24 December 2007

24 December 2007
Mark Twain
United States of America

Dear Mark,

‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse…well, I’m stirring, it seems…it must be all of the mulled wine I consumed this evening…

I’ve been thinking about culture and cultural influences. It’s really quite amazing the number of people that I have interacted with this year, and the various number of backgrounds involved-its really mind boggling! It’s also amazing to see how one’s culture and upbringing really influence one’s art-of course, culture and upbringing are two vastly different things.

I just arrived home from a Christmas Eve party with a group of British ex-pats, all of whom are in the arts one way or another, in particular my friend Marcus T. Heathcock, who is a composer here in St. Petersburg. I’ve noticed that wherever I have traveled and whomever I have been with, I have always been amazed by the similarities of concept and culture of the various people that I meet. I think that if you are in a new situation, surrounded by people of a different culture and society, that it is automatic to instantly look for common ground…not so with the Brits…it’s actually quite amazing, I never feel more foreign and more like an American then when I’m with the Brits! You would think that we would share similar backgrounds and culture-we have a similar (if not exact…and BOY are there differences…) language, and heck, I grew up in New England…lived in Boston, the most Anglophilic city in the US; had afternoon tea, even…but, I think that this assumption of similarities tends to throw one a curve ball (that’s an American baseball reference…Brits don’t have baseball, and I don’t know if cricket has curve balls…). The more you assume likeness, the more your shocked by the differences in culture. It was the same when I attended a British Christmas concert last weekend (where my “Angels Praise Thee” was premiered); the songs, the traditions…all a little foreign where similarity was expected…I, more there then anytime else, felt blatantly American…and a foreigner.

These cultural backgrounds effect how you perceive and create art, as well. Marcus and I have been talking at length about what influenced us growing up and in school, and our backgrounds, even though we’re the same age, are very dissimilar. What was going on in Britain in the 1980s was very different then in the US. For me, the Minimalists were at their peak, and Steve Reich’s “Desert Music” was THE album (LP, that is…) to have. The Academics had lost their sway (mostly) and neo-tonality was in full steam, as was the push towards Totalism and the incorporation of folk idioms, including rock, into classical music. It seems that things were different in Britain, where Academic (serial) was still quite powerful, and it was difficult to rebel against that there.

Of course, my background is considerably different than most: having a jazz/rock background intertwined with my classical gives me a different perspective, as does my Greek heritage. Greece is interesting: it’s Western Europe and the Orient at the same time. Musically, we are pulled between these traditions-Greek classical music, most especially film music and the avant-garde, is equivalent (and in some instances, like Xenakis, superior) to it’s Western counterparts. At the same time, the music is distinctively Oriental in modality and concept, most especially in the folk music, which also creeps it’s way into classical idioms (how can it not?). Greek music in this way is more similar to Persian and Arabic music than to say Italian or German. This gives me a unique perspective on both culture and the arts, being both decisively Western (American) and Oriental (Greek). I see this strongly in my compositions: I have the craft and concept of the West but the soul and philosophy of the Orient. It, for me has been a challenge to come to grips with this dichotomy as both an artist and a person-it’s hard to know sometimes which group you belong to: am I Western or Eastern? An American of Greek descent, or a displaced Western Oriental with American training? I believe that my sense-and comfort-in structured improvisation comes from my Oriental background and the music that I grew up listening to-but my sense of classical structure and form is decidedly Western.

It was funny-when I was Uzbekistan, which, by the way, is in the same musical ‘group’ (Oriental) as Greece-they are the opposite sides, the bookends, West and East-I had an interesting interaction with a student that I was teaching in a composition masterclass. (By the way, by Orient, I mean the area comprising Greece and the Balkans, Egypt, Asia Minor, Persia, and Central Asia to Uzbekistan, but not counting other cultures like Kazakhstan, which are more Far East Asian and linked to that culture). This composition student, who was Tadjik, after I criticized his piece said that my ‘Western ears’ we’re not accustomed to hearing such concepts and that I just didn‘t understand his music…what was that?…my Western ears?…other than almost backhanding the arrogant little turd, which was my first inclination, (but not wanting an international incident, I decided against it), I told him that 1) it was an incredibly ethnocentric comment, especially to a composition teacher in 2007, 2) that I had studied both Arabic and Persian music and that his music (Tadjik, which comes from the Persian tradition) is completely in my knowledge base, 3) that I am of Greek descent and that I know the system of modes and writing because I grew up with very similar music, and 4) that he as a child, (early 20s…a child…) learn to accept criticism and to learn from it!

Here you have a young student who believes instantly that someone of a different background-even though this person has 20 years more experience in the field that the student is studying-obviously can’t comprehend the subtleties of his music. Granted, there are certain things that one’s background that training can’t overcome-this I’ve noticed in Eastern composers handling of classical forms and counterpoint, which is not their tradition, as is Westerns composers dealing with non-western musical sources without understanding their full cultural implication and concepts of musical presentation-but to automatically assume ignorance of a culture and style because of ethnicity is a huge mistake, most especially with modern communication and modes of study. This case, however, the student should know that Greece is the same cultural region as Uzbekistan (and Persia) and understand that there are many similarities-if you’re going to use such material, you have to know all of the sources of it.

Remember, that when you ASSUME, you make an ASS of U and ME…

We have lots to learn from each other, and we may gain a greater understanding of our own culture by doing so. Even better: teach it to someone-you’ll find out how much you actually know, and gain a greater respect from where you came, and where you are going.

Until next time,

Demetrius