violin

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Homecoming

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Note: For the next 10 days, I will be at the Sound/Word composer residency in Syros, Greece. This was originally posted on the communal residency blog, where my colleagues and I will be posting updates throughout our time here. 

I feel like I'm always searching for home, in almost every sense of the word.

I've been on the road a lot in the past few years. Lived out of a suitcase while on tour for most of 2015. Moved my place of residence several times. Packed up, sold things, stored things, started over, bought, packed, sold, started over again.

Like most biracial, 2nd generation American kids with immigrant parents, I'm never sure how to answer the question "where are you from?" Should I say the west side of Los Angeles, where I live? Long Beach and Orange County, where I grew up? Maybe Hawaii, where I was born. Or Cambodia, where my dad was born. Greece, where my mom was born?

Now that I am finally in Greece, I am too embarrassed to speak Greek, for fear that my accent is too American, that I can't remember the right words, or that my grammar is unintelligible. I overhear people talking about me, staring at me, whispering to one another about my hair and assuming I cannot understand. I also experience comforting familiarity. It is a complicated homecoming.

The search for home also takes place within my body. I have a history of dissociating as a coping mechanism. Evicting parts of myself from "me" in order to function smoother on the surface, resulting in sometimes-homeless brain, homeless body.

So what, where, who is home? I am artistically, intellectually, emotionally, and physically invested in these answers.

 

Incipient Project Proposal

During my residency in Syros, I plan to continue a series of musical poetry pieces investigating home.

Here is an example: 

As in the above piece, I will be weaving spoken word with layers of music and field recordings, culminating in a continuous or semi-continuous concept album that uses only the instruments and tools I have here: violin, H4N Zoom field recorder, Apogee portable mic, Oxygen 25-keyboard controller, Akai mini controller, and anything sourced from the island or my fellow composer participants. I foresee mainly using the first three items on that list. I will be writing all the spoken text/poetry myself, though I haven't decided if I will stick to my own recorded voice or include others, particularly when it comes to Greek-speaking portions. I think it is too early to make an assertion either way, as the content and development of the project will likely reveal a clearer direction.

I have many more thoughts and ideas but will save them for later.

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From the Trenches

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Dear everyone reading this: 

I am currently writing this post from the trenches. That is, I am deep in the middle of a composition that I’m having a really hard time with. 

I don’t communicate from the trenches very often. Sure, I have gotten better about sharing my struggles, but I tend to write about them in retrospect. After I have already finished the piece or “overcome” the hard thing. When I’ve supposedly reached a wise and better place from which to tell a neat story. You'll hear that I was once vulnerable but do not hear when I am still actively vulnerable. 

Today, I feel scattered. I am overwhelmed. I have notes spread out in more places than I can count, and not enough time to collect, assess, notate, and curate them all in an organizationally rigorous fashion. I have digital notes (typed in Evernote), handwritten notes (in my Moleskin journal), audio snippets (on my Zoom recorder), more audio snippets (in Garage Band), handwritten music (on staff paper), a drawing of caterpillars climbing a tower (also in my journal), and one hellish-looking Sibelius project containing a multitude of independent ideas separated by empty measures. Furthermore, instead of reviewing, refining, and committing to my ideas, I feel a desperate urge to come up with just one more, for certainly my last idea will be the idea to end all ideas, and it will be so beautiful and perfect that I can scrap all of the previous nuggets and finally focus on this clear path, right? 

For someone who thrives on structure, regularity, organization, knowing where everything exists and how to access it, this point in any given composition is a nightmare. 

I don’t normally speak from the trenches, because whenever I am here, I am not sure how I will escape, if it will be graceful, even if my current ideas will survive the inevitable developments. I extol the virtues of “sharing one’s work” and “process over product” (hell, the name of my blog is Process Report), but these things are easier to contemplate than do. 

But today, I will share this. The piece I’m writing is a duo for cello and violin, and it is inspired by an illustrated book called Hope for the Flowers, by Trina Paulus. It is allegorical tale about two caterpillars that set forth on a journey to the top of a caterpillar pillar, unsure of what lies at the top. Thousands of other caterpillars concurrently pursue this journey, not a single one certain of the destination. Suffice to say, the tale has always been meaningful to me. But as I type these words at this very moment, I wonder if Hope for the Flowers will even make it to the final iteration of my composition. If it doesn't, will I look back on this naive blog entry and judge myself for changing my mind, feeling silly for having introduced the story so lovingly to you in the first place? 

In the past, the answer certainly would have been yes, but with practice, I hope in the present and future, it will be no.

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Process Report: Monolith

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I've decided to start blogging more about my artistic process, for anyone interested (okay, mainly for me). Without further ado...

While I was finishing up the Honeymoon Tour with Ariana Grande, I started working on several exciting new projects.

The first is a piece called “Monolith,” which will be part of the score for Mono, an experimental film created by UK filmmaker/artist Sangam Sharma. The film, which explores monolithic architecture, drone music, Old Norse/Celtic mythology, and the circular perception of time, has several contributing composers onboard; I have been asked to compose for the final three sections before the Epilogue. It features gorgeous but nearly-static long shots, thus it’s pretty easy to miss the subtle shifts of things like clouds moving and light changing unless you pay close attention. Sangam intentionally lingers on her images past the average person’s comfort zone, as she believes in letting an object reveal its own story. As the composer, I’ve also had to practice letting each rock formation, smoke stack, and lake reveal itself to me at its own pace, then create music that complements not only the images but the goal of the film itself.

I’m not finished yet, but this is what my process has been like so far:

1) Receive script and picture. Watch the film excerpt, following along with the script. Take preliminary timing and idea notes. Where are the blackouts and transitions? When do the new titles show up on the screen? When do the voiceovers cut out? Are there any interesting phrases or verbal articulations I’d like to highlight or give more space to? This is mostly straightforward busy work; a good task to do while hanging out in the dressing room before my show.

2) List initial musical ideas. I want this score to consist entirely of string sounds, including several extended techniques and gradual microtonal shifts. The filmmaker and I have talked about revolving around a single drone throughout the piece. I love this idea: mono, monoliths, circular time, lingering shots...this is what the film is about, after all. 

3) I spend a few days recording and building up a library of violin sounds that I can draw upon and piece into the score later. For example: a bunch of long notes in various registers and dynamics, marcato single-tone pulses in eighth notes and quarter notes, harmonics on various strings and tones, drones played with slow and wide quarter-tone vibrato (with variations for both quarter-tone above and quarter-tone below the established drone note, Eb). 

4) Label and re-label my new violin loop library a million times, because I can’t stop obsessing over which way of labeling is the best-looking and clearest to understand. 

5) Drag a few of the simple drones into the Logic session I’ve started. Watch the film a couple more times while improvising off the drone with my violin. This is completely off the record; I just want to experiment with various combinations and potentialities. 

6) Get annoyed at a few lingering inconsistencies in my labeling. Re-label and re-index the loops yet again. Organizational stuff seriously fucks with me, and I sometimes I can’t move on until things (that don’t really matter) are perfect. Just being honest here.

7) Now that I've finally calmed down enough to move on, I go ahead and experiment with various combinations of my pre-recorded sounds. I always go back to the drone. Sangam envisions the Eb drone as a steadfast fixture throughout the three sections of my piece, but I want to also make sure each chapter is completely distinct, as her static shot drastically changes from section to section. There’s not a whole lot of harmonic variation I can introduce, because we want to keep this very minimal; excessive, fancy modulations or departures from Eb would take away from the film and other contributing music. I brainstorm other ways the images are speaking to me and hypothesize ways to evoke that. For example, the middle section features a shot of concrete smokestacks puffing out smoke. In my mind, the smoke symbolizes decay; each white puff starts out as a full cloud but gradually disperses into the sky, losing its form. In homage to the glassy, kinetic, decaying smoke, I write in my notebook to feature harmonics and descending glissandi here in juxtaposition with the fixed concrete smokestack (which in my mind is the relentless Eb drone). By the way, I’ve also made the decision to replace the continuous Eb drone with accented Eb quarter note marteles in this middle section; everything still very much screams E-FLAT E-FLAT E-FLAT, but the persistent re-articulations of the same note sound more dogged and ruthless. This is more in line with what I want from the shot, which essentially depicts a factory. I haven’t told Sangam this yet, but hopefully she likes the result!

8) We have a day off (from tour), so I have a quiet day to record. I tackle the recording tasks I’ve planned in advance, then accidentally come up with a new idea. I record a rough version of this idea and love where it’s going. I leave it in the session to ponder and refine later.

9) Another show day, which means another “editing/create silently in my head/make a detailed list of recording tasks for later” day. This method of batch recording and batch editing has been a good way to work on tour, since show days have a lot of backstage activity and aren’t the most conducive to recording or heavy violin/composition work. Plus, arenas are often cold, and I can’t create, play violin, or even move my body in a good mood when I’m cold. May not seem like a big deal, but physical warmth is a crucial factor in my mood and functionality. By the way, I end up reviewing the new spontaneous idea and decide that it is indeed awesome. Fortissimo string power chords, you have made the cut. I tweak a few details, decide to add viola to the score for more body, and come up with my next plan of action.

10) Recording day. My tourmate, Kiara, is lending me her viola, but I have to give it back that day so she can practice. This works nicely for me, as it motivates me to be efficient with my time. I record viola and more violin things for a couple hours, which of course sparks new ideas and changes once again. It’s our last day off on tour, in our very last city (El Paso), and I’m glad that I find time that day to not only work on my score but also walk to the mall with my best tour friends (AKA the Honeymoon Strings). The three of us have fun trying on silly Halloween accessories, helping Kiara with her boyfriend’s extensive birthday gift, watching Adrienne buy out the Dollar Tree (she swears she really needed that 10-pack of glow in the dark fangs), and assembling a little gift to give Ari before the last show. Side note: I also buy birthday cake flavored gum, which is so accurate it’s awful.

11) On the last show day and then my first day back home, I spend a few hours reviewing and refining the score. It’s far from over, but I can feel it coming together. The bad news is that I’m going to have to re-record a lot of the parts for greater clarity and confidence. Now that I know how long I want certain drones and held notes to last, I want to re-record them in full takes rather than looping shorter segments together and doing a ton of automation magic. I’ll also have to refine a lot of things that currently have improvisation as a placeholder. Editing is not my strong suit, so when I have to record myself, it’s more efficient and natural-sounding for me to do long takes rather than studio heroics at this point. I also need to re-do rhythmic sections, because I know I can do better. Perfectionism is a slippery slope, though, so I have to be mindful of when enough is enough.

Onto more work now! 

I promise my next post will be shorter. 

-Xanthe

PS: If you're interested in hearing more about works like this, you may consider checking out and supporting my music on Patreon!