Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.

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Tuesday, April 19, 2005
nonmusical influences

This may or may not be of interest to anyone, but I would consider the following nonmusical influences to have been important to my writing:
  • Sartre and other existentialist writers (because they all "think different" and maintained that there are no absolute truths)

  • James Joyce (I just like his writings, and wrote two works based on his poetry when I was younger)

  • Edward Hopper's paintings (they're expressive yet not obviously so)

  • Japanese "Mandara" paintings (influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism---I like the repetitive elements and the elegant structures)

  • Bridges, particularly in Manhattan (probably because of their expansiveness and elegance)

  • Architecture, most notably in Chicago (as with bridges, the structures generally contain repetitive elements and, particularly in Chicago, are very stark and innovative)

  • The writings of Richard Feynman (he didn't care who he pissed off so long as he was intellectually honest. Feynman was probably the most brilliant physicist of the 20th century and appreciated the beauty in nature, be it large-scale or subatomic)

  • S. Chandrasekhar (a great man I used to see at the U of Chicago during physics colloquia. He would study something obscure (like ellipsoids) for about a decade, publish the definitive book on it, and move on. He believed in getting into something as totally as possible; he wasn't interested in a subject unless he could explore it completely. I think that idea is something I follow in music; I want to explore something in as complete detail as possible)

  • Object-oriented design (I think of many of my musical ideas as objects that can be reused, manipulated, etc.)


Musical influences would include:
  • Bach

  • Glass, Reich, Riley, Young, Adams

  • Shostakovich

  • Schoenberg, Berg, Webern

  • Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden

  • Morton Feldman

  • Harry Partch

  • Copland

  • David Borden

  • Messiaen



I'll probably think of others after I post this, but it's a start.
posted by David Toub 10:43 AM


 


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