Chad Brunswick

Honors Self-Designed Experience 1

Reflection

My first experience, this one, was remarkably simple in theory. I would teach myself to

play the synthesizer, ideally acquiring a degree of physical proficiency, study the numerous ways

of manipulating the instrument to create desired sounds, and then use the combination of these

two knowledge bases to produce interesting music of my own design. It is worth noting I know

nothing of music theory, and nowhere in my proposal did I include studying music theory. This

was intentional.

I enjoy outsider music and the notion of outsider music, that is, music created without the

influence of modern conventions and theories about chord structures and progressions.

Something like Captain Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, which many today consider

groundbreaking, or the discography of the Residents who have hidden their true identities for

over forty years of creating avant-garde music and stage art. In my proposal I listed neither of

these artists but instead stuck to a list of more accredited composers and snuck in some synth-

heavy progressive rock for good measure. In retrospect, I should have been more upfront about

my goals, but I feared that would make for a bad proposal; although in the grand scheme of

things I doubt Steve Reich is that much more academic than the Residents, but oh well.

This notion of foregoing structure appealing to me because, although this music was not

always easy to listen to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiorncOFpcg) I find it utterly

fascinating, and enjoyable. My intent was to replicate this sort of music and hopefully move

from there, completely bypassing the sort of overused chord progressions and stiff rules that

dominate typical popular music, especially amateur work. I did not anticipate the immense
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difficulty I would face in trying to create music in this sort of structureless method. I actually

used FL Studio 12 (the virtual synthesizer and music creator of my choice) to get a number of

really interesting soundbites by the manipulating wavelengths and tones of various samples. My

favorites included a very gurgling-sort of sound that pervaded a piece at a very low volume,

drawing attention to itself only in the pauses between other elements, and a backwards metallic

clang used as percussion on one of my short-lived compositions. Although interesting and

somewhat enjoyable to listen to as isolated tracks, the works were very fractured and not

polished. It is remarkably difficult to write a song without traditional notions of repeated bars

and time signatures. I often drifted towards these conventions simply because they are so

convenient and useful, they drastically streamline the creation of music. They were obviously

created for a purpose, and it was almost nigh impossible to get anywhere without such

conventions.

The fact that some artists can create music without these traditional notions is a testament

to their skill and creativity. Moondog is a prime example; he was a blind street musician dressed

as a Viking who would play his own compositions for passersby on his homemade instruments.

His music was inspired by the sounds of New York streets and lacked conventions likely due to

his lack of knowledge and training; and yet, professional composers like Phillip Glass cite him as

an influence and culturally significant. The Shaggs are another example of an artist where their

music ignored typical structure and formulas simply due to ignorance of said structure; Frank

Zappa called them “better than the Beatles” due to their ability to create unique music without

falling into the typical traps of predictable modern music.

Others who produce this sort of outlandish, avant-garde music are those like former pop

idol Scott Walker, who simply progress past the limits of modern popular music conventions.
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When we look at minimalist art, we often think “That’s just a line! I could do that!” But without

knowledge of conventions, knowing when to break them can be very difficult. Difficult. I just

placed emphasis on the word difficult by breaking typical limits of sentence structure. Sure, I

could have blindly decided that the sentence “Difficult.” best defined my argument and belonged

in this paragraph, or I could have already known that sentences are typically longer and more

elaborate than a single word, and deliberately broken this convention to bring attention to a point

I was making. Likewise, someone like Scott Walker or Frank Zappa knows what is expected in

popular music, but twists and turns those expectations to emphasize their points and the structure

of their music, while also being totally original. Both of these groups of artists were highly

creative and largely did their own thing, musically speaking. This experience taught me I do not

have such creativity or inherent musical intelligence.

I have always done well in my schooling, largely because I was so good at mathematics

and reasoning. This is exactly what modern school systems care about, this mathematical

intelligence. I could not create original music (in the confines of this experiment) despite many

strained attempts at it. Actually, I am pretty lacking in interpersonal intelligence, visual-spatial

intelligence and bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, many of the other modalities listed by Howard

Gardner in his multiple intelligence theory. I knew this before my Honors experience, but I had

no idea just how limited I was. As I tried to create my own music, I drew parallels between the

renowned artists and musicians who likely struggled with math and other stereotypical school

topics. Society and modern schooling places an unjust importance on this logical-mathematical

intelligence, and refining this form of intelligence appears to be the primary goal of nearly all

schooling at the high school level or below. There is no art standardized test forced on fifth

graders, and the very notion of that seems laughable, and yet, would that not be akin to forcing
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thousands of potential musical prodigies to shamble through countless hours of arithmetic,

algebra, and calculus? I think our unfair emphasis of the logical-mathematical intelligence does a

great disservice to all those who are particularly skilled in other walks of life, unlike myself.

Seeing that logical reasoning, pattern recognition, and mathematics are my greatest

strengths, and after witnessing this relative failure with regards to channeling a form of pure

creativity, I think the best option moving forward is to continue my attempts to create original

music, but instead of trying to channel the experimental nature of something like The Residents

or Moondog, I should adopt a highly structured approach—the exact opposite of what I tried to

accomplish during this experience—and see if I can produce satisfactory results with this highly

structured (but perhaps less interesting) method.