Re: Why I make music

[hutton <hutton@pathcom.com>]

This is not boring ....... I like the positive approach and presentation
of grows in your ideas!

Steve Sandberg wrote:

> Have been following the "Basic intro-sampling
> debate-why and for whom I write music" thread -- don't find it boring at
> all, and thought I'd throw my two cents in.
> I write and play music for:  money; getting in touch
> with my spirit; impressing other people and compulsively proving my self-worth
> due to faulty early neurotic programming; inspiring others; connecting
> with others; the joy of creating something new.  And perhaps other
> unconscious reasons, too.
> My money gig right now is scoring a Nickelodeon children's
> cartoon.  I feel lucky to have this job -- it allows me to live in
> NY, take only the other work I want to take, and gives me free time to
> work on my own artistic projects.  I also enjoy the interchange with
> the people at the network -- I enjoy the critiques from non-musicians,
> because they often see the forest, not the trees.  "Hey, that sounds
> too scary -- it's scaring the kids!"  It brings me back to the way
> my music is heard by non-musicians, and keeps me from getting to lost in
> the "wow, what a cool ring-modulated effect on the conga" thought train.
> Of course, sometimes it's a pain in the butt too --
> I got into looping last April or so -- I had been producing
> CD's of original music on the computer, but really didn't enjoy the mostly
> left-brain computer process of detail-oriented work.  Looping gave
> me the possibility of improvising, of getting a flow going that I find
> really magical and a great balance to my other work.  Putting that
> together with vocal studies of Indian raga (which I dabble at, wish I had
> more time and discipline) has given me a musical framework that is bringing
> something very different into my musical life.  I was inspired by
> Matthias Grob's early posts and notes about the EDP, and have been using
> looping to explore flowing right-brain states of consciousness that I don't
> ordinarily get to -- sometimes I create a loop to balance out my current
> psycho-physiological state (I usually know when I hit it), and literally
> go to bed with it -- I have speakers in my bed and wear a headset mike,
> so I can sing to myself in bed.  This is music as healing, I guess,
> or a kind of yoga.
> I've also been doing live performances where I combine
> loop-improvisation with songs and spoken word -- this is fun, and scary,
> and rewarding in that I seem to be creating something that is uplifting
> and inspiring a lot of people who hear it.
> I both do and do not trust a roomful of "stupid people"
> -- it's often easy to get a big response by playing a mediocre set, if
> it's tuneful and rhythmic enough, for an unsophisticated audience. 
> What I enjoy is doing something that is meaningful to me -- which may sometimes
> be rhythmic and tuneful and other times be atonal and "weird" -- and touching
> my listeners.  When absolutely nobody in the room is being touched,
> I think something is off.
> I guess my bugaboo is the critical head -- I don't think
> much of "advancing the art", of the constant modern necessity for originality. 
> I like whatever touches me at the moment -- and it could be Ligeti, or
> raga, or the Backstreet Boys.
> I much prefer music that
>