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First Faculty Recital

After two and a half years, I’m finally giving my first faculty recital at NDSU, featuring all music written in North Dakota.

The planned program is:

The Notes Between The Notes – My song cycle featuring poems by Jamie Parsley. Michelle Gelinske (who premiered the cycle nearly a year ago) wasn’t able to perform in February, so Dr. Kelly Burns, our new voice faculty member, will be performing the cycle with Dr. Amy Mercer.

Next up is the world premiere of Tape Piece, a tape piece featuring…tape sounds.

We’ll round out the evening with the world premiere of Calibrating the Moon, commissioned and premiered by Connor Challey, and featuring Dr. Tyler Wottrich on piano.

The recital poster also features North Dakota:

I hope to see you at Beckwith Recital Hall at NDSU, on February 10 at 7:30 PM!

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Three New Pieces

Over the past month or so, three new pieces have shown up on the website. Together, they represent 40 minutes of new music.

So working backwards, Calibrating the Moon is a tuba sonata written for Connor Challey. No media or score (partially because it’s a commission, and partially because issuu has decided to start charging for embedded documents), but there’s a program note. This work will be premiered nearly next month at NDSU.

Also receiving its premiere next month is Tape Piece, which is a tape piece (like stereo fixed media) about and using tape (like scotch and duct). Unlike Calibrating the Moon it does have media. It’ll also receive its premiere next month, but given that it’s tape, you can hear it in all its glory right now if you’d like.

Finally comes Four Views of the Butterfly Effect, which is a commission from the MinusOne Quartet, and which was a pain to write. I’ll dive into an explanation of it a little later. No program note, score, OR media at the moment, because all I have are mock-ups.

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Summer Travel, Creativity, and my Facebook News Feed

I realized in February or March of this year that I hadn’t been to any conferences during the 18-19 academic year. This bugged me. It’s hard to maintain a dialogue with other composers when you’re sitting in your office all the time. Of course, the Spring semester was filled with creating a composition lecture series for a class, so at least I wasn’t just watching Netflix.

I ramped up some submissions this summer, and I went to NYCEMF/ICMC in June, VU3 in Park City, UT in July, and the Aspen Composers Conference in August.

Considering Park City and Aspen were paper/presentation submissions, I spent most of June preparing for the July paper (Cloud Music: Audience Participation and Cloud Computing in Electroacoustic Music) and most of July preparing for the August paper (Inspiration/Perspiration: Creating a map of the music composition creative process). It was nice doing some word-thinking instead of note-thinking, but now I need to write something like 20 minutes of percussion quartet music by the end of the year. But that’s a different conversation.

NYCEMF/ICMC was a blast, as always. I spent a bunch of time with Josh and Ioannis, and worked several concerts as technical staff. OU had a good showing this year, I think five of us had works through the conference. We spent more time in Greenwich Village this year (the conference moved from the lower east side to NYU), so I got my bakery fix at Mille-Feuille and spent way too little time at Strand Bookstore (I bought a volume of Ginsberg poetry).

I spent part of July in the mountains of Utah. The VU 3 Symposium for experimental, electronic, and improvised music was hosted in Park City, and it was an incredible experience I might write more about later. It was chock full of weird technical stuff, presented in a non-judgmental and non-hierarchical way. Not that normal conferences are necessarily judgy, I think that’s just my insecurity coming out.

Anyway, it was a validating and supportive group (reminding me a lot of the last CFAMC conference I attended), and nearly immediately after I returned home, I dove into revising a paper on creativity that I presented the next month at the Aspen Composers’ Conference (which was well-received). Because of all that, this summer was a season of creativity, spending a bunch of time around creative people, thinking about the creative process, how we teach creativity, and so on.

And then I have airport downtime and I check Facebook. Jeez! Facebook! How little original content there is on Facebook. Aside from the Ads. Or from pages I like. So much of it is shared content. So little of it is thought-provoking.

I originally had a listing of the top thirty or so posts, categorized by original vs. shared content, if there was any commentary, things like that, but it just got to be tedious. The simple point is that there was/is a vivid discrepancy between the creativity at the conferences and the creativity (or lack thereof) in my browser.

This has caused me to look closer at the creative research I’m doing, and how I can better focus on 1) presenting it to a wider audience, and 2) integrating more of it in my own work.

And that’s the plan for this fall.

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Spring 2019 Recap

It’s already July!? It’s already halfway through the summer semester!

The spring semester has been my busiest semester as a professor. Let’s recap:

At NDSU:

  • I had a studio of 6 composers, 4 undergrads and 2 grads.
  • I mentored the Freshman Theory II Composition Projects.
  • I oversaw the Sophomore Theory IV Composition Projects.
  • I taught the bassoon part of Woodwind Methods II.
  • I taught Music Entrepreneurship (and wrote a course pack)
  • I oversaw Grad Theory Pedagogy Practicum.
  • We took the wind symphony to Budapest, Bratislava, and Prague.
  • And I was asked to join the NDSU Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship (NICE) Faculty Fellowship.

At VCSU:

  • I had a studio of 3 students in Comp II and 2 students in Comp III.
  • I had one capstone advisee.
  • I taught Advanced Scoring and Arranging.
  • I turned Comp I into a lecture-based class, with 15 students.
  • I organized the 18th annual VCSU Composers Concert.

At NoteForge/As a Composer

  • I recorded and produced an album.
  • I wrote one and a half pieces.
  • I did some massive upgrades to Liszt.
  • I solved a lot of issues with NDSU’s livestreaming.

Some of these things were successful due to my hard work. Some of these things were successful due to my dumb luck. Some of these things could be greatly improved.

Turning Comp I at VCSU into a lecture class was a ton of work. It was fun, and I learned a great deal about video editing, but it took up way more time than I was expecting. Luckily, with those videos in “maintenance mode” now, I’ll have some tweaks but most of it can stand.

I built that class around my ideas about the creative process, which I’m beginning to codify into something tangible. I’m presenting a poster about the process at this year’s ATMI conference.

I didn’t do a bunch of conferences/festivals this year, mostly due to a focus on teaching since VCSU was a new thing. I’m ramping up those things this summer, with a piece at NYCEMF/ICMC last week and a presentation at the VU 3 Symposium in Park City, UT next week.

I wrote a piece for bass clarinet duet + piano, and I started on a tuba sonata that I’m really enjoying, though it’s taking a while trying to find time to write. Which reminds me–This semester I started booking dedicated creative time, so that I’m in the studio working on composition-related things every morning until 10. This worked…most of the time.

I picked up a faculty fellowship in Entrepreneurship, and as a part of that I’ve spent a bunch of time thinking about how to update NDSU’s Music Entrepreneurship class. That’ll be it’s own separate post I’m sure.

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Opportunities for Personal Growth

My parents and I watch a lot of procedural crime dramas. Law and Orders of all varieties, NCIS, CSI, The Closer, and recently CK and I discovered Crossing Lines on Netflix. But my parents are obsessed with Criminal Minds. It’s basically all they watch. They’re either watching Criminal Minds or going to Menards.

In episode 8 of season 3, shortly after Gideon is replaced by Rossi, Morgan and Rossi are having a conversation in which both of them, at some point, utter the phrase “I was giving you an opportunity for personal growth”. This has become part of the Vanderburg lexicon, usually said in some sort of sarcastic way. Or, whenever dealing with things is hard.

I’m writing this percussion and saxophone piece. As it turns out, writing for multi-percussion is really hard, in really stupid ways. Despite having a basic background in percussion (go PBHS Drumline!), picking instruments was impossible. Where do I start? In an instrument group that includes basically anything I can imagine (and some things I can’t), how do I narrow down the number of instruments to something that is both engaging and logistical?

A second issue deals with the difficulty of the music. If I usually write rhythmic music, and percussionists are all about rhythm, then I need to up my rhythm game and write something nigh-impossible, right? Right?

The piece started out as a groove piece–like so much of my recent pieces (see also: Earmarks, Austerity, Joyride…). How do I keep from making this whole piece a groove piece? Or should it be?

Also, relying on computer playback for things like “swirled superball mallet” isn’t really a thing.

Most of these problems are mental–It’s seemed like I’ve been trying to drink from a firehose. Some of the problems have gone away by introducing boundaries. It’s like Stravinsky said, “The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one’s self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution.” This was often expressed in my graduate lessons as “Give me limitations and I’ll give you the world”.

Some of these problems are solved by research–Steven Schick’s lecture “On the Bridge” helped tremendously, as did just listening to percussion things on YouTube.

Some of these problems are being solved by technology. Recording samples that I want to use, then dropping them into Pro Tools instead of using Sibelius, and then notating them later.

Overall, it’s a fun project–and an opportunity for personal growth.

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August, September, and October Project Updates

The past three months have been full of change–and thankfully, writing. I've been adjusting to North Dakota (brr!), adjusting to NDSU (go bison!), adjusting to marriage (!!!), and finally finishing the saxophone piece. And playing more bassoon.>

NDSU>

This semester I'm teaching Music Entrepreneurship and Instrumental Arranging at NDSU, which has been fantastic! It's the perfect blend of classes I enjoy teaching and student engagement. Unfortunately, I was hired a little too close to the beginning of the semester to have a composition studio, but there is a healthy culture of creativity going on already (it reminds me a lot of Drury), so there's a lot of composing going on under the radar. Now I just have to tap into that.>

Oh and I'm playing bassoon in Wind Symphony. It's good to be playing again, even if all our music for the December concert is all fast Czech stuff that requires lots of practice.>

Saxophone Piece – Austerity>

It's finished, it's finished, it's finally finished! I think I learned more about how to write (or not write) in that piece than I have for a few years. There's no reason it should have taken that long. It's been shipped off to Andrew Allen at Midwestern State University, and hopefully we'll have it performed at NASA this spring.>

Travel>

October was full of travel, starting out with the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers conference at Fresno Pacific University (which was terrifically fun and edifying and I hope I'll be back next year), and moving on to the NDSU Wind Symphony Tour of North Dakota (Jamestown, Mandan, Beulah, Bismarck, Minot, Bottineau, and Grand Forks), and then immediately to the last few days of the College Music Society national conference in San Antonio.>

Creativity November>

…is in full swing, with this year's piece (tentatively) titled The Earth shall soon dissolve like snow. More on that later.>

Website Version 16>

This will be fun. It's coming soon!>

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May, June, and July Updates

After starting out the year doing a decent job of blog updating, I disappeared for like three months. Here's what happened:

Most of the beginning of May was spent grading. Three classes, 100 students, concert reports and final papers. There was lots of reading. After that, it was getting ready for a road trip with Cassie, driving Oklahoma->North Dakota->Montana->Missouri->Oklahoma->North Dakota. Part of this time was spent finalizing my move from Norman to Fargo. Part of this time was spent getting engaged.

Back in Fargo, Cassie and I moved all her stuff to our new apartment while preparing for the North Ambassadors of Music trip to Europe. Long days of band music, long nights of putting things away.

Then we went to Europe with 400 band kids. London, Paris, Crans-Montana Switzerland, Seefeld Austria, Rothenburg ob der Tauber Germany. I recorded a bunch of sounds, some of which are making an appearance in the Saxophone piece.

After returning to the US, Cassie flew down to Orlando for ICA, and I drove to Norman to pack all my things and get them to Fargo. By the first of August, everything was in the apartment at least, if not put away.

So, unfortunately, not a great deal of composing this summer–that is, until we get to August. But we have a few days before I give you the August updates.

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Summer 2017 Hiatus Over

It's been an eventful summer-I'll post more to the blog later. I have a bunch of field recordings to post, and with some luck, more creativity updates.

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Hello world

This, like many things, is an experiment. And because it's my experiment, it has a silly name. Maybe it'll change later, or maybe it won't.

I've been reading Austin Cleon's book Show Your Work (the sequel to his book Steal like an Artist), and I've been intrigued with the idea of opening my creative process and having a stream-of-consciousness repository that I can reference.

Last year, I read Eric Abrahamson's and David H. Freedman's A Perfect Mess, which tackles “the hidden benefits of disorder”. Connections between ideas are made when ideas are accessible, and organizing those ideas into too strict of a system can prevent some valuable connections from being made.

While news, substantial updates, and new pieces will be announced on the regular blog, OpenKyle will be a mess by design. Works in progress, Ideas for pieces or piece titles, programming code, current listening/reading, and oddball thoughts will find their way here. I've made it as easy as possible to integrate this system with my workflow, so I'll probably be posting often.

Welcome to my mess.

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February/March Projects Update: Travel and Saxophones

Since February flew right by and I forgot to post an update, I'll just cover both months right here. How's that? Fine? Fine.

Lectures

The Norton Lecture and the Oklahoma Student Composers Workshop keynote were both well-received, with the creativity-based Norton lecture generating a lot of comments. I'm planning on turning that lecture into CMS presentation or journal article (or both!), and there's still a lot of ground to cover. Composition Pedagogy and Creativity in Music kind of lie at an intersection of Music, Psychology, and Philosophy, which translates into a lot of reading to figure out how I want to tackle it. 

Saxophone and Fixed Media Piece

I totally gave up on this piece. At least, I gave up on what I had. Don't worry, it's not a total loss, that music will probably show up in another piece someday. But it won't be in this piece. This piece has all new music to it, and I've finally moved away from the Writer's Block stage of the piece. I'll post a more substantial update when I have more substantial music, but I really like the direction this one is going. Lots of notes.

New IMPROV! Century Ensemble

Business as usual. We'll be presenting some new works at the inner sOUndscapes series concert on April 15. I may or may not be playing melodica.

Past and Upcoming Performances

The theme for February and March was performances, which is spilling out into April. Most of these I've gotten to attend, thankfully. It started with the premiere of Joyride by the Boreas Ensemble at North Dakota State University in February, and a repeat performance of that piece at the North American Saxophone Alliance (NASA) regional conference at South Dakota State University in March. My new work Tempest in a Teakettle received its premiere at OU's Faculty Composers Recital a few weeks ago and received some great comments. I spent part of last week at Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Arkansas for the south central regional conference of the College Music Society. The fixed media piece Remnants of Creation was presented at the first concert, and the clarinet quartet version of Caffeination received its premiere by a talented and fun group of students (Anthony Clark, Megan Hearn, Ashlynn Kegley, and John Platt) led by Dr. Steven Becraft on the second concert. They're repeating their performance on Wednesday, and I would love to go but there's no good way to get from Norman to Arkadelphia.

Coming up soon is the inner sOUndscapes concert, where I'll be trying out Cloud Music for the first time, assuming that it's working. And of course NYCEMF in June.

Meanwhile, it's back to grading, composing, and coding (though not in that order)

 

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Kyle Vanderburg