Transcript - S1 Ep5: Your Own Worst Critic

Intro:

This is Mission: Commission [intro]

Melissa Smey:

Welcome to Mission: Commission, a podcast demystifying the process of how classical music gets made. I'm Melissa Smey and I'm the Artistic Director of Miller Theatre at Columbia University. On this podcast, we're following the creative journey of three composers as they create vibrant new works of classical music. And on this episode, you'll start to hear those works as the pieces begin to come together from Marcos Balter, Augusta Read Thomas, and Courtney Bryan.

On the last episode of Mission: Commission, all three composers were deep in the zone, sifting through ideas. On this episode, they're still sifting. But we'll explore another aspect of the creative process—how to know if those ideas are any good, how to know what the piece wants, how to give it shape, what to keep in and what to leave out, and how to be your own editor and critic.

So let's start this conversation with Marcos Balter. Here's a little bit of the piece he's been writing for solo harp performed by harpist, Parker Ramsay.

[MUSIC - "OMOLU" BY MARCOS BALTER]

I'm curious to hear you tell us about, like, the process of editing your own work and the idea, do you feel like, do you have it, are there moments when you inhabit the role of an editor and a composer. Are those separate for you or is it all of one piece?

Marcos Balter:

It's the same. I mean, I'm definitely, I know it's a little bit of a cliche to say so, but I am my worst critic. You know, I tend to think that every single idea I have is a bad one. Like I start from the premise that it is a bad idea. You know, and then, maybe I tried to convince me that it's not so bad of an idea. But usually the ideas that I really, really like, the ones that connect with me, are ideas that feel like they're not mine. You know, that they may have come from elsewhere. You know, that they're so foreign to something that I would imagine that I, you know, by myself created, that they become interesting. Which may be, you know, sort of feeds that kind of fantasy that, you know, inspiration is something that comes from a magical place.

Melissa Smey:

Yeah.

Marcos Balter:

I'm fully aware that it's coming from me somewhere, you know, within me, but it's perhaps a space that I have less rational access to. And because I don't have much rational access to it, it has not been atrophied the way that we tend to do with things that we have that logical access to, and put a bunch of constraints on them, and bring them closer to our banalities.

Melissa Smey:

Yeah. And so, as someone who's nurtured a creative practice over a really long period of time is that something that you've grown into, that you've learned more to trust? Like, was that intuitive? Was it intrinsic? Was it always there or was that something that revealed itself to you?

Marcos Balter:

As an educator, that's a hard thing to talk about because in many ways I feel that the problems that I had before on accessing or getting to that space had a lot to do with my training. You know, with this idea that you have to purify your ideas and you have to work through your ideas on specific ways. And the way that we tend to even talk, you know, engage pedagogically with composition. You know, which sort of prides this more sort of rational and systematic or system-friendly ways of thinking, of developing a work, that never really worked that well for me. And it's a thing that I try not to impose on my students, you know, even though I'm really big on like pre-composition and coming up with your process and everything, the one thing that I repeat to students, you know, quite often and to myself is—don't think practically. Not now. Not now. Like, when you're creating, that's not the time to be practical. There are a lot of things that you're already doing that are practical. Like in this case, for instance, I know it's for harp, I know it has to be around, you know, between 8 or 10 minutes or something like that. You know, like I already have enough practical frames. I don't need now, to think of what Parker can or cannot do, what the listener wants or wants not to listen to, and how that idea is going to sound. Those kinds of considerations should not be something that limits the actual, you know, construction of the piece. I'm also very against composing something that doesn't have anything to do with the person that you're working for. You know, but if I trust that, you know, during the process I've gotten to know Parker well and that, you know, we have established this consensual, you know, exploratory kind of way of working, that's all I need to know.

Melissa Smey:

One of the things I've loved about talking to composers for this podcast is how different they all are in some ways, how their process and practice varies. You heard Marcos say that composer mode and editor mode are kind of the same thing for him. Gusty, on the other hand, has a different approach.

[MUSIC - "BEBOP RIDDLE" BY AUGUSTA READ THOMAS]

What you are hearing now is Gusty's piece for solo marimba performed by percussionist, John Corkill. I've been talking to her all along as this piece has started to take shape. And I wanted to ask her about how that shaping actually happens.

Augusta Read Thomas:

So I'm constantly going back and forth between Gusty the composer and improviser, with Gusty the editor.

Melissa Smey:

Was the role of your inner editor innate and is that something that you've developed over time? Like can you think back, like, were you always aware of that inner editor?

Augusta Read Thomas:

Yeah, I think so. I mean, you know, when you're a little girl practicing piano and you hit a wrong note, you're like, "Oh, Bach, didn't write that note. I hit the wrong note. Duh, there's a C-sharp in this key signature. What am I doing here?" You know, that kind of thing. So you automatically know you've hit the wrong note. And I guess that's the beginning of an inner editor. And then as one starts to improvise, and compose, and building pieces out of thin air, the inner editor has to be more sophisticated because you have to be editing against all billions of other possibilities. It's not like that one's right in this one's wrong because there was a key signature or because there were some rule saying, "well, the next note has to be a G-sharp." And some people write like that. And that's fine. Like they have a system set up by which they're writing, but I actually write note-by-note. So any next note could be anything, any next phrase could be absolutely anything. So the inner editor has to be a very strong voice. And constantly thinking about the integrity of the piece, and the truth of the piece, and the inner beauty of the piece on its own terms. And, you know, not every piece can do everything. And I have a huge imagination so I always have like 4,000 ideas. So the question is, well, this piece needs one idea and it has to be the right idea. And so you might have all these other ideas and possibilities, but that's great and you can like go down those rabbit holes, but what does this piece need on its own terms? I guess it is something you develop, but it also just becomes, yeah, it's just normal or it feels natural.

Melissa Smey:

And you said that when the, when the inner composer and the inner editor are in alignment, and then you just know when the piece is correct, like, you know, when it's there and then there are no changes. Is the opposite true then that, you know, this isn't right? And so it's time to abandon this. Is it as decisive on the other end?

Augusta Read Thomas:

Yeah, it is. I mean, both take time to develop. But when it's not feeling right, I feel like, I don't know, there's some kind of physical feeling I have, and I certainly don't know how to describe it. It's like my elbows itch or something. It's just like, "Ugh, this isn't right. Got to get it right. Ah! It's not right!" Or I feel it in my spine, or something. And then there's other places where it's like, "ah! I would not change that note. And I wouldn't change that duration. Because I can feel it. I can feel it." Like, my body gets relaxed. Cause usually I'm dancing, and scatting, and singing, and playing, and is very physical. So you can kind of feel where you're pressing in the wrong direction, or overthinking something, or under thinking something. And I always write by ear. So, you know, just trusting that and being at one with it and finding it. So, you know, not every improv is good. You just, you gotta find the right one. And so you can kind of feel like, "Ooh, that one little phrase was good, but the whole rest of it was horrible." And then, "okay, well what was that phrase? What's its potential?" And then unpacking that and so on.

Melissa Smey:

How hard is it to be your own editor?

Augusta Read Thomas:

I've always thought the best artists were their best editors. So if we're talking about a poet and the amount of time they might spend moving a comma, switching the order of two words, changing the comma to a dash. All of these little moves can make a massive, massive difference. And the same with people writing books, you know, people, someone will edit them and say, "well, this paragraph isn't clear" and "you don't need chapter 11." And with music composition, we don't have editors or at least, I don't know people, maybe some people have editors, but I don't have an editor, but I'm my own worst editor or my own most severe editor, because I'm constantly saying "that has to be better. That could be better. How could that be better? I want this to be more integral, more deep, more personal, more, you know, more 'Gusty.'" And sometimes this goes back and forth. Maybe it feels like it's going back and forth about a hundred times a second, which I know sounds extreme, but that kind of thing where you're like constantly going back and forth, like "what about this? What, it could be. This could be that."

And then sometimes it's larger things. When a piece is getting more formed and you realize, "Nope, this whole phrase is irrelevant. It's just not needed to make the argument of the piece. It's got to go." Or "boy, there's so much potential right here that I didn't unfold or that wants to expand or twirl or find some way to unravel. And I need to let it do that." And so it can be very painful to be your own editor because you spend half your time redoing what you just did. But for me, it's actually a very important part of my process.

And then when the composer and the editor agree. "Okay, That's it, there it is. It's it. Yay! That's it! Hold it! Yes!" Then I never change it. Like I'm like, "boom! I got it. Finally." And you only know that when you know it, it's a weird feeling, but then you suddenly know it and you can also feel when it's just not right. And also as somebody who listens to music all day long and I've been teaching music for, whatever it is, 30 years now and reviewing music every day of my life written by other people and so on, you can hear where people put band-aids on their pieces. Like where it wasn't quite right. And they kind of like tried to fix it up there. Or like there was something that just didn't flow right, or a misstep, or something like that. And we're all mere mortals, you know, we all do this. But I try in my own music to really have there be a very natural flow. Like the whole piece is just unraveling, like butter melting in front of you. A sense that the material, and the form, and the flow are in excellent synchronicity.

Melissa Smey:

Synchronicity.

Synchronicity is also the title of Courtney Bryan's piece for trombone and piano with her friend and trombonist, Andrae Murchison. Here is how that's starting to take shape.

[MUSIC - "SYNCHRONICITY" - BY COURTNEY BRYAN]

Courtney Bryan:

I wanted to take a word that stood out to me. Like, reviewing all of the conversations that I had with Andrae and just the different thoughts that have been going on during the past few weeks for this project. I wrote it out. I listened to everything and I wrote out notes for myself on a Word document, just so I could see everything. And then I was like, "let me just read through everything and see what comes first to mind afterwards." Like if I give it some time, like, what's the thing that surfaces to the top. And "joy" was what surfaced. I've just been thinking about it a lot, like how to approach it. And then, and I want to just get that first before I do my improvisation on the word. And that's my goal. So my goal was to do, maybe set a certain amount of time, whether it's like 30 minutes, or 30 minutes to as long as I can go, to sit at the piano and pick like one concept and improvise on that concept and record it. I'm trying to get my head, like, wrapped around my approach. Like, you know what my concept is before I sit at the piano. But also I've been thinking more about notation.

Melissa Smey:

How important is the notation, would you say then, in this case?

Courtney Bryan:

That's such a great question because I, kind of, wonder, like, I wonder because Andrae and I have been in such conversation, I don't even know if it matters. Like, it could be just, like, "remember that time the other day when we were talking about…” It could be something like that. For me, it's important to have something that has clarity of like what the core ideas are for at least this piece, because I do feel like it could go in so many directions.

And I think I'm also thinking about, like, the commission itself is to write a 5 to 10 minute piece. So I'm thinking a certain way with that. Like, I don't want to overload with ideas. Like, we've come up with so many ideas together and I'm thinking about a lot of things over the six weeks. And so it's, kind of, like, just selecting what's the right amount of information that we can really build on something still, you know. Because we don't want to make this hour long piece and then have to figure it out. That's not the way I want to work. So.

Melissa Smey:

How hard is that editing process?

Courtney Bryan:

I think it just takes time. Like, I think that's why this week has been just like thinking, like, what's the kind of core thing for this. Like, what would be some key ideas, but ideas that are—leave some openness in the moment to see what happens, you know?

I think it's typical that I kind of have an idea, for me, what's the foreground and background. Or, like, I don't know necessarily how it will fit in a form all the time, but I do have an idea of, like, my connection to the material. It's kind of based on what I think about the result of the material and also kind of how I felt while creating it. So I'm thinking a mix of that and I could just hear it all together. So that's how I kind of know like, "oh, this is like a piece I want to write out and perform together." And then some other ideas that I feel like I'm experimenting with, I know that they may be involved, but I can, kind of, tell at that moment that it's kind of like a secondary idea.

Melissa Smey:

Yeah. And so of course that makes me want to ask about form, which is, I'll confess, always the question that I want to ask composers and I never do, right? Because it feels like it's almost too personal and there's something kind of, so cliche about these ideas of kind of classical forms in music, right? And no one's writing Sonata form, which is a very proscribed way of thinking about and writing music. But I'm curious for you, how do you think about form? How will you know what the sections will be? I mean, we know that there's an approximate duration of this piece, right? And we know there's an instrumentation, so those are two kind of formal considerations that have been set. But I would love to hear you tell us about how you do, or do not think about form when you're composing.

Courtney Bryan:

I have an open approach to what I'll do for a particular project. But I'm also comfortable with some of the older, more traditional forms. Even though I'm not writing, so, I'm not writing like in a specific traditional style, like Sonata form, but I still think of ABA or maybe like AB. And then other times if the form is the key part to the piece, then I might spend more time thinking about, like, different ways to approach, like, the form.

So I would say for this piece, because it's so much based on these different themes and conversations, I thought of the form as how to respond to like the word "joy." But then there's these other ideas that I won't know how they come out musically until we record. Because I'm going to leave that part open, like some instructions for, or some guidelines for, improvising over the words. And so I'm still determining what those prompts are, but whatever those are, I won't know how that sounds until the moment. So that kind of does make the form a little less determined. So that's the part that's still up in the air.

Melissa Smey:

Are there times when you just sit down at the piano and play? Like no obligation, no deadline, no commitment, you just sit and play?

Courtney Bryan:

I do. Usually if I do that I have certain things I usually play through in that way. Like I always keep a book of the Chopin Nocturnes.

[MUSIC - NOCTURNE NO. 17 IN B, OP. 62 NO. 1 BY FREDERIC CHOPIN]

So Chopin is one, but also I have my hymnals around. And sometimes, recently something I've been doing, I usually just like to just open one of the hymnals to a random page and just play it, and look at the text, and play through it, and look at, like, the voices and, like, the voice leading, and stuff. So I kind of nerd out to the hymnal and like, "oh, this really works." Like, "this is great, how this is put together." Just appreciating things that maybe I just hear in church and take for granted. But when I look at it and played through it, I appreciate it. So that's some of the things I do for fun like at the piano.

Melissa Smey:

I love that. It's important to have fun.

Courtney Bryan:

Yeah.

[MUSIC CONT. - NOCTURNE NO. 17 IN B, OP. 62 NO. 1 BY FREDERIC CHOPIN]

Melissa Smey:

That's it for this episode of Mission: Commission. On the next episode, we come to the end of our journey. If you'd like to listen to the full pieces, we'll have them for you in this podcast feed next week. So make sure you are subscribed.

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 and the National Endowment for the Arts. Support for Miller Theatre is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Howard Gilman Foundation. Support for contemporary music 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.

If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe wherever you get your and, even better, leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps the show. Thanks for listening. See you next week.