Of all the tonal ingredients a creative man can put into his music, his voice is at once the most dramatically potent and the most intimate. His voice does not necessarily mean his own voice and it certainly does not mean the specialized idiosyncrasy known as “serious” singing. It means his conception as expressed by the human voice and it means one voice. The instant when other voices are added to that one voice is an instant of metamorphosis. Thereafter his identity is not that of the inner self alone but the identity of a group. The drama and the intimacy of the individual are superseded by a different esthetic or sociological quality. —Harry Partch, from Genesis of a Music (1949)
The first topic that I'm exploring this summer is the question of what it means to find your voice as a composer, an artist, a filmmaker, a writer - whatever creative endeavor you are exploring. It's something one hears as a student quite often: "He hasn't found his voice yet." "He needs more time to develop his voice." It's not easy to accomplish such a thing unless you know what you're looking for in the first place.
What are the elements that combine within an artist to create his voice? What is the process by which an artist can find his voice? Is it an act of rebellion, internal synthesis, or both? How much of it is pure intuition? How are you supposed to know when you have found it? Is it when a critic or teacher declares a voice has appeared from the chaos of influences or does it involve a sense of trust and confidence in the artist? To answer these questions, I will look at the work of two very different composers, a young Indigenous American writing today and a giant of British music born 150 years ago this year.
Raven Chacon (b. 1977), The Journey of the Horizontal People (2016)
At a stereotypically prejudicial first glance, it can be easy to assume that Raven Chacon’s voice was born exclusively of his Native American heritage. (More on this later.) Explore further, and you discover that as a preteen, Chacon used to disassemble cassette recordings of Beatles music, turn the tape cartridge around, reassemble the cassette, and listen to the music backward because he wanted more of it. He composed new versions for himself.
Fascinated by the noise and timbres generated by experimental pop music, Chacon took piano lessons and learned how to read notated music from a local piano teacher in New Mexico. As a young student, he was invited to a recital given by his teacher at the University of New Mexico, where he watched her walk out on stage in a bathrobe and place multiple rubber duckies inside of a Concert Grand Piano. Chacon eventually pursued an undergraduate degree in composition and a master's degree in fine art from the California Institute of the Arts, where he studied composition with such contemporary musical thinkers as the composer James Tenney and trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith.
Raven Chacon is this year's winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music for a site-specific work for organ and chamber ensemble where he explores the timbres of the pipe organ to "evoke(s) the weight of history in a church setting." He was approached to compose this work even though he had never written for the pipe organ before. His unique voice led him to compose a piece worthy of one of the most prestigious awards in music.
In 2016, Kronos Quartet featured Chacon as one of their "50 for the future" composers. They commissioned him to write "The Journey of the Horizontal People," where Chacon explores extended string techniques to express a worldview from his indigenous heritage. It is a remarkable work that features a manipulation of the listener's sense of time while using strange and familiar musical gestures to ground the piece. At first, one is drawn to the ethereal sounds being produced by the various harmonics and bowing techniques. While there are only a few harmonic handholds to grasp, rhythmic metering and various traditional forms of repetition in the construction of the material keep the listener engaged and the piece moving forward along the journey. Players are instructed to improvise time constructs along the way. A leader in the group is required to bring the ensemble back and continue along the path at various points. In the score, Chacon indicates that "it is preferred that the quartet performing this work contains a female player. This player will be the guide when all others are lost. If there is more than one woman in the quartet, the eldest woman will guide. If there is not a woman in the quartet, the eldest man will guide, or the man who most identifies as a woman."
This combination of indigenous worldview and fascination with timbre and noise creates Chacon's unique voice.
I am often turned off by experimental noise music unless it evokes a landscape or other impressionistic imagery. Here, philosophy substitutes for landscape and creates a sense of imagery, of hope. Desperate musical gestures align. Each melodious voice experiences turbulence and falls from grace at various points. Yet, something always manages to grab up all of the broken pieces and encourages them to continue along the path. Even though each voice is separate and experiences its unique turbulence, it all ends together in the same place - unified in difference, guided by a feminine elder.
May we all be so lucky.