The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 9, 2010 Page: 30 of 32
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RICE RADIO FOLIO
KTRU INTERVIEW
m ®1] to
SPRING 2010
An Interview
with Composer
Kyle Bobby Dunn
by Melanie Jamison
The Canadian-born, primarily self-
taught composer Kyle Bobby Dunn
escapes academic process and contrived
approach, instead exploring individual will
and styling in his compositions. Dunn once
worked in England with British composer
Gareth Hardwick of the Low Point label,
who recommended the recent release of
compilation album/l Young Person's Guide
To Kyle Bobby Dunn (which Dunn insists is
not a retrospective or greatest hits collec-
tion, "simply a title"). The album consists
of fluid acquisitions of reductive elements
in piano, bass guitar, and small string and
horn sections, consisting of some of the
composer's most astute works of the past
six years. Not quite what he would consider
improvised, Dunn explores the formation
of music on an intuitive basis, often allow-
ing the sound itself to guide his work.
Dunn now lives in New York where
he frequently performs in solo and col-
laborative efforts with other musicians.
Live performance in addition to personal
recording sessions will continue to take
precedence in his work. With A Young
Person's Guide being a recent acquisition
in the KTRU music collection, I contacted
the composer about his music philosophy,
background, and approach.
KTRU: What were some of the most for-
mative early sounds or music you heard that
have now influenced the way you listen ?
KBD: Sounds that were just sort of
negative to me, or that I didn't actually
like... I had sleeping problems when I
was really young, and my mom would
suggest playing her radio to help try to get
me asleep, and it made matters worse...
Sounds that I would hear in daily situations
were the most formative, probably... I lived
downstairs, so I would sometimes hear
the sounds coming through the floors,
and it kind of muddied them... That's
what I'm thinking about the unconscious
formation in what I started to create. In
terms of music that I liked, I really got
into a lot of contemporary classical and
even traditional classical music when I
was pretty young. It somehow translated
into what I was doing.
KTRU: Music terminology seems to keep
expanding. How would you currently classify
your music?
KBD: I feel like I sound more and more
ridiculous and pretentious when I describe
it to somebody, and that is the big difficulty
with music that's being made today. You 're
either trying to break out of a mold or stay
inside a mold... I look at it no differently
than I look at a lot of music. At the end
of the day, it's a product, it's packaged,
it's sold. It's available just like any other
music is available. I've even half-jokingly
called it pop music before and "pop music
for our time." I think we live in sort of a
weird time, and I think pop music is sort
of "of the era"... People have labeled it as
ambient music, or drone music, but I just
really don't think of it as in those terms.
I'm not creating it in that headspace.
KTRU: Do you find it essential today as
a contemporary composer to have classical
training (such as music theory, maybe
even proficiency in an instrument) or do
you interpret composition or essentially a
sound vocabulary as a personal developed,
cognitive skill?
KBD: I am all for it... A lot of the friends
or people that I work with are classically
trained, and I really like somebody who
has perfected their instrument, especially
when I'm working with them. I have pretty
little academic music background. I know
a little bit of theory, and I've learned the
instruments I have played in my own weird,
intuitive way. I've taken enough time and
flirted with the instrument in ways that I
have just come to like. I think in terms of
my own creative process or ways of com-
posing, I have never really used traditional
theory. I feel that if I learned more of it
maybe it could just really limit my ability
or even my want to keep doing music. I
would maybe get bored with it, or just not
find anything interesting about it.
KTRU: Do you feel like it is possible to
find form in the absence of form?
KBD: Yeah, I think it's obvious in some
of my pieces that I'm really into silence, and
I am utilizing it to the best of my ability. It's
sort of a subjective theory, with form. Ev-
eryone's got a take on form. There could be
a "formless form." As long as I'm creating,
I know there has to be something there.
I don't think I am an extreme minimalist,
or I don't think that I am creating with the
mindset that I am.
KTRU: Technology seems to be an inte-
gral part to your composition process. What
would you say is the ratio of electronically
generated/manipulated sound vs. raw sam-
pling and instrumentation we are hearing
in your music?
KBD: I would say now it's pretty even
keel, 50/50, process vs. the actual en-
semble playing the music...in my newer
works and playing live, I've tried to water
down more of the electronic and computer
stuff. I'm just not really a huge computer
fan...I know it's sort of an inescapable
beast at this point, but I'm learning more
and more about bleeding the instruments
or the sounds of the instruments in ways
that don't rely so heavily on process or
the computer... In the raw process for this
album, the "Young Person's Guide," there
was a lot of playing that you don't hear.
On the record, I am playing mainly guitar
and piano. That's kind of the forward for
the string players to the horn players...
they're interpreting the sounds through
my guitar changes or piano progressions
and then adding their own sort of beauty
to the mix.
KTRU: How does the way you utilize
technology differ from the recording of this
album vs. when you play live with other
musicians?
KBD: I've been trying to play more with
the string ensembles and string sections.
They're not really under as much control,
so to speak. When I am working with them
I tend to have a lot more time and control
over the sounds that they contribute...in
a live setting it's a lot more organic, fresh,
natural progressions with their playing.
Again, trying to play more of a natural
reliance on their natural resonance...it's
a nice meeting point for live stuff...in the
recording, there is no jamming going on,
no practice sessions or anything. It's really
painfully boring, really just a conversation
that might resurface later.
KTRU: A Young Person's Guide to Kyle
Hobby Dunn successfully conveys human
emotion in electronic music, something
that perhaps couldn't easily be conceived
without being heard. Where do you find this
inspiration? Would you say this parallels
your aesthetic appreciation?
KBD: It's really just drawn from my
general view of society and what is going
on in my own life... It might seem isolated,
but that might be because I am a pretty
isolated person, isolated as a composer
for sure...The pieces on this album in
particular have a lot of strange, hidden con-
notations or messages. They will not apply
to everybody...You just know something
you are attracted to with sound. That's
why it's so subjective.
VARSHA VAKIL
Pandit Suman Ghosh
Pandit Suman Ghosh gave lessons on the Hindustani (North Indian) style of singing during
a recent live performance on the Navrang Show.
Some praise from Houston Press:
O
2006: Best Radio Station * o
"Rice University's KTRU gives Houston the very thing
most other radio stations lack: quality. The kids cutting
their teeth on indie rock, hip-hop and electro manage
to pull off a better radio station than Clear Channel
could ever dream up."
2003: Best Hip-Hop Show
(for The Vinyl Frontier)
"Dennis Lee's radio show, which broadcasts every
Tuesday night out of the Student Center
at Rice University, is three hours
of unadulterated hip-hop ecstasy."
2000: Best Radio Station
"The 50,000-watt outlet is a throwback to a time when
stations were programmed by people who really liked music.'
o-
KTRU
91.7 FM
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Wilde, Anna. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 9, 2010, newspaper, April 9, 2010; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth398458/m1/30/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.