: played guitar with the UH contemporary music ensemble, AURA, on a piece by Bill Ryan called Blurred. This was a lot of fun, even though I only have a few note to play. The piece was great, as was the rest of the music on the program. The composers represented were: Michael Gordon, Bill Ryan, Robin Cox, Todd Reynolds, Paul Steinberg, and Krzysztof Penderecki. This was the closest thing to experiencing the New York scene as I have come to so far in Houston. It was great and a lot of fun.

Coming at the end of March is my Masters Recital at UH. This’ll happen on March 27th. I’ll post more about it as the time draws near. I’m scared shitless about one or two pieces.

As promised, I said I would shed a little light on my piece for jazz orchestra titled SHRED! I’ve given a few folks some basics hints as to its meaning and general purpose, but have never really gone into any detail. In reality, there probably isn’t too much detail to be had. I might be giving it all away right now, thus ruining it all for you. So if you are the kind of listener who doesn’t like to go into a new piece with any outside knowledge, beware: SPOILER ALERT!!!

A work’s title often hints at a few things that help give some insight into the overall style and character of the work. As a predominately rock-guitarist, the word “shred” has been infused into my vocabulary as a both a style of metal and a description of fast and acrobatic guitar soloing. Ex:  Yngwie shreds on Black Star while playing in his shred-metal band, Rising Force. One would expect that somewhere in my piece called SHRED! would be moments of shear insanity, involving instrumental pyrotechnics with enough sweep arpeggios and two-hand tapping to kill an ox. This is precisely where I played a bit of mental sorcery. I had decided early on, like before I even had a single note written, that I wanted to explore a whole separate side of metal than shred-metal.

SHRED! is more closely related to djent than any other style. Djent is newer style of metal that stems from the intense polymetric grooving of bands like Meshuggah and Periphery. The name is an onomatopoetic term for the guitar sound when a low power chord is struck and immediately palm-muted (with lots of gain and distortion). The term djent was coined by Periphery guitarist, Misha Monsoor. Every guitarist in a metal band has used this sentence before: “Hey, lay down that sick double-bass beat with open hi-hats while me and the bass player go djent-djent-djent-raaaaow-djent-djent-djent.” A great stylistic feature of djent is the use of small cellular motives (think minimalism) played over a straight 4/4 groove. These cells, however, are usually 16th-note based and in odd groupings that are often rhythmically dissonant against the 4/4 groove, producing something that is wildly syncopated and insanely complicated to play. This is something I decided to latch onto for my piece. This is also something that my old tech-metal band, THE PANT FACTORY, was pretty accustomed to, so the territory wasn’t all that new to me. The name SHRED! came to me before any notes or rhythms. I immediately fell in love the the title and just had to go with it. Calling the piece DJENT! was out of the question. So, not only is there a surprising lack of fast, note-y runs, but the solo section is for trombone, which is sort of the least likely instrument to ever shred. The title hints at metal, which is good enough for me at this point.

More than style, I feel SHRED! is more of a character association, and more specifically a hint at the programmatic nature of the piece. Program, you say? Yes, this work follows a fairly loose program that marks one of the first pieces I have ever written out of my anger towards the American way of life. (Oh I see, it’s one of those pieces) After each semester of school, I immerse myself in some sort of activity that a busy school and work schedule does not allow, i.e. playing video games, catching up on TV shows, knitting, or whatever. After my Spring 2010 semester, I discovered that Netflix had a category of movies called political documentaries and one called conspiracy-theory documentaries. EXCELLENT, my next couple of weeks now had a purpose! I did nothing but watch documentaries on credit card debt, our food industries, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, 9/11 as an inside-job, religion, dolphin slaughter, mainstream news media, and tons of films highlighting the wasteful lifestyles in both our political environment and in our own daily lives. Now, very little of what I saw was completely news to me. I’ve tried to keep pretty aware of my surroundings for quite a while, though I’ll admit that I haven’t really informed myself of key specifics of everything. I’ve become very cynical in my perception of the typical American lifestyle, whatever that is. Our news media have turned politics into an alternative to professional wrestling, thus pitting many of us against each other as we take sides and polarize EVERY ISSUE EVAR! Our news media would like for us to believe that our struggle is academia versus intuition, atheists versus the religious, left versus right, rich versus poor, and gay versus straight, as if middle ground is just a figment of our imagination. We are told constantly to spend more and to buy into novelty and that good ideas and intelligence comes in a cell phone or computer and that all you have to do to be smart is just purchase it. We sensationalize gossip and give most of our weight to superficiality. Politically connectedness has produced a nation of pussies and has made us speak out against everything as an injustice when nothing has been done, meanwhile we’ve turned a blind eye to the real issues. I fear that we’re edging up to the point of no return. This point of no return and the hope to prevent it is the central idea behind SHRED! More on this later…

On a side note, my premiere of Nobody is Looking was sort of a flop. Here is a quote from Darcy James Argue (completely unrelated to my piece) that sums it all up: “Here’s the thing about premieres. Most of the time, they suck. Not because the music is bad, but because it’s horribly under-rehearsed.” Composers who also perform their own pieces, here is some sage advice for you: If you write a piece using electronics or tape, make damn sure you’ve rehearsed it well and above all are able to hear the f-in tape part during the performance! My amp was too loud, I stood a little behind the speakers with no monitor on stage(making the ability to hear the tape part nearly impossible), and I hadn’t worked the piece up to a performance level that should be considered acceptable for someone of my experience. All of this culminated in my on the spot decision to just wing it and improvise a majority of the piece. STUPID IDEA OF THE CENTURY!!!! I’m recording the piece this week and should have it available to listen to, as well as giving it another performance or two sometime in the near future. As disappointed as I am, I got a few good comments on the piece and learned a valuable lesson.

Also, be on the look out for some exciting news regarding a new ensemble I am starting.

I’ve been lucky this semester at school and even luckier professionally. The November 17th performance of my violin and viola duet came off great and I was very impressed with Nick Baker and Faith Jones’ performance; they brought a very theatrical life to my work. I had a last minute title change. The duet is now called Turbine, which seems to be a much better fit for the piece. Supposedly, there is a John Mackey piece with the same name. Not to worry, there is very little chance of anyone programming a violin and viola duet on the same concert as a wind ensemble piece, so neither of us will be showing up to the same party wearing the same sport-coat/ blue jean combination!

Likewise, I am ecstatic about the premiere of A Short Movement for Piano and Percussion at the Menil Collection. Luke Hubley and Makiko Hirata played beautifully and really made the piece their own. The work was written to highlight the intimacy of the performance space, which was a Museum corridor. On exhibit was a collection of collage pieces by Kurt Schwitters. To highlight the artwork, I assembled a collage of my own, using Erik Satie’s Gnossienne no. 1 (performed by Luke on marimba) and a collage of Schwitters’ own Ur Sonate, which he recorded in 1932. The Ur Sonate collage was created by myself, which meant reassembling the disjunct and bizarre syllables of Schwitters’ work into something a bit more condensed and   slightly minimalist. The original was written very musically and had quite a bit of interesting motivic development, so I had a relatively easy job of cutting and chopping. The resulting collage proved to be more of a crowd-pleaser than I could ever have expected.

Next at bat: Nobody is Looking: for electric guitar and tape (December 10), New Collection (November 29), and a quartet piece for the Soli ensemble.

Also: Hip-Hop collaboration.

When I started this blog I fully intended to update fairly regularly. The goal was to have a place where I could vent my frustrations with the world of music, politics, religion, and the various miscellaneous things I encounter daily. I guess the first six months of this page have been no better than a bad New Year’s resolution made at 3 in the morning after a night of drinking and wild partying (or as we call it in the Heathco house, Scrabble Night). I apologize to my readership. The four of you must have been worried sick, losing sleep wondering if I’m alright or if I’ve been kidnapped by Aliens or the government.

Well let me be the first to tell you that I’m doing pretty good right now. The past months have been something of a whirlwind in terms of my music career. As you may know, I have been working pretty diligently on finishing up my grad school work at the University of Houston. I only have a semester and a half left and there is tons of work I still need to complete, namely finish composing the required hour of music for my graduate recital next semester. One of the pieces included in this hour, though not on the recital program, will be my jazz orchestra piece SHRED!, which was written for the Moores School Jazz Orchestra. When I last updated this blog, I had only begun sketching the piece and had very little to actually write about. The piece is now completed and in the hands of the fine musicians that make up the wonderful ensemble. I’ve only heard a couple of rehearsals of SHRED!, and can only say two absolutes concerning the work: A) This thing is hard as hell to play and put together, and B) The end result is going to be pretty effin awesome. SHRED! is a 9 minute work chalked full of extremely dense harmonies, extended passages of challenging syncopations, heavy metal inspired textures, and enough linear independence to make Bach want to punch kittens. Well, maybe not so much the last part, but the independence of many of the lines within each instrument voice is definitely one of the more challenging aspects to putting this piece together. As the performance draws somewhat closer, I’ll spill some more beans on some of the more conceptual ideas behind SHRED!. Look for the concert to be in April of 2011.

In other news, I have been working with Duo Scordatura, writing a cool duet for violin and viola. Duo Scordatura are violinist Nick Leh Baker and violist Faith Magdalene Jones, and are a wonderful group that presents, quite regularly I might add, a wide variety of works of all genres in and around the Houston area. I’m honored to work with them and beyond thrilled that they are performing my music. They will premiere my Duet for violin and viola on November 17th at the University of Houston at 6:30pm (it is free). They’ll be performing the same piece on January 29th at the Dowling Recital Room at Dowling Music. Like the jazz orchestra work, this piece is a bitch to play, but looks to be a very entertaining work (or so I hope).

Lastly, I am super excited to announce that I have been accepted into the DaCamera of Houston‘s 2010-2011 Young Artist Program. The program focuses on career development for young, budding professionals (and career newbies like me) by presenting a number of workshops and performances throughout the season. We’ll also be working with various schools and programs around town, presenting educational projects and programs. So far, I have two pieces scheduled for performance and will be performing (on Electric guitar) on a couple of works. We will be presenting a small number of “thumbnail” concerts at the Menil Collection on November 20th as part of the Stop, Look, and Listen series. My work A Short Movement for Piano and Percussion will be premiered at the Kurt Schwitters exhibit by pianist Makiko Hirata and percussionist Luke Hubley. There will also be a premiere of a work by Rice Composer Charles Halka. The concerts are free and will be running from 3 pm until 5pm. I’m working on a new piece for a December 10th performance at AvantGarden, to be performed on electric guitar with sequencer.

End.

I’ve had a really refreshing couple of weeks of musical activity as of late. Somehow I rekindled a liking for freely improvised performance. It is intensely liberating to create something on the spot with other musicians in front of an audience. I find the idea that both parties bare witness to the birth of new ideas to be both exciting and slightly perplexing. How better utilized is a musician, to spontaneously conjure up and share with others an audibly tangible depiction of what he/she thinks music should in fact sound like at that particular point in time? What better test of a musician’s musical intuition? This applies equally to the listener. Anyone who has ever found themselves as an audience member at an improv event knows all too well the level of attentiveness and amount of patience needed to actively make it to the other side. I have had my fair share of “oh shit” moments as both audience member and performer at such events, where the sudden realization that bad and uninteresting ideas are going to be strung together haphazardly for the next 5-30 minutes kicks in. The feelings of discomfort, helplessness, and panic felt by both the listener and performer in the midst of an unsuccessful happening can be surprisingly similar for each party. The converse of such a situation, of course, is the occasional improvisation that manages to connect all participating parties to a similar stream of engagement, where the music almost takes the helm and commands all to do as they are told. More often than not, this occurs not as a single composition, but as a single moment within a larger body.

I, and many other composerly people, find improvisation to be a great stone for sharpening our organizational axes, as a means of instant development and structuring.  Tons can be learned from an unsuccessful run. A bad improvisation might purely be the result of just an inability to grab hold of a single idea. This is what leads to the directionless meandering through an endless barrage of  stream of conscious noodles. We’ve all been guilty of this one. Commitment to an idea makes all of the difference in the world. I feel at my best when I pick an idea and just go with it. The idea need not even be a gem, which makes me feel somewhat Beethovenian when I can exploit the hell out of a seemingly insignificant cell of information. There does, however, lie some danger in clinging too closely to an idea and failing to realize its directional potential.  Space and balance also become problematic during the process. Improvisation is a very democratic experience and it is all too easy to be oppressive, without letting the others have their say. Even a solo performer needs to be aware of the fact that the performance space with its inhabitants is always in attendance and available for a solo spot!

In other news, there is a picture that John Adams posted on his blog that I think very accidentally and humorously sums up the current social attitude towards the modern music portion of your typical symphony orchestra concert:

Note the extreme enthusiasm Mr. Adams is exuding to the orchestra, here represented by the bored and unengaged violist, in front of an unimpressed and uninterested audience. The audience appears to be made up of senior citizens, empty seats, and what seems to be a person in a snowman suit in the 7th row.

My band, The Pant Factory, will be playing at Warehouse Live on Saturday May 29. We are playing with Scale the Summit, Another Run, and Female Demand. The doors are at 8 and we play around 9:30. Email me or comment on this post if you want to buy tickets ($10) for the show. Our set is going to be pretty different for those who are used to seeing us in action; we’re playing most of the new material from our next album. We’ll be tracking and mixing most of the summer and hopefully mastering during fall. Look forward to seeing a release at the end of the year. For anyone not interested in waiting that long until the album, we’ll be releasing a short 3-song digital EP pretty soon. Details on everything will surface as these projects roll closer.

Also, we have had a new member in the band for all of 8 months now. His name is Joey Killam and he is our second guitar player. The music that we started writing for the new record got more and more involved as far as the guitar parts were concerned, so we felt a second player would really make the parts sing better. Joey is handling everything really quite nicely and has been a great addition to the band. We have never given an official release on his existence in the band, so if you haven’t seen him or met him at any of our most recent shows then be sure to do so the next time!

Here is a pretty cool review: Space City Rock

I am pretty excited about the upcoming year at school. If all goes as planned, this will be my last year of grad school. I have talked with Noe Marmolejo about writing a piece for the Moores School of Music Jazz Orchestra. This is super exciting for many reasons, the biggest being that the MSMJO is extremely talented and very enthusiastic about working hard. I played trumpet in the ensemble for a good three years. My spot was always third, fourth, or fifth trumpet (or as I liked to think of them, lead-3, lead-4, lead-5). Noe always ran rehearsals the way anyone would expect a professional group to operate. Everyone was responsible for practicing their parts and coming in prepared to play, otherwise they’d be torn a fresh, new butt-hole in front of their peers. As players, we were always treated with the utmost respect, allowing for personalities to ring through during moments where personalities needed to be present. Concerts were such a treat. Everyone on stage played their asses off and had tons of fun doing so. These things alone give me so much needed confidence to write something special for the group. This piece is going to be a blast to write. Some small spoilers include: Meshuggah, Darcy James Argue’s Secret Society, Math Rock, Andriessen, and Conspiracy Theory Documentaries. More to come!