Issue No. 6: Everette Minchew's Open Pieces
Introduction
Everettte Minchew, Landslide (2015), acrylic on stretched canvas. Click to expand image.
Everette Minchew (b. 1977) is a freelance composer living in southern Alabama. He received his BM in music history from the University of Southern Mississippi and studied saxophone with internationally-recognized performer Lawrence Gwozdz. As a saxophonist, Minchew toured the United States and Canada with the Sax-Chamber Orchestra, performing at the World Saxophone Congress in Montreal in 2000. He participated in masterclasses with Harry White, the Rascher Saxophone Quartet, and Jean-Marie Londeix. As a composer he is self-taught but has participated in masterclasses with Judith Lang Zaimont and Ken Ueno.
Minchew’s compositions have been performed throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia. Commissioning organizations include the Mana Quartet, Bryan Hooten, Mana Duo, Gregory Oakes, Duo Fujin, Wendy Richman, Carson Cooman, Buck McDaniel, and more.
Via email, I asked Minchew a few questions about the development of his compositional technique, his series of Open Pieces, the impact of his disability on his creative output, his process, and the relationship between his compositions and his paintings.
Influences and Style
AT:
As an autodidact composer you had a mighty list of influences from the onset of your compositional efforts: Feldman, Xenakis, Ligeti, Carter, Boulez, Ferneyhough, Birtwistle, Takemitsu, Gubaidulina, and more. How did you begin to synthesize these models, especially without a composition teacher or program? What direction did you want to take these influences? When did your musical style "click?"
EM:
I've always felt a little self-conscious about the fact that I've never had a composition teacher. I used to think that perhaps my music was missing something without having had the experience of lessons, but it's a silly notion because it's something you could never know. Sure my music would've been different, but whether or not it would've been better… who knows? I've attended a few masterclasses here and there but other than that it was only score study and trial/error that got me to my current place.
My main early compositional influences were György Ligeti, Elliott Carter, and Iannis Xenakis. They were my “Trinity.” Their music required a lot of me. I knew there was more there that I didn't understand, so I began studying their work to figure out what made it tick. I wanted to understand the rhythmic vitality of Ligeti's music and the dense harmonies of Elliott Carter, but it was the music of Xenakis that was the impetus for my compositional career. I listened to the Rascher Saxophone Quartet’s professionally released recording of XAS. I was blown away. I didn't know sounds like that even existed. His music was wild and fearless, it was beyond anything I could've imagined at that time. It set me on the path of learning everything I could about contemporary classical music.
My goal was to create rhythmically vibrant music with a terse harmonic language. My early works (2000-2008) strive for this but they fell short of achieving my ideas.
My goals or musical aesthetic evolved or refined over time, but as early as 2008 I was becoming displeased with the music I was writing. My rhythms felt clumsy and my harmonies felt forced. My ears were unhappy, and it wasn't until 2011 when I composed Gakka for singing violist that I began to find a different path which felt personal. My music became quieter. The harmonies loosened a bit. They could be terse but it was like the edges of my most stark harmonies rounded. I began to give my chords and melodies room to breathe which I learned studying the works of Feldman, Takemitsu, and Giacinto Scelsi.
My musical style really began to solidify in 2012 as the result of a couple of different things occurring in my life. I already stated I was really unhappy about how my previous music sounded, but the main thing was I became ill at the start of 2012. I was extremely fatigued and my doctors couldn't figure out what was going on and I had to stop working my day job. After several months and several doctors, it was discovered that I had multiple blood clots in each of my lungs. That situation was thankfully resolved quickly, but sadly my energy has never recovered. I was diagnosed in early 2013 with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which comes with an array of symptoms including memory and concentration issues, unrefreshing sleep, and a ton of aches and pains among other things.
In early 2012, I could hardly get out of bed and I thought I would never compose again. I could hardly concentrate enough to read an magazine article much less compose. The illness forced me to cut a lot of the extraneous issues I had when it came to composing. I know this may be some basic level stuff but to me it was a revelation when I realized that I was the only one I had to please when composing and that I should only write the music that I want to write. I had to compose in very short and intense sessions. 45 minutes was the most I could do in a day. After being poked and prodded by doctors for months and months my "give-a-damn" broke. Pretense was gone.
During that year, I was able compose the first of my Open Pieces which is part of a series of open instrumentation works. A few years earlier that would've been an impossible undertaking for me. I know because I tried it. I was too uptight about my music. I also composed my Constructions for Julie Mehretu which is a sprawling 16-minute saxophone quartet that was only intended to be 8 or 9 minutes long, but the piece had other intentions and I was able to listen to it.
Open Pieces and Disability
AT:
You mention that your series of Open Pieces coincided with the onset of your CFS disability. Can you tell us some specifics about the relationship between the musical ideas in those works and your mental/physical being? What "pretense" went away? Were there hints that you were going in the direction of the Open Piece series in your earlier compositional philosophy or did they represent a significant break from previous aesthetic?
EM:
The scores to my Open Pieces are small and fairly simple. An Open Piece score consists of a series of chords for the ensemble. The ensemble begins together but everyone proceeds at their own pace. There are also a couple of "soli" which players can choose to play when it feels right.
My CFS was keeping me in bed most of the time and I was unable to do many things. I thought I would be unable to continue composing with my health in such poor condition. I was also depressed, which was something I had been battling for years but it intensified with the onset of CFS. The simplicity of my first Open Piece was appealing because it was a small form which I could compose in a relatively short period of time.
I had a lot of hangups about my music. There were the insecurities of being an autodidact. There was my inability to give more freedom to the performer (this was a big one). I had very strict ideas about form, where I was forcing musical ideas into preconceived time frames whether it was right for the material or not. It was like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. Looking back much of my musical material felt contrived.
With CFS, I had to learn patience. I thought I had learned some patience after becoming a parent, but this illness forced me to slow down. I had to or else I would suffer and have to spend days in bed after exerting myself too much. It's a symptom of CFS know as "Post-Exertion Malaise." I could no longer work my day job and I couldn't cook most days either, but I could be at home everyday when my son got off the bus. My focus had to shift from "all the things I was missing" to the small things I could enjoy each day.
When I look back I do see hints of the direction I eventually took. My sense of harmony was evolving and it can be seen in my unfinished works (and the works I canned) from 2009-2011. I see those works as explorations. The pieces were failures, but they guided me to a new personal language that felt personal.
One of the reasons my Open Piece No. 1 exists is the encouragement of composer Jay Batzner. He didn't realize it at the time, but I have since told and thanked him for it. Another reason is the students of Jay Batzner at Central Michigan University have a new music ensemble that puts on a series of concerts throughout the year, but one concert is usually reserved for open instrumentation works. Each year they have a call for scores for new open instrumentation works. I decided to give it a shot and write a small work since I had nothing to lose. Now the CMU New Music Ensemble has premiered three of my open pieces and I consider them to be big supporters of my work. They are always wonderful and sensitive musicians.
Jay Batzner shared his open instrumentation piece Cursed Motives with me and it became the inspiration for my entire open instrumentation series. People responded so positively to my Open Piece No. 1 that I now have quite a few open instrumentation works.
Listen: Jay Batzner - Cursed Motives
Organization
AT:
Are there other composers whose works have served as models or inspiration for your Open Pieces? (I'm thinking in particular about someone like Marc Yeats but perhaps the Open Pieces have more in common with Lutoslawski or Feldman...) How do you go about organizing your pitch material in aleatoric/asynchronous time so that your works unfold harmonically/formally the way you wish them to - or is this even a consideration for you as a composer?
EM:
The biggest influence on my Open Pieces are Earle Brown and Morton Feldman. Feldman, along with Takemitsu, has influenced my harmonic language the most. Earle Brown has heavily influenced my ideas on form. His bold concepts of mobile form appealed to me. I became interested in creating music that could sound differently with every performance. I once made a fool of myself in a phone call with Earle Brown…
Lutoslawski is a slight influence on my Open Pieces, I guess. You could see the soli in each piece as being out of time with the ensemble like when the three trumpets begin in Lutoslawski's Cello Concerto before the rest of the ensemble enters. Birtwistle's Verses for Ensembles does a very similar thing with the various soli in that piece.
When I begin a new Open Piece I have a shape in mind for how the ensemble part will move. Sometimes it just builds to the end, sometimes there is a peak in the harmony in the middle. It is really just a mental image of the shape the line of chords will take during the piece. Once I have the shape in mind (sometimes I have an initial chord or I will map out the bass line), I begin shaping the chords above the bass notes and in accordance with the preconceived shape of the line. When composing a cadence, I will sometimes begin with a dominant-tonic relationship of sorts. The penultimate chord may not really work in functional harmony but I will resolve the bass note down a fifth and one of the other notes up a half step. But the way the chords stand after I write the cadence may not be its final form. Sometimes I will add or remove a pitch or two as long as the feeling of a cadence still stands with the changes made. There are also happy accidents that occur when I add a note that is outside my mental image of the line and a new mental image of the line is created.
Sometimes I have a specific pitch-class set in mind for the initial chord. The intervals of the set will form the basis of the info for the soli or I will use the complementary set for the soli. It depends what feels right for the piece. Does the piece need the tension between the ensemble and soloist or does there need to be more consonance between the two? Even with pitch-class sets in mind for the harmony I will still resort back to the idea I posed earlier of a loose dominant-tonic relationship when it comes to a cadence.
It's hard for me to describe how I compose the Tutti/Ensemble part because of the visual element. I mentioned earlier how I have a mental image of the line of chords, but sometimes it's more of a range than a single line. I add notes which fit in this range, but of course not all of them sound correct. When I'm choosing chords I always worry how the chords will bleed into each other. I will begin playing the chords on my keyboard, tinkering with the chords, allowing different notes to bleed into the next chord. I do the same for each successive chord. Of course there are more possibilities than I can play on my keyboard, but this is the fun part for me.
Example 1
Example 2
Everette Minchew - Landscape at Twilight
Example 1 is a picture of the type of mental image I have when beginning a new Open Piece. It is the line I envisioned for the ensemble part in my Landscape At Twilight for solo trumpet and open instrumentation ensemble. The two lines below create a range for the ensemble.
Example 2 is an excerpt of the Ensemble part from Landscape At Twilight beginning right after the introduction.
Music and Visual Art
AT:
It is fascinating to me that your musical forms are so closely related to a registral/visual space; likewise, your harmony choices correlate to the kind of "smearing" technique you employ in your paintings (adapted from Gerhard Richter). Do you associate certain timbres or harmonies with colors? What's the relationship between your creative work as a painter and that as a composer? Do you find yourself testing ideas in one area that you can apply to the other? It's pretty clear that visual art is a massive influence on your work as a musician...
El Anatsui, Peak Project
EM:
I've never associated timbres or harmonies with colors. It's more like I've built up a certain amount of experience which has allowed me to create a certain amount of "instinct," if that's the correct word, which helps me figure out what will and won't work.
My current "smear" technique didn't really develop until 2013, even though there were hints in some of my earlier visual work. I've never associated certain colors with timbres or harmonies, but I do associate how "active" a painting is with harmonies and timbres. By active I mean the mix of color or the breaks in the colors.
I've never felt like I was testing ideas from music or painting in the other medium. But visual art as a whole has been extremely influential in my music. I have two works that were inspired by the sculptures of the Ghanian artist El Anatsui and the Ethiopian American artist Julie Mehretu. The Anatsui sculptures are presented differently with every show, which (along with the music of Cage and Brown) sent me down the route of music that could be performed differently with each performance. The artistic process of Julie Mehretu while creating her "Mural" for Goldman Sachs inspired my third saxophone quartet, Constructions for Julie Mehretu. The way she built each layer of the work before going on to the next was incredibly inspiring. It forced me to rethink my artistic process and how I start a piece and how I develop the material.
I think I've only written one work based upon one of my paintings. Open Piece No. 7 was inspired by my painting To The Teeth. I wrote the piece for Misty Theisen and her students at Mars Hill University. There's a certain tension in the blend of colors in my painting which suggested a more terse harmonic language and more tension created through solos and duos which are played out of time with the ensemble.
I don't really see much correlation between my painting and music, but perhaps I am too close to see it. Maybe I do have similar goals in each process. I look for how colors are spread across a given space to create a certain amount of tension or release. The way I apply paint and smear it helps determine a certain amount of "action," because the way pressure is applied to my smearing tools determines how the paint moves across the canvas and how it blends with the others. So I guess there really are similarities between the two. In my open pieces I develop a certain progression of chords but I allow the performers to move at their own pace throughout the piece. I guess intuition or instinct gives me a certain idea of what will and won't work.