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My new quartet is a deeply humbling experience. Elliott Sharp on guitars, Billy Martin on drums, Colin Stetson on saxophones, and me on keyboard percussion. I reached out to those geniuses two years ago and to my delight they were willing to give it a go. I knew it would work, and it has. We’re all composers as well as improvisers, and intuitively I felt that the combination of our musical and personal personalities would gel in a beautiful way and our perspective as composers would deepen the improvising, with a broader perspective on sound, pitch, rhythm, and orchestration. We’ve had some great shows so far at the Big Ears and FIMAV festivals, plus shows at clubs in Brooklyn and Philadelphia. We now have three recordings out and I anticipate more for the future as we’re recording most of our live shows.

Recently my old friend and mentor Paul Gongloff passed away. You can read the obituary HERE. I knew Paul when I directed the church choir at Christview Methodist church near Rochester, NY, from 1998 to 2001 while I was working on my graduate degrees at the Eastman School of Music. He hired me and quickly became a trusted friend and guiding light in my life. I haven’t seen him in person for about 15 years, but we emailed back and forth many times a year and also connected via phone from time to time.

Truth be told, I had (and still have) a conflicted relationship with organized religion. But what was special with Paul is that he welcomed my questions; indeed, he had quite a few himself! He was never judgemental. He was always patient. At least once or twice a month we’d get a drink after our choir rehearsal and talk for hours about God, life, friendship, family, music, and the arts. Paul was insatiably curious, and endlessly patient. I never once heard him utter a negative word about anyone. He knew God’s grace was endless and mysterious and focused his energies on finding the good in each of us, and giving each of us permission to be ourselves and to find our own path through life.

While I’ve had a conflicted relationship with organized religion, I’ve always had a good relationship with Jesus and his teachings. He was an awesome dude, uncompromising in his love and open-heartedness, a true radical who saw the value in every person, regardless of how they look or where they come from or how much money they have. I’ve never been able to live up to that level, but I try, and when I’m trying I most often think of Paul, who was a constant source of inspiration and guidance. One of the speakers at his funeral said something I’ll never forget: “A death ends a life, but not a relationship.” I’m very sad Paul is gone, but in a way he never will be. Our relationship will continue.

It isn’t necessarily the specifics of what we talked about that has stayed with me all these years, but rather the general attitude and approach. Paul was a traveler. He traveled the physical globe, but he also traveled the infinite expanses of the human mind. He was curious, probing, courageous, open. One of the books of the Old Testament that we discussed at length is the Book of Job. I’ve always felt that book is central not just to Judea-Christian worldviews, but any spiritual relationship. We know that when innocent beings suffer it is wrong, therefore, how can we put our faith in a God that allows innocent people to suffer? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t very comforting:

“You don’t know.”

“Where were you when I measured the lengths of the Earth? …” (38:4) and on and on goes God, patiently but clearly explaining to Job after listening to Job wail and moan about the cruelties inflicted upon him, despite him having been a most dedicated servent of God (or at least of God’s gifts!), that no matter how hard we try, we will never understand why bad things happen, especially to good people. This is really an invitation into the mystery of the unknown. But that’s a very frustrating invitation indeed for a species that seeks understanding!

But Paul always seemed to get what God was saying in that seminal book, perhaps more than any other person I’ve known. We don’t know, and we won’t. We can try, and there is great value in that, but no matter how many atoms we learn to split, no matter how many symphonies we write, not matter how many people we send to Mars, there are bigger and greater mysteries to engage with, always and forever. It is infinite. That mystery can frighten us or it can excite us.

Paul was excited about the mystery, and that excitement was infectious. He was constantly reading and recommending books and trying out new ideas and new approaches to theology and living. I learned a lot from Paul, but the gift he gave that I will forever cherish is the gift to keep engaging with the mystery, to keep learning, to keep growing, and above all, to keep loving. Love might be the greatest mystery of all, an awesome power that transcends time and space, that ultimately guides almost every decision we make. What do we love? Why? How do we love? How do we love better? Those were the questions Paul asked, over and over, engaging with the mystery, with a smile, some really creative soup, a book recommendation, a favorite 19th-century hymn, and an endearing laugh that brought a smile to everyone who had the good fortune to know him. Knowing Paul and his wife Nancy, who was always there by his side, an amazing woman of piercing intelligence and warmth, who I’ve also admired for all these years, was really a blessing.

I miss you, Paul. Rest in peace, and thank you for all you gave us.

Another project? Well, it can run parallel to my big recording project because most of the music I create with Sonic Peaks ends up getting recorded and then released under my Explorations series of recordings. So, instead of writing about Sonic Peaks here, I invite you to check out the WEBSITE. And, here’s a promo video that explains the project:

That went fast. Here I am a year later and I finished it. 52 marimba recordings in 52 weeks. I thought that might be enough, but I’ve become so accustomed to the work that I plan to keep going for at least another year. 100 is a better number anyway, more iconic.

Each recording takes on average 20 hours a week. The open improvisation solo recordings go down pretty fast (although it took me tens of thousands of hours of practice and study and 30 years of playing marimba to get to that point). But all the rest of the recordings can be very time consuming. A few of them were over 40 hours, soup to nuts. It’s a lot of time and energy, basically another job on top of my life as a college professor and Dhrupad singer and everything else I’m doing professionally. But it’s worth it, every second of it. Aside from the fact that I feel more connected to the instrument, I’ve expanded considerably my vocabulary as a composer and improviser and opened up whole new territory on the instrument.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

-expanded the timbral possibilities on marimba through mallet construction, preparations, and digital manipulation

-commissioned several new pieces from different composers

-made the first recordings on marimba of music by Anthony Braxton, Elliott Sharp, and Barry Guy

-made the first ever marimba recording of Hindustani music

-started a new series of jazz standards on the instrument

-created the first body of recorded repertoire for the instrument in the “free” or “open” improvisation genres, with many collaborations, including Weasel Walter, Susie Ibarra, Gideon Forbes, Steven Crammer, Pedro Carneiro, and more

-made a series of recordings for meditation/yoga purposes, which I’m gradually trying to get out to those communities, including a collaboration with handpan master Sean Dello Monaco

-expanded considerably my graphic score work

The self-imposed deadline of a recording a week, every week, has become so second nature that it feels weird not to make a recording every week. During the summer I got ahead by a month, but as school started and my days filled up with teaching and administrative work I’m back to finishing a recording during the week and loading it up before midnight on Sunday. Sometimes the days get a little frenetic, but I never feel like I’m recording just for the sake of recording. I’ll vouch for every note I’ve released to the public.

Of course with this much volume some of the tracks are better than others, but that’s true even for people who only release one or two recordings their whole career. At the time that I release something I’m fully convinced of its value. And even the freely improvised recordings have more editing and curation than one might think. I often delete as many tracks as I end up keeping, and sometimes it’s more like a 10:1 ration of deleted material to what I end up keeping.

So, what’s ahead? More collaborations, and deeper engagement with what I’ve already developed. I’m really just getting started.

What has the reception been so far? It’s hard to say since I’ve only promoted it via local channels like Facebook groups and email lists. Next year I have some bigger events planned to celebrate an upcoming quartet recording with Elliott Sharp, Billy Martin, and Colin Stetson, as well as the 100-week mark. For those I plan to hire a publicist and see if I can build a larger, more global audience for my work.

The percussive arts community’s response has been mostly positive. I regularly get messages from folks who are fascinated by the project and interested in what I’m doing. A few folks have cried foul on my more dissonant and crazy improvisation videos, stating that it’s “not music” or whatever. I don’t take much stock in that since few of them have really studied the improvised repertoire or know the history of that music. Honestly, I’m glad for the arguments those videos create. That pot needs a bit of stirring. I also encourage them to check out my more “inside” playing. When I play with extended techniques, they’re definitely an extension of the fundamentals that I’ve worked hard to master, and continue to practice and refine. But I welcome vigorous discussion.

So, onwards and upwards. I’m just getting started.

It’s a conversation.

Imagine you’re in a big room at a large social gathering. You’re talking with other professional musicians, exploring aesthetics, the mechanisms of survival, and all else related to the field. There are real people in the room, and there are also spirits from the past. Pauline Oliveros comes up in the conversation, as does John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Beethoven, Stravinksy, Led Zeppelin, Max Roach, Hildegard, Machaut, and so many others.

After some time, you tell your friends you want to introduce them to someone new. You leave the room, and return with a young musician. This is one of your students. You spent the last four years preparing them for this conversation. They can keep up. They can talk aesthetics, they have their own creative projects brewing, they have their own relationship with the great masters of the past. They are ready for the conversation.
Once you bring them in and make introductions, you step back and you give them the space and the support they need to speak. And you enjoy watching them not only become part of the conversation, but begin to shape how the conversation develops. You see them developing new friends and you see new relationships blossoming. And thus the conversation is deepened, expanded, and enriched.

Sometime later there’s another social gathering. This time you’re not introducing the person you brought in last time, but standing next to them sharing your recent experiences with the other guests in the room. After a while your former student says, “Hey everyone, I want to introduce you to someone I’ve been working with.”

And the conversation continues.

I’m now three months into my massive marimba recording project, and I have released 13 new recordings, one per week. Those plus the few I have in the hopper and my previous recordings put me up to 23 solo marimba recordings.

This project has changed my life in many ways. That sounds melodramatic, but I mean it seriously. For the last few years I’ve found my energies spread too far. After leaving Alarm Will Sound to focus more on my solo work, I was making films, singing Dhrupad, running a college percussion studio, playing in NJPE and various freelance gigs, etc. It was intoxicating to allow my creative powers to blossom in so many directions, but also exhausting, and at the end of the day I found that I just couldn’t keep up. In a burst of inspiration last October (partly from reconnecting with my long-time visual artist friend Beeple, AKA Mike Winklemann, who has created an original work of art every single day for 14 years), I decided to launch this massive marimba recording project.

So, it puts me behind the instrument about 20-30 hours a week, which in its own way is exhausting, but the extreme focus has been a welcome change from being too spread out. And what I’ve found is that there is so much to do. There are so many things I’ve avoided doing for a long time, and I realize now I was avoiding them by bouncing from one thing to another. It’s easier to stay busy than it is to solve problems, especially artistic ones.

Having a weekly deadline is important. Does quantity beget quality? In many ways, yes, I would argue it does, especially if one is already at a high level of musical and technical accomplishment. At the very least, the act of creating music has become more normalized for me, like brushing my teeth or making breakfast. The practicality of getting a recording out every week quickly overrides the conservatory-induced paranoia about producing masterpieces. Is every track going to win a Pulitzer Prize? No, but every track is part of an overarching journey that is deepening my relationship to the instrument, and expanding the expressive possibilities of the instrument, in all dimensions. I will vouch for every note that is on every recording. Nothing gets published if it isn’t the best work I can do at that time, but I also recognize that the recording I release this week may in some ways be stronger than the recordings I released two months ago. My playing is perhaps a touch better, I’m more confident with my creative powers, my vocabulary has expanded, and my skills with recording, mixing, and mastering continue to improve. And, for the first time in my life, I’m allowing myself to reflect in a more sustained way about my creative work.

Will I eventually cull some of this massive output of work? Probably not. It’s a zero-sum game to constantly look backwards and see only negativity. The true act of courage for an artist isn’t obsessing over an unattainable notion of perfection, but rather embracing the asymptotic process of discovering the most necessary and personal contribution to the field.

To be sure, I delete nearly as much material as I release. Many days I go in my studio for several hours and create and record music, only to hit delete at the end of the session. No matter. Sometimes knowing the right road is a matter of going down the wrong one for a little bit. I still manage to finish a complete recording each week.

Does anyone listen to this music? Does anyone care? So far, there’s been little engagement, only in the hundreds. I’m no different than any other artist. I would love it if my work was well-received and spread widely. However, I also realize that much of the work I’m doing is extremely intense and requires the listener to expend some time and energy digesting it, as well as an open mind about different parameters of sound and of what music is and can be.  It has crossed my mind that I would gain a bigger following in the percussive arts community and beyond if I released material that is more directly connected to the standard repertoire or popular music, but that’s not what inspires me. And, why do that when so many other artists are already doing it so well? Besides, I’ve already worked through most of the standard rep. As much as I enjoy playing it, I view it as more of a stepping stone to my creative work, not a final resting place for me.

I think there is room for all of us, but it’s important that we each be honest about how we can best contribute to the conversation. I’ve always tended towards the experimental and the avant-garde. As Lou Harrison once said, I’m in the R&D department of music. Certainly, it has less commercial appeal, but I do believe that those of us working in that area are contributing something meaningful to the art form. We’re asking “what if?”, a question that ultimately keeps the art form vital, and protects us from falling into musical and marimbistic solipsism.

So, I will continue. And as my engagement with the project deepens, I see how in fact that it isn’t really a specialization at all. It’s an expansion. An expansion of my creative powers, my foundational marimba and percussion playing, and ultimately about placing my creative voice into the vast, unyielding, beautiful, harsh, and wondrous world of creative music and the percussive arts community.

Thanks for reading and listening, much love to you, and best wishes in your own creative work. Please stay in touch.

After years of thinking about teaching from both the perspective of a student and a teacher, I have come to the conclusion that good teaching is fundamentally comprised of three things:

1.) Competence

2.) Organization

3.) Passion

Without competence the students don’t trust the teacher. Without organization the students get confused. Without passion the students aren’t inspired.

A good teacher needs all three. Many teachers have two out of three, some only have one, and the worst teachers have none. For example, when a teacher is organized and passionate but incompetent the students don’t trust the information. Why should they? If the teacher can’t do the thing they’re teaching why would the student trust that anything they say is true?

Likewise, if the teacher is competent and passionate, but disorganized, the student quickly becomes confused. Organized pedagogy moves forward incrementally, without creating gaps or holes that require further repairs, thus wasting time and embedding bad habits.

And, a teacher may be very competent and organized, but if they lack passion for the subject then the student won’t feel inspired. Passion is infectious, and can spark a fire in a student that lasts a lifetime, indeed, many lifetimes if that student eventually becomes a teacher and moves the knowledge to another generation.

Competence, organization, and passion.

I recently revved out of town for a night of motorcycle camping. I’ve dreamed of doing this for years and I finally have the bike for it, a 2009 Kawasaki Versys 650 outfitted with full luggage, windshield, handguards, engine guards, and a phone charger from the battery tender line.

I love that bike. It’s comfortable and easy to see (and be seen), but it’s got a Kawi Ninja engine and it can really rip, even when you’re up at speed. It will carve up twisties with no problem, it handles gravel roads just fine (even with the stock street tires), but even at sixth gear at 85 mph on the freeway it still has plenty of juice to zip away from lousy drivers. With about 64 hp and 61 Nm of torque and a top speed of 124 mph, it’s an awesome machine.

So I headed West, as all young(ish) men do, interstate 80 to Pennsylvania, then back roads to a campground in the middle of the state. I love those lonely back roads. They’re quiet, intimate, and they link one to the small towns in America that are still home to millions of people, worlds away from the urban and suburban trails I usually tread.

I even found a bit of gravel.

Eventually I made it to the campground. I got a fire going and enjoyed some fine dining with pizza and pop tarts for dinner.

It was a sweet spot, with a stream running just a few feet away. It was cool enough to keep the bugs away, but not so cold that I couldn’t sit by the fire and sing Dhrupad for an hour as it got dark.

I slept well and was back on the road by 6:30 a.m. I’m usually up early and always excited to get back on the bike. I put in my ear plugs and don my helmet and off I go on that intense meditation, not so different than Dhrupad, actually. The feeling of that machine working right underneath me, completely connected to the road, and the undulations of the highway, is beyond description. The stakes are high, and so is my concentration, higher than almost any other time in my life. I was home by noon, refreshed and shiny, glad to be alive and able to ride that impressive bike throughout this diverse and epic country. I’m counting the days until my next adventure.