I thought if I skipped it might help my nerves, but I'm actually having a paradoxical reaction to that, so that was a bad idea. (Laughter)
Mislio sam da bi pomoglo mojim živcima kada bih to preskočio, ali zapravo imam paradoksalnu reakciju na to, tako da je to bila loša ideja. ( Smijeh)
Anyway, I was really delighted to receive the invitation to present to you some of my music and some of my work as a composer, presumably because it appeals to my well-known and abundant narcissism. (Laughter) And I'm not kidding, I just think we should just say that and move forward. (Laughter)
Bio sam oduševljen kad sam primio poziv da predstavim nešto od moje glazbe i neke moje skladateljske radove, vjerojatno zato jer to pristaje mom dobro znanom i obilnom narcisizmu. (Smijeh) I ne šalim se, samo mislim da bih to trebao reći, pa možemo krenuti dalje. ( Smijeh)
So, but the thing is, a dilemma quickly arose, and that is that I'm really bored with music, and I'm really bored with the role of the composer, and so I decided to put that idea, boredom, as the focus of my presentation to you today. And I'm going to share my music with you, but I hope that I'm going to do so in a way that tells a story, tells a story about how I used boredom as a catalyst for creativity and invention, and how boredom actually forced me to change the fundamental question that I was asking in my discipline, and how boredom also, in a sense, pushed me towards taking on roles beyond the sort of most traditional, narrow definition of a composer.
Ali stvar je u tome da je uskoro nastala dilema . Dosadila mi je glazba i dosadila mi je uloga skladatelja i tako sam odlučio postaviti tu ideju, dosadu, kao središte moje današnje prezentacije. Podijelit ću svoju glazbu s vama, ali se nadam da ću to uspjeti učiniti na način da ispričam priču, priču o tome kako sam iskoristio dosadu kao katalizator za kreativnost I inventivnost, kako me zapravo dosada prisilila da promijenim osnovno pitanje koje sam postavljao u svome poslu te kako me je dosada, na neki način, potaknula prema preuzimanju uloge iznad one tradicionalne, uske definicije skladatelja.
What I'd like to do today is to start with an excerpt of a piece of music at the piano. (Music) Okay, I wrote that. (Laughter) No, it's not — (Applause) Oh, why thank you. No, no, I didn't write that. In fact, that was a piece by Beethoven, and so I was not functioning as a composer. Just now I was functioning in the role of the interpreter, and there I am, interpreter. So, an interpreter of what? Of a piece of music, right? But we can ask the question, "But is it music?" And I say this rhetorically, because of course by just about any standard we would have to concede that this is, of course, a piece of music, but I put this here now because, just to set it in your brains for the moment, because we're going to return to this question. It's going to be a kind of a refrain as we go through the presentation.
Htio bih danas započeti jednim odlomkom iz skladbe za klavir. (Glazba) U redu, to sam ja napisao. (Smijeh) Ne, nisam… Oh, hvala vam. Ne, ne, nisam ja to napisao. Zapravo, ovo je Beethovenovo djelo, a ja ovdje nisam bio u ulozi skladatelja. Ovdje sam bio tumač. Evo, to sam ja, izvođač. Dakle, izvođač čega? Glazbenog djela, zar ne? Ali možemo postaviti pitanje: “Je li to glazba?” I kažem ovo retorički jer, naravno, prema svakom standardu moramo se složiti da ovo jest glazbeno djelo, ali stavio sam ovo tu zato da bih vam nakratko to pitanje stavio na um jer ćemo se kasnije vratiti njemu. Bit će to neka vrsta refrena (pripjeva) kako budemo prolazili kroz prezentaciju.
So here we have this piece of music by Beethoven, and my problem with it is, it's boring. I mean, you — I'm just like, a hush, huh -- It's like -- (Laughter) It's Beethoven, how can you say that? No, well, I don't know, it's very familiar to me. I had to practice it as a kid, and I'm really sick of it. So -- (Laughter) I would, so what I might like to try to do is to change it, to transform it in some ways, to personalize it, so I might take the opening, like this idea -- (Music) and then I might substitute -- (Music) and then I might improvise on that melody that goes forward from there -- (Music) (Music)
Dakle, imamo ovdje Beethovenovo glazbeno djelo, a ono što je tu problem jest da je dosadno. Mislim, vi…. Ja samo…pst, pst… Kao… (Smijeh) To je Beethoven, kako možeš to reći?! Ne znam, meni je djelo jako poznato. Morao sam ga puno vježbati kao dijete i zlo mi je već od njega. I zato, (Smijeh) ono što bih volio pokušati jest preobraziti ga na neki način, personalizirati. Mogao bih uzeti uvod, poput ove ideje … (Glazba) a zatim bih mogao zamijeniti … (Glazba) a onda bih mogao improvizirati na tu melodiju koja ide odavde…(Glazba) (Glazba)
So that might be the kind of thing -- Why thank you. (Applause) That would be the kind of thing that I would do, and it's not necessarily better than the Beethoven. In fact, I think it's not better than it. The thing is -- (Laughter) -- it's more interesting to me. It's less boring for me. I'm really leaning into me, because I, because I have to think about what decisions I'm going to make on the fly as that Beethoven text is running in time through my head and I'm trying to figure out what kinds of transformations I'm going to make to it. So this is an engaging enterprise for me, and I've really leaned into that first person pronoun thing there, and now my face appears twice, so I think we can agree that this is a fundamentally solipsistic enterprise. (Laughter) But it's an engaging one, and it's interesting to me for a while, but then I get bored with it, and by it, I actually mean, the piano, because it becomes, it's this familiar instrument, it's timbral range is actually pretty compressed, at least when you play on the keyboard, and if you're not doing things like listening to it after you've lit it on fire or something like that, you know. It gets a little bit boring, and so pretty soon I go through other instruments, they become familiar, and eventually I find myself designing and constructing my own instrument, and I brought one with me today, and I thought I would play a little bit on it for you so you can hear what it sounds like.
To bi bilo nešto što… Hvala vam. (Pljesak) To bi bilo nešto što bih ja učinio, ali nije nužno bolje od Beethovena. Zapravo, mislim da nije bolje od Beethovena. Stvar je u tome… (Smijeh) tako mi je zanimljivije. Manje mi je dosadno. Moram se osloniti na samog sebe jer moram razmisliti koje ću brze odluke donijeti dok taj Beethovenov tekst teče kroz vrijeme mojom glavom i pokušavam smisliti kakve ću promjene napraviti. To je privlačan pothvat za mene, zaista sam se oslonio na tu zamjenicu prvog lica; sad se moje lice pojavljuje dvaput tako da se možemo složiti da je ovo u temelju solipsističan pothvat. (Smijeh) Ali također je i privlačan. Zanimljiv mi je neko vrijeme, a onda mi dosadi. Pod tim mislim na klavir jer je poznat instrument pa postane dosadan; domet njegove boje zvuka je zapravo vrlo zbijen, barem kad svirate na klavijaturama. Osim ako ga ne slušate nakon što ste ga zapalili ili nešto takvo. Postane pomalo dosadno pa uskoro prođem druge instrumente. Onda mi i oni postanu poznati i na kraju si sam dizajniram i gradim svoj vlastiti instrument. Jedan sam ponio danas sa sobom i htio bih vam ga malo svirati da čujete kako zvuči.
(Music)
(Glazba)
You gotta have doorstops, that's important. (Laughter) I've got combs. They're the only combs that I own. (Music) They're all mounted on my instruments. (Laughter)
Morate imati stopere za vrata, to je važno. (Smijeh) Imam češljeve. To su jedini češljevi koje posjedujem. (Glazba) Svi su montirani na moje instrumente. (Smijeh)
(Music)
(Glazba)
I can actually do all sorts of things. I can play with a violin bow. I don't have to use the chopsticks. So we have this sound. (Music) And with a bank of live electronics, I can change the sounds radically. (Music) (Music) Like that, and like this. (Music) And so forth.
Zapravo mogu mnogo toga raditi. Mogu svirati gudalom violine. Ne moram koristiti štapiće za jelo. Tako dobijemo ovaj zvuk. (Glazba) A s bankom žive elektronike mogu potpuno promijeniti zvuk.(Glazba) (Glazba) Ovako i ovako. (Glazba) I tako dalje.
So this gives you a little bit of an idea of the sound world of this instrument, which I think is quite interesting and it puts me in the role of the inventor, and the nice thing about — This instrument is called the Mouseketeer ... (Laughter) and the cool thing about it is I'm the world's greatest Mouseketeer player. (Laughter) Okay? (Applause) So in that regard, this is one of the things, this is one of the privileges of being, and here's another role, the inventor, and by the way, when I told you that I'm the world's greatest, if you're keeping score, we've had narcissism and solipsism and now a healthy dose of egocentricism. I know some of you are just, you know, bingo! Or, I don't know. (Laughter)
Ovo vam daje ideju o svijetu zvukova ovoga instrumenta koji prilično zanimljiv, a mene stavlja u ulogu izumitelja. Zgodna stvar u vezi toga - instrument se zove “Mišketir”...(Smijeh) Dobra stvar u tome je da sam ja najbolji svirač mišketira na svijetu. (Smijeh) U redu? (Pljesak) U tom pogledu, to je jedna stvar, ovo je jedna od privilegija, a druga je uloga izumitelja. Usput rečeno, kad sam vam rekao da sam najbolji, ako netko broji, imali smo dosad narcisoidnost i solipsizam te sada zdravu dozu egocentrizma. Znam da su neki od vas pomislili, bingo! Ili, ne znam. (Smijeh)
Anyway, so this is also a really enjoyable role. I should concede also that I'm the world's worst Mouseketeer player, and it was this distinction that I was most worried about when I was on that prior side of the tenure divide. I'm glad I'm past that. We're not going to go into that. I'm crying on the inside. There are still scars.
Ovo je vrlo ugodna uloga. Trebao bih reći da sam također i najgori svirač mišketira na svijetu i to je odlika zbog koje sam se najviše brinuo kad sam bio na prijašnjoj strani podjele mjesta. Drago mi je da je to sad prošlo. Ne vraćamo se više tome. Plačem iznutra. Još uvijek imam ožiljke.
Anyway, but I guess my point is that all of these enterprises are engaging to me in their multiplicity, but as I've presented them to you today, they're actually solitary enterprises, and so pretty soon I want to commune with other people, and so I'm delighted that in fact I get to compose works for them. I get to write, sometimes for soloists and I get to work with one person, sometimes full orchestras, and I work with a lot of people, and this is probably the capacity, the role creatively for which I'm probably best known professionally. Now, some of my scores as a composer look like this, and others look like this, and some look like this, and I make all of these by hand, and it's really tedious. It takes a long, long time to make these scores, and right now I'm working on a piece that's 180 pages in length, and it's just a big chunk of my life, and I'm just pulling out hair. I have a lot of it, and that's a good thing I suppose. (Laughter)
U svakom slučaju, želim reći da su mi svi ovi pothvati zanimljivi u svojoj raznosvrsnosti, ali kako sam vam ih danas predstavio, oni su zapravo usamljeni pothvati, tako da uskoro želim komunicirati s drugim ljudima i oduševljen sam kad mogu skladati djela za njih. Mogu pisati, ponekad za soliste i raditi s jednom osobom, a ponekad s čitavim orkestrom pa radim s mnogo ljudi. Ovo je vjerojatno kapacitet, kreativna uloga po kojoj sam profesionalno najpoznatiji. Sad, neki od mojih notnih zapisa izgledaju ovako, drugi ovako, a poneki ovako. Sve to radim ručno, što je prilično mukotrpno. Dugo traje, puno vremena treba za zapisivanje, a trenutno radim na djelu koje je dugo 180 stranica. To mi oduzima dobar dio života, dođe mi da si počupam kosu! Imam je puno, što je valjda dobra stvar. ( Smijeh)
So this gets really boring and really tiresome for me, so after a while the process of notating is not only boring, but I actually want the notation to be more interesting, and so that's pushed me to do other projects like this one.
Dakle, ovo je jako dosado i zamorno, a nakon nekog vremena proces notacije ne samo da je dosadan, nego poželim da i sama notacija postane zanimljivija. To me je navelo na projekte poput ovoga.
This is an excerpt from a score called "The Metaphysics of Notation." The full score is 72 feet wide. It's a bunch of crazy pictographic notation. Let's zoom in on one section of it right here. You can see it's rather detailed. I do all of this with drafting templates, with straight edges, with French curves, and by freehand, and the 72 feet was actually split into 12 six-foot-wide panels that were installed around the Cantor Arts Center Museum lobby balcony, and it appeared for one year in the museum, and during that year, it was experienced as visual art most of the week, except, as you can see in these pictures, on Fridays, from noon til one, and only during that time, various performers came and interpreted these strange and undefined pictographic glyphs. (Laughter)
Ovo je isječak iz djela pod nazivom “Metafizika notacije”. Cijeli notni zapis širok je 22 metra. To je hrpa lude piktografske notacije. Zumirajmo jedan dio. Možete vidjeti da je prilično detaljno. Sve to radim pomoću skiciranih predložaka, ravnih rubova, francuskih krivulja i slobodnom rukom. Ta 22 metra bila su zapravo podijeljena u 12 ploča od 1.8 metara koje su bile instalirane oko balkona predvorja Cantor Arts Center muzeja gdje je bilo izloženo godinu dana. Tijekom te godine uglavnom je promatrano kao vizualna umjetnost veći dio tjedna, kao što možete vidjeti na slikama, ali petkom od podneva do 1 i samo tijekom tog vremena razni su izvođači dolazilii i interpretirali ove neobične i nedefinirane piktografske znakove. (Smijeh)
Now this was a really exciting experience for me. It was gratifying musically, but I think the more important thing is it was exciting because I got to take on another role, especially given that it appeared in a museum, and that is as visual artist. (Laughter) We're going to fill up the whole thing, don't worry. (Laughter) I am multitudes. (Laughter)
To je bilo vrlo zanimljivo iskustvo za mene. Bilo je glazbeno ugodno, ali mislim da je još važnije da je bilo zanimljivo jer sam imao drugačiju ulogu, osobito jer je izloženo u muzeju kao vizualni umjetnik. (Smijeh) Ispunit ćemo mi sve to, ne brinite. ( Smijeh) Ja sam mnogostruk. (Smijeh)
So one of the things is that, I mean, some people would say, like, "Oh, you're being a dilettante," and maybe that's true. I can understand how, I mean, because I don't have a pedigree in visual art and I don't have any training, but it's just something that I wanted to do as an extension of my composition, as an extension of a kind of creative impulse.
Neki mi ljudi kažu da sam diletant što je možda i točno. Razumijem zašto to misle jer nemam diplomu iz vizualnih umjetnosti i nemam iskustva, ali to je nešto što sam htio napraviti kao nadogradnju na svoje skladanje, kao ekstenziju kreativnog impulsa.
I can understand the question, though. "But is it music?" I mean, there's not any traditional notation. I can also understand that sort of implicit criticism in this piece, "S-tog," which I made when I was living in Copenhagen. I took the Copenhagen subway map and I renamed all the stations to abstract musical provocations, and the players, who are synchronized with stopwatches, follow the timetables, which are listed in minutes past the hour.
Mogu razumijeti to pitanje: “Ali, je Ii to glazba?” Mislim, tu nema tradicionalne notacije. Također mogu razumijeti i neku vrstu implicitnog kriticizma ovoga djela, “S-tog”, koje sam napravio kad sam bio u Copenhagenu. Uzeo sam kartu kopenhaške podzemne željeznice i promijenio imena svih stanica u apstraktne glazbene provokacije. Izvođači, koji su usklađeni štopericama, prate vremenski raspored od po nekoliko minuta u satu.
So this is a case of actually adapting something, or maybe stealing something, and then turning it into a musical notation.
Ovo je slučaj adaptiranja ili možda krađe nečega i pretvaranja istog u notaciju.
Another adaptation would be this piece. I took the idea of the wristwatch, and I turned it into a musical score. I made my own faces, and had a company fabricate them, and the players follow these scores. They follow the second hands, and as they pass over the various symbols, the players respond musically. Here's another example from another piece, and then its realization.
Druga adaptacija bilo bi ovo djelo. Uzeo sam ideju ručnoga sata i pretvorio ju u glazbeno djelo. Sam sam izradio lica i dao tvornici da ih proizvede, a izvođači slijede note. Oni prate kazaljke koje označuju minute i kako one prolaze preko određenih simbola izvođači reagiraju kroz glazbu. Ovdje je primjer još jednog djela i njegove realizacije.
So in these two capacities, I've been scavenger, in the sense of taking, like, the subway map, right, or thief maybe, and I've also been designer, in the case of making the wristwatches. And once again, this is, for me, interesting.
U ova dva navrata bio sam skupljač otpada u smislu uzimanja, naprimjer, karte podzemne. Ili možda lopov. Također sam bio i dizajner u slučaju izrade ručnih satova. I još jednom, ovo je za mene zanimljivo.
Another role that I like to take on is that of the performance artist. Some of my pieces have these kind of weird theatric elements, and I often perform them. I want to show you a clip from a piece called "Echolalia." This is actually being performed by Brian McWhorter, who is an extraordinary performer. Let's watch a little bit of this, and please notice the instrumentation.
Još jedna uloga koju volim preuzeti jest uloga umjetnika performansa. Neka od mojih djela imaju čudne teatralne elemente i često ih izvodim. Želim vam pokazati isječak iz djela nazvanog “Echolaila”. Izvodi ga Brian McWhorter koji je izvrstan izvođač. Pogledajmo dio ovoga i obratimo pažnju na instrumentaciju.
(Music)
(Glazba)
Okay, I hear you were laughing nervously because you too could hear that the drill was a little bit sharp, the intonation was a little questionable. (Laughter) Let's watch just another clip.
U redu, vidim da ste se nervozno nasmijali jer ste i vi mogli čuti da je bušilica bila malo preoštra, a intonacija upitna. (Smijeh) Pogledajmo još jedan isječak.
(Music)
(Glazba)
You can see the mayhem continues, and there's, you know, there were no clarinets and trumpets and flutes and violins. Here's a piece that has an even more unusual, more peculiar instrumentation.
Vidite da se sakaćenje nastavlja. Nema klarineta, truba, flauta ni violina. Ovo djelo ima još neobičniju, još čudniju instumentaciju.
This is "Tlön," for three conductors and no players. (Laughter)
Ovo je “Tlön”, za tri dirigenta i bez svirača. ( Smijeh)
This was based on the experience of actually watching two people having a virulent argument in sign language, which produced no decibels to speak of, but affectively, psychologically, was a very loud experience.
Ovo je zapravo temeljeno na iskustvu promatranja dviju osoba kako vode žučnu raspravu na znakovnom jeziku, što nije proizvelo nikakvih decibela, ali afektivno i psihološki bilo je to vrlo bučno iskustvo.
So, yeah, I get it, with, like, the weird appliances and then the total absence of conventional instruments and this glut of conductors, people might, you know, wonder, yeah, "Is this music?"
Dobro, razumijem. Sa svim tim čudnim uređajima, potpunom odsutnošću tradicionalnih instrumenata i ovom hrpicom dirigenata, ljudi se mogu zapitati:” Je li ovo glazba?”
But let's move on to a piece where clearly I'm behaving myself, and that is my "Concerto for Orchestra." You're going to notice a lot of conventional instruments in this clip. (Music) (Music)
Krenimo dalje na djelo gdje sam očito pristojan. To je moj “Koncert za orkestar”. Uočit ćete mnogo uobičajenih instrumenata u ovome isječku. ( Glazba) (Glazba)
This, in fact, is not the title of this piece. I was a bit mischievous. In fact, to make it more interesting, I put a space right in here, and this is the actual title of the piece. Let's continue with that same excerpt. (Music)
Ali ovo zapravo nije naziv toga djela. Bio sam pomalo nestašan. Zapravo, da bi bilo zanimljivije, ostavio sam prostor ovdje gdje bi trebao pisati puni naslov djela. Nastavimo dalje s istim isječkom. (Glazba)
It's better with a florist, right? (Laughter) (Music) Or at least it's less boring. Let's watch a couple more clips. (Music)
Bolje je s cvjećarom, zar ne? ( Smijeh) (Glazba) Ili je barem manje dosadno. Pogledajmo još par isječaka. (Glazba)
So with all these theatric elements, this pushes me in another role, and that would be, possibly, the dramaturge. I was playing nice. I had to write the orchestra bits, right? Okay? But then there was this other stuff, right? There was the florist, and I can understand that, once again, we're putting pressure on the ontology of music as we know it conventionally, but let's look at one last piece today I'm going to share with you.
Dakle s ovim teatralnim elementima dobivam novu ulogu, ulogu dramaturga. Pravio sam se dobar. Morao sam napisati i dijelove za orkestar. U redu? Ali bilo je tu i drugih stvari, zar ne? Tu je cvjećar i mogu razumijeti da, još jednom, stavljamo pritisak na ontologiju glazbe kakvu tradicijski poznajemo, ali pogledajmo zadnje djelo koje ću danas podijeliti s vama.
This is going to be a piece called "Aphasia," and it's for hand gestures synchronized to sound, and this invites yet another role, and final one I'll share with you, which is that of the choreographer. And the score for the piece looks like this, and it instructs me, the performer, to make various hand gestures at very specific times synchronized with an audio tape, and that audio tape is made up exclusively of vocal samples. I recorded an awesome singer, and I took the sound of his voice in my computer, and I warped it in countless ways to come up with the soundtrack that you're about to hear. And I'll perform just an excerpt of "Aphasia" for you here. Okay? (Music) So that gives you a little taste of that piece. (Applause)
Ovo je djelo nazvano “Aphasia” za pokrete ruke usklađene sa zvukom. Ovo mi daje novu ulogu, posljednju koju ću podijeliti s vama, a to je uloga koreografa. Notni zapis izgleda ovako i daje meni, izvođaču, upute za razne pokrete ruku u točno određeno vrijeme sinkronizirano s audio vrpcom. Ta je vrpca napravljena isključivo od vokalnih uzoraka. Snimio sam jednog izvrsnog pjevača, stavio zvuk njegova glasa u računalo i izvitoperio ga na bezbroj načina da bih dobio ovo što ćete sada čuti. Izvest ću samo jedan isječak iz Aphasije. U redu? (Glazba) Evo, to vam može malo ilustrirati djelo. (Pljesak)
Yeah, okay, that's kind of weird stuff. Is it music? Here's how I want to conclude. I've decided, ultimately, that this is the wrong question, that this is not the important question. The important question is, "Is it interesting?" And I follow this question, not worrying about "Is it music?" -- not worrying about the definition of the thing that I'm making. I allow my creativity to push me in directions that are simply interesting to me, and I don't worry about the likeness of the result to some notion, some paradigm, of what music composition is supposed to be, and that has actually urged me, in a sense, to take on a whole bunch of different roles, and so what I want you to think about is, to what extent might you change the fundamental question in your discipline, and, okay, I'm going to put one extra little footnote in here, because, like, I realized I mentioned some psychological defects earlier, and we also, along the way, had a fair amount of obsessive behavior, and there was some delusional behavior and things like that, and here I think we could say that this is an argument for self-loathing and a kind of schizophrenia, at least in the popular use of the term, and I really mean dissociative identity disorder, okay. (Laughter) Anyway, despite those perils, I would urge you to think about the possibility that you might take on roles in your own work, whether they are neighboring or far-flung from your professional definition.
Dobro, ovo je malo čudna stvar. Je li to glazba? Evo kako želim zaključiti. Odlučio sam naposljetku da je ovo pogrešno pitanje, nebitno pitanje. Važno pitanje jest: “Je li zanimljivo?” Ja slijedim to pitanje ne brinući je li to glazba, ne brinući o definiciji stvari koje radim. Dopuštam kreativnosti da me ponese u smjeru koji mi je jednostavno zanimljiv i ne brinem o privlačnosti završnog rezultata ovisno o nekom pojmu, nekim paradigmama toga što bi kompozicija trebala biti i to me je tjeralo da preuzmem hrpu drugih uloga. Ono o čemu bih htio da razmislite jest do koje granice biste mogli promijeniti osnovno pitanje u vašoj disciplini i dodat ću još jednu fusnotu jer sam shvatio da sam spomenuo ranije neke psihološke defekte, a i imali smo usput dobru količinu opsesivnog ponašanja, neracionalnog ponašanja i sličnog, mogli bismo reći da je ovo rasprava za samoprijezir i šizofreniju, barem u popularnom smisli riječi i pod time zaista mislim na disocijativni poremećaj ličnosti, u redu? ( Smijeh) Kako bilo, unatoč tim opasnostima, htio bih da razmislite o mogućnosti da preuzmete druge uloge u svome poslu, bilo da ste blizu ili daleko od definicije svoje profesije.
And with that, I thank you very much. (Applause)
I na kraju, zahvaljujem vam. ( Pljesak)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)