Molly Joyce explains her piece “Perspective”
Read my interview with US-based new music composer Molly Joyce on her piece “Perspective”. Perspective is expanded music project where individuals with disabilities share their perspectives on concepts like access, care, interdependence, and beyond. The project has taken various forms, from in-person installations and dance performances to virtual interactive discussions. Previous collaborators include Americans for the Arts, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Bemis Center, The Great Northern Festival, Halcyon, The Peace Studio, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Surel’s Place, and National Sawdust. The text version of interview was created by Estere Bundzēna.
Can you briefly summarise your piece?
The piece began about three years ago during a year-long fellowship I had in Washington DC. During my time there, I had a conversation with the legendary disability activist Judith Heumann, who asked me why I refer to my left hand as weak. My left hand was nearly amputated in a car accident about 20 years ago, so since the accident, I really journeyed from denying my disability to embracing it. Judy’s question really struck me, because I knew that I always referred to it as weak or tried to say that I have a weaker left side if someone asked why I could not do or lift something. I do not think Judy’s question was saying I should deny weakness altogether, but it really prompted me to think about what weaknesses individuals have across a range of disabilities and further experiences. That set this project in motion. I asked disabled interviewees questions like ‘What is a weakness for you?’ and expanded to further questions and concepts that are central to the disabled experience. ‘When is it access for you? What is care for you?’ and so on. The project has taken a couple of iterations thus far. Some are more geographically centred on certain areas.
I would say this is more like an installation work, but I try to keep it as flexible as possible. I have performed with it in a concert or selections from it. Another element to mention is that it has a specific audio track — the interviewee’s voices. With my musical underscoring, I created these accompanying videos, which feature the caption-like text of their responses to underscore the accessibility of the project. There are multiple sensory outputs of the material. Sometimes I perform with those videos. The project has been a website and a dance performance, but I would say the ideal format is probably an installation.
Watch full interview:
What does the underscore look like?
It includes my voice and my vintage toy organ instrument, which I really love because this organ instrument fits my disability well, especially my impaired left hand. It has chord buttons on the left-hand side and an e-board part on the right-hand side, so it feels very natural for me to perform on it. It is an instrument I have used a lot in my work as a performer, especially in more disability-focused work. The musical underscoring includes my voice and the organ and there is like an electronic layering of both sources. The whole project is 15 tracks, but on this initial album version, there are 12. There will be a supplemental EP release with the other three tracks since those were created with a dance company, so they are a little more specific.
What is the story behind the title?
Initially, I was building it as an installation for a public art festival, but it got cancelled. I think it just kind of came to me. I was asking these people, the interviewees for their ‘perspective’ on these questions. I think I was striving towards a very simple and hopefully straightforward title.
What is the main message of this piece?
I think with all my work I hope to not just present one main message or an answer. I like art that asks more questions and opens up realms of understanding and possibility. I would hope that the message or the understanding would be to get a more up-close understanding of disability and the disabled experience. I think disability is so often stigmatized and feared and disabled individuals and communities are often isolated from society overall. With this project, I hope to at least attempt to bridge the gap between society and disability and cherish the disabled experience as one that all can relate to. I feel like it is one of the only identities that can be temporary to permanent, congenital to acquired and visible to invisible.
How did you choose which questions to ask?
The project has taken three main iterations thus far. The first iteration was eight questions that I began in Washington DC. It was mainly with interviewees based there. I came up with these questions and concepts starting from that weakness question and then expanding to further questions and concepts that I feel were really central to the disabled experience. It came from what I learned from my own disability studies, disability activism and artistry. For some questions, like weakness, I chose to also ask the opposite — strengths. Then questions about access and accessibility which is definitely central to disability culture, and even more controversial questions like cure. I was curious to get people’s thoughts on this as well. There are four questions at the end of the album that are about resilience, isolation, connection and darkness, which were created as a part of the winter-focused iteration of the project. It was commissioned last year by The Great Northern Festival in Minnesota so it has more of a winter theme to it. As part of that commission, I again chose questions and concepts that are more related to winter to ask the disabled interviewees.
What were the questions you asked?
‘What is access for you? What is care for you? What is control, weakness, strength, cure, interdependence and assumption? What is resilience for you? What is isolation, connection and darkness?’ In the last three tracks, I asked the same questions I had asked previously, but this was with a disability dance group in Boise, Idaho.
Is there a specific logic for the questions?
There is definitely an order for the questions, especially the first eight questions and the subsequent four for the Minnesota edition. I tried to start with more relatable questions for disabled people like ‘What is access for you? What is resilience for you?’ and then ease into the harder questions or more controversial ones about cure, interdependence and weakness and then ease out from that. The same thing with the Minnesota edition about connection, isolation and darkness. I tried to order them in a way that, at least in my opinion, eased into the interview and the concepts I was getting at. The interviewees could answer all the questions or none of them or they do not have to answer all of them, the answers could be as long or as short as they want.
How did you come up with the musical part of this piece?
It was interesting because I had never done a composition like this. I remember and still, to this day, when I do new iterations of it, I feel very nervous about writing the music. It is very challenging and I want to honour those voices as authentically as possible. I almost feel like the voices could be heard without music and be just as interesting. I feel like the music is my answer to the questions without trying to superimpose my own thoughts onto the interviewee’s responses. Between the sections, I tried to bury it between musical content. If one section was a little slower and a little drony, then the next section was a little more upbeat or just not as super continuous or super monotonous. Some sections are more vocal-heavy, some more organ-heavy, and in some, there are more drum tracks like in the control one, where there is no voice. I also play with some musical gestures from it. In the cure section, there is an oscillating major and minor chord that almost sounds like you could be at a fair or fantasy land. To me that suggests that cure is a fantasy, it can never really be achieved. That was my own answer to the questions, but I would say I was trying to be as intuitive as possible. I felt like the music was telling me once I ordered the interviewee’s voices.
How did you come up with the video format?
When I started the project, I knew that I wanted to create a video element, just because I had been exploring a lot of accessibility in my work. By accessibility, I mean having kind of multiple sensory outputs of the work, especially with artistic content, to have the oral output with my musical content. That visual output, especially with the captions, is helpful for deaf and hard-of-hearing audiences. I was working with a project curator Sandy Guttman and we were talking about the videos and what they would look like. I believe it was her idea to have this format of the question at the top and their answer scrolling at the bottom, which reflects the caption format. Sometimes there are closed captions and open captions and generally, I would say a lot of accessibility facets or accommodations like captioning or sign language interpretation are viewed as add-ons to artistic work or any content. They are placed at the end and not aesthetically considered. I love Sandy’s idea of the placement of them and just having that be the sole visual image to emphasise their words and accessibility. I also like the idea of what happens in the middle. It is just black and leaves it up to the viewer’s imagination who the interviewee is. My idea was to not place a lot of other visual information there. When I was creating these videos, I loved how when I expanded the video on a laptop, it took up all the black, you could not see the video frame anymore.
What were the stages of composing this piece?
First I pulled in all the interviews I did. Then I selected the highlights from each interviewee and tried to narrow it down. I compiled it into each section like access, care and others. Then another round of edits because I was trying to make each section roughly two to six minutes, something bite-size and not super long. I finalized the highlights and put them in an order that I felt made sense and it was very intuitive. Sometimes I placed the answers that were similar next to each other so that they could proceed or develop on one another, or the opposite if someone contradicted each other. It was done to show the diversity of the disabled experience and disability viewpoints. From there, once I had the order, I added musical underscoring. This was all my Logic software. I did it in a MIDI format and then eventually recorded it with my organ instrument.
What kind of software did you use?
I used Logic Pro and then Civilius. The project is not super notated, but sometimes I would create a score if I was recording myself so that I could read off. For videos, I used Adobe Premiere.
How long did it take you to make the piece?
It is hard to say because e I came back to it at different points. I think the first iteration took about seven months or so. The second one in Minnesota took four or five months. The one in Idaho I did in one month because I was very focused on a residency there. It is hard to say because I have been coming back in quarts of the project and I usually work on multiple different things at a time.
What is the role of the video and can you imagine the piece without it?
The accessibility component. Providing that visual output of the oral content, especially the interviewee’s voice. Beyond that — emphasising open captions as an artistic output and itself. Hopefully to create a more immersive experience for the audience.
I am sure many people might listen to the album with just sound, which is definitely fine with me. However, I think that the ideal format is an in-person installation. Being immersed in the sound with a really good sound system. I do not think it would be as complete. I think I started making the videos as the last step of the first iteration for a presentation I was doing. I felt like it really made their words come alive, the combination of the oral and the visuals.
Can you imagine the piece without the sound component?
Yes, that is how many deaf or hard-of-hearing audiences view it anyway, so I hope it is still effective with just one part of the idea.
Can you imagine these parts also as stand-alone concert pieces?
I would be interested in that in the future. I have actually started creating more instrumental versions of some of the tracks for improvising musicians to play with the voices as a fixed media track, to trigger the voice samples individually and then add musical layers on top of it. I am just at the start of experimenting with it, but I really like that prospect. Hopefully, I can open the project up to further musicians besides myself to play with it.
Did you work alone?
For this project, I was the only one making the video, but I have to give credit to the curator Sandy Guttman for great consultation and the sound engineer Michael Hammond who mixed and mastered all the tracks and made them sound good.
I think with the video aspect I am a little bit of a control freak sometimes. I think it is nice to think over the timing of the voices, especially since it is fairly simple, it is just the text captions. For me, it is more about getting the timing right with the track. It is nice to have control over it because when I do a new installation or performance, I can edit it myself.
How did this collaboration shape the piece?
The curator was the one who had the idea about the open caption videos and the placement of the text. She definitely has more of a visual art background, which is really great for this project. I have been working with Michael Hammond for many years and he mixed and mastered all the tracks for the album release.
Was there a learning curve for you?
Definitely, because most of it was not notated. I was writing straight into the Logic software, which I am not super comfortable with. I think that was my biggest learning curve or challenge.
What would you suggest to other composers regarding how to make research-oriented pieces?
You have to be as authentic ethical and transparent as possible. I am not saying I have mastered that, I am still learning in that regard. Right before I started the project, I realized that I should have a contract with the participants or just a simple consent form with the interviewees so that I could use their interviews for presentations with the project. Ideally, I would like to pay the participants for their participation. You should be as clear as possible about how the material will be used. Highlight their viewpoints as much as possible too. For example, I created a web page for the project this summer with all the interviewee names and bios and then the full recordings and transcripts of the interviews conducted. It was done to, hopefully, honour their participation as much as possible. I know that when I edit down the interviews for each section, it is definitely biased or subjective to how I edit it and whatever I think sounds interesting, but I want to open it up for those who are interested so that they can listen to the whole interview.
Watch the piece Perspective:
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About Molly Joyce:
She explores disability as her creative source. She has an impaired left hand from a previous car accident. The primary vehicle in her pursuit is her electric vintage toy organ, an instrument she bought on eBay that suits her body and engages her disability on a compositional and performative level. She is currently a Dean’s Doctoral Fellow at the University of Virginia, focusing on Composition and Computer technology.
Molly’s creative projects have been presented and commissioned by Carnegie Hall, TEDxMidAtlantic, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Bang on a Can Marathon, Danspace Project, Americans for the Arts, National Sawdust, Music Academy of the West, Gaudeamus Muziekweek, National Gallery of Art, Classical: NEXT, and featured in outlets such as Pitchfork, eBay, Red Bull Radio, WNYC’s New Sounds, and I Care If You Listen. Her compositional works have been commissioned and performed by ensembles including Vermont, New World, New York Youth, Pittsburgh, Albany, and Milwaukee Symphony Orchestras, as well as the New Juilliard, Decoda, Contemporaneous ensembles, and Harvard Glee Club. She has also written for publications 21CM, Disability Arts Online, and Women in Foreign Policy, and is a member of the Americans for the Arts Artists Committee.
