Q: This is a most ambitious topic, Mr. McHard. I understand that although your professional degree is in mathematics, you have studied extensively in music theory and history.
A: That is correct. I purchased for my library most of the technical source books that I cite in my bibliography. Over the years I have amassed a very extensive library of over 100 music books, a large portion of which are theory and history. Through these sources, and through my vast collection of records, CDs, and tapes, I studied a great deal through comprehensive reading and listening, with over forty years of intensive work.
Q: How did your studies lead you to write this book?
A: I noticed a terrific gap between the composer and listener, but felt that most of the books in print that dealt with this issue were impoverished in their musical discipline and understanding of the music at hand. My goal has been to set the record straight with good theoretical background in a friendly way, to remain accessible to the listener/reader. My book is the culmination of this forty-year effort.
Q: What musical credentials do you have?
A: I contributed freelance lectures pro-bono at Oakland University for classes conducted by Dr. David Daniels and Dr. Clifford Pfeil in the mid-1970s. These lectures covered mathematics in music, and Iannis Xenakis’ stochastic music in music philosophy. In 1978, I taught an adult continuing education course through Pontiac Public Schools on understanding modern music. I met Xenakis and John Cage in the 1970s and corresponded with both of these composers.
I met Gerard Pape, presently Music Director of Les Ateliers UPIC music studios, in 1989. Under his tutelage, then at Sine Wave studios in Ann Arbor, MI, I studied and used graphic-electronic methods to compose original music of my own. In 1990 I completed my Tremors for UPIC and ten spatially separated instrumentalists. The first performance was July 19, 1990, in Ann Arbor, MI with the Michigan Sinfonietta. In July 1991 my Virtuals was produced publicly (UPIC alone). Mr. Pape has invited me informally to Paris (Les Ateliers UPIC music studios) in 2001 to complete the third work, Familiars.
Q: I understand that you were invited to lecture at UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de México)
A: I was invited by Dr. Julio Estrada, internationally renowned composer, theorist, aesthetician and educator to lecture at his seminar in advanced composition.
Q: So it certainly sounds like you would be willing to travel to talk about your book.
A: Absolutely! In fact, Gerard Pape has invited me to be on staff at the Center for the Composition of Music Iannis Xenakis (CCMIX, formerly Les Ateliers UPIC) in Paris for the summer course, July 2 – 27. I’ll deliver two lectures: 1) a lecture regarding the state of modern music today, based on my book, The Future of Modern Music, and 2) a more specific lecture dealing with the work (being) accomplished by Xenakis, Estrada, and Pape (order/disorder and granularity; continuum/discontinuum; and chaos, respectively) on July 2.
Q: Mr. McHard, I’m sure you know what a risk you are taking, publishing a book about the future of modern music, especially when you have no actual degrees in music. Why should the public read this book?
A: Let me tell you a story: In 1960, (my first year of College at University of Michigan), I roomed with a high school friend. He opined that modern music is all “cr...p”. So, I went to work, wannabe investigator that I am. I began to listen to records of music of Arnold Schönberg, Berg, and Webern. And you know, try as I might, I couldn’t find any basis for these being the “garbage” my high school/college friend claimed they were. In fact, I soon found I rather loved them. Along the way, especially in the ’60s and ’70s, I picked up many crucial books and records. I studied scores. I studied hard, by myself, alone. I started to write a book on modern music history. I took my draft to UM and had the music history professor review it. He looked at one or two pages, flipped through, called it unremarkable: what was I doing, trying to attempt this when there are thousands books like it out there, by credentialed, legitimate people? Other berating comments ensued. Needless to say, I was crushed. I shelved the project without wishing to pursue it for awhile.
Later, I met a professor in the late ’70s, Dr. Clifford Pfeil, at Oakland University who liked my “bent.” He asked me to lecture in his class, which I did. A number of other lectures ensued: “Mathematics in Music”; “Xenakis’ Logic Screens”, etc. I began to wonder what could have been so bad about that first book attempt of mine, that it could have attracted such contemptuous remarks from the UM music historian. I saw, for one thing, that that first book of mine WAS just another history. I wanted to develop a focus and then start over.
After a couple years, I was able to form and teach an adult continuing education class, “Enjoying Modern Music,” open to the lay concert-going public. It went well. I developed and gathered my own materials.
To make a long story short, I met Gerard Pape in 1989. He and Iannis Xenakis were instrumental in helping me to refocus my thoughts.
I found new energy and an emerging focus as I learned about the wonderful UPIC composing console. Gerard and Xenakis informed me that the machine was a teaching tool as well as a computer-composing console, and that the aim was to establish the primacy of sound and its attributes over algorithms, or methodology. I realized then that serialism was a means, not music in and of itself.
What is important is sound and its conveyance. The rest is history. Gerard Pape had coined a useful term—“sound-based” music—that provokes a desire to reach into the stuff of sound itself. I expanded upon that term in my book, to include certain older music, giving the term some historical context. Pape, being a professional Lacanian Psychologist, Ph.D., knew the budding field of psychoacoustics was a critical discipline that would help the composer reach new goals far more effectively.
Q: What would you say are the three most interesting things about yourself?
A: 1) I have a deep interest in descriptive science, reading everything I can on in modern physics, including quantum field theory, general relativity, particle physics, and some astronomy.
2) I am a Christian who believes in personal responsibility, not just liberalism. I have worked in a business environment, but have a social cause orientation.
3) My musical inclination includes all forms of music, everything from the ancients to the current radicals.
Q: And what would you say are the three most interesting aspects about The Future of Modern Music?
1) Redefinition of modernism, viewing it as an attitude, which shares with the modernism in any era the high regard for discovery and creativity with great craftsmanship and workmanship, within a non-derivative style unique to that of the creating person.
2) the tracing of the development of sound-based composition as an attitude opposed to concentration solely on method or algorithms.
3) The revelation that such music is not only listenable, but understandable, in beautifully beguiling ways.
Q: I have to agree, especially with the third statement, that such music is pleasing to the ear. Tell us, who should read your book and listen to such music?
A: Everyone! More specifically, the book is directed to music students, high school music teachers and college professors, composers, and those whom we might call “futurists”.
Q: What do you mean by “futurists”?
A: How can we keep humanity functioning in a deep and full cultural existence? Of all the disciplines that enrich, enhance, protect, and advance culture, two, music and mathematics, and their insights are best suited to fulfill these needs. Mathematics is the queen of all sciences, and music is the queen of all arts, being the most abstract. Music engages those corners of the mind in ways that unleash those familiars of creativity in ways that push us into real progress in thought and discipline. Music is useful in engaging our minds to ensure our cultural experiences and to communicate in positive ways with those with whom we differ. The music/mathematical disciplines of Xenakis and Estrada set us keenly at the edge of this journey.
Q: What is your goal for The Future of Modern Music?
A: That people will read it and find it worthy of thought. But most importantly, that it will stimulate the reader to be the listener and to search the existing world of art music, to listen, and to discover the many wonders modern music offers.
Available through Independent Publisher
Group
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