Juan Camilo Vásquez on expanded music
Read my interview with Juan Camilo Vásquez. He is s a Colombian composer. The composer says that he often prefers to create pieces based on improvisation and then create a structure around these materials, which makes the process much more interesting. Vásquez expresses that his work with students at the District University in Bogota is one of the main things that motivate him to further explore different musical ideas. Text version of interview was created by Armands Stefans Sargsuns.
How would you define a good musical composition?
Well, that’s quite a difficult question. A good musical composition… I think in the arts good and bad are really relative, I think it depends a lot on context, I mean, where are you, when are you. Of course, it changes in time. If you are in Vienna in the 18th century you have some sort of basic rules for composing or somehow. And it’s not different now. If you are in Colombia, good composing might be a little bit different than in Central Europe like in Germany. That makes the question really difficult, because I’ve been in different places, I’ve shared different interests with a lot of people and I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to compose good music. Now that I’m teaching composition in a university for a couple of years I ask this question all the time, because I find myself giving advice to students that are based on my personal taste. I wonder if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, everything is connected by subjectivities. You cannot be totally objective. Since there is no one simple answer to what is good music you cannot just rely on that. You have to think very well about what is that that you like, but also what is that others like and is there some sort of middle point between those tastes.
Here, for example, in Colombia there are a lot of people working with traditional music. There are, of course, a lot of students of composition that are also interested in traditional music, so they’re trying to mix everything up to take some ideas from traditional music and mix them with contemporary music and that’s quite interesting. Personally I’m not really that connected to traditional Colombian music, I’m more of a globalised subject. When I was young I was listening to rock all the time, for example, rock music from Latin America and from the United States most of it and from the United Kingdom but that disconnected me somehow a little bit from this traditional Colombian music, but I do enjoy it. The university where I studied had a really strong program in traditional music, so I learned a lot of things from that. I know what is supposed to be correct, if you want to use that term or to be good in those terms for traditional music, so I find it interesting. I struggle sometimes, because I don’t connect aesthetically or about taste with the students and the ideas they are developing, but I try to somehow separate myself from that sphere and try to give some advice from a more objective perspective. But there is something about taste that is connecting everything and I wonder a lot about what taste is and how it affects the way we listen to music and think about music. I don’t know if I have given an answer yet, but I have given some perspectives.
As for me, I think there is something about exploration and experimentation that interests me a lot. When the pieces are risky, when they reach for somewhere new, when they are trying to take you out of your comfort zone — these are the good pieces for me. These pieces that make you ask some questions. Not just the pieces that are making you feel comfortable or please you somehow, but the pieces that write a question and make you feel a little bit uncomfortable. I think that’s the most interesting kind of music and the music that perhaps I find, I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it’s interesting.
Well, now that we are talking about Ana Maria Romano that you interviewed, I conducted an ensemble in the university where I’m working. It’s like a contemporary music ensemble and it’s really directed to experimental music. There is a piece from Ana Maria Romano that is called “What if”, if you may translate it in English, “What would happen if” or something like that. It’s a piece that she composed in commemoration of Pauline Oliveros’ disease. One year after her disease this Deep Listening Institute decided to commission some pieces for different composers and Ana Maria Romano was invited to write a piece there. This piece was really interesting, because it was really open, it was just like a series of instructions that you had to follow somehow and it was really personal somehow. We decided to work on it with the ensemble. At the beginning it was quite difficult, because there were a lot of students that hadn’t had an experience with this kind of repertoire which is very open, very indeterminate somehow. At the end everyone connected so well and we ended up doing something that involved a lot of different aspects of exploration. There was some choreography, some movements on the stage, there was an exploration of scent, clothing and how it sounded, so it ended up being really fantastic. I think that was the last piece that somehow blew my mind and I was really glad to be a part of this. I think I connect a lot with the pieces even when I’m playing them or when I’m composing them that makes some sort of deep connection. Also, when I’m analysing them as well, just the pieces that I hear, sometimes I connect a little bit with them, but it’s always better for me to experience the music somehow by creating it.
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How would you describe your own music?
My own music… Well, it has a lot of different dimensions I think. I remember quite well that in 2009, so like 12 or 13 years ago I had a lesson with one interesting composer from Latin America, named Coriún Aharonián. I remember that I showed him a piece for voice and electronics that I was just composing at the time that converted into a piece which I presented to receive my bachelor’s diploma and I remember that I explained everything to him. It was really well constructed, I was working proportions, a gold section and a lot of things. At the end of the lesson he asked me, “How old are you?” I don’t remember now specifically, I was in my twenties around the time and he said to me something like, “You are already quite sure of what you want to do,” and I took it like a compliment somehow, but then he added, “But you’re too young to be so sure about what you want to do.” That aspect or that question really marked me somehow. It really had an impact on me and from that point I think I’ve been exploring a lot and working a lot with different things. In some aspects my music is very varied, it has a lot of dimensions. I usually like to work a lot with electronics in different ways.
Lately, since I’m working in the University and when you work in the University you have to think in research, because you are supposed to do research, I decided to join a project with a professor there. The project was somehow a place to ask some questions about what musical timbre is, how it should be taught in the University, especially in terms of all these subjects that are related to ear development where you train your ear somehow and that sometimes is connected with solfège and things like that. It’s for a class like that. We were thinking about musical timbre and the person who I worked with had worked a lot with embodied cognition. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term, but that is something that is related to cognitive science of the second generation. We explored the question about how the body is related to the cognition of how you understand music through your own body and that made a connection with me somehow. I started relating topics that were completely disconnected for me like timbre and gesture, for example. Somehow through this research I managed to connect them and since then I’m exploring that relation between body and mind and music, musical gestures and things like that, so my pieces are like thinking a lot about that lately.
Based on that research, a piece for a device that is called Kinnect arised. It is a piece commissioned by a Mexican percussionist called Eusebio Sánchez. Back then he applied for a scholarship from an institution which is very important for us here in Latin America. This scholarship that he obtained was for thinking in the pandemic and especially on how to connect music to young people. He decided to send a project about gamification or working with different sorts of game devices in order to relate them to the music and he decided to commission me a piece. I started to work with Kinnect, because I had some experience back in Germany when I was there, so I had a couple of experiments with Kinnect. I decided to compose a piece for Kinnect, but it was totally connected to this thing that I was telling you about — all the relation between gesture, human gesture, body gesture and sound. The media, I mean, the tool used to connect all these dimensions is the Kinnect gaming device.
What are the stages you go through during the process of composing?
Typical stages like desperation and sadness… No, I’m joking.
It depends on the piece. I mean there are some pieces that are really fast to compose. I’m currently trying to get in touch a little bit with my roots. When I was studying here in Colombia I used to do a lot of indeterminate repertoire and improvisation. Currently I’m working on a lot of pieces that involve improvisation, so that’s one thing. These kinds of pieces, for example, are very different to compose from a piece that is more somehow organised or structured, like thought in more traditional terms of composing. But there are also these pieces that I’m working on that are with devices, for example, these are very different, because usually I start them with a little bit of programming, you know, like programming the device and exploring it with improvisation, and trying to take some sounds that I would use in the piece and then I compose a piece. It depends a lot on the piece, but I usually go for the most practical thing first, like trying to understand what I want to hear and then try to relate that to the musical ideas that I have.
Then there are some pieces that are more structured and they’re more based in concepts. For example, I have a violin piece that is a little bit old, I think I did it around 2014 or something like that. In that piece, for example, I had an idea that was on a spiral. It is a concept. A spiral and a reflection, because I was reading Borges back then and I remember I was really interested in mirrors and the concept of mirrors that the character develops in his stories. I decided to make a piece based on those concepts. I didn’t know what it was going to sound like or anything like that and I started with that concept, but it has been a while since I’ve composed in that way. I prefer to experiment first myself, try some sounds or invite the players and work with them with improvisation.
What kind of technology do you use to create your pieces?
Right now I’m working, as I told you, a lot with improvisation, so, for example, I have a duet that is like a do-it-yourself thing with electronics. It is one with one composer here from Colombia named Sergio Cote and we work a lot with no-input mixing. No-input mixing is just taking some sort of mixing device and generating electronic feedback, connecting some ins and outs and then you get some sort of sound produced by electronic feedback and we work a lot with that. We have our own mixing devices, but we are also constructing instruments all the time, exploring with devices, with sensors. I like to work a lot with accelerometers that work with movement and I also do a lot of experimentation with Kinnect there, so those are like my main tools right now.
In addition to that, I’m working on some other pieces with our other ensembles that include the construction of, for example, loudspeakers and using those loudspeakers in non-traditional ways. For example, right now we’re working on a piece from a Bolivian composer who is named Jorge Monroy. He designed a device that is like loudspeakers tied with ropes and you have to move them around in the scene. It is really interesting, because of the effect and how it sounds in the loudspeakers. I’m really right now working with do-it-yourself kind of stuff, I’m really interested in that.
I also work a lot with software as well. I prefer to program everything with Pure Data that is like the software that I feel more comfortable with, but I have worked with some other stuff like Max that is really similar, with this Kinnect thing I’ve been exploring a lot, some software that is called Processing and TouchDesigner and that had open a lot of doors. Image as well and processing images in real time. A couple of concerts that I’ve made recently had to do with image and sound and how they connect.
For example, I just made an installation with the group I was talking about with Serio Cote. We invited a couple of VJs, these guys that are working a lot with images and we made some sort of an installation in a place that was like a traditional bar in Bogota. They opened the doors and they decided to create some sort of scholarship with an institution here that is called Experimental Theatre. There we worked a lot with images, with projections, with stages, with installations and there, for example, I worked with feedback a lot. I had this snare drum, a contact microphone and an amplifier device. I decided to create some feedback around the drum. It was really amazing. I definitely have to compose a piece with these ideas, because they’re really interesting, so these are the main things I’m using right now.
How has your music changed?
I think it has changed a lot. When I was younger I was really concerned about form, for example, how things developed in time, I was very concerned about very defined musical materials, I was structuring everything. I remember I was quite a fan of structuring pitches and stuff like that. Currently I’m starting to feel a little bit less and less interested in those types of structures. I’m trying to find a way to structure my pieces, but in a way that is a little bit more organic or not imposed by the outside somehow. Right now I’m exploring the sound itself of the pieces I’m working on and trying to understand, for example, the time that those sounds should last in structure, because of their own nature and how their own logic, their own inner structure suggests to me in a way to interconnect them somehow. I think that’s the bigger change if you hear my last pieces. They’re a little bit less structured in an external way somehow like imposing some structures to the music. For things that are more organic it’s really interesting to see how they develop. That I would say is the most important change in my music.
What do you fear as a composer?
I have to deal a lot with anxiety when I’m starting a new project. That’s the thing that I fear the most at the beginning of the project, because the uncertainty of knowing what is going to be the piece makes me a little bit anxious. Sometimes I find that I struggle with starting new projects, but once I’m connected, I’m in the zone, everything flows somehow. I think that’s the most feared thing like “the empty paper syndrome” or something, like looking at the blank page and not knowing what is going to be the piece. When you already know how it’s going to sound or what it’s going to be about you have some certainties and you can just follow them like this, “I’m gonna go this way and I’m gonna do that and that.” But when you don’t know, you’re just exploring and trying to find what is interesting to you. That’s the hardest part I think.
Why do you still compose?
I find myself asking the same question. Right now I’m doing a lot of stuff. I’m teaching, as I told you, I’m conducting, I’m improvising a lot and sometimes I ask myself, “Do I still want to compose? Is it still important for me to compose? Do I need to compose or I’m just creatively satisfied by all the other things that I’m doing around?” There is a need somehow, there is something that pulls me, that drags me to compose again. Not only the people that ask me to do some projects with them, the commissions I get and stuff, but the something like creativity, some sort of impulse that I find inside that drags me to write. I don’t have a lot of time to compose as previously. That’s a thing as well, but I find myself sometimes craving composition, wanting to do it somehow and that hasn’t stopped. I think when that stops I will leave that.
Now there is another factor that pulls me to compose a lot. That is teaching composition, because it’s really interesting to hear all these ideas from students and then you start to work yourself, your brain starts to work and then you have a lot of ideas that make you say, “That’s a really cool idea for a piece.” Right now I’m very dragged by those impulses, by those ideas of students and stuff. That’s really interesting, that kind of dialogue that you create with your students that makes you more creative.
How has the music landscape changed in Colombia?
It’s really interesting. There is a lot of music in Latin America. A lot of traditional music, for example, and that’s in the soundscape all the time, you know, in the landscape. That has been there, that’s what most people hear. I mean, if you walk around a little bit you will hear a lot of music and the music that is being played the most is that kind of not only the traditional popular music, but also pop music you know like reggaeton and all those sorts of things. I think that’s the thing that I hear the most in my surroundings somehow. Bogota is quite different. It has a lot of different scenes and it has a lot of music as well. There is a very important rock scene that has been consolidated since the late 80s, I think. I mean there also is rock music from the 50s and 60s, but it got consolidated in the 80s and that’s everywhere. There are a lot of bars, there are a lot of concerts, there are a lot of bands, there are a lot of projects that involve rock music. That’s also happened with hip hop as well. It happened a little bit later, like in the 90s. You can hear that around all the time as well. Then you have this experimental music scene that is really exciting that has begun as well like in the 80s or 90s. There were a couple of experiments in the 60s with some composers that were working with electronics and with a lot of things. In the 90s it got really strong somehow and there are a lot of places right now that are working a lot with that kind of sound.
How has the contemporary music scene changed?
Back then in the second half of the 20th century you had a lot of composers that were studying in the conservatory, they were composing for orchestra and they were composing sometimes for camera groups and that was like the scene of contemporary music in Bogota. There were some concerts.
Then in the 80s, as I told you, with the arrival or with the beginning of electronic music and experimentation scene it has widened up a lot. There are a lot of projects mixing jazz with contemporary music and electronics, experimentation, so it has changed a lot. There are a lot of different scenes, for example, right now here we have a really strong scene of sound artists that are tired of working just in installations in museums and they decided to do concerts and stuff like that, so they’re improvising a lot and they’re bringing a lot of ideas to the to the scene. Right now you still have the more traditional scene. There are a lot of concerts of orchestras and bands, here the band movement is huge. There are some contemporary composers working with bands as well as camera music and chamber music. Then you also have this experimental scene that is taking a lot of spaces or opening new spaces all the time, so I think that’s how it has changed in the last few years.
How has the audience of contemporary music changed?
That’s a really good question. Of course, the most prime source of audience is musicians for contemporary music, but there have been some spaces that started developing their own scene. For example, if you go to Matik-Matik, which is a traditional bar here, it’s already traditional for experimental music, you’re going to find some people around that are interested in that music and they are not musicians, but they know that there’s a lot of contemporary music being played there, so they decide to go there. I think those audiences have been developing around spaces like the stages that are presenting contemporary music, so every stage has its own scene somehow. It’s not enormous, it’s not big, but it has a couple of people that are interested in these kinds of things. We have been trying to connect the scenes, so people can start to relate to other types of music, because if you’re usually going to Matik-Matik you’re going to find a lot of things, but they have an aesthetic line that they are exploring. We’re trying to mix them together by calling the public from one space to the other and the other way around with a lot of projects. It has changed like that, I think.
What are the future trends for contemporary art music?
I hope to have a more diverse scene. I have been working for that in the University where I teach. I am trying to make some courses in experimental music. I work in a place where we have the arts faculty and there we have contemporary dance, we have traditional dance, we have theatre, we have arts of all types and I’m trying to do some projects to connect with those arts somehow. For example, the last time the ensemble that I conduct participated in a research project with the dance faculty, they had this project of performance and they were working a lot with the body and experimenting around spaces with the body. We decided to join them to work a little bit of sound around the body exploring part, so I try to make the scene a little bit more diverse. Not just musicians hearing musicians, but a lot of different people connected by something in this contemporary scene. Not only music, but arts in general.
What is the role of contemporary music in Colombian society?
Well, that’s hard to say, because I think we have a little impact. I’m talking about a country of 50 million people and a city of 10 million and the impact, if you compare it with other genres and activities, is really little. But I think about that all the time and I think the most important part of the contemporary scene for me is to try to create a more critical audience somehow, a more critical public so that people begin to question themselves about, for example, why is reggaeton the most popular thing or why is rock music so powerful for young people. I’d like to make people think about these ideas. I think that contemporary music in general is really useful for critical thinking or developing some sort of criticism, but not in a bad way. I mean it in a good way that somehow feeds all the music scene, all the art scene. We have a saying here in Colombia about not eating something without completely chewing it. You have to enjoy it, you have to think about what you’re hearing, why you’re hearing what you’re hearing. I think it is the most useful thing of contemporary music or contemporary arts in general for the public and for the general audience. That’s how I see it.
Music composed by Juan Camilo Vásquez:
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