Making Your Life as an Artist

Influences, , ,

Making Your Life As an Artist by Andrew Simonet is a free, concise book that can be downloaded at the Artists U site. It took me less than three hours to finish the book, but it gave me great tips and advices on how to live a balanced and sustainable life as a musician.

MakingLastPG

The author is an active choreographer, but the principles discussed in the book can be applied to music (or any other art). I was stressed for not having enough time and space to work  in the past week. After reading this book, I learned good strategies on how to plan, finance, make time, and focus on artistic mission. I’m not so stressed anymore.

The first three chapters discusses about the role of artists in the world, why artist have challenging life, and the skills that artists already have to overcome such challenges. The last five chapters provide practical examples and how-to’s on making a living as an artist. I was also enlightened to read about entertainment vs art, science vs art, career vs mission, perfect vs good enough, and other analyses. I particularly love the analogies and examples:

“[Seed savers and some farmers] grow things that don’t fit with industrial agriculture. They preserve the seeds for plants we may need someday. This is what artists do culturally.” -p29

“Art is not cultural broccoli, something you hate but should consume.” – p33

“A lot of artists’ lives are built for 23-year-old single, frenetic, healthy, childless workaholics. That doesn’t last. Our lives change and our needs change” – p77 

For its price and quality of information, the book has great value for my artist friends. It has even greater value for my non-artist friends since it will help you understand their art/music/dance friends a little better. I am planning to use the book as a reading material for my improvisation ensemble and upper-level music classes. I look forward to have a great discussion with the students about artist sustainability.

 PS: For my musician friends and students who are starting their post-college music career, I also recommend Beyond Talent by Angela Myles Beeching. 

PSS: Since I mentioned about art and dance, here’s a little clip on my  collaboration with a dancer friend.

Listening Through the Noise

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If you are a musician who ever thought “what am I doing?” or “why am I doing this?” about your music and performance, I recommend Listening Through the Noise: The Aesthetics of Experimental Electronic Music by Joanna Demers. The book surveys and analyzes aesthetics of electroacoustic music, electronica, sound art, and many of their subgenres. Aesthetics is not an easy subject for me, but all the post-it notes I have put in the book should  attest that I have throughly enjoyed reading this book.

DemersThe author defines experimental music as “any music that rejects tradition and takes risks through running counter to musical inventions”, and experimental electronic music as “anything that challenges conventions of electronic music.” I recently witnessed a passionate debate on the definition of experimental music, and perhaps that is why I read this book again. I like the author’s emphasis on the risk in defining experimental music. Experiments assume that there is always a chance to fail, and I’d like to think that experimental music has risk to fail to be conventionally musical or meaningful, which is not a bad thing.

One thesis of the book is that the electronic music has “dismantled the musical frame.” When electronics are involved in music making and listening, non-instrumental sounds such as field recordings, noises, and silences become musical and valuable. Those sounds also blur boundaries between real-world sound and music. The author ends the book by stating that the sounds in electronic music are “strange in the real world, but they also succeed in making the real world strange. ” That is a beautiful thing for me, and I think this is why I keep making music with electronic devices.

To finish this post, I would like to share a piece that I asked myself “does this work?” and “am I doing a right thing?” It is a good sign that these thoughts came up in my mind. Electronic music is good at asking questions.

Work in Progress : The Hunchback of Notre Dame

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I’m in charge of the sound and music for The Renegade Company’s upcoming theatre production. The company will reinterpret The Hunchback of Notre Dame in a silent movie style. There will be no dialogues in this nightmarish and grotesque version, and my electronic sounds will fill the space instead.

The director of the company proposed me to make a painful sound to reflect the main character’s suffering.  The play is set in Quasimodo’s dream, and therefore the sound should also convey Quasimodo’s severe hearing damage as well as his emotional state. I imagine that many years of playing the church bell may have caused Quasimodo tinnitus or ringing in the ear.

The most challenging part of this project is that I will not be able to attend some of the shows as I will be 7+ hours away from the theater (a beautiful church in Center City Philadelphia). Despite this geographic challenge, I do not want to make a fixed audio file for this project.  Instead, I want to make an easy-to-operate  software that make unique sounds for each show.  I also decided to focus on the emotional aspect of the characters.

HunchBackProto

The instrument I am building has four emotion sliders: fear, happy, sad, and anger. Each emotion currently has 3-4 different sounds that are controlled by corresponding slider. Also, there are buttons to turn on a sound that simulates tinnitus  and trigger bell sounds.

Below is an example sound of what my current system can do. I improvised for about 6 minutes by combining different emotions as well as triggering tinnitus and bell sounds.

For the actual show, I expect that the sound guy will do the following  tasks:

  1. Press emotion buttons whenever there is a scene or character change. The button will randomly trigger a sound. For example, Quasimodo’s happy sound could be different from Esmeralda’s happy sound.
  2. Increase the slider as the character’s emotion intensifies. For examples, if Quasimodo is little sad, put the slider to 30%. If Quasimodo is extremely sad, crank up the slider to 100%. The change in slider movement will change the “intensity” of the sound. There are many different interpretations of intensity in this software.
  3. Click Tinnitus button. The sound is very long and emotionally draining
  4. Click Bell button according to the play’s cue. The bell sound has an algorithm to play different resonances every each time.

There are many benefits of composing a software instead of recording tracks.

  1. The sound can response more flexibly to the character’s action, especially at improvised sections.
  2. The music sound different every time it is played. They will sound familiar, but the details will be different (think about a jazz pianist interpreting a standard. The pianist would play the same chord progression, but the actual resulting sounds are different every time).
  3. The software is easy enough to be operated by anyone. I shouldn’t have to be there to create sounds.

I’ll be meeting with the director in few days to show my progress. If the director likes the idea, I continue to work on it. I’m also waiting for the response of a percussionist. If he is available, there will be a live percussion accompaniment on top of the electronic part. If he’s unavailable, the sound needs to be a little more exciting.

Please feel free to let me know your thoughts on the sound and performance approach. Does it resemble the sound world of Quasimodo’s nightmare? Do you foresee any technical troubles?

Sound and Fury

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When I was researching on deafness for my current project, my audiologist friend Erin Desmarais suggested me to watch Sound and Fury. As a person who values hearing the most important asset and skill, this documentary about deaf culture was a shocking eye-opener. Below is the summary  of the documentary from PBS.

SOUND AND FURY documents one family’s struggle over whether or not to provide two deaf children with cochlear implants, devices that can stimulate hearing. As the Artinians of Long Island, New York debate what is the right choice for the two deaf cousins, Heather, 6, and Peter, 1 1/2, viewers are introduced to one of the most controversial issues affecting the deaf community today. Cochlear implants may provide easier access to the hearing world, but what do the devices mean for a person’s sense of identity with deaf culture? Can durable bridges be built between the deaf and hearing worlds? Find out.

I assigned my acoustics students to watch the documentary and write their opinions on whether the protagonist should get the cochlear implant or not. The followup debate was loud and full of emotions.

A simple YouTube search will give you an access to a full documentary and its short sequel (watch the original first!). I strongly recommend it to all my music friends. We musicians cannot imagine the life without sound, and it is fascinating to learn about the culture that does not have/need sound. Find out the “fury” portion of the documentary by yourself.

PS: My research on deafness was for this upcoming show. More information will be posted at therenegadecompany.org soon.

hunchback

dRachEmUsiK

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Charles Shriner (aka dRachEmUsiK) and I collaborate as Side Dish Side Affect.   We released an  album in May 2014, and I am very happy with the result. Below is a track in the album called Fermented Stingray.

Charles probably has been performing electronic music before I even got my first synthesizer. He is a multitalented musician who runs a record label, produces albums, tours as a performer, broadcasts a weekly radio show, and runs an electronic music festival (check out charlesshriner.com for his credentials). If you need a music tech guy in Indianapolis, I strongly suggest that you contact Charles.

SDSA

I first met him at Electro-Music Festival in 2009, and became friends ever since. I particularly remember his excellent improvisation workshops and open-mindness to all kinds of music.  Charles and I also share love of good food. We named our group after a homemade Korean dinner at my place. I still remember the taste of an oxtail dish I had at Charle’s place during the recording session. Even our track names in the album are crude translation of Korean side dishes.

Please join Side Dish Side Affect when we come to your town for a gig. Let us also know a good restaurant in your town. Meanwhile, dRachEmUsiK + Onewayness is starting a tour next week. Check them out!