6. Butch MorrisConduction 11
Butch Morris’s work was so expansive. And he was so prolific. There’s almost an aleatoric or chance element to certain aspects of Butch Morris’s work, which is something that I find a kinship with in my work. My process is very aleatoric and I like this concept of rolling the dice because of the vast amount of possibilities that are allowed when you give that space to consider things that you may not have considered. And also, framing different ways of considering composition. Scoring things or notating things like graphic scores. Anthony Braxton’s new musical configurations, the ways in which he uses graphic elements. I think that’s such a that’s such a lovely way to look at advancing work. The way that Butch Morris conducted these works of his is incredibly thoughtful. It’s an advanced way of thinking which is really important. It is truly the avant-garde.
With the Candyman score, there were a limited amount of players that I brought into the fold because I performed most of the score myself, but the work that I did in the studio sessions with Hildur Guðnadóttir, or with Matthew Morandi, was directing them in ways in which I would maybe give them a motif or play a progression on piano and have them follow that and then do these different rounds of recordings in which I would record them doing the same sort of figures in slightly different ways. And then going back to those recordings and doing arrangements after the fact. I’m garbage at notation. I’m a very slow reader of music. I learned at a very early age that it was something that I wasn’t as interested in for myself, so I found different ways in which to engage and find my own practice and cultivate my own techniques to produce the work. And so I think, yeah, there is maybe a slight relationship to Butch Morris in that way. But only slightly.
