Silence Defined

A graduate student asked me recently for my definition of silence. It was not an easy task. I wanted, at first to succinctly capture the essence of silence's role in both the musical and every-day environments, however this proved to be more of a paragraph than a phrase/short sentence, which is what the student wanted.

The short definition:
Silence is the space we live in.

The longer definition (gist):
Silence is an inter-dependent element of music that is both rythmical and spatial aspects. The rythmical component acts between notes. The spatial component is heard both harmonically (above and below, around pitches and other sound events) and in the listener's aural environment inhabiting the spaces around the edge of the aural experience. The rythmic element of silence also lends to a psychological sense in the act of listening. It is this sense of space/place that positions the listener within the context of the music, as a participant in the musical experience.

Is it possible to learn how to play duduk?

Much has been made over the years of how difficult playing the duduk is to learn. Some Armenians will tell you that it is not possible for a non-Armenian to play duduk, for example, or that the instrument is so difficult that it makes it impossible to learn. If your aim is to be a master performer on par with Djivan Gasparyan or Gevorg Dabaghyan, then they are right- that is nearly impossible. Those performers, and others at their level are a rare breed of musicker, ARE Armenian, etc. But this is not so much different from a cello player's view of Yo Yo Ma.

Learning any musical instrument is difficult. In our position here in the U.S. learning the duduk is additionally difficult due to the rarity of teachers... but it is still not impossible! It is entirely possible for you to learn how to play the duduk, and play it well but it takes dedication (daily practice, openness to learning and dealing with seemingly endless complexities regarding ghamish (reeds) and suspicious vendors, and a financial commitment for a quality instrument and online instruction). If you really want to learn to to play the Armenian duduk it is entirely possible.

For information on lessons and instruments please feel free to contact me: m@michaeladoherty.com

Bonsai and Shakuhachi

I received an exquisite bonsai (fukien tea) from some dear friends recently. It has been stylized in an informal form. The trunk on this form of bonsai moves left to right in a gentle curve. The style makes the tree look as though it is an old weathered tree that has lived through much adversity. It is this air of authenticity that gives the tree its beauty... ...it reminds me of the Taoist "principle" of moving in the world "without action" (wei wu wei), allowing life to shape you without resistance.

I have found that the qualities of the informal style of this bonsai (and other forms) speak to phrasing in shakuhachi honkyoku, and other forms. My sensei has spoken about each breath, each phrase being a focus to him, as each note has been the focus of mine in the past. I have found that if I focus on each breath/phrase as a creative/growing, unique, organic, and exquisite scultpure, as the bonsai is, styled by formless and form (breathe and flute-player), that those phrase come truly alive. In this way I feel that there is a dialogical relationship between bonsai and shakuhachi.

Neo-Modern Idealism, Shakuhachi (The Heart of the Performer), and , Composition

In and around the year 2003 (long before I had picked up the duduk or the shakuhachi) everything in my musical world changed- how I heard music, how I listened, my understanding of music, approaches and techniques of composition, perspectives on recorded music, silence, spatial elements, and phonography, etc. Everything. Previous to this time I had written music that was characteristically dense as well as rhythmically complex, and mostly electronic, or at least born digital (mainly due over the years to the inaccessibility of acoustic players for my compositions early on- having not been part of an academic milieu). As things began to change I began to understand, to hear, music as raw sound. In regarding sound as sound in its own right timbre took a back seat, as did personal expressions. I started looking at my music in terms of sound waves and rhythms only. Or to put it another way, the bare experience of sound. This is when I started writing compositions for "voices" instead of instruments. I did not at the time care if it would be a clarinet, or a flute playing the piece, but only that the tones be played for a proper duration, and preferably without expressions of vibrato, or variation in volume, unless written (i.e. notes should be played for their full duration, and then drop off immediately). Compositions became exercises in geometry as much as sound- spacial expressions of aural characters.

Around this time I had quit smoking (sufficient reason for the dramatic change in my experience of music), which freed up my lungs to do other things like play wind instruments (which originally was a consolation for not being able to sing properly). The instrument of choice was the Armenian duduk, which I picked up, comically (and for more than one reason), as a stress reliever when I went to graduate school (Aside: Armenian music is not "light"; the degree program was "less than lackluster" in its academic vigor, thus, not needing any sort of regimented relaxation techniques; and as it turns out I spent more time with the duduk than anything else those years).

Another reason why I intended to learn to play the duduk was to learn an acoustic instrument, to move away from pre-recorded, synthesized, sequenced music. I wanted to use the duduk as a template for other instruments in compositions. I had wanted to be able to play tones on the duduk that might be played by a violin, or other instrument (or "voice"). It was the ideal of sound (waves in the air) that was important to me at the time. I would write for tone/pitches, silence, sometimes space and timing- not necessarily instruments (see "Noise Pieces A, B, and C", "Composition for one Voice", Composition for Two Voices", and "___Words for ___ Performances", etc.)

This idealism would later come up against my purist inclinations when approaching cultural traditions. It did not take long before I learned that in learning to play the duduk one must also learn about its cultural background. I found it impossible, and ethically suspect, to separate the duduk from the Armenian culture from which it came, and by which it has been nurtured for centuries. To play the duduk as pure tones, as raw sound, back an impossibility - it is an instrument wrought with emotion - to play it in any other way, is not to play it at all. The duduk did not find a voice in my compositions until only recently, and the fragments that I have written for the duduk (toward a recording of "meditations" I hope to finish in 2010) are after Armenian folk and chant music.

I decided at some point that a flute would serve my purposes better (or a violin, but I remain partial to woodwinds). The only flute I have really liked the sound of was the shakuhachi. I had thought about acquiring a flute for some time, but the final deciding factor was my discovery of honkyoku and its use of silence in its music ("ma"). That was it - I would learn the shakuhachi.

I have been learning the shakuhachi under Michael Chikuzen Gould for about a year and a half. It suites very well my sensibilities, and I have learned much of what I was curious about regarding honkyoku's use of silence (more about that later). One important aspect of playing shakuhachi, I have found, is that the sound emitted, if performed well, is characteristic of the state of the player's being. Meaning, it is an intensely personal experience that drips with the character of the experience, the connection between the flute and the player, the player and the environment, and the player and themselves. For the right set of ears one can hear the heart of the performer in the shakuhachi - and this is what it takes to perform honkyoku. I could not have traveled further away from the original idea of sound as sound in itself (the ideal).

I recently sat down to compose a piece for an ensemble, with shakuhachi. I had the predisposition, as I have had with the duduk, to do justice to the shakuhachi and its tradition, to give silence its due (as I am prone to do), and to satisfy my western compositional blik. I came flat up against this wall between the ideal of sound-as-sound (neo-modernism) and the heart of the performer (traditional shakuhachi). It is an interesting dilemma that I found myself in, the nearly total objectification of sound, as sound waves informing aural experience, and the personal embodiment of sound itself.

The resolution is forth-coming.

Place and Composition

I started composing a couple of new pieces last night and this morning in our new home back on the Front Range of Colorado for shakuhachi. These are a cross between the normal-course silence-driven pieces of my pre-shakuhachi experience, but now injected with the influence of honkyoku via Chikuzen (Yokoyama / Taniguchi). And even more so now in this new home than all of the compositions I had completed while living in the mountains.

I am always struck by the immediate difference in my compositions when writing in different locales / environs. Here, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, underneath Pikes Peak, and in the city, the sounds I chose are a lot more lively than those that I felt compelled to play in the mountain valley int he shadows of the La Plata mountains in SW Colorado. There was indeed more quiet there, but that didn't mean that my compositions were more peaceful or cognitively quiet.

Armenian Duduk from the San Luis Valley

Recently, I have begun a series pastoral/chant compositions for Armenian Duduk toward a recording that I hope to release next year (2010). The style of composition is different from where I have placed my emphasis the past few years as these pieces will be melodic at base, and have repetitive themes. The model for these pieces is the traditional Armenian music itself, and specifically those pieces of old Armenia, spiritual chants and folk laments.

I have at times felt a sonic relationship between those Armenian pastoral laments and the traditional Spanish Alabados of New Mexico. One line of my family's history extends to the mid 16th century (at least) in north central New Mexico, and includes some of the earliest Spanish "settlers" in what would become New Spain. The music is not the music that I grew up with, and I had not really experienced it consciously until my grandmother's funeral in 2003. Since then, however my ears have definitely opened to the distinct sounds of the traditional hymns, the wailing and the chanting.

I recently had the opportunity to stay overnight in the San Luis valley of Colorado - a place where I have always felt at home in. I was able to compose just a bit of a piece that night. It was a great place, at the base of Mount Blanca, to hear the sounds of the duduk in the night's stillness. And it was a great place to hear the intersection of those two musical traditions.