Wow. Is this thing on? Okay, thanks. This is sort of awkward. Um, hi, I’m Molly. For the last 10 minutes, I admit I’ve been making notes for one of those introductory blog posts filled with a lot of biography and a detailed explanation of what I hope to do in this space. But then I read it back and wondered who the hell would care. So–delete–let’s jump right in, shall we?
In part that makes it easier, because I’m not really sure what the conversation in this space will become. They let me drive over at NewMusicBox.org on Fridays and I’ve done some extreme blogging for ArtsJournal in the past, but I’ve never been a regular. Then a funny thing happened during a panel discussion over at Peabody a few weeks ago: Someone asked me where new music was going and for the first time since I started covering the field in 2001, I realized a big change that I had personally witnessed had finally come to pass.
Picture it: The year is 1999. Where I am living in Brooklyn, many bands are rehearsing in cheap studio spaces. Many of them come from indie rock backgrounds and liberal arts educations, but they are seeking to put their own experimental twist on the genre.
Meanwhile…
Across the river and quite a few blocks uptown–or okay, fine, just as likely right next door–other musicians in other studios are finishing up pieces for their composition degrees at the city’s prestigious conservatories. They’ve got a piece scored for Pierrot ensemble, but they are seeking to put their own experimental twist on the genre.
Sadly, except for the occasional happy anomaly, in 1999 Camp A and Camp B seemed to exist in largely separate worlds, sharing neither common dive bars nor common practices. And this always seemed a shame, because to me it felt like each side had information the other side needed and wanted. I’m not speaking in terms of music (though some wanted to travel that way, too) but more in terms of trading recording technique for orchestration technique.
But that was then. These days when I look out, it’s striking to see how close these two camps have come, and it looks and sounds great. This is where my friend Corey Dargel comes in to clarify my thinking and sew it up in a neat package: Molly, he says, it’s syncretism.
Yeah, exactly. So I Googled it.
Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contradictory beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogize several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclusive approach to other faiths.
Read on for yourself.
That’s when I really started to think about what separated what I was hearing now from the cross-over-gone-wrong projects I’d heard before, and when it seemed like there was something deeper to talk about here. What can we learn about performance practice, technology usage, and how to pay the bills from our colleagues in other studios that will help us in our own work? And what bandwagons should we question before jumping on? (Which is to say, I have no MySpace friends and I’m totally okay with that.)
So thanks for stopping by. I hope we’ll generate some entertaining coffee talk. Please introduce yourself as we go along.