Hiatus / Retired Blog

This blog is on hiatus - possibly retired permanently. As always, keep up with my composing and educating activities at http://www.kylegullings.com, and keep in contact with me there as well. Until next time (possibly).

Guest Artist Ben Redwine at UT Tyler

I'm rather late on announcing this, but wanted to mention clarinetist Ben Redwine's visit to the campus of University of Texas at Tyler earlier this month. In addition to a jazz improv clinic, woodwinds master class, and general mingling with students and faculty, he performed a thoroughly-enjoyable guest artist recital. Among other fine selections, he played two new compositions of mine written specifically for him.

Jazz Chowder for clarinet and piano is a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the local alcohol laws here in Smith County. Can you believe there are numerous counties in the U.S. where alcohol sales - or in our case, only sales for off-premise-consumption - are illegal?! That issue is up for election this November. More word on that later!

Jazz Etude, a duet for two clarinets, is a player's introduction to the octatonic scale in a jazz context. Ben was joined in performance by my fellow UT Tyler faculty member Michael Thrasher, Director of the School of Performing Arts. Both recordings came out great and should be posted up on the website soon along with scores/previews.


Other upcoming topics of interest, which may or may not turn into blog posts, include:
* The CMS National Conference in San Diego (in which I reflect on having a piece performed, sitting on a panel, and clink pint glasses with fellow music-minded academics)
* Copyright and its alternatives as they impact music creators and educators (in which I discuss my CMS panel topic, and why art should be free for everyone everywhere everytime, except when it shouldn't)
* Art History and Music (in which I get all excited and stressed over an upcoming team-taught course)
* Opera (in which I decide whether I'm writing another one, and if I have/need a topic)
* Self-Publishing as a composer (in which I discuss "self-proprietorship", and other fancy money words)

Finalist in National Opera Assc. Competition

I received word yesterday that I am a finalist in the National Opera Association's biennial Chamber Opera Competition (2012-2014). My one-act opera Oblivion, along with two other composers' works, will be excerpted at NOA's Annual Convention in Portland next January. The winner will be produced in its entirety at the 2014 Convention.

Part of my doctoral dissertation, Oblivion was my treat to myself. It contains a lot of peculiarities that my creative and composerly self indulged in, but that may not appear particularly programming-friendly. The unfamiliar story, based on a two-page H.P. Lovecraft story with essentially no plot, interlaced with half a dozen poems by other authors, is not the stuff of your typical libretto. And the pit itself is quite small and unconventional: flute, guitar, cello, and three Himalayan singing bowls. Despite or perhaps because of these quirks, the work was selected. This is due in large part, I'm sure, to the excellent recording I got out of the premiere at the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC.

Many thanks to director Sasha Brätt, stage manager Alison Goldberg, singer/actors Rachel Barham, Melissa Kornacki, Christine Laird (Gahagan), James Rogers, and Alexander Wolniak, instrumentalists Jessica Bateman, Jesse Crites, and Daniel Shomper, and everyone else who helped make the premiere possible!

More announcements coming soon about upcoming performances for the 2012-2013 season.

More CMS National News

And now even more reason to check out the CMS National Conference in San Diego this November: I will also be helping putting together a panel discussion on issues copyright for musicians and educators. Should be informative and a lot of fun!

Five weeks remain in the semester. Lots of fun projects upcoming in the meantime!

CMS National Conference - Nov. 2012 - San Diego

I was excited to learn last night that one of my compositions has been selected for performance at the College Music Society National Conference, Nov.13 in San Diego! CMS has gradually grown into my main source of non-local artistic exchange, professional development, and intellectual stimulation. I guess it's like the academic music nerd world's Comic-Con. I'm excited to be attending for my third year in a row - a tradition I plan to continue for a long time.

My selected work is Dirge for the New Sunrise (Mvt. VI: But I Saw the Little Ant-Men), for soprano, flute, viola, guitar, and percussion. It's a weird little ensemble, but one whose sound is a lot of fun to work with. This piece premiered as part of my dissertation lecture recital last May, and I'm looking forward to hearing what the new music specialists of soundSCAPE will do with it!

Zen Bowling the Opera - Where I Draw the Line on Copyright

Just how long are copyright terms nowadays?...

Let's say (foolishly) that I write my life's operatic masterpiece next year (2013), at the age of 30, and it becomes world-famous. [By the way, it's an epic comedy-drama about bowling, Buddhist meditation, and the meaning of life, tentatively titled Zen Bowling.]

So now everyone and their moms want to produce Zen Bowling. I rake in the dough (hahaha, profitable opera, good joke...), and live comfortably on that income until my estimated death at age 85, in 2068.

I agree that people shouldn't be able to stage Zen Bowling for free, create a commercial recording, develop a movie version, arrange the work for wind ensemble, perform selections on public recitals, write a sequel, create a fan-fiction graphic novel, sell Zen Bowling-themed T-shirts, etc., etc., for free, and thereby cash in on my success and hard work. It would be unfair to allow that sort of theft. Instead, people should be encouraged to do those things, with my permission, and required to share some of their profits with me.

But at some point in the future, people absolutely should be able to do those things for free. At some point, the "incentive to create" narrative runs out of steam. When should that be? 100 years ago, the law would have offered me protection of 28 years from creation, with another 28 years if I renew my claim. If we followed those rules, my fictional opera would become publicly available in 2040, when I'm 57, or, if I renew my copyright, in 2068, when I'm 85.

That seems reasonable to me, that a work I created at age 30 can be protected until I'm 85. If I were making the rules today, that's where I'd draw the line. 28+28 years is plenty. What about you? How many years do you require to protect the artistic integrity (read: financial potential) of your art? If you're living by today's rules, here's how long:

Copyright terms have been extended many times since the early 1900's - so much so, that, assuming I create this blockbuster opera next year (2013), and die when I'm 85 (2068), it will be protected from unauthorized use or re-use until the year 2138.

That's right, the day someone can start producing Zen Bowling or re-purposing its material without paying me (or my heirs/estate) for the privilege, is Jan. 1, 2138. That's 70 years after my death, 125 years after its creation, and 155 years after my birth. People my (fictional) great-great-great-grandchildren's age will be the first generation allowed to make a drawing of one of my now-famous characters and sell it without giving my (still fictional) great-great-great-grandchildren some of the profits.

That is ridiculous, unacceptable, indefensible, and more unbelievable than a profitable opera called Zen Bowling.

* Note: I am not a lawyer. But I am upset. This rant does not constitute legal advice. I may have forgotten to carry a "1". Do your own homework!

Ruminations

Somewhere between burrito number one and beer number two, I realized that, if you're in a certain mood, everything becomes a metaphor.

I am a habitual over-stuffer of burritos. I load my tortilla with every ingredient I enjoy (all of them), in exactly the right proportions. I always go back and add more cheese, just to even things out. This happens every time, and I am aware of it. Yet it still happens. (If you came here to read about music, hang tight.)

Just like my burritos, my individual artistic pursuits are often grande in conception but unwieldy, disasterous, even comical in execution. I once co-wrote a 40-minute musical in three weeks because it seemed very important and vaguely possible. (It's no longer on my CV.) I once composed a short piano work mere minutes before my undergraduate senior composition recital began, because I had promised it to myself. (Yes, I performed it.) I once began making snow angels as a finals week stress-reliever, and ended up wasting two hours etching the first four bars of "Twinkle, Tinkle" into the snow... in F Minor. (The staff was five feet tall.) And I once took on a major project that so consumed my life that, for months at a time, I rarely ate dinner at a table, saw friends outside of class, or slept six straight hours next to my wife.

My point is, I get these crazy ideas, and then, whether by desire or lack of clarity or sheer blind will, I convince myself that they are possible. And usually they are. But that isn't the point either. The point is, looking back on the great and embarassing and mediocre art I've created over the past nine years, I can't find ten minutes worth of music I've written that is more important to me than ten minutes with my family, my wife, or my friends. The same goes for school, career, and all those things with which I'm "supposed" to fill my days to become happy and successful.

Tonight's post was supposed to be about the (qualified, non-statistical) success of my CC21 project that ended last month. It was supposed to be about me moving halfway across the country, and working 60-hour weeks for all of September, and being so thankful for the opportunity to do so because this is it, this is what I've been working toward for ten years. But instead it's about stepping back from all of that, as positive as some of it is, and reminding myself, through some stupid metaphors, what really makes me happy. It's about acknowledging and choosing.

Tonight I had a great solution to my bloated burrito problem. I wrapped my strained tortilla... in another tortilla. This kept the ingredients securely inside, perhaps for the first time in my burrito-assembling career. The result was chewy, and carb-tastic in all the wrong ways. It was a step in the right direction, but I know the real solution will require some serious austerity measures. So I'll try again tomorrow. Next time I will keep my portions manageable. Next time I will pay attention to what is in front of me. And next time I will practice actually being there, eating dinner, at dinner time.

As the night inched closer, I reached again for my drink. I stared blankly at the wall while vaguely disappointing thoughts of unmet deadlines and personal responsibilities swirled in my brain. With the bottle an inch from my lips, I realized this wasn't the Shiner Blonde I was expecting. This was the Frank's Red Hot I'd been applying liberally and mindlessly to my burrito supremo. I caught myself, laughed, and made the needed beverage substitution.

If you didn't catch it, there's your second metaphor of the story: If you don't pay attention to what you've put on the table in front of you, you might get burned, and make an awful fool of yourself in the process.

I don't have a good ending for this story. But it's not over yet.

A short couple of months

Things I've done in the past 2 months:
* moved half way across the country (to Texas)
* started my first full-time teaching gig (private lessons, course planning, advising, etc., etc.)
* left my better half (but not the dog) behind in DC until December
* discovered the nearest liquor store (20 miles SW)
* found the local Ultimate scene
* joined a bowling league
* gotten laundry/dishes/sweeping/mopping under control
* composed 3 pieces (1 for CC21, 1 for a DC theater project, 1 I owed a friend)
...not necessarily in that order.

Things I've neglected in the past 2 months:
* sleep
* cleaning the home office
* updating my website
* posting on this here blog

So, there you have it. Pair-of-Lists as excuse. Drop me a line for more details. :)

CC21 #3: Siblings

3 pieces completed for my CC21 project!

Siblings is a short three-movement solo piano work I composed back in 2005 for my senior recital at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. I've just now gotten around to transcribing them, after some folks showed interest on my CC21 Facebook page.

Curious? You can get the PDF and MP3 (featuring yours truly at the keyboard!) for free on the project's webpage.

Up next: unaccompanied solo soprano work based on the Song of Solomon.

CC21 #2: Music for Busking

CC21 piece #2 is complete: "Music for Busking" for solo violin or viola. Who wants to play it, and when/where?

As always, download the PDF and MP3 free from the CC21 webpage.

Visit the project's Facebook page to stay up-to-date, connect with other CC21-ers, or announce a performance!

A Fiddle and a Violin Walk Into a Bar...

My next CC21 work is a solo fiddle work in three movements: reel, air, and jig. It's meant as a piece for busking, preferably out of the concert hall. More info when it's done!

CC21 on Facebook

My CC21 project now has a Facebook event page.

Preview a score. Schedule a performance. Commission a new work. Tell a friend.

Join the experiment, and discover the value of free music!

Composing and Careeers

Alright, here's the news, times two:

1.) Today I completed The Two Coffins for tenor and grand piano. It's an art song written for my friend and colleague Timothy Ballard, who is slated to give its premiere in September. This is the first piece in my CC21 Project, which uses Creative Commons as a marketing tool to generate performances in 21 states over 21 weeks. Click through to read about the project and download the PDF score for free! (Contact me for performance info.)

2.) Today I received my official offer letter from the University of Texas at Tyler, where I will be starting as an Assistant Professor in Music Theory and Composition in August! Five weeks left of summer teaching, one week to move, and one week to orient myself before the real thing begins! Here goes.

2011 SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Commission

Does good news come in groups? Here's the first. I just found out that my opera Oblivion is a regional winner for the 2011 SCI/ASCAP Student Composition Commission! It's one of 2 works selected from our Mid-Atlantic Region. All 18 Regional winners now move on to national adjudication and a chance for a cash prize, and a commission for a new work to be performed/recorded/published. Pretty sweet deal! For those that don't know, Oblivion is an one-act opera that premiered at the 2010 Capital Fringe Festival in DC. Back in 2008, my art song in memoriam Hibakusha received the same SCI/ASCAP regional honor. Keep fingers crossed that Oblivion goes further. Either way, what a nice way to cap off my career as a student composer! Speaking of both composing and careers, I will have more news this week. Check back!

Academic Summer Half Over

Final Exams are this morning for CUA's Summer Session #1. That means a lot of grading and preparation for Session #2 (Harmony II only), which starts Monday!!

Both Session 1 classes (Harmony I and Graduate Aural Skills Review) have gone great, and I'm really proud of my students. It's very rewarding to have full control over the planning and implementation of a semester's course material, and to see in the end that, for the most part, it's working; there is progress!

More big updates to come in the next week or less. Check back!

Stuff's a-Brewin'

My relative e-absence in the past 3 weeks is due to the best kinds of "busy-ness": composing stuff, job stuff, teaching stuff, working stuff, and Ultimate stuff. Lots of things starting, ending, or middling in the next 2 weeks. Expect updates a-plenty. :)

Guerrilla New Music: Support The New Music Revolution

If you're a supporter of new music, here's a great chance to put your money where your mouth is. (Don't ever do that literally. Sounds disgusting.)

Great Noise Ensemble is fundraising on Kickstarter for their first professional album. Learn more and donate here. They're offering nice rewards!

164 people have backed the project so far, and they only need $888 more to reach the project goal of $12,000! Problem is, they have 4 days remaining to raise that money, or they get none of it! That's the deal with Kickstarter pledges, after all. So get to it!

Music for a Rainy Day and the Creative Commons Conundrum

New Piano Album

As I mentioned recently, I just finished editing and mastering Music for a Rainy Day, my first album of piano music. It's practical, "useful" music in that each track is meant as an accompaniment to a specific part of the day: "Music for Waking," "Music for Sitting," "Music for Driving," etc.

I improvised these recordings months ago, but never got around to completing the project. It comes out to 14 tracks and nearly one hour of perfectly enjoyable music! I haven't yet decided what to do with the CD. Should I put it on iTunes/CD Baby? Post excerpts on my website? Offer it all as a free download?

Creative Commons

I've been thinking a lot lately about the business and culture of music creation and consumption, especially the Creative Commons movement. Through a Creative Commons license, an individual work is made freely available, with optional restrictions such as requiring source attribution, disallowing remixes (derivative works), and/or disallowing reusing for commercial profits. This model fits well with my gut feeling that art must be shared, passed around, and participated in as widely as possible. However, not yet having crossed the elusive (mythical?) threshold after which my art begins to turn a profit, I realize I am particularly susceptible to making the foolish mistake of signing away my money-making rights on my work.

After all, giving away music is the opposite of How Composers Make a Living (WNYC radio episode). My good friend Candace Bilyk once told me so. Frank Ticheli suggests trying film and video games, but doesn't mention Creative Commons. Composer Alex Shapiro, who regularly lectures on the business of composition, has forged an impressively successful online presence under the traditional copyright model.

Some successful composers do distribute their scores and/or recordings using Creative Commons licenses, but not most. There is a lot already written (or spoken) on the subject. In particular, check out the thoughts of one of CC's most well-known classical proponents, Kyle Gann.

For those of us still awaiting that first professional recording or commission, I can't help but wonder if limited use of this "free advertising" could be an important catalyst in forging a professional career. (By the time my annual score sales exceed $50, maybe I'll reconsider.) So I concocted an experiment to test this.

The Experiment

I've decided to write a set of chamber miniatures - companions to my Miniature Symphony No. 1. Each work will be released under a Creative Commons license, meaning performers may download, perform, and record the score at no cost. My goal is to get the works played in 22 different states over 22 weeks, with a quality recording required of each performance.

Why 22 weeks?

I'll receive my doctorate in Composition this weeked, May 14. A mere 22 weeks later is the College Music Society's National Conference. While there, I hope to present a five-minute talk on new music, copyright issues, and Creative Commons. Hopefully by then, I'll have greatly increased my music's exposure and recording volume through the use of Creative Commons. Maybe this CC project will even inspire a commission or two!

But, as for my recent piano album and future (more significant/lucrative) works, I'm still undecided. Any sage advice out there from those who are a little further down this path?...

Rhapsodic Thoughts

Rhapsodic thoughts on the Library of Congress, new music, my new piano CD, free music, my mom, and the Rapture. Here we go:

* Going to see Eighth Blackbird for the first time on May 20th. Really looking forward to seeing them for the first time, and it's free since it's at the Library of Congress! Speaking of...

* Saw a concert of George Crumb's music at the Library of Congress last week. Fantastic performance of his American Songbook (selections). Brilliant reworkings of these shared cultural artifacts, but decidedly not "for the people" - except for those people who have 100 percussion instruments and a lot of time on their hands. Really enjoyed his pre-concert talk; makes me want to write more practical music. Speaking of...

* I just completed Music for a Rainy Day, my first album of piano music. Each "practical" track serves as an accompaniment to a specific part of the day: "Music for Waking," "Music for Sitting," "Music for Driving," etc... [Subject for a future post.] Right now, I'm trying to decide whether to market the CD, or post it as a free download. Speaking of...

* I've been thinking a lot lately about the business of music, especially regarding the Creative Commons movement, wherein an artist allows the free distribution of their work, presumably spreading it around faster and leading to greater word-of-mouth. [Subject for a future post.] I'm pondering releasing Music for a Rainy Day under a non-commercial CC license. Free music, yum! I'll of course give it away to family, especially considering it was conceived as a gift for my mom, so she'd have some music of mine she might actually enjoy. Speaking of...

* Mother's Day is tomorrow, Sunday, May 8th. Don't forget to call. My immediate family and a few others are making the trek from South Dakota to see my graduation next weekend. So excited! Just in time: the piano CD gift is actually a 4-months-late Christmas gift. Speaking of...

* Okay, Christmas and the Rapture are only tangentially-related. Have you heard that the Rapture is coming May 21, 2011? That's in two weeks! 6 p.m. local, to be specific. I'm considering hosting a Left Below/non-Rapture/Reason party that night. Any takers/suggestions?

Review: Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing (Great Noise Ensemble)

There has never been a better time to be an adherent of new music. Any genre, any aesthetic is fair game for today's recital hall. The options can be dizzying - like picking out a pasta sauce (Old-world-traditional-garlic? Chunky-4-cheese? caramelized-onion-mushroom-arrabbiata??). But if you know what you want, it is there waiting for you to take it off the shelf.

If new and different music is what you seek, check out what Great Noise Ensemble is serving up. Their season closed last Friday with a performance of John Luther Adams' Clouds of Forgetting, Clouds of Unknowing. This took place at the UU Church of Silver Spring, which hosted GNE in 2009, and in 2006 for the memorable Steve Reich 70th birthday concert. It's really a great space to play and listen, and this evening was no exception.

Billed by the composer as creating "a small time and space for extraordinary listening," this 70-minute large chamber work was a bold and rather remarkable programming choice. John Luther Adams doesn't have the instant name recognition of Glass or (the other) Adams that would draw some in. And Clouds itself is a real endurance challenge for both performer and audience - but one that will repay your attention like few other compositions. The 19 movements progress from a prolonged unison to gradually larger intervals. Each section features contemplative figures that alternate, repeat, and build on each other. A few raucous bell-like movements provide some added surface activity, but it largely comes across as one gradual progression from small to large intervals.

After 70 solid minutes amid a sea of consonances and unobtrusive dissonances, the final movement closes in on the single most satisfying cadence I have ever experienced. Persistent sevenths resolve up into octaves - plain, vanilla, beautiful octaves. All imperfections finally removed, these reduce to a high unison on two violins then fade into silence.

Under the baton of conductor and artistic director Armando Bayolo, the performers played with impressive precision, tone, and endurance. The accompanying slideshow of Alaskan vistas, put together by the venue's music director Michael Holmes, had real distraction potential. Thankfully, the artfully chosen images and slow pace were a welcome complement.

This sort of music demands a different sort of attention - an elite listener, even - but it's an investment well worth your time. Such a meditate musical experience is rare, even in the option-filled marketplace that is new music.