The August 2006 featured artist of the month is Alex Shapiro.

Alex Shapiro is a composer of acoustic and electro-acoustic chamber music. Her works are performed weekly in concerts across the U.S. and internationally, and her scores are found in libraries and universities nationwide.

Post a question for Alex.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MyAuditions,

Hi everyone,

I'm delighted to be here (at least...uh, virtually) and am happy to engage in any discussions or answer any questions you might have.

Regards,
Alex
http://www.alexshapiro.org

Hi Alex,

I have heard your stuff on myspace and liked it very much. Questions, eh? Sure, I got questions

1. What do you classify electro-acoustic? Do you use synths or samples?

2. How was the MacDowell Colony? Looks like a fabulous place

3. Do you write or listen to Pop music? If so, who?

4. How do you deal with residuals and royalties from the various CDs your stuff is on? Are you given a percentage, flat fee etc?

Thats all for now. I got plenty more where those came from.

Hi Cygnus,

Thanks for your kind words. Starting at the top:

Electro-acoustic means I'm integrating both electronics and live musicians within a piece. The blend of the sonorities and perhaps more importantly, the balance between the mechanical and the human, fascinates me. My studio is now entirely digital and I use a lot of virtual synths and plugins; no more racks of hardware. I rarely use samples; I prefer to manipulate/program electronically generated sounds. An exception, for instance, would be my use of a friend's sample of his deep breathing, which I then processed considerably and included as a feature on a track I composed for electronics and contrabassoon called "Deep":

http://www.alexshapiro.org/Deeppg1.html

I recommend the MacDowell Colony highly! It's an amazing place and I had a magical and productive time there. In addition to the bucolic setting, it was also very inspiring to be surrounded (in the evenings, mostly) by artists of many disciplines (when I was there, out of 20 or so of us, only 3 or 4 were composers). I loved learning about the poets' and novelists' writing, or seeing the physical artwork of others. And there's something really reassuring about seeing how similar all of our processes were (and of course, our neuroses!). The arts – all of life, actually– should be inter-relational, and yet too often we tend to be segregated within our little tribes. Here in Los Angeles, most of the artists I know and socialize with are musicians, and far fewer are painters and writers. MacDowell is a breath of very fresh air, in all ways.

I write and listen to a lot of pop music. One of my pet projects this summer has been finally recording demos of several of my pop/rock tunes here in the studio (I play guitar and keyboards and yes, I can sing reasonably well, within a range of, oh, about five and a half notes). My own music is stylistically in the Sheryl Crow/Melissa Etheridge/K.D. Lang pocket, but I listen to a broader range than that. Radiohead, U2, Counting Crows, Lenny Kravitz, Ani DiFranco, Dishwalla, etc. plus a lot of alternative rock by less known indie bands on the radio when I'm driving.

Your last question could be a really long and involved answer, but to keep it short, I think you're talking about mechanicals, in which case a composer's deal is in their initial contract with the record company, and the base amount they're paid (in the U.S.) is set by the statutory rate. As of January 1, 2006, the statutory rate for mechanical royalties is 9.10 cents for a recording up to 5 minutes in length. For recordings over 5 minutes in length, the rate is 1.75 cents per minute, or portion thereof. In general, I would avoid flat fee buy-outs, because as I've seen time and time again (especially when I was scoring low budget films during the first part of my career), you just never know what's going to unexpectedly hit or get a lot of broadcasts or sales years down the line, and you don't want to shut yourself out of potential profits in favor of a quickie up-front payment. L.A. attorney Steve Winogradsky has a terrific set of helpful articles up on his website that are worth reading, for anyone interested in learning more about structuring good deals for themselves:

http://www.winogradsky.com/articles.php

It's really essential for composers to have a working understanding of the myriad of income streams our copyrights represent. It's possible to build a financially viable career– yes, even in chamber music!– if you arm yourself with some business savvy. This is our livelihood, and our music is indeed worth something in the world!

I hope these replies are helpful...
Cheers,
Alex

Thanks for the replies Alex, the Winogradsky site is really helpful. I have a CD coming out in a few weeks and I am just exploring the financial stuff.

A few more questions:

1. What kind of softsynths do you use? I havent got accustomed to them yet, I am oldskool and like machines. I do have a few that i use, a virtual mini-moog and a Prophet.

2. How did you get into low budget films?

3. What do you do to promote yourself? I know you are on myspace, I am one of your "friends" there. Do you handle promotion or do others?

Hi Cygnus,

Congrats on your upcoming CD. In light of your profile, I send you best wishes for mushrooming success with the disc

I use a lot of different soft synths, with Digital Performer 5 as my sequencer/audio editor (although I just did a session at another studio last week where I was running Logic, and I was mightily impressed. The studio owner was trying to get me to go over to what we jokingly called "the dark side," but for now I'm staying in DP). My most favorite VI's and plugins are Atmosphere, Absynth 3, Kantos, Altiverb... and I run my [fairly large] sample library culled over the years through MOTU's Mach Five (in this case, "samples" mean everything from true samples of orchestral instruments that I use solely for mock-ups of an acoustic piece, to electronic/synth sounds that I use as a jumping off point for further programming). In my digital pieces, I avoid emulative electronics at all costs because if I want the sound of real instruments I'll use real instruments! I always hire live musicians for that. I love machines because they can give me sounds that I can't get from physical instruments (at least, not without maiming the players). Sometimes I have fun getting bizarre-but-entirely-playable sounds out of traditional instruments; a good example of this is my quartet, "Bioplasm," brilliantly played by the ever-daring Los Angeles Flute Quartet:

http://www.alexshapiro.org/Bioplasmpg1.html

I think one of the best reasons to consider an entirely digital studio is how unbelievably clean the sound is. No more 60 cycle hum. No more dirty cables and inputs crackling and popping like cheap breakfast cereal. Plus, no more worrying about your cat jumping up on the console and messing with your mix, causing you to have to stare at 932 miniscule buttons, dials and slide pots trying to figure out which one is muting/soloing/bypassing your whatever. Oh, and along those lines, no more worrying about errant cat hairs getting inside the gear (gee, can you tell I live with a couple of cats?).

I got into low budget films simply by networking, meeting directors, and being fortunate that they liked my demo reel (in those days, a cassette tape. ****, I'm old). As with everything we do in any aspect of music, there are [at least] two significant components to our success: talent, and social skills. Showing up at events, being friendly and interested in what others are doing, and being prepared to follow up and grab opportunities that arise, is the crux of getting the gig. And pure dumb luck. And taking regular showers

As for promotion, the internet has been my main portal, and it's a powerful one (wow, here we are). All of us are able to reach an amazingly wide swath of potential fans, with tools that simply didn't exist less than a decade ago. My website (http://www.alexshapiro.org), my MySpace page (http://www.myspace.com/alexshapiro) and my blog (http://www.notesfromthekelp.com) are three ways that I reach people, and I also participate on a number of online blogs and contribute essays to online magazines. I do a fair amount of the promotional work, though increasingly there are more radio shows, print interviews and speaking engagements that come my way where I have nothing to do with generating them. Additionally, I handle all my publishing and am responsible for all my distribution deals, etc. A large proportion of a working composer's time is devoted to tasks that have little or nothing to do with writing the next piece.

Another thing that's been a constant in my life has been a great deal of community involvement, and that's a wonderful way to help others and also reap a fringe benefit of becoming a known quantity. I've been deeply involved with several national and local music organizations, and years ago I was also very involved with civil liberties work (there's info about this on the Bio page of my website, for the curious). I feel very strongly that artists should ideally be participating citizens, and that we should make ourselves relevant to the society around us. When we're seen as whole people, and as people who care and who reach out to others, it makes our product– our music, in this case– more human, more accessible (regardless of style) and more appealing. When others perceive the person behind the notes, I think it gives listeners something even more tangible to relate to. At least, that's the feedback I consistently get; your mileage may vary

Thanks for the great questions! It's fun for me to begin my day thinking about these topics. Now, off to write...
Alex

Alex

Its great to have you here welcome! I have a few questions:

1) What is the hardest orchestral instrument to duplicate electronically? why?

2) How hard is it keep things fresh? I often hear that everything has already been done when it comes to composing?

3) If you were stranded on an island with only 4 people alive or dead, who would it be?

Hi DHP,

No instrument can be duplicated electronically, and that's why I use live players. But I occasionally make high quality mock-ups of my new chamber works in order to help the ensemble absorb the gist of the music before the first rehearsal. Sometimes instruments with a fair amount of vibrato, like an oboe or a string instrument, don't sample well because the vibrato ends up being unrealistically even and fast when the note is held. Saxes are difficult too, because every note on a sax has a different timbre.

If you "often hear that everything has already been done when it comes to composing," then you are often hanging out with the wrong people! If everything had been done, we'd have no new music at all. Instead there are probably more composers now than ever before (and a few of them even spend their days without ever having to say, "you want fries with that?"). Every week there are tons of new melodies, harmonies, rhythms and textures, coming from creative people from all over the world. It's never ending. The only limitation is in a person's mind. I stay fresh by either coming up with a theme I find moving, or a somewhat different way to use instruments, or by taking an unusual approach to textures. But most of all by being inspired by all the great music-making that's out there.

Hmmm... I think I would prefer to be on the island with the four dead people, because it would be quieter, so I could concentrate on my composing without being interrupted by idle chit chat about messages in bottles washing ashore and mirages of wooden ships approaching. Of course, I'd need to make sure they were on the opposite side of the island, what for the smell and all. I would compose while they would decompose. Perfect.


Alex

quote:

I would compose while they would decompose.

An old joke but a good one

This is turning into a really interesting thread. Especially this

quote:

No instrument can be duplicated electronically, and that's why I use live players.

I bet I could fool every single person on this forum. Even on VIOLIN! Not an easy crowd, symphony players who have played the instrument since in the womb. Still, I stand by it, I bet I could fool every single one. Not on every piece, or a whole mvmt, and there are lots of variables, but there are some samples combined with physical modeling that would fool pros. Google "synful", there are many demos out there, some that stink and some that could fool everybody (errr, if they didnt know in advance).

Back on Topic:

Alex, do you write on computer or use ye olde pencil and paper?

Ok, if you're gonna play sonic hard ball, sure: en guard! Many of us can effectively fool the most discerning ears with a *passage* made from samples. I agree. I have been there, done that, countless times myself (and for some reason I always feel like I need to take a shower afterward). There are even a small handful of examples of such prowess up on my website, in fact, scattered stealthily among all the live recordings. And I'll never tell which.

BUT, my dear Swan o' th' Northern Cross (I'm an amateur astronomer), I stand by the simplicity of my statement: no live instrument can be duplicated electronically. The overtones, the penumbra of frequencies that our ears perceive and even those that they can't, are a significant part of what we hear from actual wood and metal, and the sampling rates that are used cannot possibly reach those sonic depths. Emulate, yes. Duplicate, nope.

I use a variety of writing methods that are determined by the nature of the piece. On a piece for which I will not be making a mock-up demo, I compose directly into Sibelius on my laptop, on the deck outside or in the open space of my living room, directly notating what I'm hearing in my head. That flute quartet I mentioned earlier, "Bioplasm," was composed that way because there are so many extended techniques, it wasn't worth taking the time to realize them. Also, the piece was going to be performed very shortly after I delivered it, so there was no need to bother with the studio.

Conversely, on my latest quartet, "Unabashedly" for flute/piccolo, violin, cello and piano, I knew that I would want to give the musicians a demo because they wouldn't have much rehearsal time, and the piece also leant itself to.... emulation. So I wrote the entire thing straight into Digital Performer here in the studio, saved an intensely quantized version of the file as a Standard MIDI file and exported it to Sibelius, and had half the copying already done (only half– there's a tremendous amount of work that goes into this translation). I even supplied a "music minus one" version of the tracks to each player, in case they wanted to be able to run the notes once everything was up to tempo (I was told this was a nifty perk). And when I'm writing a piano work, since I masquerade as a pianist in the privacy of my home, I'll sit at that instrument and bang out my ideas, notating the first pass the old fashioned way, onto score paper, before heading to the electronics.

But in almost every case, I use pencil and paper to draw a graphic of what the essence of a piece looks like before I begin putting notes and rhythms in place. This is helpful for getting a sense of the overall architecture of a work, or even just a passage that has so much impetus you don't want to lose the passion of the moment. I learned this marvelous technique from one of my great teachers, John Corigliano. My drawings are never terribly involved, but just enough to flesh out what I'm hearing in my head before I have to beg my left brain to come to the party and notate all this stuff. You can see an example of the crudeness of my work here (and you'll know why I did not go into the visual arts):

http://www.alexshapiro.org/AttheAbysspg1.html

quote:

BUT, my dear Swan o' th' Northern Cross (I'm an amateur astronomer),

I'm not, I wouldnt know a star if it bit me on the Butt. I am a Huge RUSH fan, Cygnus comes from two of their songs

OK, I will concur with your statement. Sure, I aint ploppin down 50 bucks to see someone play Beethoven on a synth! But they are fun to play with, especially if you mix them with real instruments as I often do in my geek music.

"...They sat a while in silence
Then they turned at last to me
we will call you cygnus,
The God of balance you shall be..."

Yeah, Rush is great.

You've asked me some excellent questions, and I enjoyed reading your dialogue with Daniel Ott from a few months ago. Do you split your time between being a violinist, an arranger and a composer? What lurks on your CD, beyond that shiny reflective layer?

oooooooookk. So how many horn concerti have you written?

No horn concerti yet. Not a one. Are you a hornist, DHP?

quote:

Do you split your time between being a violinist, an arranger and a composer? What lurks on your CD, beyond that shiny reflective layer?

I'm the next Tomita. My big influences were Tomita and Mike Oldfield, I am seriously into overdubbing to the point of insanity. I use stacks of synths, I add string sections (all me) and occasional guest artists. The other musicians are virtual, we sent .wav files over the net. I dont know if the World needs another Tomita, I will find out real soon.

Right now I am in violin geek mode preparing for auditions, I find it difficult to do both at the same time. I'm REALLY old. Ancient. Incredibly Old. Amazingly old. I'm... gasp... YOUR age.

OK, before I get in the doghouse:

You have some marvelous textures in your stuff I have heard. Who were YOUR influences?

Also:

How did you go about learning the electronic stuff? Performer and Logic have pretty steep learning curves, did you just crack open the box and do it?

Maybe listeners will say that Tomita was just an early Cygnus :-)

Woof! I really love getting older-- being in my forties has been a blast because I feel closer to knowing what it is I don't know, as opposed to constantly wondering what it is I don't know :-)

Thanks for your kind words about my use of textures. Whether I'm writing for acoustic or electronic instruments, I think very, very much along those lines; sometimes I wonder why music schools don't focus as much attention on that as they do on melody, harmony and rhythm. Texture is more than orchestration/instrumentation; it's a sense of where frequencies and soundwaves are placed physically, in the air within a live setting or in one's ears within a recorded mix. I've been increasingly focusing on recording because many more people around the world can hear the work that way, rather than counting on folks to be able to attend a particular concert with a particular piece. And with all that recording comes a heightened interest I gain in the sonic fabric of a piece.

I learned a lot about all this by working as an engineer in a studio years ago, and by having worked a lot in commercial music, which places a very high value on production. Now that nearly all composers have project studios, I think it's essential to learn about mixing and producing. In this iPod world, our track will be followed by Radiohead which will be followed by a new recording of a Dvorak trio which will be followed by an electronica mix and then hit one of our tracks again. It's important for our music to stand up against all that, and one of the ways is by taking production very seriously and not sounding cheesy.

The biggest influence on my hearing has always been the sounds around me in daily life, both natural and man-made. I grew up in Manhattan, and I don't need to describe the sound factor there to anyone! 21 years of deep city existence. Now I live at the beach and hear the waves crashing in irregular rhythms against the bluffs. And because this is southern California, not too far from the other side of my little house is a road where cars zoom by at 55 MPH. On a busy Friday night, that makes for quite a whooshy combination of frequencies, always shifting. Throw in birds, planes, rustling leaves, distant construction work and a myriad of other things, and this environment– considered a pretty quiet one for Los Angeles– is nearly chaotic. At least, when one takes the time to listen. I've become hyper-sensitive to all this sound, and frankly, there's a place on the planet that has caught my attention that is considerably more silent, and my husband and I are investigating....

Another influence has been film music, which by and large has far more powerful production values than concert music (I'm not making a musical comment here, only a technical one). Again, there's an attention to texture and frequencies and excellent engineering that creates a very compelling listening experience.

I did indeed just crack open the boxes on the stuff in the studio; it's the only way. I remember many years ago when I bought my first sequencing program, (Opcode's wonderful Vision, the mere mention of who's name still causes many of us to sigh deeply in a nostalgic fog). My left brain immediately told me to just sequester myself with the big fat manual, and that way I'd learn everything I'd need to know. Wrong! I recall getting about six pages in and realizing that the only way I was going to learn this stuff was to start trying to make music with it. Every time I'd bump into a wall, then I'd poke around in the manual for the answer. That seems to be the best way to learn this stuff because it's a lot to absorb and it's all applied info, not abstract. These days, if a program is well designed it's immediately intuitive, and if you understand how computers "think," then you can slog your way through anything (being able to immediately operate Logic under the duress of a session at another studio is a good example of this: the concepts are identical to Digital Performer, and you quickly learn the personality of the program to execute them).

I suspect that you already know all of this, Cygnus, but I've been using your questions as a jumping off point to talk about these subjects, in case the conversation could be informative to others here who might be reading...

Done any work with the harp???

Hi Kimberly,

Darn, I'm striking out once again: not much harp work in my catalog, except for a little Intermezzo that can be for solo harp, or harp accompanying a soloist (clarinet and violin are two currently available transcriptions, but it's a very simple, lyrical piece that would be well suited for almost anything except kazoo):

http://www.alexshapiro.org/IntermezzoforClPnopg1.html

Greater composer of ballet music?

Stravinsky or Tchaikovsky?

Incomparable! Both brilliant!

I've never been a fan of choosing between composer X and composer Y, especially if they lived in different times. How does one quantify beauty and expressiveness?