Letting go of control in a busy life

A week will be a short visit to my old home, the SF Bay. In addition to a concert (the first to include my music on the west coast) I have arranged meetings with potential performers for my longest and yet unread piece, seasons. Wish me luck!

I've also touched base with an independent New York City-based composer group that sounds a potential match for experimentation and feedback sharing. I realize I'm spending a lot of time traveling and trying out new groups and venues while the taiko-gamelan piece is backlogged, but I'm realizing my major illnesses in the past two years arose from high-stress lifestyles where I not only tried to do too much but mentally punished myself. Instead of stressing myself out, I am experimenting with letting go of certain elements of control.

I have my friend Gregory Holt to thank for thinking through this concept. In school, we learned to make pieces by controlling every sound or gesture, but while he's gone on to compose concepts, I've wrestled with the presence of the space and audience -- factors that traditionally aren't considered part of the piece. The last time I let go of an arduous task and let the moment occupy me, the solution gradually approached and walked onto my lap. I left Emerald Earth Sanctuary after a week with the plan I needed and a minimum of struggle!

The contemporary pianist group New Keys will premiere my song Night #2 at Berkeley Espresso, a musical setting of a blog entry made at a cafe. I look forward to sharing a bit of oblique comedy for open ears. Please spread the word!

Details follow.

Friday, Oct 8 2010 8:00 PM

San Francisco Conservatory of Music
50 Oak Street, San Francisco

New Keys; newfangled music for the piano, now in its 7th season, showcases compositions by upcoming composers from across the country. Next concert date is Friday, October 8, 2010 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music (50 Oak Street, SF), in the Recital Hall. This concert will feature works by: Dan Becker, Ian Dicke, Jason Hoopes, Qian Li, Maggi Payne, Anthony Porter and Nicholas White.

There is a suggested donation of $15 but no one is turned away for lack of funds!

Visit the New Keys website for more info: www.newkeysconcert.org.
Cost : $15, no one turned away for lack of funds

Improvisation and ownership

I had a long discussion with a choreographer friend about caveats of the spectrum of composer vs. performer musical contribution to a piece. Dance is typically unwritten and requires choreographer coaching from start to finish; music in the classical tradition is typically scored so the composer's presence is superfluous until the final stages of rehearsal, and is never required. But even a through-composed piece requires the performer to put herself into the piece; one that requires greater degrees of improvisation is only asking a certain kind of performer, i.e. one prepared to improvise, to put more of himself into the piece.

So what determines whether a piece is the composer's, and how do individual performers define and enforce their thresholds for their original contribution? These answers inform how I instruct performers to improvise.