Interview with Kevin Patton
Leader of Electroacoustic Improv Ensemble
Sam and Drew: What is your background in music? What instruments do you play? What music do you listen to? What groups are you involved in?
Kevin Patton: I have two masters degrees, one in Jazz studies, and the other in composition and I am working on my PhD here at Brown. For years I worked as a freelance guitarist, performing almost nightly and in recording studios in Houston, Texas. I have performed all over the world.
SD: What inspired you to pursue a career in music? How did you find yourself in the field of electronic music?
KP: I had always been interested in expression and art. I find that the ability to shape what most people would noise into a powerful aesthetic experience is the ultimate challenge. It reminds me that there is a simplicity and beauty in the human ability to communicate, and nothing reveals that better then using unfamiliar materials.
SD: Related to the improv ensemble, what do you hope to accomplish this semester?
KP: I hope to establish a cross instrumental approach to personal music practice, based in improvisation but applicable to all kinds of performance and music creation. There is a mental space akin to ‘being in the zone’ that I want the performers to be able to access. It is my belief that music can be made with a rock and a stick—it is the human participant that creates the sympathetic bonds to the audience. Stripping the familiar away from the students in this course, allows us to focus on that core principle. After this is established, applying this approach to any musical performance will make it more effective.
SD: What is the next step for the members of this group? Is there another level that they are striving to get to?
KP: This group has already progressed very quickly. I hope to begin to move into smaller groups and really make each student have to rely on their own inspiration.
SD: What type of audience does this type of music target?
KP: Anyone interested in an uncommon musical experience.
SD: How will this genre of music progress and become more popular?
KP: This is a difficult question. I am not sure this music could ever become popular, per se. As new instruments are developed and new musicians are able to translate their personal experience into sound, this approach to making music will continue. But this approach and the sounding result, are (in my estimation) clearly outside popular music forms. This music resists commodification; it is long, sounds strange, avoids clearly referential sounds, is not particularly danceable, and may not be pleasurable to a great many people. I think this music will remain on the periphery of the popular music, but an important practice that will find its way into many modes of music production. I believe that the listening and performance skills that are developed in this approach are the fundamental skills for a 21st century music practice.
To the last point, I see this 21th century approach to be defined by the tools that are available to musicians today. Specific technical proficiency on an instrument or the development of traditional compositional expertise is not a prerequisite to the creation of effective music. With today’s computer based tools, musicians can simply use a mouse (or other interface) and trial and error, until a satisfactory result is obtained. This is why my approach to the development of musical proficiency—based in improvisation—is about learning how to listen for and generate a compelling human performance. By limiting the materials to non-referential, abstract sound, I am attempting to achieve a reduced listening approach. It is my belief that this pedagogical approach will create a stronger, more flexible notion of musicianship that will be able to adapt to the needs of contemporary musicians.
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3 comments:
This interview was very interesting for me to read. As the leader of the group, he had a clearly formulated mission for the group and had thought about what the group might do for the audience and society. His comment that "it is the human participant that creates the sympathetic bonds to the audience" seemed like a very ethnomusicological-type thing to say. I wonder these beliefs come across during rehearsals and whether the students also have the same motivations and goals as the leader.
I find it interesting that Kevin Patton sort of submits to the fact that this kind music will never become popular, at most remaining on the periphery of popular music, and the great thing is that to him, there is nothing wrong with that. His statement that “there is a simplicity and beauty in the human ability to communicate, and nothing reveals that better than using unfamiliar materials” was striking to me because it seemed to stress the driving force of this unique musical practice: novelty. The fact that this experience is so uncommon for common folk, including myself, I am interested in some of the samples I hope you will share when you give your presentation.
This transcript has a very writerly style -- did you actually conduct this interview out loud and in person, or did you do it over email? (I can't remember whether we discussed the latter as a possible option; it wasn't what I had in mind for this assignment, but it actually has a lot of advantages in terms of giving the interviewee time to formulate his/her thoughts). If you did it in person, I'd be curious to know whether you cleaned up Kevin's responses much to make them sound so formal and eloquent. Of course, it's also possible that he can talk this way because he has lots of experience with discussing these issues and his own musical/pedagogical goals.
In terms of actual content, I think this interview is really valuable because it goes a long way toward resolving an apparent paradox: why would someone so devoted to the idea of music-as-human-communication choose to work in a genre that so many people find intimidating, confusing, and quintessentially non-popular? Kevin really provides an excellent and complex answer to this question -- I hope you will consider discussing it in your presentation.
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