by David Braun

The vivid music happening in New York is in Slovenia perceived mostly through recorded sound (CD's, LP's,...). How well this represents the profile of the musical universe of New York is up to debate - but it is a fact that there are so many factors that have influence on how the recorded music is perceived, that the view of it may often be distorted. Records have to be sold, and so certain labels/producers/etc. make smart marketing moves by which some of the music is being "sponsored". That created a very nebulous view of what is actually going on - music critics (who were constantly exposed to the "sponsored" music) started speaking of "scenes" and "movements" coming out of New York. To listeners (including me) that sounded like there are groups of people, that have the same roots, the same background, the same interests - just because they live in the same neighbourhood or play in the same club. We are constantly reading about "the Knitting factory scene" of "the downtown scene" or in the last few years "the Radical Jewish Culture movement".

In the last two years so many people are fascinated by Zorn's Radical Jewish Culture and the music released on Tzadik is getting approximately the same attention that the Knitting factory used to get a few years back. And that created problems in the past - much of the music was judged by "where it was coming from" and not by the music itself. That logic was typical, but it also had a very interesting effect: every music that existed "outside" but sounded at least a bit similar, was also forced into a non-real enviroment. For example, when violinist Jon Rose was on one of his European tours in the eighties, he was several times being announced as "coming from New York". So, highly individualistic musicians have been violently squeezed into a box, which (according to the critics) has been called "The downtown scene".

In the past i have read many articles about the music of Elliott Sharp, and he has more or less always been presented as a member of the "New York downtown scene". I am convinced that the variety of approaches, techniques and ideas is much broader, than the picture we get out of music criticism and available recordings in Slovenia. And, i guess, this is also true for many other countries (?).
In the inteview with Elliott i have tried to focus on his highly individualistic style, his idiosyncratic compositional technique and his music - which as you will probably agree, is absolutely unmistakable for anything else. So, why was he only "one of many" coming from the "downtown scene"? I blame it on the the wrong perception of music that occurs in countries, which are geographically detached from the the origin of the music. We are unaware of the truth itself - it is being deformed by available CD's and critics. Instead of a "movement", I dare to say that there are connected artists in New York - but the "scene" is a pluralism of interests and heterogenous music world.

Just to give you an example: since 1995, when Tzadik started the Radical Jewish Culture, it seems like this is what is coming from New York - like: this is it! I happen to enjoy some of the music that is released there, but I was very happy when Elliott (in the interview) denied the fact, that the RJC would be representative of the overall picture of the music from New York. Although you may probaly find many musical and socio-political objectives to "scenes" or "movements" like the RJC, critics are always happy to have a "scene" with a name, a label that they can use, and many have lost the "healthy ammount of sceptics", that i think is always neccesary. Zorn always had a great ability to name things (look at the titles of his records) - but with this one, he really suceeded (at least in Slovenia)! I am a Jew, and i was very thankful to Elliott when i read his liner notes to Intifada (Xenocodex), because i also felt the need to distance myself from the nationalist/sionist violence in Israel. And i think it is part of an artist's job to do that. One should remember his words: "Judaism does not equal Sionism". I agree, and speaking about music, we should be aware that Radical Jewish Culture does not equal New York.

So, in that interview my intention was to "provoke" the music critics (that create un-real "scenes" out of the promo copies of the CD's they get) and after having done the interview, i was amazed how many of my "suspicions" were confirmed by Elliott. The conversation was truly a great experience for me! So, i was hoping somebody is going to get similar benefits from it, and that is more or less the reason I have sent it to you...

 

Could you explain where you learned to play the guitar?

I've been growing up in the sixties, I listened to a lot of blues guitar and Jimi Hendrix, Sonny Sharrock, so for me that was all in the air. I learned to play music because I loved it - and then I also began to apply thoughts from readings of John Cage, Xennakis and Harry Partches books, also Henry Cowell and the stuff I was doing in mathematics and science. I was a science student, so I had access to some equipment that allowed me to fool around with sound: I would design and build pedals. So all of this affected my style of playing.

But your first instrument was piano…

Yes, I was a classical pianist when I was a child (at age six) - playing Liszt and Chopin. I hated it, it drove me crazy! I think I developed asthma from the piano, so I switched to the clarinet and played that in school. But that was just making black dots on the sound - it didn't have anything to with music for me, until I got an electric guitar in 1968: that's when I began to hear

Your family supported your musical activities ?

Not so much - they thought music is a nice hobby, but they wanted me to be a scientist.

So you are fully educated as a professional musician ?

You could say that. I studied in university with Rosswell Rudd (studying jazz - Monk and Ellington), world music, theory with Elie Yarden and Benjamin Boretz, then in graduate school studying composition with Lejaren Hiller and Morton Feldman and more ethnomusicology and I've studied physics all the way.

Did you ever find that the orthodox musical education influenced your musical thinking in a way that it would be a limitation ?

Oh, I hated it and thought it was stupid! The real music comes from what you hear, and your hearing has to do with who you are There were some useful skills to be attained from that, but anyone could learn that stuff! The main thing about it is having access to people, equipment and studio.

Several of your decisions in music were done from the desire to directly oppose the academic

Allways! It's not that I was designed to be an opposition, but I just found that what I wanted to do was by its very nature in opposition to the prevailing order. One thing about Lejaren Hiller, as a teacher: he was very open minded and more concerned with what I was trying to do and how I manifested it. Morton Feldman (as much as I love his music) was very judgmental: the only good music, was music like his music.

You have developed an idiosyncratic approach to sound, mostly though improvisation and the use of extended (or unorthodox) techniques

Exactly, although I'd say more through the focus on extended techniques in the first place. To me improvisation was always a natural part of music, it was what made music come to life.

The idea of unorthodox methods and extended techniques that eventually result in a highly personalised and idiosyncratic approach was common to many musicians in the New York downtown from the mid '70 on. However you did not take part in the permutations of players as much as one would expect ?

No, I always kept to myself! My idea of it was different. To me a lot of the downtown improvisers sounded too much like the European improvisers: they all sounded like they were imitating the London school. And there were rules: no rhythm, no melody - and I didn't believe in this. I always tried to make music that was rhythmic and having to do with the melodies that come from the natural overtone series or with the micromelodies coming from the acoustic nature of an instrument.

What is your relationship to the scene today (which seems to be concentrating very much around what Zorn calls Radical Jewish Culture) ?

Oh! The Radical Jewish culture to me, is like a red herring I don't buy it, to quote Morton Feldman (talking about improvisation). The whole Radical Jewish culture was first started by Eric Bartz in 1991 (he did this project Geduldig un Thiman), Arnold Dreyblatt, Shelly Hirsch, Andy Statman, myself and a couple of others. So he produced this record that a bunch of us played on, and it wasn't self-consciously Radical Jewish culture: it was Jewish, it was radical and it was culture, obviously. To me the radical part of mainstream culture has always had a large component of Jewish musicians: there were always a lot of Jewish thinkers, composers, intelligence I am really not big on this Radical Jewish culture, and I don't think that it is in any way the main focus of what is happening in New York! I don't think it's neither radical, nor especially Jewish! John is my friend, and he is very clever at the marketing of his ideas, but I don't often agree with him.

Xenocodex was released on the Composer series and not on the Radical Jewish culture - although it includes a very clear statement related to the subject. Was this done deliberately?

Yes, absolutely! Because the piece Intifada is...I have always hated nationalism and as a Jew I always thought that Zionism was the wrong thing! It was just an excuse to allow people who didn't want Jews, to reach an accommodation with certain nationalists to create a place where, I think they were just hoping that the Arabs would finish the job that the Germans didn't, you know! To me Israel was kind of confounded that it succeeded on its own terms. And I don't say that Jews shouldn't have their own place, but if they start acting the way they do towards the Palestinians, then I say no, this is not Jewish. I always think the Jews should know better, that to act in certain ways The nationalism thing has always bug me and the only reason I would do a record on the Radical Jewish series (which is the one I did with Ronny Someck) was because he is a non Zionist, he is an Iraqi born Jew. An Israeli, but his attitude about it is outside, you know

I have a couple questions about your compositional style. You use algorithms as a compositional method. Do they have similarities with the computer algorithms?

An algorithm is actually a set of instructions. And some of them are very simple - like Digital (for string quartet) which is an algorithmic piece: you have a set of rhythms, you have instructions for how to set up the instruments and how to negotiate the improvisations between the rhythms. And that is only a few lines of code, and you can generate the music from it! Tessalation row to a lesser degree: it was very exactly composed in time - all the players at some time and the overtones they were using. But a piece like Coriolis Effect (which was written for the Berlin ensemble Zeitkratzer the year before last, and will come out on a record by them) is also an algorithmic piece.

What exactly is described by the composer in the algorithms ?

Either very specifically musical material written out in notes, or it could be instruction sets: for how to deal with the musical material X-topia (on Xenocodex) is an algorithmic piece

The core materials are pre-scribed and the rest is left to the musicians

Yes, but not necessarily improvisation, but open use of the material. Sometimes it may be improvisation (sometimes complete improvisation) in particular spaces, where a player can pop out, improvise something completely on their own, and then go back into the flux. It varies with the piece: how much, what kind of improvisation (if there is improvisation at all). Sometimes it can be very narrow: just a specific manipulation of materials.

Is the concept behind your algorithmic composition to make the border between what is composed by you, and what is done by the players, nebulous?

Yes, that interzone between order and chaos! I want the piece to always have an identity, so anytime you hear it you can say Ah, this is this piece! But the way it is played is different every time. It may be ordered in time in a certain way, but I want the situations to affect how the internal detail is manifested.

But you rarely use that as a ground that would propel the pieces in many different direction (by changing the players) - such as Zorn with his game pieces ?

The problem with John's pieces is how they sound is completely dependant on the personnel. I played my piece Coriolis Effect in Berlin with the Zeitkratzer ensemble (it was written for them) and I have played it across Canada for four concerts with the group Hemisphere (which is seventeen musicians - in Zeitkratzer there are nine) and I did in Vienna with fourteen musicians So, some of these pieces can be used like that, If I have time to work with the players. Like any game piece, any strategy piece, any algorithmic piece if the players don't understand how it works, then they're not going to play it well! It is essential to develop a relationship with the players: I've always liked the Duke Ellington model, where you write for your players - you know what their strengths are, you can give them shorthand - and they can go with it! That is why I like having a group like Carbon, with a fairly constant group of players who know my language.

Does the algorithmic composition allow a different instrumentation from its initial form ?

Oh, yes - some of them are completely open! Hammer, anvil, stirrup (which was written in 1988) can be for any instruments; Digital can be for any string instrument (as long as they can be prepared and have pickups).

Besides the algorithms you also use the Fibonaccis. They are applied at tuning an instrument, but they also have an effect on the structure of the pieces - can you explain how ?

Simply by making proportions - if this is 1/1, then this is 1/2. Say you want an overall structure that involves shapes that are doubled in length, then maybe there are other structures of the ratio 5/8 or 3/5, it's just an arbitrary way of dividing up time. But it has a pleasing effect (although that may be arbitrary, too). It has something about it that just feels right - it's completely subjective, of course! Architecture is very subjective anyway - there is something about proportions that makes you think about the way a certain room feels like a good shape, and others not And maybe if you analyse it, you can say that certain proportions give it a good feeling, you know. There is nothing mystical about it, though! Some people ascribe mystical properties to just intonation - I don't buy that.

The next few questions are about words that appear in connection with your music. As I was reading through the articles about your music I noticed the use of the word extreme - which subtitles your K!L!A!V! record and is also as a descriptive of the music released on the zOaR label

Plus I have a record on the Extreme label. I just always like thing that are on the edge, because from the edge you can get a clearer picture

In what way do you see the extremity of your music ?

Well,.., I didn't necessarily define it as extreme. This is just what I do - simple, you know! But the mainstream is so monolithic, that anything that exists outside is simply considered to be extreme. So people said I was extreme, and I thought ok, fine I'm extreme, but then I started liking it out there and I was getting a much clearer picture of what is going on And I like things around the edge, I meet a lot of interesting people,.., so it seemed like a good place to be. It's not a judgement, it's not a claim or a boast - it's just here we are, right on the edge of it!

Most of your songs and compositions have a title which is a one-word science term

Not always scientific, but something that has a sort of an obscure meaning. But there are also a lot of codes in the titles, and they have to do with the structure of a piece, an image or a way of describing what's happening in it

What is the connection between the title and the musical content of each piece?

Well, it varies

Does the title affect the structure of the piece - like in Larynx or Fractal?

Yes, yes exactly! And then all the pieces within Fractal describe certain aspects of fractal geometry and certain definitions. Sometimes there may be a political reference, sometimes just my private puns (you know, I have a lot of private words, that I use when I'm thinking or describing a situation - and sometimes I use those for titles)

But there is always the connection between the title and the music?

Oh, yes absolutely! I can't necessarily explain it, but I can say that this piece is about the squig or the vicious cycle

Would you agree with the notion that in the information age has to be loaded with information?

Well, there is the question of raw data and the information: information is useful data. We are surrounded by masses of data, that is mostly useless - which is why I made the record Datacide (because I wanted a cut through that). Information is very important, which means: trying to make the music to have an essential quality. I try not to have any superfluous stuff: if there if going to be a melody, I want it to be a very direct melody Most of my melodies don't develop over a really long period of time, although in some of the string music what happens is that a melody will be repeated, and then it gets extended in duration and verticality (so that a horizontal melody begins to interlock and turn into a vertical one). So I'm actually transforming information from one shape to another - it's topology, really

Can you name an example of a horizontal melody transforming into a vertical one?

For example in the piece Shapeshifters where you have this melody: ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta and as it repeats the players begin to slightly shift durations, so all of a sudden it's out of phase and you get a Morret pattern (it's like a blurring - like in phasing music - you can hear that in a lot of early minimalist music - Steve Reich etc.). And then as it shifts even more, and the horizontal spiky melody begins to turn (towards verticality), and you have the notes stretching and chords building So it is one type of information, which started out as a melody, and then the blurry phasing becomes stacks of notes that form these chords that shift very slowly (yet still retain the contour of the original melody) and represent a transformed information. And I used that particular mechanism in a number of pieces

When your music was qualified as being post-modern (like in an article published a few days ago, that announced this concert in Slovenia), you often remarked that among other things it lacked the appropriation of different musical material.

Yes, for me postmodernism has to do with appropriation and an ironic viewpoint. I've certainly used irony a little bit, and I've used a little bit of appropriation in some pieces as a main functional part of my aesthetic (but it takes on just a little place of it). I've always rejected the ideas of postmodernism!

But you will have to admit that you have learned many techniques from your ethnomusicological studies

Well, I don't know if I was ever appropriating them, as much as transformed them. Certainly I've learned from a technique - but if you use a major scale, nobody will accuse you for appropriating it from baroque music! It's just something that is. When I use microtones, or even throat singing (and that is probably the most appropriated music) I think I do it in my own style - so it's (I hope) transformed. I am very sensitive about the notion of cultural imperialism, where you can just take something, this is why sampling is a very dangerous thing to me and I only try to sample from myself, these days. I used to do some sampling from other musics for a political point; and I've worked with Christian Marclay (whose use of turntables is very much appropriation). In fact Christian was really very influential on Zorn and he changed the way John's music worked, a lot.

Postmodernism seems to embrace an aesthetic that is radically different from yours - the way the whole world of recorded sound is being shrunken down to the music

Yes, yes, very much. Absolutely!

Your music seems to function in many different contexts. Were the switches from one genre to another a deliberate decision or a natural progression ?

I've grown up listening to a lot of different music, and part of the craft of being a player is to play in different styles. I've always played blues - and I love playing blues! All these different musics are just part of what I heard while growing up and have practised, studied and played - so I just do it! I try to transform it though, in some way,(it's a word that keeps coming back, maybe it's an alchemical notion) but you take things and you filter them out through your hands and ears, so they become something other. They're still identifiable as where they come from, but you're just adding your own little twist

Zorn always likes to point out that he has got a huge record collection and the fact that he has been growing up with a lot of TV. Would you also name that as a significant influence on the overall picture of your music?

Yes, yes, although I can't say that I watch TV so much. More or less it's just when I'm on tour in the hotel rooms - then I go click, click, click with the remote control.

Parallel to many different projects you have worked with Carbon - did you ever use it as an experiment for that other project, or has Carbon always retained its own integrity ?

Oh yes, I have always done that! Carbon is the most personal of my bands and when I am thinking about how I want some sort of idealised band to sound, I work it out through Carbon and the Orchestra Carbon. Absolutely, I've always done that!

Is it some sort of a laboratory rat?

Well,.., a little of that - but also an extension of my solo work. For example when I was thinking about the Fibonaccis in my solo work, then I orchestrated it for the Orchestra Carbon for Larynx. When I was getting more and more into techno and other variations of dance music, then It came out through Carbon in Amusia. All of my different interest are manifested through Carbon - it has always been my most personal project!

Having in mind so many different styles and genres of your music - do you see yourself more as a composer or more as an instrumentalist?

No, a composer! And I think in some ways my instrumental technique is very idiosyncratic - I always tried to play various genres and to be as skilful as I could, so if I wanted to play like a George Benson jazz guitar, or imitate Jimi Hendrix, or Ornette - I would do that. But then I left it - and now, as a technical player, I am not as good as I used to be - I used to be a much better instrumentalist twenty years ago (when I practised constantly and tried to sound like Alan Holdsworth, or whoever). But as a musician, I feel like the instrumentalist part has gone down, which is good because now I am hearing better and it all comes out through the music, rather then the technique I learned in the genre itself.

The genres per se interest you also?

Some, but not so much. I mean, it's just fun playing the music! Tony Maimone (from Pere Ubu) was working with a singer Angel Dene (a country singer), and he asked me to play guitar just for a party - and we played country music! Hank Williams, Johnny Cash and stuff like that, and I loved it because when I fool around at home I also play country guitar (although I don't really like listening to it that much). It was fun! There is a part of music, that you don't want to think about it so much - you just do it, because it's fun and it feels good! And that is social music - I guess my own music is antisocial(laughs). It's hermetic, but this is how I work and think and when it finds resonance with people, I'm very happy about it - but this is not what it is about!

There are so many of your pieces, where the mathematical or physical background of them might be perfectly clear to you, it is not necessarily audible to the listener

Although it may be! Bartok used the Fibonacci numbers in his sixth quartet, but no one needs to know or hear it. I mean, it's Bartok - so of course it sounds very nice, no matter what! I don't think it's necessary at all - ideally the piece should work as a piece of music, and if it doesn't, then I have obviously failed! Maybe to know it, might help you to think about it, but ideally you should just hear it

It wasn't part of the music to hide it from the listener?

No, no. It's just there - if someone picks up on it, that's great - but if not, that fine also.

Do you care if the listener explores the backgrounds?

Oh yes, I like it! For me something has to appeal to me viscerally, physically first. And then if I get interested in a composer or a musician, then I look into it: what is happening, how were they making this

Does the connection of your music with science mean that you constantly think about music, even when you do completely other things - such as reading a article in the American scientific by Mandelbrot?

I don't necessarily think about it, it's just that so much of what I do is working with sound, so everything is connected and feeds everything else. So if I am thinking about cooking it influences my music, if I am thinking about mathematics it does too.

You transform it to music?

Yes, yes everything! You see, what you do as an artist is that alchemical creation that is more than the sum of everything that you are Like lately I have been reading through a lot of the American writer Cormick McCarthy, and his books are really very powerful and moving - and I know that they will affect how I think about music, although I am not sure just how yet But they will!

You don't deny the fact that the concept of the ir/rational music carries a lot of socio-political issues?

No, of course it does! It's divided: there is the ear (and that's the bad pun: ear=ir) because it's about hearing first of all - it's acoustics (in fact its psycho-acoustics really, it's chemical: the changes created by how sound affects you)! And then the rational is about structure and order and all the things that you do to create something that would be called music. Overall is the irrational, which puts it all together: the acoustics, the structure, all the technique that you have put in with your craft And then it allows you to transform it in some sort of a tangential way, a crazy (or better) intuitive human way We're not rigid!

When Cage was speaking about music in Silence he wrote that the attempt to exclude the irrational is irrational in its extreme. Would you agree with it also if it was applied not for the music, but the society?

Yes, of course! The society is always about the corporate world. Now (as ever) they're trying to control peoples options: in the market, the media. And of course they will always fail, because the nature of humanity is to create novelty! The problem now is that people have lost their sense of history and memory. Partly it's a good thing: everything is relative now, you know! There is so much information floating around - you can just dig in and get information that feels very vital (from any era and from any subject). The question then is how to put it in context, so you don't keep on making mistakes. You know the old notion of history that is repeating itself as tragedy and farce? We are seeing it continuously!

Have you received any response for your music as being political?

Oh yes, I have in fact! Some people complain that my music is too political, and some complain that it is not political enough. Chris Cutler (in 1980) has asked me to send him some of my records (which my label has put out) so he could distribute them. And then he wrote me back saying that my music wasn't political enough. Only because Chris Cutler at that time (and I like him very much) had a very narrow, old-left viewpoint of what was political - it meant to stand on a soapbox and make a speech And I have never been about that, you know

David Braun

*Lejaren Hiller is a computer music pioneer - co-wrote Illiac suite in 1956 w/ computer and co-composed incredible piece HPSCHD with John Cage in the 60's.