A second interview with composer, Dr. James P. Walsh

This interview continues where Walsh's last interview left off.  See below for other introductory information. Here Jimbo goes deeply into the later experiences that formed his ideas and paints some prtraits of some rather large musical figures that he has been around over the years.

Part 1- Starting Columbia and the tough undergraduate music program there at that time; loving the challenge of it; the shock of studies with Edward Lippman; Jacques Louis Monod; the influence of Paul Henry Lang on the faculty of the time and "preservation of standards"; Richard Taruskin; what the program entailed; problems with "band."

Part 2- Who is Jacques-Louis Monod?; Anti-semitism at Julliard?; Fixed "Do", moveable clefs and the advantages in score reading; music in the middle-ages, iso-rhythmic motets, and music where intellect was valued; rejection of comparative literature; how musical pieces are true compared to fiction which is false; truth and falsity in music; fake and real in Treme- depicting yourself; encounter with Pat Carpenter and form and analysis; organic unity, grund gestalt, and how the composer "thinks" the piece; Pat Carpenter's background; what the importance of Schoenberg was at Columbia, "The Musical Idea"; the growth of music history in the 20th century; Vienna in the early 20th century and delusional philosophies; the rise of St. Cecilia societies.

Part 3- Influence of music pedagogy on music practice; music architecture manuals; historical roadblocks caused by building permanent monuments to yourself; more on Pat Carpenter; How Schoenberg's music was disseminated despite unpopularity; the problem with style designators; organic unity as the way artists think; Pat Carpenter directing Walsh to Monod; changes in music atmosphere at Columbia through electronic music; The Malibu Dolphins and being back in the New York punk scene; Willie Bobo Shaw; Wayne Kramer; authentic standpoint; the Guild of Composers and real first exposure to Monod's music.

Part 4- Mario Davidovsky; Importance of performance of compositions to Walsh, Monod, Schoenberg; Art and money and religion; music for your 'tribe' and academic music; power of suggestion over the listeners appreciation of aesthetic experience; societal viewpoints on institutionally taught composers as opposed to self-taught; prize winning fugues from the Paris Conservatory; the fragmented schools of academic music; are Coherence Creating Scenarios a fiction?; hair-brained, crackpot, music theories; interest in why people don't like music; how Walsh became involved with Jacques-Louis Monod's singular text on (Schoenberg's ) music; perfect summary of the end of Western civilization; realizing the deep beauty behind Monod's analytical tome and the invented language to describe what was happening in the music- hypothetical octave, partitioning of the tritone and much, much more; evolution in music and why Monod believed that the musical idea as he understood it was such a development; generation of music from central idea; difference between music that is complex and music that is complicated; pre-compositional material; Jacques and "pro-compositional" material.

Part 5- What to do with all this information and experiences from training and Columbia experience- COMPOSE!; Ricard Strauss; derivation of  hyper regions from hyper-tonality and movements of the tone row; Pat Carpenter's observations on those discoveries, new problems and the re-insertion of feeling and emotion; conflicts of aims that arose at Columbia- Musicology or Composition; Walsh's approach to teaching composition and how that differs from Columbia; helping to realize students' wildest creative fantasies; difficulties that arise in teaching composition; what is the current language in music?; musical sleepwalkers and other types of musicians; reflections on Viennese music culture and comparisons with New Orleans music culture; how Walsh is working now; interest in techno and DJ's and what that suggests.

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"Coherence Creating Scenarios." Interview with Dr. James "Jimbo" P. Walsh- composer, bassist, pianist, teacher

   ...fascinating from the second the record button goes down! Deep humanism...

Folks...This is not dumbed down.  If you really want to know about musical thinking check this!

   Jimbo Walsh plays around town with a lot of people. Amongst those are Washboard Rodeo, The Naked Orchestra, the real Davis Rogan, The Other Planets.  He also is a very deep and adept composer with a fascinating background that informs that practice as well as what he brings to the various "social music" groups.  that he plays with.  He has a heavy understanding of electronic music, and integration with the rest of the 20th century classical music dis-continuum.  

This is a very interesting interview in that it really examines concepts and ideas in music while relating it to Walsh's early biography.  Jimbo has the capability to integrate the highly complex with the very simple and he has no boundaries in the kinds of music that he is interested in or could become interested in.  He has made really interesting connections across the academic world and the world of the "alternative" scene.

The biographical arc to this interview only gets as far as the end of high school for Walsh.  We plan to get another one in to get a little further and definitely get deeper into ideas.

Part 1- Coherence creating scenarios, consciousness as a rationalization for pre-conscious mechanisms, music compositional systems as an analogue to the coherence creating system in society, how different coherence scenarios clash and cause difficulty in musical appreciation or communication, coherence and incoherence as a concept in western composition and how it integrates with other cultures, Pat Carpenter, Schoenberg's concept of the musical idea and organic unity, study and analysis of western musical classics, the heresy of organic unity in the post-modern era, beginning playing experiences, music in his family, affection for the Beatles, family dynamic, influence of Father and his engagement with philosophy.

Part 2- early biographical information relating to music; piano lessons, fat people on low instruments, first ideas and exposure to improvisation, lessons with Arthur Cunningham in jazz, the differences between that previous classical training, beginnings of recomposition and reharmonization, talent for music theory, the problem with current music theory teaching, becoming aware of relationship between music and society, exposure to Charles Mingus, Tony Williams, John Mclaughlin, LSD. 

Part 3- Complexity in music signifying consciousness expansion, opinions of LSD, more on aforementioned artists, "rocking," virtuosity, seeing the Rolling Stones/ Stevie Wonder, first experiences playing in New York live music scene, blues and emotional power, heyday of progressive rock/ fusion and backlash against it, more on Arthur Cunningham, Gullah community. 

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