Meet The Composer: Sheridan Seyfried JAPANESE
Q1. When and how did you start composing?
I started writing notes on music paper around the age of 8, when I took up piano and violin and was exposed to music notation. My parents furnished the inspiration--a picture book about Mozart given to me at age 5, featuring images of the young Mozart surrounded by reams of written manuscripts, and a cassette tape, Beethoven Lives Upstairs, featuring Beethoven's music surrounding his life story. My first piece I wrote that was actually finished and performed was a violin duet at age 11.
Q2. How do you compose? Do you have a certain procedure of composing every time you write? Does a vision come first, a sound world, or a melodic or harmonic fragment? Does expertise in your particular instrument play a role in your approach?
I'm continuing to evolve in the way I write. I used to write very abstractly and intellectually--every note must have a reason for being. Then I turned to a more intuitive approach, leaning on manuscript paper. Then I turned more to the piano and improvisation, sometimes recording them. Then I began taking walks and trying to work complete pieces out in my head. Now I've come to embrace anything and everything at my disposal, including the computer and MIDI playback, and all of the above. Regardless of tools, I tend to start with a melodic motive of some sort, something simple, striking and memorable. I want to be sure I'm building a house on a good foundation so I wait until I find something sturdy (I used not to be so patient). The sound world and "vision" for me grows out of the parameters of the basic starting idea. In general, I try to play what I write on violin and piano, as appropriate, and sing it, or try to visualize how it would feel on another instrument, consulting with performers of unfamiliar instruments to me (like the marimba!).
Q3. Do you feel that your reception of others' work, whether from the current day or from the past, is more critical than that of one who only performs?
Not necessarily. I think the validity of my musical judgment is probably the same as that of performers, but as a composer I'm often able to say "why" something does or doesn't work more quickly than a performer who may know only intuitively. All humans would recognize an ugly house, and could even see the obvious problems, but a builder or architect would more quickly be able to pinpoint precise problems and devise efficient solutions--it's the nature of spending hours and hours asking those kinds of questions! A piano teacher will have more or quicker insight into why someone's piano playing sounds a certain way, though a lay person might recognize just as accurately that the playing sounds good. This all being said, I think most performers have a tremendous innate creativity and many of them do in fact compose and improvise. I'm all for the breakdown of the composer/performer divide! Musicians should do both!
Q4. How do you define nationalistic qualities of American composers? Or do you at all?
I don't really think of it too much, but... Copland-esque landscapes of sound--slow moving, spacious textures, brass, piles of open fifths, a pastoral English horn melody. I don't know! In the more Bernstein idiom, it's about rhythm--jazz and pop influence. American composers (some of them anyway!) can groove, rhythmically, and seem a little less intimidated by tradition, which is healthy, I think. (Think of William Billings and those American amateurs in colonial times who reinvented the musical renaissance from scratch with almost no musical education! That was pretty extreme!) I particularly prize American blues and pop influences in my own music. Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, Weezer, Eric Clapton, Gospel choir and piano music, the list goes on!
Q5. Do you have a favorite composer(s) or musical style(s)? Is your music influenced by a certain composer(s) from an earlier period?
Tough question. I love late Renaissance vocal music, particularly Palestrina and Lasso, I love almost anything Baroque, especially Bach, Handel, Corelli. In later styles, I love the style less than the individual composer. I'm not a big fan of the classical era in general, but I adore Beethoven and late Mozart. I'm only 50/50 on the Romantics, but I love Mahler and Brahms. My music, depending on the piece, is influenced by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok! In the marimba trio on the program however, none of those influences are present in an obvious way! It sounds a bit like tango, blues, and something else Latin, I think.
Q6. Do you view yourself within a school or tradition of composing? Or do you perhaps see yourself as a maverick?
If I was better acquainted with what's going on, I might, but on the other hand I don't want to discourage my own evolution. I'd have to be a little more full of myself to claim to be a maverick, but I think anyone who has the audacity to create music and put it out in front of other people is implicitly saying "Hey! Forget Beethoven and the Beatles and listen to this for a minute! This is good!" So you have to be at least a bit of a maverick to say that!
Q7. What is your ultimate purpose in composing? For example, do you have a notion of future posterity when you compose? If so, what would you wish of performers or listeners of your work, say, 200 years from now?
That's a tough question. The simple answer is that I want to write great music. The other answer is that I want to be a good person and lead a good life, whatever that means, and I want to continue to think of how creative music making fits into that. As for the future, I don't give it a thought! I suppose if the music is great enough it'll stick around.
I started writing notes on music paper around the age of 8, when I took up piano and violin and was exposed to music notation. My parents furnished the inspiration--a picture book about Mozart given to me at age 5, featuring images of the young Mozart surrounded by reams of written manuscripts, and a cassette tape, Beethoven Lives Upstairs, featuring Beethoven's music surrounding his life story. My first piece I wrote that was actually finished and performed was a violin duet at age 11.
Q2. How do you compose? Do you have a certain procedure of composing every time you write? Does a vision come first, a sound world, or a melodic or harmonic fragment? Does expertise in your particular instrument play a role in your approach?
I'm continuing to evolve in the way I write. I used to write very abstractly and intellectually--every note must have a reason for being. Then I turned to a more intuitive approach, leaning on manuscript paper. Then I turned more to the piano and improvisation, sometimes recording them. Then I began taking walks and trying to work complete pieces out in my head. Now I've come to embrace anything and everything at my disposal, including the computer and MIDI playback, and all of the above. Regardless of tools, I tend to start with a melodic motive of some sort, something simple, striking and memorable. I want to be sure I'm building a house on a good foundation so I wait until I find something sturdy (I used not to be so patient). The sound world and "vision" for me grows out of the parameters of the basic starting idea. In general, I try to play what I write on violin and piano, as appropriate, and sing it, or try to visualize how it would feel on another instrument, consulting with performers of unfamiliar instruments to me (like the marimba!).
Q3. Do you feel that your reception of others' work, whether from the current day or from the past, is more critical than that of one who only performs?
Not necessarily. I think the validity of my musical judgment is probably the same as that of performers, but as a composer I'm often able to say "why" something does or doesn't work more quickly than a performer who may know only intuitively. All humans would recognize an ugly house, and could even see the obvious problems, but a builder or architect would more quickly be able to pinpoint precise problems and devise efficient solutions--it's the nature of spending hours and hours asking those kinds of questions! A piano teacher will have more or quicker insight into why someone's piano playing sounds a certain way, though a lay person might recognize just as accurately that the playing sounds good. This all being said, I think most performers have a tremendous innate creativity and many of them do in fact compose and improvise. I'm all for the breakdown of the composer/performer divide! Musicians should do both!
Q4. How do you define nationalistic qualities of American composers? Or do you at all?
I don't really think of it too much, but... Copland-esque landscapes of sound--slow moving, spacious textures, brass, piles of open fifths, a pastoral English horn melody. I don't know! In the more Bernstein idiom, it's about rhythm--jazz and pop influence. American composers (some of them anyway!) can groove, rhythmically, and seem a little less intimidated by tradition, which is healthy, I think. (Think of William Billings and those American amateurs in colonial times who reinvented the musical renaissance from scratch with almost no musical education! That was pretty extreme!) I particularly prize American blues and pop influences in my own music. Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, Weezer, Eric Clapton, Gospel choir and piano music, the list goes on!
Q5. Do you have a favorite composer(s) or musical style(s)? Is your music influenced by a certain composer(s) from an earlier period?
Tough question. I love late Renaissance vocal music, particularly Palestrina and Lasso, I love almost anything Baroque, especially Bach, Handel, Corelli. In later styles, I love the style less than the individual composer. I'm not a big fan of the classical era in general, but I adore Beethoven and late Mozart. I'm only 50/50 on the Romantics, but I love Mahler and Brahms. My music, depending on the piece, is influenced by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok! In the marimba trio on the program however, none of those influences are present in an obvious way! It sounds a bit like tango, blues, and something else Latin, I think.
Q6. Do you view yourself within a school or tradition of composing? Or do you perhaps see yourself as a maverick?
If I was better acquainted with what's going on, I might, but on the other hand I don't want to discourage my own evolution. I'd have to be a little more full of myself to claim to be a maverick, but I think anyone who has the audacity to create music and put it out in front of other people is implicitly saying "Hey! Forget Beethoven and the Beatles and listen to this for a minute! This is good!" So you have to be at least a bit of a maverick to say that!
Q7. What is your ultimate purpose in composing? For example, do you have a notion of future posterity when you compose? If so, what would you wish of performers or listeners of your work, say, 200 years from now?
That's a tough question. The simple answer is that I want to write great music. The other answer is that I want to be a good person and lead a good life, whatever that means, and I want to continue to think of how creative music making fits into that. As for the future, I don't give it a thought! I suppose if the music is great enough it'll stick around.