STRINGS MAGAZINE: 5 Ensemble Players Talk Side Projects, Their Challenges & Rewards
STRINGS MAGAZINE: 5 Ensemble Players Talk Side Projects, Their Challenges & Rewards
BY GREG CAHILL
“As for how my solo project has differed from ensemble projects, the differences are fairly broad. I find that with any ensemble project the key ingredient for a successful project is about balancing collaboration and vision. Taking for granted that everyone in the ensemble is equally invested, the next step is to be sure that everyone’s artistic goals are satisfied. This can mean extensive conversations about repertoire, album, outside collaborators, mic placement, studio choice, tour schedule, and so on. Always making sure everyone is heard, yet the product and vision stays focused and clear.
This may mean sacrificing something you are hoping for in the mic placement or perhaps including repertoire that you personally don’t feel is the ideal choice. Or maybe even recording in a style that you don’t prefer. This is where collaboration has its greatest strength and weakness. On one hand, getting someone’s outside perspective takes into account a number of different ideas and situations you haven’t considered, therefore making it a stronger product. On the other hand, when personalities are not balanced, someone’s specific requests can overbalance the others and create a loss of artistic investment from the group.
In my experience with solo projects, the goals are the same, but the process is fairly different. When I was embarking on recording my compositions for [2019’s] Oak & the Ghost, I was able to ask myself a very exciting question, ‘If I could record this music in any way I would like, how would I do it?’ This opened up a new world of experimentation. Instead of considering the ‘best’ way forward, I was able to take great risks from a number of different angles.
For example, even though many of the works are for string quartet, why did it need to be recorded in a live setting? Why couldn’t we record each line separately? And if things are recorded separately, why couldn’t we add aspects of studio sound design to individual lines after the performance? And what if we were able to create a musical project that was not, in fact, a representation of a live performance but something that could only exist in a studio setting? The list goes on.
Now, it’s easy for me to personally take these risks as the project will be released under my name and through my own funding sources. However, if this were a collaborative project, taking these risks with other people’s money, and artistic branding, it would go through an extensive editing phase.
What I ended up realizing through Oak & the Ghost is how much potential there is for experimentation. And that is not to say that it isn’t possible in a collaborative setting, but that risk taking and experimentation seem to have fewer hurdles on your own. As for the approach with the most successful product, that is for the listener alone to decide.
I’ve always thought of the Renaissance musicians of the past as the gold standard for musicians of the future: performers, improvisers, composers, organizers. I feel I am only expressing a part of myself when I play classical music on viola. The world of music is so deeply infinite that I’ll always feel the need to incorporate other aspects of musical life.
Working with other collaborators is always a highlight of my year. After years with the Attacca Quartet, we have evolved into thinking as if we are one brain. It makes for amazingly quick decision making and spur-of-the-moment musical inspiration. As well as minimal talking during rehearsal, the playing says it all. However, it means that when collaborating with others my brain is shocked into overstimulation of other approaches. It ends up being a slower process in which more talking and explanation may be necessary but a more colorful approach blooms. The pleasant musical surprises are many.”