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Partial Transcript: Fletcher: Oh, I guess start out, uhm, I never asked, I never got to like your name or like what you like to be called.
Robert: Robert.
Fletcher: Robert. All right, so uhm, just going to talk about first, like, where you grew up, maybe how you like first found music? Um, there were any influences when you were a kid?
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: Maybe?
Robert: Yeah, I grew up in Fredericksburg. But for the most part, I'd say I always felt kind of out of place there. My dad was a radio DJ when I was a kid. He was radio DJ before I was a kid. I'm sorry, not a radio DJ, event DJ. So he would he would DJ like, parties and special events and things. You know, he started, I guess, when he was at University of Mary Washington during that.
Fletcher: Sweet.
Robert: So he had a huge collection of records and tapes and um CDs. And a couple of his habits, I think influenced me pretty well, like um, one of them is that uh he, he was pretty open to all kinds of genres of music.
Fletcher: Mhm. Yeah.
Robert: And uh another thing was, he was always, he was always looking for more music. So he would, you know, he'd go to the, to the library, and you just pick up things he had never heard of, and take them home.
Fletcher: Sweet.
Robert: So you try, you try everything out, right. So I got really into that, too. When I was a teen, I remember, there was a pawn shop in town, where you could bring them, I can't remember what the deal was. So you could bring them like five CDs or something and you can take take 10, right. Or you could bring them 10 And take five. So I would always like, you know, just constantly cycle through, you know, stuff I'd never heard of, and just kind of school, you know, ended up you know, collecting tons of music, you know, was not calm, not super common. Uhm But yeah, kinda had this sort of rest, restlessness, or, like, I was always like, looking for other other kinds of music. And, you know, it was again, like, like my dad, I guess it wasn't like, about what genre it was, like, you know, I might really like these three tracks from this Pet Shop Boys album, and I might really like this one track from this.
Fletcher: Pet shop?
Robert: I just threw that as a random example.
Fletcher: That's cool
Robert: Or, you know
Fletcher: I've never heard of them.
Robert: They're like, 80s, 80s kind of dance.
Fletcher: Cool
Robert: European electronic. But kind of understated group, or, you know, might be like a Madonna album or something. And it had one track, I really liked the rest I could, I didn't really need. And a lot of things were like that, like, um you know, I'd say there are probably hundreds of albums where I like one song a lot.
Fletcher: Oh, yeah.
Robert: And they're probably very few albums where I really liked the whole, the whole album.
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: And so I just kind of got, I developed this sort of pick and choose kind of mentality about music. And, you know, might even be I really like this part of a song, and I really don't need the rest of it. Now, I think that kind of came from my Dad's experience with DJing, that that kind of taught me that it was okay to kind of pick and choose like, again,
Fletcher: Pick and choose, yeah.
Robert: And so like, their cassette tapes mixes I made when I was like, four. So I didn't, I didn't play music and I didn't aspire to play music. I was just interested in it. And I think the reason I was interested in it has a lot to do with my parents. My mom was from Nicaragua. And she kind of like, in a lot of ways, kind of, you know, she had a way of living when she was a kid. And when she came here, she made a break with, out of necessity, kind of made a break with a lot of that. So yeah, so I kind of, you know, I had a feeling that I didn't exactly fit in here, it wasn't like exactly my place. And so music kind of was a place. It was like an imaginary place where I could like find little bits that made me kind of feel, you know, at home or something. And that's what that's what I was always looking for was like that, this this kind of like, sort of nostalgic quality of music like stuff that sort of gives you like a feeling that you're, you know, kind of creating an illusion of a place you'd like to be or something like that.
Fletcher: No, I definitely feel that. Um, nah, I'm the same way I really enjoy um, like, I am a German minor. So I, I studied abroad in Berlin, and I loved their techno scene and like the European techno music, so I definitely get like the peace about like, liking just like one song out of an album, not the whole album. I think that's really cool that your dad was a DJ. And that he really exposed you to like all these different types of music, I kind of had a very different growing up. My parents were very just religious and strict. But yeah, and then with your mom, you talked about a sense of like out of placeness and also like nostalgia. Could you like elaborate on that? Is that like more of a sickness type feeling?
Keywords: DJ; Nicaragua; cassette tapes; childhood; paternal influence
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Partial Transcript: Robert: Yeah, it is. Yeah. And my mom, as far as music goes kind of interesting, too. Because she doesn't she if you asked her, she tells me she doesn't like music.
Fletcher: That's interesting.
Robert: She's one of those rare people that, you know, she might, she might like 10 artists, and that's it. And she would never think to put anything on on her own, you know, someone else would have to be like, Leone, is there any music you'd like to listen to? Maybe she could think of something probably should say nah, I'd rather rather not. She's very, very, their, you know, my parents are very not not art, or music minded or not creatively minded in that way. They're both like, really into problem solving. But they're like more practical. And and you know, their problem solving is creative, and in a lot of ways, but it's more like practical applications. They're not really thinking about anything creative, am in the kind of arts sense. In fact, that's it, my parents are kind of, they're kind of close to anti art. So that wasn't like encouraged or anything when I was a kid, so much the music and art. And um I didn't start playing any instrument until I was 13ish.
Fletcher: Yeah, that's gonna, that's leading me into my next question is um talking about like, how your parents are more problem solvers and you're more creative. How do you think like, you kind of latched on to that creativity?
Robert: A while.
Fletcher: And like, also that like, is like your, how you got into music, and when you started playing music.
Robert: I think I'm actually problem solver type too. My mom definitely has some OCD, I definitely have more.
Fletcher: Oh yeah same.
Robert: My son who's four he's got OCD, for sure. So yeah, there's definitely some OCD there. And I think, um in some ways, music kind of works like problem solving, as a kind of problem solving practice for me too, like--
Fletcher: It's problem solving.
Robert: I mean, like, this thing I was working on this morning is um it's like taking poetry and mapping out the forms of how these poems are built. And then thinking about ways I can apply this kind of structure to music. So you know, it's kind of like, problem solving. Right? It's, it's like a puzzle puzzle, like almost, or, you know, like, except that it's not, it's not like, um trivial. It's like, these things really work when you hear them. When you hear these poems read, they really work the way they're the way they're put together. And I think, well, you know, there are certain ways where music, ways that music really works. And if you if you tinker with it enough, you know, you can make something good. And um there's a writer actually, who said that, you know, it had never occurred to her until recently and she's, you know, she's been around and established for a long while she's like - never occurred to me, I was part of an American lineage of tinkerers. And I feel that too that, you know, it's not like, you know, it's not like, throwing paint at a canvas and then tirely, like, intuitive, creative process. It's like, you know, I'll stay up for four hours in the middle of the night. And I've got these four notes that work really well. And I'll just try every possibility there is until I find the fifth note, and then I'll try every possibility there is until I find the sixth note, you know, and so it's like a tinkering thing, sometimes, like, just a little bit at a time trying to make and I think, like a different thing about me is I didn't you know, I didn't have childhood music education. I didn't grow up listening to or caring about classical music. So composition is the thing that came like way later for me, and uh I just, I have very strong preferences as a listener, right. And so, like I was saying that, you know, since I was a child, I had very strong preferences as a listener. So I tried to just basically let those guide me all the time. I know when I don't like a note so much, and I'm not gonna let it be that way. And so I'll go back and try something else and try something else until it works for me. And so it's like, I flip roles back and forth between being my own audience and creative, creative person.
Fletcher: No, yeah, that is, that's really interesting um. More as like a listener um, I like that idea just like keep trying, and just like keep tinkering um that's really interesting. Um.
Robert: It sort of segways into the thing we're talking about on the way over, about music as a kind of form of community too. So the music I make, the music I write as, like, chamber music composer, whatever.
Keywords: "tinkering"; maternal influence; music composition
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Partial Transcript: Fletcher: Yeah. What music do you write? Yeah.
Robert: I write a lot of chamber music, like, you know, 1234 players, maybe five.
Fletcher: I'm sorry, I really do not know that much about music.
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: So you'll have to tell me like--
Robert: So chamber music just means it's not like for orchestra or something. It's for a small number of people.
Fletcher: Okay
Robert: And the word, you know, the term chamber music even implies an important part of it, which is it can be played in small places, you know, you can play like in a living room, it doesn't need to be like in a concert hall, with all this formality. A couple couple points on that. Like, I realize all the time, I'm, I'm not very much into formality. Like, like a restaurant might not have my favorite food. But if it's a very loose and formal atmosphere, I'm more likely to go there than the place that has maybe exactly the food I want. If if it's to like uptight, right? If you know, like, if the server if the server's if it feels like, you know, they're really working. I like the casual kind of just exchange of normal people without everyone having to get dressed up. I don't like formal events, I don't like weddings and stuff like that. It's like, I don't like jobs, where you have to pretend to be something different. I just really like everything to be as informal as possible.
Fletcher: Yeah me too.
Robert: And like music like, that requires big forces and big concert venues. And that stuff requires money. And so then there's all this pressure for it to be a certain way.
Fletcher: Lot of crap
Robert: Yeah. And that all gets in the way I like. I like writing things that are very much like the opposite end of it, like talking about myself as the listener. A lot of the music I make, I'm not even thinking about an audience. I'm just thinking about the player. So or the two or three players and I want them to have an experience with themselves or with each other. And I'm not really thinking about, I don't really care if they play it for someone else. A lot of my music, I feel like the ideal way it would be played is like it's written for two people. Those two people sat in a room together, enjoyed playing it. That's perfect. It's not really doesn't have to have--
Fletcher: It doesn't have to be some big thing.
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: Yeah, I feel that I feel like there's a lot in our society, especially like, the more you go up with like, like you're talking about, like the money and expensive things like there's more of this, more or less this idea of like perfection that starts being attached to it. I feel like I think it was interesting, because I think about that a lot too. But I'm the same way. I really like more casual spots. And so I guess my next question is like, uh, like these casual spots you feel like, since like, I guess the lack of, not the lack of money, but just like the lack of need for success or just like, wanting to just be there. Do you think that plays into forming an atmosphere of community and openness and being able to talk to one another?
Robert: Yeah, right. So.
Fletcher: I don't know if that made much sense.
Robert: No, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I think uh so there's a term I really came kind of made peace with a couple years ago, which was an amateur, an amateur as a concept, like it's uhm, you know, means you're motivated to do something because you care about the thing, not because we're trying to be a commercial success. Right? And um that's, you know, when I realized that I was like, oh, I don't want to be a professional composer. You know, like, I don't think I ever thought, like, for sure that's what I wanted to do. But I know for sure now that's what I don't wanna do. Like I like, I like writing music. I like hearing people play it. I like them telling me things about the experience of playing it. But um I don't need to make any money from that. I'd rather work something else and keep the money out of the music. You know, things like teaching music, I don't mind doing that for money, because I'm getting paid to practice my instruments all day long. You know, if you think about that way. It's like, well, what a win win. Like, you know, I have three minutes of downtime between talking to this kid and this kid. And I'm able to work on a little passage for a piece of writing or something, you know, it's like, I like, I like getting paid to have an instrument in my hands. But I don't want to get paid to write music. I just think, like, a bit confused the whole project for me, like now, who am I writing it for? And whose standards does it have to meet? And like, Is someone going to be disappointed if it if it doesn't sound the way they hoped it would? Or if they don't get to show off their instrument the way they want it to? Or whatever. I like not having to worry about any of that stuff. I just write it. And then I look for the people that might like it. And sometimes I find them. And it might only be, you know, 10 people or 20 people in the world. That's okay.
Fletcher: No, no, I think that's awesome, dude, because I'm the same way. I think pretty similarly. Um, but yeah, I guess um, yeah, I was trying to like, stand back from the money, I guess. More talking about like, the spaces that you're talking about? Like where you, where you get to play your music, these chamber parties. Do you think like, the atmos - because it's so casual? Like, what are the aspects of community that you feel there? I guess.
Robert: Right. Yeah. I forgot I was kind of moving toward that and then.
Fletcher: No, you're good, no you're good.
Keywords: capitalism; chamber music; social atmospheres; uptightness
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Partial Transcript: Robert: Alright. So yeah, usually this music would be. There are a couple of organizations in town that help a lot with what I what I've been doing for years. One that's been around since or that's been in my life since maybe 20. I don't know. 2016 was probably when it first was seriously significant was Classical Revolution, RVA and
Fletcher: Classical Revolution RVA
Robert: Yeah, so they're an organization that's about, I probably first heard of them, maybe in like 2013, or 12, or something. And um they are about taking their ideal is, or their goal was to take classical music and put it in places where people wouldn't ordinarily come into contact with classical music, like bars, restaurants, stuff like that, which is good at, it's working toward that goal of things being less formal and more casual. You know, they don't expect the audience to sit quietly, you know what I mean? Be well behaved in this pretentious way that you would if you were at a concert hall.
Fletcher: Oh that's cool.
Robert: So I like that.
Fletcher: So that was an initiative, you know, like, who by or was it just in the city?
Robert: It's actually a national, probably international thing.
Fletcher: Oh.
Robert: So there's Classical Revolution, you know, probably, whatever town you could think to put out there, or whatever, major city, there's probably a Classical Revolution in San Francisco, and Classical Revolution, you know, in Philadelphia or something, right. So it's like a kind of loose organization like that.
Fletcher: But it's interesting. We've talked about in my class like, um Andy's talked about, like uh, just like different. And like in our readings too just like uh different things in music, like there was a music census in Birmingham in the UK that we had a reading on. And on this kind of the same thing that he's doing. So it's just like, interesting to see like, these, like it with music there's so much stuff that happens locally, but also like internationally.
Robert: Yeah, so this is maybe like, maybe like somebody came up with this concept. And then, you know, it's up to the community to just make it or not. Yeah. And so there is one here and
Fletcher: So how did the community here make it?
Robert: I don't, I'm not really like involved on that level. I assume that mostly everyone's a volunteer. Yeah.
Fletcher: Yeah. We don't want to talk about if you don't.
Robert: Oh, yeah yeah, I assume they're mostly all volunteers. Um maybe some people make some kind of small--
Fletcher: Yeah.
Keywords: RVA; bars; classical music; community; restaurants
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Partial Transcript: Robert: Or something, but they have like a board and you know, there's, it's an organization. But you know, it's really people who are music professionals or very serious amateurs, which that's the term I ended up liking a serious amateur um. And, you know, they, they put together these monthly events and all kinds of other events. And they do like fest, you know, a few festivals here and stuff. And then in the past year, the organization another word, locally, that's been a really huge help to me, it's called RVA, Baroque - B A R O Q U E, that's the one that was mentioned on the sign at the entrance here. So they um, they um, they promote historic music, which is mostly music from before classical, the classical era. So, you know, when you think of classical, you think Beethoven, Mozart, whatever their stuffs kind of like Bach and earlier, is what they focus on. And, for me, as a listener, I associate a lot more with that music. I don't really know classical music very well, I don't know very much Beethoven. I'm very much Mozart. I hear it and I forget it immediately. Like, it just goes in one ear and out the other. And it's never really been stuff that really motivated me at all. So, so yeah, like, luckily for me, Classical Revolution RVA, their definition of classical is pretty loose. So, you know, me composing new music um. You know, they're interested in promoting that because, you know, not a ton of people composing music, really, and definitely not a ton of people composing music that's like.
Fletcher: So you um, you mentioned so you like doing older music? So this genre is like, historical?
Robert: Yeah, yeah.
Fletcher: No, yeah, tell me more about that. I know absolutely nothing about it. Like, I know, yeah, I guess a little bit of music experience I might have had is just on like, GarageBand or like, Adobe Player, like, make some beats, ya know, um.
Robert: So RVA, Baroque. They have a bunch of players that are kind of, it's kind of like a collective of people. Some of them, you know, they have maybe a concert happening, and they say, hey, do you five want to get together and we'll do you know, harpsichord, baroque flute, violins and...
Fletcher: So violins, flutes...
Robert: Yeah. harpsichords, harps.
Fletcher: Oh that's cool.
Robert: So. So, yeah, I like, I like the sounds of some of these older instruments a little bit better. And there are a lot of reasons. Sort of maybe partly because it's a little more. You know, like, you hear a piano, and it's just instantly piano and it's just kind of like, it doesn't have any, we almost don't even hear the instrument anymore. You know, because it's like, we've just heard it so many times. It's just kind of, it's like a generic musical sound, you know what I mean. But if you hear like a harpsichord, or like a clavichord, or some other historic keyboard instrument, your ear kind of picks up a little bit. And even if you don't love the sound right away, it's like...
Fletcher: Stuff with different sounds, yeah, like yeah something different going on.
Robert: Yeah, but like the way guitars are built now. And a lot of instruments are like this, you know to, to, to be more standardized and to be louder, is a trend of the last 100/120 years or whatever of instrument making. So modern guitars, you know, you go with a guy who's 55 and wants to get a guitar at Guitar Center, and he's gonna get like this humongous acoustic guitar, you know? And I don't know why exactly everyone thinks those are cooler um. And I actually feel the opposite. I like these smaller guitars that they were making, you know, 1900. And they kind of fell out of popularity over the first few decades of 20th century. But parlor sized guitars really sound great to me and, and I think a big part of the reason they switched the design was to make things louder. You can't play concert hall with a ton of guitars, especially before the types of microphones, right. So same thing with keyboards. They want to make them louder. You got to have you got to have a metal soundboard with more strings, you know um. But like the old instruments sound cool, they're just not as loud or they're not as standard or they're, they're not as easy to repair or because we don't make them in mass production, right. Yeah, and it's like that with all the instruments. So I have a piano. But it doesn't have as many keys as fewer keys doesn't have three strings per key has fewer strings. And consequently, I can actually load it almost into a car. By my-, almost by myself with one person helping me, I can load it into another car and it's acoustic piano upright piano. It sounds more interesting to me too, just because it's not that generic, cool, great piano sound that we're so used to.
Keywords: baroque; capitalism; flute; harpsichord; older instruments; standardization; violin
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Partial Transcript: Fletcher: No, I think that's really interesting, that's something that we've kind of scratched on well definitely go into it in my class because we're learning like, Balinese music and music from like, eastern Asia, and just really learning and talking about how like, there are some sounds and music that like Western notation just can't really account for. And so it's like, what is music? Then? You know, and um and there's just such a bias in western music to be steered towards that notarized, standardized form.
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: When there are so many different ways of experiencing music and so many different ways of creating music. Um.
Robert: Yeah
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: So yeah, that's, that's an interesting way of, like, angle for this is like, I guess maybe it has something to do with that same aversion to formality. But like, I have an sort of aversion to standardization. And, you know, like, for example, like a thing that doesn't work for me about a lot of classical music, as they're using, you know, mostly the, these particular major and minor modes, major minor scales. And when they're using them, you which it was like basically all the time, you, you never have any uncertainty about what's happening. It's like, the melody might do this. But in between, there are all these notes. So you always hear all the notes, you always know where you, you're always oriented all the time. And if you ever get lost, they give you this dun dun, so it's like the, it's always telling you like...
Fletcher: Where to go, what to do.
Robert: There are tons of cases, yeah, there are a lot of devices for orienting you and like making sure you're not lost in different ways. And even if they're like trying to build the excitement, they'll usually do it by just, you know, adding more details and stuff. But generally, you always kind of know where you are. Some of these other musical traditions, one of the things I really like about and part of the reason I don't gravitate toward classical music, but more into like international folk and traditional music, is cause if you're only working with three or four or five notes, there's a lot of ambiguity about, you know, kind of what, what the mood is what the--
Fletcher: You can like improvise too.
Robert: Well, yeah, even as a listener, the listener gets to to hear it different ways, right? It's not like beating you over the head with its intention. And I really like that a lot like that, you know, and so, when I'm writing music, like so a lot of it's influenced by earlier musical styles, a lot of times, you might only use like, these four or five notes, primarily for, you know, 30 seconds or a minute or something, and then you kind of shift somewhere a little bit different. And then you might like, kind of shift back. And, and so you're never giving too much at one time. And it kind of gives the ear like, room to interpret things a little more loosely. And, yeah, like, the other stuff starts to sound kind of, I don't know, like, like, it's this whole chain of things. You've got standardized instruments, standardized scales, standardized notation. And, you know, like, Westerners almost don't know what to do with the music if you can't write it down. You know, no, we don't. And if we can't record it, if we can't record the experience of it, then we absolutely don't know what to do with it. Like, we really suffer from the did it really happen if no one made a recording? You know what I mean? Kind of kind of cultural problem. It's because we're so used to thinking about products, right?
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: And so it's like kind of all back to like, in-dust industry and standardization and stuff. Like if you can't make a product out of it did it even happen. But anyway, so that kind of connects to your question about community,
Fletcher: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say next, um, because really learning about like different cultures in my class we were, we went to a Balinese concert last night and like their music is so different, like it can literally go so many different ways. Like one song is not like a set song. Like they they can improvise different melodies or different things that they want to do and it's just it's absolutely insane and they're not looking at anything.
Robert: Right
Fletcher: You know? Like it's a completely coming from them and like Westerners like we can't if we're doing music, you have to be reading something, you know, and yeah, I mean, I did band in middle school and I mean, I didn't really enjoy it like they could. Just from this conversation now I'm starting to realize that's probably why I didn't enjoy it was because of that standardization not really like getting into, like, flow with the music. So I guess my next question is, um, is about the community aspect. And creating music like that creates community.
Robert: So you, you kind of posed it three times. And each time I kind of go on a tangent, so I'll try to go straight for it time.
Fletcher: As many tangents as you want. The more tangents, the more information I get.
Keywords: capitalism; classical music; major/minor scale; standardization; western culture
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Partial Transcript: Robert: So like I said, about writing music, like this piece I've got here. It's for this music that's written for a solo player. And again, like, instead of thinking about, I'm writing music, for some number of people to play. And I'm really thinking about an experience of an audience. I'm just treating this person who might play this, the way that someone else might treat an audience. Like, I want this person to have an experience, right. And so it is like, it's not community, engaging in the way that I think a lot of music is right. It's not like a brass band, or we're gonna, like walk down the street and 200 people are gonna think it's really cool, right? It's like really trying to reach like, you know, I don't know, 5 or 10 people a year, who might might be interested, maybe a little bit more than that 20 people a year who might end up playing some of these pieces, or being part of a group that plays some of these pieces. But, you know, like, they kind of tend to stick around, like I'll, I hear back from people anytime they're like, looking for something for, you know, oh, we have a concert in Chicago, and we needed something that takes 15 minutes, and I can play it with my friend who plays viola or violin there. And, you know, it's like, the people that have played it seem to feel something about the experience enough that they want to keep building it into what they're doing. So they have an opportunity to, like fit one of these pieces in they seem seemingly occasionally well. And, you know, I, I think, based on what I've heard from a few people is it's because it gives them a different kind of space, different kinds of mental space than they get from anything else they're doing.
Fletcher: So um, most of your pieces you compose your, you're just pretty low key and just give them out to whoever wants some. Really?
Robert: Yeah, pretty much.
Fletcher: That's cool.
Robert: Sometimes I have a person or group of people in mind. You know, if it's someone who I'm friends with, and I kind of know, things about their personality, it's not like I'm writing it for them, because every note is going through the personal listener scrutiny that I told you about, right? So it's very...
Fletcher: Yeah, you're writing it for the person playing.
Robert: But it's primarily for me, like, it has to meet my standards as a listener. And then I hope that if, if I feel like it all fits together exactly right, that when I hand it to someone else, they're gonna say, Oh, I see. I see how this fits, I see how it makes sense. And, you know, hopefully, it'll transport them in a way that nothing else in their life can do. Like, even if it's just a small different difference, you know, like, like, someone told me, they had a really strong experience playing some of my music once. And they play concerts, like, you know, I don't know, a dozen or a couple dozen a month or something all year long. And, you know, a lot of it's very demanding. It's like, people know, they're fantastic players. So they write really hard music, right? And then I hand them something, and it's like, oh, I just have to do this, you know, and then, you know, they're like, Oh, this is a completely different experience. Everything else I have to rehearse every day, for this many hours, I have to check all my notes, you know, with a tuner and I have to listen to a metronome. And, you know, I got it I'll checked against all these standards, that this is like, you know, meeting the vision of the composer or whatever. And then you give them this thing. And, you know, it's just somewhere I can kind of like, escape into something different for a while. And I know there's other music that must have that effect, too. But it's--
Fletcher: More about like the, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but kind of I'm gonna get more more to the like, what's like the feelings or like the emotions that come up from like playing music like you said, like, when you're writing music, you're doing this like with your ears, you know, like, you're, you're doing this so that it sounds perfect for your listener, and for your like, for your own self and what you think is the best rather than for some audience or for some other persons more about that experience. What what type of like, feelings or emotions do you think are attached to that? Does that play along into like, the community too?
Robert: Yeah. So I had someone suggested this advice one time, they're like, you know, you write all this music that's like, restrained and kind of ambient or something, and maybe you need some, maybe need just to practice writing music, that's just got some action, you know, and he's like, he's like, don't worry about every single note, just have some key points. And in between, just fill it in. And that is so not a method I even vaguely can relate to, like, if I was just going to fill something in some time, and with some random notes, like, I'd rather like, I'm gonna leave them up to the player to like, you know, to do it based on how they felt in the moment or something like, why would I just arbitrarily put in a bunch of stuff to just fill up space, you know, and I think, you know, a lot of things.
Fletcher: I think that brings an interesting point of just like the culture we live in, really. I think that's just interesting.
Robert: What people like people really are into, in the world of composed music right now. Stuff that has this kind of the word I've been using for it is motoric things that feel like they're moving almost like a machine, you know, like, just this kind of churning of steady notes and stuff. And, you know, I can see like, I could I could envision, or I could hear, in my mind, the kind of music this person was describing to me. You know, but it's not something I would ever listen to. So why would I try to write it just doesn't make sense to me, if I'm, if I'm so picky about what I listen to, why would I spend, you know, weeks or days or months, or however long it take to write the thing that I don't even want to listen to. It doesn't make sense to me.
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: Um, so yeah, I go very hard in the opposite direction, it's like, I only make things that I would want to listen to. And if I start to feel like part of it makes me cringe in any kind of way, I'm either gonna like, take it out of my, what I consider my mind to be my catalogue, or I'm gonna like, edit it until, you know, until I feel like I fixed whatever didn't work for me. I don't like to just leave things and move on. You know, if something ever stops working for me, I'll go back and tinker with it more. So the whole process is tinkering from the start. So the source could be 20, you know, from 2015. And there's no reason I can't go tinker with that now.
Fletcher: Yeah, no, that's true, um, feel that way about some things. So it's like, kind of like one of those things like are never unfinished? Kind of?
Robert: Some of them I know they're finished. Some of them...
Fletcher: Just more to do with it?
Robert: Yeah, some. And sometimes, too, you know, it's like, it'll change when I hear people play it. Like, maybe someone will play something wrong. And I don't think that's better than what I wrote. You know, they got that rhythm wrong. It was actually really interesting this way, or they got the wrong note here. And that was actually cool. So yeah, there's some loose looseness in that way. It's I you know, sometimes mistakes are inspired. And, you know, it would be silly to not take some good inspiration, if it's there. Anyway, and pay attention to what people do when they rehearse or perform things and definitely, tinker with little details again.
Fletcher: No, I think that's really just like a heart of a true artist, honestly, to be open. Like, I don't know, I just think about like, when I was in band, and like, my musical experience was just like, oh, if you got that wrong, note, you know, like, it's just like, ah,
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: But you're completely right. Yeah. If it's like--
Robert: Well in a band you have a whole bunch of people depending on you--
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: It's different right? And that's why maybe I like small groups, cause cause you know, you don't have 40 people depending on you, you got like, three people in the room with you who you're kind of friends with. It's easy to negotiate, pre negotiated things. Like, so this this part should be longer. Oh, okay. You know what I mean? That's like so much easier to negotiate. And you know, the thing doesn't fit together like, again, it kind of mechanistic when you have a big, like a big group or a band or something, everything locks together a certain way. And there's not as much flexibility there. You can just kind of pull the fabric a little bit when you're two or three people. Just stretch the fabric right here. Well, I had this one more time and take this part out. And it's cool. You know, it's not as big of a deal.
Fletcher: You mean, like, pull the fabric, like out of music?
Robert: Yeah, just kind of things are still like kind of more can still mess mess with them a little bit more? Yeah, there's lots of things like that.
Fletcher: And people don't, would you say don't care as much as when it is a smaller group, because you can just kind of make those changes together. Whereas like a larger group, I see what you're saying, it's a lot tougher to make those changes.
Robert: You have to rewrite every part if you wanted to do that. And that's a lot of, you know, like, man who wants to rethink the snare drum line or whatever? Like, a lot of work. Yeah. So the fabric of the music is looser to start with, right? And then, and then it's easy to kind of skew things around a little bit if it sounds better that way. Or feels better that way. A lot of the time it feels better , it sounds better.
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: That's a thing I try to think about a lot too.
Fletcher: It is really cool.
Keywords: improvisation; interpreting music; listener; small group; writing music
http://ragakusuma.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=Interview115131.xml#segment2509
Partial Transcript: Robert: Yeah. So community engagement.
Fletcher: Yeah, like, I guess how this kind of relates to community and also um I don't know how open you are to talking about how you kind of use music to kind of fill this out of placeness feeling, or nostalgic, you can say as much as you like, um.
Robert: Yeah. So like I said, it's, it's, you know, it's about creating something I can escape into for a while. Back to the question of whether or not if a thing can't be turned into a product? Did it really happen that question? In a way, it does matter to me whether I can make recordings of things. And the reason it matters to me is because it matters to me as a listener. You know, I'm not embarrassed to say that, you know?
Fletcher: So you could actually listen to it.
Robert: Yeah, performances of mine that went well, I sure I listened to them. And you know, I'm not hearing it. I don't know, I'm hearing a lot of things that come from the player. And, you know, I know that, like, it's their work that breathes the life into the thing that I wrote. And I only wrote the thing in the first place because I needed it, right? Because I needed it for myself. And so, you know, if it's successful performance, then it's one more thing that I can listen to that fill fills this need of, you know, having a sort of imaginary place to escape to.
Fletcher: Yeah, yeah, that's what we were talking about an imaginary place, I guess. Yeah, I've definitely always used music to kind of just want to put myself somewhere else or put myself in a different situation. I think that's really interesting, that power of music to be able to just, it's like, I'm not really able to do that without listening to music but when listening to music, you really just get into those emotional states. You can, you can just feel like you're somewhere like you're on the beach or something, you know, and um I think--
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: That, that I think that is really what the root is of music and like that feeling of belongingness.
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: I think that can be used for good or bad because I met some people who could just listen to music all day and maybe be depressed.
Robert: Right.
Fletcher: Um I don't know.
Robert: I mean, maybe maybe musics not a bad, maybe it's a kind of a healthier outlet for depression. Um I actually was thinking about something like that recently.
Fletcher: Healthy
Robert: Healthy, potentially, yeah.
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: Um but I was, I was listening to some music with someone. And, you know, it's one of those moments where it's like, the whole situation just felt really ideal. And I thought, wow, if the song was three minutes long, just, it would just be frustrating. But because it's three plus 10, or 20 minutes long, it's like, it becomes part of the environment. You know, it's, it's like, it's like the light in the room or something. Right. And you get to really appreciate your space with that as part of and, you know, I guess that's like, one of the sounds like a very basic goal of like something like ambient music, right? But um. But yeah, I just, I like art that you can live with for a while. And lately I've been experimenting with writing these really short things, but, you know, at the same time, it's like, short things just kind of feel like a tease and I really want, I really want certain kinds of atmospheres or environments to just, you know?
Fletcher: So you definitely, like longer music?
Robert: I do. Yeah, as a listener especially.
Fletcher: Yeah, me too. I'll be listening to like, remixes or like stuff that's like, elongated or something.
Robert: Yeah, yeah. Or even honestly, I mean, I, I'm definitely someone who puts on songs that we've all heard on the radio, but listens to them at 85% speed or whatever, like, a lot of music works better for me that way, like, you know, I like it to still hold together, not turning to just like any of the, you know, soundscape. But like, they're, you know, there's certain songs that maybe I grew up hearing, and I'm like, when this is slower, it's better I get to enjoy for six and a half minutes or something instead of four and a half. And it's like you know, that's satisfying to me um. Also, I don't always want to hear music at the same speed. I've noticed, like, depends what time of day it is. It's 2am I have maybe different. You know?
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: Maybe I want to hear a song really slow down, but...
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: At noon, I would want to hear it a different way.
Fletcher: No, I think that's a good point um. I think it's a good note to end on. Unless you have anything else?
Robert: Yeah, I guess just a couple of things to tie back, so.
Fletcher: Yeah.
Robert: So yeah, community engagement. They're almost always be another concert. A couple people, you know, two, three people who say like, oh, I had a, you know, some kind of experience with that music appears when this person played it today. And, you know, sometimes they say stuff that's like, you know, way heavier than I'm qualified to comment on what to say, you know, I'm grieving, you know, my spouse's death or something. And this really, this really gave me somewhere to chill out for 20 minutes. Right.
Fletcher: And that's gotta feel meaningful.
Robert: It does. And it's complicated, though, because, you know, you asked about what kind of emotions do I want to read into the music? I don't really know. Yeah, I don't always know.
Fletcher: That's cool.
Robert: And for myself as a as a listener, and you know, as the person who's a lot of time's up at 1am till 4am working on a piece of music. I'm just fulfilling the need that I have that that hour, you know, sometimes, if a day was really hard, or, you know, something like that, then it's just the thing I need, it's just the place I need to get away from the other stuff, right? You know, like, thank goodness, I got all my day stuff out of the way. And now I can do this for a while. And, you know, then again, it's like, if it really works for me that way, and maybe it'll really work for the player that way, it's like, you know, telling a story well enough, right? I hope that if it all fits together, and it works for me, you know, they they're not gonna have the same experience, but they'll have something, you know, and then if they can tell it again, convincingly then maybe you know, someone who happens to be in the room, you know, who might be like grieving their spouse or something, then they kind of get to be a part of that too. Right? And, you know, that's like I don't know it's like, I don't I am not qualified to give someone therapy but if it's therapy for me, then maybe it kind of works for other people down the chain.
Fletcher: I definitely think so.
Robert: I think about it like as, as a sort of, sometimes I don't I don't need to know what the intention of the music is. As long as it has a sort of you know, therapeutic um you know, quality to me as I'm working on it, then it's probably a success in some way even if it's the smallest scale sort of success, not cultural like, like I said, kind of like a brass band marching down the road. Not like a YouTube video with you know, 10 million listens. It's just maybe for a very small number of people and that's totally fine. I you know, that's part of that accepting serious amateur as, as a role. I don't want to be a professional, I don't need to reach a mass audience, that's just fine.
Fletcher: As a serious amateur yeah, that's, that's a sick um, sick term. I like it.
Robert: Yeah, yeah I like it too. Yeah. Maybe this all kind of makes sense, but yeah.
Fletcher: Be a serious amateur in life.
Robert: Yeah.
Fletcher: Yeah, that was a great interview. Thank you.
Robert: Yeah.
Keywords: community engagement; experience; serious amateur