Identity is the liminal space between self-reflection and outward expression. In this sense, identity is an emergent process of discovery and communication. Within this space, we experience the range of human emotions as we reveal hidden parts of our identity to others as well as ourselves.
In this piece, I aim to sonically represent this emergent process by focusing on my identity as a gay man. the emergent character of Identity began as improvised musical frameworks with violinist John Heffernan. The aim of these improvisation sessions was to bring forth emotional, musical expression revolving around times we felt confronted with our own sexuality, and found the strength to communicate our identities outwardly. These improvised musical gestures were audio-recorded, allowing natural expression to act as source material for the electronic and acoustic sections of the work. In this sense, the musical gestures and overall structure of the piece not only represent deep emotions revolving around the discovery of sexuality. Importantly, these gestures were intentionally discovered through an emergent process akin to navigating the internal and external worlds that constitute identity.
I began this piece with an intention to confront my own insecurities with my sexuality. Even as an out, gay, married man with a network of support and love, I still find myself in dark places when I realize how stigmatized my identity is in many parts of the world. The process of improvising music and sonically documenting these difficult spaces has given me tools to navigate darkness with a renewed sense of confidence and belief in myself. Now, as a fixed musical object, my intention is that the emergent character of Identity will open space for listeners and performers to recognize their own insecurities, find the strength and patience to communicate their identities outwardly, and ultimately recognize that our identities unfold before us all in remarkably similar ways-in an often uncomfortable, yet beautiful manner.
This piece premiered on a collaborative concert with a group of queer composers and musicians Kelley Sheehan, Devin Clara Fanslow, John Heffernan, Alex Liedtke, and Alex Hecker, and Jordan Thomas. This concert involved short fixed-electronic pieces you can listen to here.
This piece was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Neguanee Music Institute
In this piece, I aim to sonically represent this emergent process by focusing on my identity as a gay man. the emergent character of Identity began as improvised musical frameworks with violinist John Heffernan. The aim of these improvisation sessions was to bring forth emotional, musical expression revolving around times we felt confronted with our own sexuality, and found the strength to communicate our identities outwardly. These improvised musical gestures were audio-recorded, allowing natural expression to act as source material for the electronic and acoustic sections of the work. In this sense, the musical gestures and overall structure of the piece not only represent deep emotions revolving around the discovery of sexuality. Importantly, these gestures were intentionally discovered through an emergent process akin to navigating the internal and external worlds that constitute identity.
I began this piece with an intention to confront my own insecurities with my sexuality. Even as an out, gay, married man with a network of support and love, I still find myself in dark places when I realize how stigmatized my identity is in many parts of the world. The process of improvising music and sonically documenting these difficult spaces has given me tools to navigate darkness with a renewed sense of confidence and belief in myself. Now, as a fixed musical object, my intention is that the emergent character of Identity will open space for listeners and performers to recognize their own insecurities, find the strength and patience to communicate their identities outwardly, and ultimately recognize that our identities unfold before us all in remarkably similar ways-in an often uncomfortable, yet beautiful manner.
This piece premiered on a collaborative concert with a group of queer composers and musicians Kelley Sheehan, Devin Clara Fanslow, John Heffernan, Alex Liedtke, and Alex Hecker, and Jordan Thomas. This concert involved short fixed-electronic pieces you can listen to here.
This piece was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Neguanee Music Institute
Journal of the Creation through Improvisation:
Session 1-2.15.19
Our first session was just over an hour. For me it began in a total frenzy, I had planned to take a 15 minute nap and have 30mins to set up for out meeting. I accidently slept through my alarm, and was awakened by John trying to buzz in to the apartment. Needless to say, I was drowsy and slightly unprepared.
In any case, we started by talking about improvisation more broadly. John has expressed not feeling comfortable with improvisation, specifically it is not a way he is trained to engage musically. I quickly steered the session to the realm of Nachmanovitch, one in which improvisation is a natural expression, valid in all accounts, and exists within the confines of our own experiences. We began with very open concepts for improvisation to try and discover our natural boundaries and comfort levels. At first it was clear that, despite John’s discomfort, he had a lot of musical ideas and a lot to say. After two short improvisations, John realized he was taking up a lot of musical space and not allowing a conversation to happen between the two of us. At this point, I expressed my discomfort in singing. I was not being very forthright in my musicking because of my own hold ups. Different than John, I was not anxious about the openness of improvisation, moreso I was nervous about my lack of confidence in my ability to express myself through my voice.
As we started working together, we discovered some interesting musical ideas. We realized, with joy, how this music was so heavily rooted in our own western musical, and tonal tradition. We tired opening the palate by only making unconventional sounds with our instruments. This created rhythmic textures and opened our musical imaginations.
We ended the session talking about our childhoods, and how we learned about our sexuality, and when we felt comfortable expressing it to others. The really energizing and emotional component of this conversation was a realization that we both had this palpable yet seemingly indescribable period where we recognized the existence of “the close,” and made a choice to be in it. This was well into puberty, because we recognized our own sexual cues, but was also in a place of discomfort. This is the emotional space I hope to explore at our next session. I hope to dive deeper into the questions we were asking at the time “I don’t want to be different (gay)? Why does my homosexuality have to matter so much?”
It is still unclear how this will lead to musical ideas, but we will see!
Interim 3.3.19
John and I have had a difficult time scheduling a meeting. We have had to reschedule a few planned meetings because different paid gigs came up for one or both of us. This really underlines the problems in how art is funded and valued in our culture. It’s not that I always want enough money to do whatever the hell I want, that type of unmitigated power is unhealthy and ultimately damages the cultural fabric. But I would like a little support in the work I am doing.
In this sense, the project with John is bleeding into all of my other artistic work, and frankly most of the ways I engage with people while I’m trying to find a job that pays more and is related to my interests (ironically, in terms of this project, one of the only places I have confidence and a sense of purpose is in my sexuality and sexual engagements). I feel a sense of unease bleeding into the work I pursue, and an even greater sense that the way I work (the things I value and my process) are not valid or respected.
This has translated to a lot of anxiety surrounding this work. For a normal commission, I would already have a plan, sketches, melodic and harmonic ideas, maybe text, or some salient inspiration for the final work. By choosing to pursue a nebulous concept of improvisation and self-discovery, this work needs to unfold overtime with John. I keep getting in my head about how the piece will “turn out” and if it will be good, or “valid” (whatever that means).
Ultimately, I think this uncertainty is an important emotional state in terms of discovering this piece. It is similar to feelings I had while recognizing my sexuality. Being afraid of finality, or claiming something is one way forever-recognizing that my natural tendencies are not respected, valued, or understood by my peers-not knowing how to respond to the realization while maintaining integrity and strength- feeling anxiety overload my thoughts to the point of not even knowing how to proceed.
So now, in spite of schedule changes, and in light of my anxiety, I am working on trusting my musical instincts, trusting in John’s and trusting that together we can sound our inner-experiences together, and discover this piece.
Session 2- 3.8
This session was full of ideas. It felt as though we both had a lot of thoughts to express, and finally had the opportunity to express them. We started not knowing exactly how to improvise, so John taught me a melodic idea from a piece he was rehearsing with the Orchestra earlier that day. During the improvisation, he kept playing this sound that required him to jump quickly between the A and E strings. This jump cause a sort of ‘mistake’ sound on the E string-it almost sounded like a vocal registral shift-like the type that happens when going through puberty. We quickly realized a connection between that sound and the period when we were discovering our sexuality. We decided to improvise on this idea of registral shifts in the voice and violin. We started with a melodic idea I have been carrying for nearly 10 years. This developed into a beautiful soundscape, where we traded registers of from high to low, until we were both creating the same note. This led to a beautiful space where I felt my voice could really open up into more open vowels. We decided to devise a structure-where John starts really high on the instrument, and through his ‘voice change’ meets my vocalizing in lower registers. From here, my voice became symbolic of coming-out, and burst forth once the violin met my vocal register.
We ended talking about some plans and ideas for the future of this project and working together.
Catching Up- 4.24.19
John and I stopped meeting for about a month. I needed time to organize all of my thoughts, begin exploring the recorded sounds we had created, and start transcribing and experimenting with electronic soundscapes. This lead to several melodic ideas I transcribed, and a really interesting electronic idea that stemmed from the recordings I had transcribed. All of these recordings stemmed from improvisations centered around the structure of the “changing voice” while recognizing our own sexuality as young men.
The difficulty then became fitting everything together. I had some compelling sound ideas that loosely fit together in arbitrary ways. But for this piece, I knew an arbitrary way forward would not show reverence to the musical ideas and their origin. I decided to try and find a musical idea a more “traditional” method (at least for me), by using important numbers to create a sequence. I wrote down various ages, and memories associated with those ages. These memories are specific to times I recognized my own sexuality and/or recognized how it made me different from others:
5-6-wearing dresses, playing princess Leia during Star Wars
8- being in the hot tub on vacation, and three men (probably 17/18yrs old) walking in and sitting with me
10- being in the bathtub and developing an erection, and not knowing what the HELL to do!?
13- being on vacation and in the gym locker room in a communal shower, and noticing my body change
13-Finally asking what the word gay means after years of being bullied
13-Having my first orgasm (fucking terrifying)
14-Hanging with the guy friend’s, and some of them started this weird dance party in the basement. I was on sitting on the floor and one of them starting twerking in my face.
16-Have sex with Mandy, and it not feeling exactly “right’
17- first time kissing a boy
17-first sexual encounter with men
18-first time being rimmed
19-anal sex with men
20-first boyfriend
23-start exploring my own sexual kinks, opening my body and releasing shame
26-married my husband
I had a melodic idea stuck in my head for months I decided to overlay with this number system (5, 6,8,10,13,13,13,14,16,17,17,18,19,20,23,26). I made all of these ages/numbers correspond to 8th notes. Slowly, the melodic idea unfolding, adding more an more eighth notes to each iteration, until the full melodic idea was able to be presented.
So along with this idea, I had a rough electronic soundscape, and four melodic transcriptions from improvisations. I qualitatively assessed each of these 6 ideas to try and find a natural narrative, similarities, and contrasts between them. I found that the four transcriptions fell into two A and B sections with two melodic ideas fitting in each section. In both sections, there was a clear narrative arc, where one melodic idea started very isolated and timid and grew into the next, which had more identity and confidence.
In light of this A B material, it made sense to conceptualize the work in some sort of classical form. Rondo was an idea, and having the C section be the electronic counter part. This idea is interesting, but lacks a compelling narrative in terms of how the electronics are used as a character in the arc of the work. I tossed around the idea of a sonata. The main difference in this sonata will be that the Exposition will present recorded material and electronics that outline the A and B sections discovered during improvisations. The Development, as an exploration of these themes will slowly include acoustic singing and violin. Finally, the Recapitulation will present both sections as acoustic playing and singing. This provides a narrative arc, where the electronics metaphorically represent an internal world, that slowly through development and exploration, become broadcast outward. This is ultimately the coming out narrative. Finally, I still want to include the melodic idea using the age/numbers because it signifies an important aspect in coming out-that I was/am the last person to whom I a came out. I am/was the last person to accept myself and really admit my own sexuality. This is so important, especially in a world where people say, “it’s 2019, same-sex marriage is legalized, what is the big deal?” There is a lasting cultural stigma against homosexuality that affects people in latent and easily missed ways. Having recognition and cultural space with which to express oneself is key, and having made progress with things like same-sex marriage is so important. But this is not the end.
Our first session was just over an hour. For me it began in a total frenzy, I had planned to take a 15 minute nap and have 30mins to set up for out meeting. I accidently slept through my alarm, and was awakened by John trying to buzz in to the apartment. Needless to say, I was drowsy and slightly unprepared.
In any case, we started by talking about improvisation more broadly. John has expressed not feeling comfortable with improvisation, specifically it is not a way he is trained to engage musically. I quickly steered the session to the realm of Nachmanovitch, one in which improvisation is a natural expression, valid in all accounts, and exists within the confines of our own experiences. We began with very open concepts for improvisation to try and discover our natural boundaries and comfort levels. At first it was clear that, despite John’s discomfort, he had a lot of musical ideas and a lot to say. After two short improvisations, John realized he was taking up a lot of musical space and not allowing a conversation to happen between the two of us. At this point, I expressed my discomfort in singing. I was not being very forthright in my musicking because of my own hold ups. Different than John, I was not anxious about the openness of improvisation, moreso I was nervous about my lack of confidence in my ability to express myself through my voice.
As we started working together, we discovered some interesting musical ideas. We realized, with joy, how this music was so heavily rooted in our own western musical, and tonal tradition. We tired opening the palate by only making unconventional sounds with our instruments. This created rhythmic textures and opened our musical imaginations.
We ended the session talking about our childhoods, and how we learned about our sexuality, and when we felt comfortable expressing it to others. The really energizing and emotional component of this conversation was a realization that we both had this palpable yet seemingly indescribable period where we recognized the existence of “the close,” and made a choice to be in it. This was well into puberty, because we recognized our own sexual cues, but was also in a place of discomfort. This is the emotional space I hope to explore at our next session. I hope to dive deeper into the questions we were asking at the time “I don’t want to be different (gay)? Why does my homosexuality have to matter so much?”
It is still unclear how this will lead to musical ideas, but we will see!
Interim 3.3.19
John and I have had a difficult time scheduling a meeting. We have had to reschedule a few planned meetings because different paid gigs came up for one or both of us. This really underlines the problems in how art is funded and valued in our culture. It’s not that I always want enough money to do whatever the hell I want, that type of unmitigated power is unhealthy and ultimately damages the cultural fabric. But I would like a little support in the work I am doing.
In this sense, the project with John is bleeding into all of my other artistic work, and frankly most of the ways I engage with people while I’m trying to find a job that pays more and is related to my interests (ironically, in terms of this project, one of the only places I have confidence and a sense of purpose is in my sexuality and sexual engagements). I feel a sense of unease bleeding into the work I pursue, and an even greater sense that the way I work (the things I value and my process) are not valid or respected.
This has translated to a lot of anxiety surrounding this work. For a normal commission, I would already have a plan, sketches, melodic and harmonic ideas, maybe text, or some salient inspiration for the final work. By choosing to pursue a nebulous concept of improvisation and self-discovery, this work needs to unfold overtime with John. I keep getting in my head about how the piece will “turn out” and if it will be good, or “valid” (whatever that means).
Ultimately, I think this uncertainty is an important emotional state in terms of discovering this piece. It is similar to feelings I had while recognizing my sexuality. Being afraid of finality, or claiming something is one way forever-recognizing that my natural tendencies are not respected, valued, or understood by my peers-not knowing how to respond to the realization while maintaining integrity and strength- feeling anxiety overload my thoughts to the point of not even knowing how to proceed.
So now, in spite of schedule changes, and in light of my anxiety, I am working on trusting my musical instincts, trusting in John’s and trusting that together we can sound our inner-experiences together, and discover this piece.
Session 2- 3.8
This session was full of ideas. It felt as though we both had a lot of thoughts to express, and finally had the opportunity to express them. We started not knowing exactly how to improvise, so John taught me a melodic idea from a piece he was rehearsing with the Orchestra earlier that day. During the improvisation, he kept playing this sound that required him to jump quickly between the A and E strings. This jump cause a sort of ‘mistake’ sound on the E string-it almost sounded like a vocal registral shift-like the type that happens when going through puberty. We quickly realized a connection between that sound and the period when we were discovering our sexuality. We decided to improvise on this idea of registral shifts in the voice and violin. We started with a melodic idea I have been carrying for nearly 10 years. This developed into a beautiful soundscape, where we traded registers of from high to low, until we were both creating the same note. This led to a beautiful space where I felt my voice could really open up into more open vowels. We decided to devise a structure-where John starts really high on the instrument, and through his ‘voice change’ meets my vocalizing in lower registers. From here, my voice became symbolic of coming-out, and burst forth once the violin met my vocal register.
We ended talking about some plans and ideas for the future of this project and working together.
Catching Up- 4.24.19
John and I stopped meeting for about a month. I needed time to organize all of my thoughts, begin exploring the recorded sounds we had created, and start transcribing and experimenting with electronic soundscapes. This lead to several melodic ideas I transcribed, and a really interesting electronic idea that stemmed from the recordings I had transcribed. All of these recordings stemmed from improvisations centered around the structure of the “changing voice” while recognizing our own sexuality as young men.
The difficulty then became fitting everything together. I had some compelling sound ideas that loosely fit together in arbitrary ways. But for this piece, I knew an arbitrary way forward would not show reverence to the musical ideas and their origin. I decided to try and find a musical idea a more “traditional” method (at least for me), by using important numbers to create a sequence. I wrote down various ages, and memories associated with those ages. These memories are specific to times I recognized my own sexuality and/or recognized how it made me different from others:
5-6-wearing dresses, playing princess Leia during Star Wars
8- being in the hot tub on vacation, and three men (probably 17/18yrs old) walking in and sitting with me
10- being in the bathtub and developing an erection, and not knowing what the HELL to do!?
13- being on vacation and in the gym locker room in a communal shower, and noticing my body change
13-Finally asking what the word gay means after years of being bullied
13-Having my first orgasm (fucking terrifying)
14-Hanging with the guy friend’s, and some of them started this weird dance party in the basement. I was on sitting on the floor and one of them starting twerking in my face.
16-Have sex with Mandy, and it not feeling exactly “right’
17- first time kissing a boy
17-first sexual encounter with men
18-first time being rimmed
19-anal sex with men
20-first boyfriend
23-start exploring my own sexual kinks, opening my body and releasing shame
26-married my husband
I had a melodic idea stuck in my head for months I decided to overlay with this number system (5, 6,8,10,13,13,13,14,16,17,17,18,19,20,23,26). I made all of these ages/numbers correspond to 8th notes. Slowly, the melodic idea unfolding, adding more an more eighth notes to each iteration, until the full melodic idea was able to be presented.
So along with this idea, I had a rough electronic soundscape, and four melodic transcriptions from improvisations. I qualitatively assessed each of these 6 ideas to try and find a natural narrative, similarities, and contrasts between them. I found that the four transcriptions fell into two A and B sections with two melodic ideas fitting in each section. In both sections, there was a clear narrative arc, where one melodic idea started very isolated and timid and grew into the next, which had more identity and confidence.
In light of this A B material, it made sense to conceptualize the work in some sort of classical form. Rondo was an idea, and having the C section be the electronic counter part. This idea is interesting, but lacks a compelling narrative in terms of how the electronics are used as a character in the arc of the work. I tossed around the idea of a sonata. The main difference in this sonata will be that the Exposition will present recorded material and electronics that outline the A and B sections discovered during improvisations. The Development, as an exploration of these themes will slowly include acoustic singing and violin. Finally, the Recapitulation will present both sections as acoustic playing and singing. This provides a narrative arc, where the electronics metaphorically represent an internal world, that slowly through development and exploration, become broadcast outward. This is ultimately the coming out narrative. Finally, I still want to include the melodic idea using the age/numbers because it signifies an important aspect in coming out-that I was/am the last person to whom I a came out. I am/was the last person to accept myself and really admit my own sexuality. This is so important, especially in a world where people say, “it’s 2019, same-sex marriage is legalized, what is the big deal?” There is a lasting cultural stigma against homosexuality that affects people in latent and easily missed ways. Having recognition and cultural space with which to express oneself is key, and having made progress with things like same-sex marriage is so important. But this is not the end.