I retired from the University of New Mexico so I could spend
the majority of my time composing and writing. That’s what I do now and last
year I composed two pieces, Centenary
Fragment and Walden Miniatures,
which I’ve discussed at length in previous blog entries. Colin Holter in a review of my 2011 CD Devisadero, called me a “young
composer,” and I hope to remain one for the rest of my life. I’m carefully and
patiently putting together a sound world of my own, over what (if I live long
enough) will be a process of many years. Colin’s review, from which I learned a
lot about my music, can be found here:
Intentionally “not knowing” as I compose has, I suspect,
engendered some strange reactions to what I put on the page and how that gets
heard in performance. As such, I deeply
appreciated the time Colin took to really listen to the music I wrote between
1995 and 2009 as found on my CD. What he heard is surely “in there,” as one
might say, but what I hear and write down follows the advice of Buckminster
Fuller who opened his book Synergetics with the following, “Dare to be naïve,”
and I firmly believe in what I think he means by that: look and listen to
everything without pre-condition or expectation, making therefore every
experience “new.”
By the way, you can read all of Synergetics (wow) right
here:
Even the old, the “already understood,” thus becomes
material, and not in some overly-determined and theorized sense of a postmodern
de-coupling of the past from its historical context. What I compose, regardless of how one hears
it, comes from an intentionally “naïve” place, which I suppose will someday
allow a scholar to theorize what is meant by that. But whatever it is, I can
say at least this much: it has nothing to do with what might be regarded as a
“postmodern” appropriation of material, nor is it influenced by anything that
could be called “postmodern,” except perhaps for an unconscious desire on my
part to make sure that it isn’t. I truly
believe that period of academic scholarship will be seen (if it isn’t already)
as one of the laziest and most self-serving bodies of work ever. I had to read a lot of it while working on my
Ph.D. in American Studies back in the late 80s and early 90s and while, as
always, some brilliant work exists from that period, much of it now speaks to
how “dated” things become when critics place themselves rather than what they
study at the center of discourse.
Looking back, I’m surprised not just by how bad much of that writing is,
but how boring it is which, from my perspective at least, is even worse.
Well, enough of that. This post isn’t about composing
anyway. I instead want to reflect on what I wrote in 2013 that is part of the
scholarly side of what I do. And also about how what I feel about scholarly
pursuits has been challenged this past year because of what I’ve been asked to
write. And those challenges are, indeed, connected to what I’ve written here so
far, as will become clearer in what follows.
Writing in 2013 included some reviews, mostly of essays
being considered for journals, something I do often and enjoy. Those I can't
tell you about of course (all confidential) but there's one review I can: Rob Haskins's wonderful
book titled, simply, John Cage. I
read it immediately when it came out and then in much greater detail when I was
asked to review it for American Music.
Not only does Haskins present Cage's life and work in an imaginative (and
concise) fashion, he also points the reader to much of the currently available scholarship
on Cage for anyone who would like to study the subject further. He does so not only through the usual means
of a bibliography at the end but also by drawing attention to the scholarship within the
body of the text. In other words, he directly credits the work of Cage scholars
when he uses that information to tell Cage's story. Can't recommend it highly
enough. Here's one place you can buy it:
I wrote the preface for a soon-to-be-published
collection of writings by composer and theorist Thomas DeLio. This was a "labor of love" as they
say because I've been engaged with DeLio's work since the mid-1980s and I
regard him as one of the most important experimental composers of his
generation. It should be published sometime in 2014.
Another preface I wrote was for my recently reprinted monograph, Silencing the Sounded Self: John Cage and the American Experimental Tradition. Out of print for fifteen years, learning that it would finally be published as a paperback and e-book edition was one of the highlights (for me) of 2012. Writing the preface in 2013 was my first reflective task of the year, where I revisited the personal history that led to my becoming a scholar rather than a percussionist. I'd never addressed that in print before.
However, the most significant piece of writing I did last year connects with
the most significant event of my life in 2013, the subject of which will bring
my "2013 review" to an end: the death of my father, Terry Shultis.
My Dad suffered from Alzheimer's for many years (probably
more than ten) and finally succumbed to the disease this past May at the age of
77. I was there when he passed away and
it is still too sensitive a subject for me to write about, except to say how
impressed I was/am with hospice care. He died in a beautiful place, cared for
by the excellent staff at Relais Bonne Eau in Edwardsville, Illinois, and I'm
grateful to them for making my Dad's transition from this world a peaceful
one. The most immediate task after he died
was my writing his obituary, which can be read here:
But there was something else happening at the time that
requires a bit of backstory. In 2010, I was living in Taos, (Hee Sook was on
sabbatical and had a Wurlitzer residency there), commuting to UNM in
Albuquerque for what ended up being my last semester teaching. I got a call from
composer/percussionist Gustavo Aguilar asking if I would like to contribute to
a book he was putting together about percussion and percussionists. I was surprised
that he asked. I've not performed percussion professionally since 1994 (Verdi's
Requiem of all things) and I left the
percussion world without really having ever looked back since. In truth, I couldn't as it was too painful
not being able to play. Also, when I stopped playing I was not terribly happy
with the direction percussion as a profession was heading, in particular what was
happening in the professional organization to which I'd devoted much of my
young career, that being the Percussive Arts Society. I swore I would never
join again when I left PAS for good in 1996. The only percussion-related things I did after 1996 concerned my work as a scholar: in 2002 I read a paper about John Cage's
early percussion pieces as part of a presentation Scott Ney and the University
of New Mexico Percussion Ensemble put together (they gave an excellent
performance of Third Construction
using, as close as possible, original instruments) for a Percussive Arts
Society International Convention in 2002. I also was asked by Steven Schick to
take part in his Roots and Rhizomes conference (I participated in a discussion
with Julio Estrada, a dear friend and the composer of eolo'oolin for percussion ensemble) at the University of
California-San Diego in 2005. This was where I met Gustavo Aguilar who also was/is
close to Julio. I later gave Gustavo a real Teponaztli, actually made in Tepoztlan,
that Julio found for me when I visited him for the first time in 1987. But that's
another story for another time. The point is I didn't expect such a
request from Gustavo and certainly not for a book that had such an
extraordinary group of contributors. Why me?
Meanwhile, my nephew Arlo Shultis, an outstanding young
percussionist now a junior at the University of Michigan, was applying to
colleges and conservatories and I was offering assistance in whatever way
possible. This included taking him to auditions at Temple University (where we
saw Alan Abel's graduate masterclass) and Peabody Conservatory, where I tried
to hide out but got "caught" by Robert Van Sice during a break just
before Arlo's audition. It was beginning to seem, more and more, that my
percussive past could no longer be escaped!
One year later, another request: this time from Bill Sallak
to sit on a panel at that year's PASIC about "percussion
masterpieces," the transcript of which will also be part of the book
Gustavo and Kevin Lewis (his co-editor) have put together. My mentor at the
University of Illinois, Thomas Siwe, was being inducted into the PAS Hall of
Fame at that convention and I wanted to be there when that happened so I agreed to
participate. Only one problem: PAS had a new rule that all convention
participants must be members. I fought and fought to no avail, finally breaking
my vow and joining in order to attend. By then I'd begun writing the book
chapter requested by Gustavo the year before--what essentially ended up being a
memoir about my life as a percussionist, mostly about the composers I'd worked
with and the pieces I'd performed in the period between 1980 and 1996. As it
turned out, there were some moments in my life worth writing about and, I hope,
worth reading about. A lot of that was intimately attached to the working relationships
between my students and me during those years and I intended to dedicate the
chapter to them.
In 2012, I was asked be part of another PASIC, this time in
Austin, for a John Cage centennial celebration. With the help, again, of Scott
Ney and the UNM Percussion Ensemble, I put together a presentation that is now
one of my earlier blog entries, which can be found here:
In other words, I was becoming more and more involved with
percussion and, mostly, because there were percussionists out there who wanted
that to happen.
By the spring of 2013, the book deadline was approaching,
and I was rushing (as I always do) to finish the essay. Then my Dad took a bad
turn healthwise, had been in the hospital for weeks, and I decided to drop
everything and fly to Saint Louis. For who knows what reason, I brought my
computer with me and finished the essay on the plane, now with an ending that
included the important role my father played in my early life as a
percussionist. I've since added him (in memoriam) to the essay's dedication.
As you'll read in the obituary (that's why I included it
here) my father was himself an outstanding percussionist. It was something we
shared together and, as Tom Goldstein reminded me after Steven Schick's
phenomenal concert at the Miller Theater last night (more on that in a later
post), my Dad often joined me at percussion conventions and did so for many
years. Most of my percussionist friends
in the 1980s and 1990s knew my Dad pretty well. So I can imagine, looking back at that time with the safety
distance blessedly allows, that my Dad also lost something when I couldn't play
anymore and stopped being the percussionist I'm sure he would have wanted to be
had he been able to follow the path I took, the path to which he had led me. Now that I've lost him, those percussive
memories are among those I treasure most.
I've asked permission to include here
the end of my essay, ("Writing (at the end) of New Music"), which
will soon be available in this book:
"Unlike me, my father played percussion his whole life.
Even toward the end, when his illness required hospitalization and he could no
longer use sticks, my mother purchased a hand drum, and he played it instead.
After I stopped playing for good in 1994, I always called myself an
"ex-percussionist" and that's how I introduced myself to Janet Abel,
wife of renowned percussionist Alan Abel, when I joined their church in
Ardmore, Pennsylvania in 2006. She protested immediately, 'You can never be an
ex-percussionist. Once a drummer, always a drummer.' When my nephew graduated
from high school and was auditioning for universities, Temple was on his list,
and Alan Abel invited both of us to attend his graduate student masterclass.
Listening to one of his students play the snare drum excerpt that opens the
second movement of Bartók's Concerto for
Orchestra, I was astonished to hear, when Mr. Abel suggested to the student
that he move the thumb of his left hand, walking over to him and adjusting it a
mere fraction of an inch, the student play that excerpt perfectly—all due to
the slightest grip adjustment I've ever seen. At that moment, I had an
epiphany, like the proverbial scales falling from my eyes: perfection. My
desire for perfection—enormously frustrating to my students in my percussion
ensemble days, enormously frustrating to me when I was making recordings with
that ensemble, and probably the reason why all those hours of practice to
achieve it ended up causing my injury in the first place—that desire, now as a
composer of music with an intentional simplicity that insists that everything—sounds
and silences—be in exactly the right place, has never left me. In fact, if
anything, it is now more central to my musical self than ever. Hearing Alan
Abel teach his student the necessity of such perfection in orchestral
performance brought it all back to me. Janet Abel was right—my entire musical
sensibility is wrapped up in what I inherited from my father and what I learned
from him and everyone else I studied with. I'll be a percussionist until the
day I die. Just like Dad."
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One final note to end my summary of 2013:
My Dad always wanted to buy a Miata, you know that
two-seater sportscar made by Mazda. Being a practical man, he never did. Last
month, when my old 1997 Honda Accord started showing signs of trouble, my wife
Hee Sook Kim told me it was time to get the car I'd always wanted: a Mini
Cooper, British Racing Green with a white top. So on the last day of 2013 I took the
impractical route I'm sure my Dad would have approved, just as he approved my
impractical choice to become a percussionist: I bought the car!
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