A History of Musicianship (part 1)

Oh hi blogosphere, long time no see.

Probably you're reading this via a link on my Facebook page, in which case it's redundant to tell you I've composed and a score to a production of Titus Andronicus, and I've played it as a live accompaniment to the production four times now (with two more performances to go in this iteration of the production). But I'm taking a moment to frame that anyway, because that's what I'm writing about.

After tonight's show, I had multiple people come up to me and say something to the effect of "the music was great, I couldn't have conceived of the production without it" which means a lot to me, because the majority of the work that happened in constructing the show (which if you don't know, used a lot of devised theater techniques in the tradition of Lecoq, which is this French movement theater practice) took place before I was involved, and most of my compositions are a direct response to the work I encountered when I entered rehearsals.

Not all of it, if I remember correctly some percussion motifs were in place, and one of the central themes I wrote after I knew the production was looking for a music director. In fact, although I was familiar with the major details (the hands getting cut off, the people being baked into pies, etc) I'd never fully encountered Titus as a text until I saw a production last summer. When I saw the director post on Facebook that he was looking for someone to do music, my mind began whirring with all the potential dissonant and angular themes that would go along with a play about madness, dissonance and angularity being two themes I take a lot of inspiration from in my composing, I put my courage to it's sticking place, and responded "yes, me, I want to do it".

And now about a month later, here I am!

It's arguably the best work I've done as a musician (or at least the work I'm proudest of) but then when I think that, I think back on my whole history as a musician, and I want to write a blog post about it, so here we go.

I come from a pretty musical family, my father is a very accomplished classical pianist from when he was younger, my older brother was a flautist and a very gifted singer, my maternal uncle played guitar and sang in country bands all across the South, and for much of my life I felt like I had the potential for that same gift, I just never knew where or how to express it. The piano never spoke to me directly (it still doesn't, although someday I'd like to become proficient at it), and when the opportunity arose to learn a band or orchestral instrument in elementary school, I kind of shrugged. My parents bought a damaged classical guitar for me from a garage sale when I was in middle school, I took some lessons, but it never stayed in tune and it was hard for me to play at the time, so I didn't stick with it.

But at the same time, I knew music lived inside me. At one point, I thought I'd learn the sitar (which I'd still really like to do someday, it's such a beautiful instrument). I remember my mom describing the role my father's piano playing played in their courtship and thinking "ok so yeah to get a girl I should really learn an instrument". I vividly remember this one dream I had about an other worldly spherical lute, like a combination of a stringed instrument and a globe that didn't exist in real life, but in that dream I could play it proficiently. I've never told anyone about that before.

When I was in high school, my Mom bought me a Fender Stratocaster. Again, it didn't stick like it could have, and it gathered dust in my room. Around this time though, I was becoming closer to the burn out/musician crowd at my high school, to be fair not all of them were burn outs, and for a while I was the singer in my friend's goofy metal band, which we called The Devil's Agents.

I was deeply depressed about being stuck in high school (and being too awkward to get a girlfriend, and various other things), and I think that combined with the other members getting into other stuff, along with my penchant to turn everything into satire (even then I was a natural comedian/clown) which I don't think they were crazy about, lead to the band breaking up without ever officially breaking up.

That following summer between junior and senior year, several things happened. I started playing Guitar Hero, a lot. Like, I got really good at Guitar Hero. I could play all the songs on expert. I loaned my Stratocaster to my dear burnout friend Jason, and he was going to get it set up and give it back to me. He may have pawned it. He may have taken it to get set up, but then never picked it up. I'll never know. He died of a heroin overdose several months later.

Needless to say, what was already a state of depression deepened. I wrote a lot of poetry. Most of that was bad, some of it was passable. I asked for another electric guitar, my family, god bless 'em, bought me one, that I still own and play when I go home to Boston.

I'd realized at some point, "well shit, if I spent this much time learning the guitar as I have getting good at this guitar based video game, I'd probably be like, good at real guitar", so that's what I did. That year for Christmas I asked for some recording equipment, and I started recording weird ambient songs inspired by all the avant garde/electric Miles Davis and Pink Floyd I was listening to (honestly it was mostly Pink Floyd, now that I've been playing for ten years I can actually cite Miles as an influence but back then it was more an inspiration than anything you'd pick out in my music).

Jason also used to talk about how awesome it would be if we could be in a band together, we talked a lot about starting a technical death metal band (did I mention at the time I was also into technical death metal? I was).

But he died before we could do any of that.

There's more to this story, but it's late and I'm tired, so I'm going to publish this and call it Part 1 of my ten year history with the guitar (amongst other things), tune in next time for part 2 of however many parts it takes for me to be satisfied!

Theatricaling

Oh my... so! Let's blog some shit! Yeah!

What have I been doing? Uncle Vanya, that's what, five times a week for the past four weeks, that's how much. After tonight's show, a young guy introduced himself to me, and complimenting my guitar playing, asked "so how is doing this show for you? Stressful?" and I said "stressful? Shit no. I hang out, play some guitar, chill out back stage, do my three lines, play some more guitar, hang out some more, do a few cues off stage and then have a beer." And that's the way life should be. My friend Anne, who's playing Nanny, said to me the other night "you're probably ready to play a bigger role now, right?" And thinking about it, I've made so many little discoveries with the music from night to night, and with my few little interactions on stage, as "small" as my part has been I've got nothing to complain about. Especially with my guitar playing... I've gotten to be so much better of a musician from this show. There's something very pure and simple about jamming out on a few russian folk tunes for thirty minutes every night, solo on stage. You really do develop a different level of chops playing in front of people, which despite the fact that I've been playing since I was 17 (which is what, six or seven years now?) I haven't done that much of in my guitar playing career. So that's been really satisfying. And hearing myself develop and change how I approach the music night after night, finding new nuances, new variations, new ideas in these simple melodies. Again, totally solo. And in front of crowds of thirty people, which forces you to focus and when an idea gets tired move on from it because even though it's a very private moment on stage, ultimately I'm performing for a room full of people. Among other things, I hope it's really solidified my confidence as a musician. As an actor, I have no problem doing my thing in front of people because that's what it's all about. But like I said, I haven't done a lot of live music performance before this and the times in the past when I had I used to get surprisingly nervous, believe it or not. But I think I have my sea legs under me. And it helps I played these tunes for the entire duration of the last run of the show, and now coming back to them and playing them for four more weeks I really know them in and out.

And I've discovered so many new things in the process about playing the classical guitar, for the first three weeks of the run completely with my fingers, a technique I've become light years more comfortable with (again that thing of chops from playing in front of people) and now this week I've started bringing my very anachronistic plastic, bright red "jazz" style guitar pick on stage with me (jazz style in this case refers to the dimensions of the pick which are very small and subsequently make it ideal for the kind of precise technical stuff you'd be doing in a jazz setting, that's it) and discovering brand new things in the process.

So that's all been very fun. Don't tell the cast, but I've been meaning to sit down and record all of this music at home to make a nice CD to give everyone as a memento of our experience. Oh wait probably some of my cast will read this... well don't tell those other people! Or do, and then they'll be expecting it and I'll be forced to put up or shut up and get it done this week because only five more shows to go, oh my god!

In other news, I've begun auditioning for things as opportunities that fit within my schedule have been springing up. In between the relatively close proximity of this show with Rosencratz and Guildenstern and that show with Three Sisters, I haven't been able to audition for a lot of things I would have liked to have gone out for, but oh well. And now I'm doing the winter intensive at Shakespeare and Company, which is very, very exciting, but limits even further what I'm able to audition for. But, now things are coming down the pipeline that don't start rehearsing until February, and as they trickle through Stagesource I've been responding. What are they? I don't feel like saying, because two of them I didn't get and the third isn't until next weekend and I don't want to go and jinx it!

Other than that, with Uncle Vanya wrapping up I can look forward to getting out and seeing more of the local theatre (with a Boston accent, theatuh)! This afternoon, I made it out to 44 Plays for 44 Presidents from Bad Habit Productions and directed by my buddy, Jeff Mosser! Who I interviewed about it! So I was pretty excited, because the last show I saw from Bad Habit in this same space, Much Ado About Nothing With A Twist was awesome so I'm a fan of the company and of Jeff. How was it?Well, I can't be critically distant because it's Jeff, but I liked it! It brought up some really interesting questions about how we interpret history and also the darker epochs that reveal themselves of colonial aggression, genocide, racism and war that make up the fabric of American history. I mean, have you ever thought that essentially the entire political climate beginning from the decision to allow slavery to be abolished in the North and continue in the South was one big build up to the Civil War? One of the most violent conflicts in world history up that point? Have you? Well I did after seeing this show! Oh and it was very funny and entertaining. So I recommend checking it out! Here's a tagline for Bad Habit, "Both fun and thought provoking, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents is a People's HILARIOUS History of the United States!" There you go! Use it, I dare you.

Putting It All Together

Over the past few days I've taken all the footage of mine I could collect off of Youtube and Vimeo from the various film and web video projects I've done in the past three years, and have been going through the arduous but satisfying process of cutting them together into a usable demo reel. Mind you, I have a demo reel, but since making it I've acquired some new footage, and some new perspective. Where before, I cut something together rather cheaply, this time I've been much more methodical with my iMovie cutting. I'm on draft 5 or 6 now, draft 4 is up on Youtube and so is draft 5 I think, but set up where you can't find them unless you have a link.

Stop me if this isn't interesting to you. Actually, don't bother, just stop reading all together. This ties into several things I've been ruminating about as of late, producing and taking pride in my own content, and the sense one has as an actor of "a legacy" or an impact in the longer terms of making a career and the even broader question "what does it all mean"? It's sort of a paradox but not really because the word is just too pretentious for it's own good... the way that I think live theater is capable of much more impact and meaningful change in people's lives (or so I'd like to believe) but that film, which is so often crass and commercial, is the longer lasting, sometimes even immortal medium. Of course there are crass and commercial theatrical endeavors, and films of aching truth and beauty. But I think of the theatrical work created in a given year, even as it dwindles and diminshes, versus the slate of movies that are made or come out in a given year, which ironically as theater declines are becoming much more accessible with digital cameras and the internet... that the theater has more of that "truthiness". But what do I know?

This is a prelude to the big question, as an artist, where do you focus your energy? Wherever the work is, haha! Yeah it's sort of a silly answer, but it's a silly question too, because you only have so much choice. Unless your driven to create your own stuff and your own opportunities. Which brings me to point B, creating my own stuff. In case you were unaware, I made my first video blog. A big part of this was an exercise in being front of a camera as myself, filling space, and being comfortable while I do it. I would say I'm actually pretty good at hosting gigs, I can be funny and charming as needed, and generally know how to work a crowd. I say having hosted a couple of different events over the years. And I could probably also be better at it, if I had opportunities to practice. And eventually, if I can get good and get the right opportunities, it could be quite lucrative. And the nature of technology today is, I don't need an audience to practice, although audiences make it easier. Probably, if my on camera career were to take off, I'd be put in situations where I'd be hosting against a green screen or on an empty sound stage. And because I have a web cam, I can start honing that skill now. Eventually, I'd like to record little scenes and monologues and actual scripted content.

Speaking of which, I mentioned the podcast Making It with Riki Lindhome previously (the episode I was referring to at the time was with Malcolm Barrett) and in the latest installment she talked to writer/director/member of The State Robert Ben Garant, and it's fantastic and inspiring and if you want to write your own stuff you should listen to it.

For me, writing is still hard. For a long time I could write lots and lots of poetry, but most of it wasn't very good. Now that I've become more aware of how I would like to envision my voice by doing all this acting and improv and that brief foray into stand up, I really want to start doing my own comedy writing and making my own videos. This would be with the full knowledge that probably my initial attempts will not be good. But Picasso had to practice before he became Picasso. You have to produce junk before you can learn how to make anything good or interesting. And the sooner you start, and the more you do, the sooner you'll be better.

So back to editing my reel, it's been a fun creative exercise in stringing moments together (and figuring out iMovie and by extension the principals of editing). And it ties back to that question of legacy, because this is the sum of a quadrant of my work as an actor, and the direction I think I want to take it in. It's funny, every time I finish a version, I start to think "OK this is the one" but then I look at it again and say "actually this could be better..." and so I'm on draft number 6. I think this one I'll put online and show to some more people to get feedback. OK here it is. Tell me what you think, if you've read this far. It's sort of redundant, because I should be getting in some more new footage and will have to redo it soon. But hey, fun creative excercise! Enjoy those as they come, before it's just work. And even still, enjoy them.
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EDIT: Since writing the part up top, we had our third performance of Three Sisters, and it was super intense and satisfying. During my big climatic pre duel to the death scene, I felt as in the moment as I've been through this process and my scene partner shed a tear. It was legitimately very moving. I think what it was, for me, was that I finally brought all of Chekhov's poetic language about trees and our slavish existence to fate all together finally and brought it down for Irina as a way to try to make her feel better about what I had to do and that's what the scene is really all about. I'll blog more about it later, our second performance is tonight!