Have You Heard of James Ross, Composer?
If you haven’t, here is a little introduction and even better, an interview below.
Links: James Ross Myspace Page 1 and Page 2
I had a nice conversation with James Ross the other day. He is a contemporary Amaranth composer out of Brooklyn, N.Y. A guitarist and music teacher, but unique in the sense that he is far and away from guitar composing-wise the couple years I have been a fan of his and is focused on sounds, sonic art, etc. Initially, when moving into soundscapes he started out with a work simply titled, “Winds and Strings.” Truly a study of sound waves. I visit his site often to listen to that work, which is ambience at its best. I have mentioned to James that the ambience is Beethovenesque to my ear at times.
Over the last year or so he has followed in that vein and moved into field recording. “Brick Saw” is a collaboration with Night Germ (a.k.a. Stefan Graham). The work employs the sound of a brick saw, which in turn is twisted and probed sonically in almost every conceivable aspect.
His latest work is called “Heaven” and he talks about it below.
I highly recommend purchasing every work of James Ross as they are shining, radiant and luminescent wise tales understood best by centering your senses to let the music move you into the composers’ soundscape.
Combs: I really dig your works with sound, the compositions. How would you describe them?
Ross: Well, I use a lot of sustained tones and repetitions. I just like to display sounds so that a listener can really hear them–study them almost. Sounds are valuable. I don’t like to toss them around like pennies. I guess most of my pieces are attempts to showcase sounds.
Combs: What got you in to composition?
Ross: Besides the money? I’ve always been in awe of composers. They are the ones who actually make all that music–bring it into being from nothing. They are the unique ones. There are lots of pianists who play, say, Debussy, and make it sound great. But there was only one Debussy. At any rate, I’ve always wanted to be the one who creates those worlds that players and listeners delve into. But I’m relatively new to composition. Only been at it a few years. I have a lot to learn. Almost everything, really.
Combs: Who are your major influences.
Ross: Too many. Fripp, Eno, Glass, Cage, Feldman, John Fahey, La Monte Young, the New York City Transit system …
Combs: You recently visited China. Has that trip influenced you in any way?
Ross: I was there to visit my wife’s family. They are mostly in Sichuan province. It was such a beautiful and fascinating place. So sad what has happened there. Our friends and family there are all fine, fortunately, but what a tragedy for so many people.
You can’t help but be affected by a trip to a place like that. So much history. But probably the most immediate influence is coming from a plucked-string instrument called a zhongruan, which I bought while we were there. It has four strings, a two-octave fretboard, a wide, round body, and is usually played with a plectrum. Its origins are ancient–more than 2000 years old. It originally had silk strings, which would have given it a soft, delicate voice, I imagine. But over the centuries the instrument has been modified–”reformed” is the word some Chinese music scholars use, I believe–so now it’s rather guitar-like with metal strings and metal frets. I love the sounds. Kind of primitive, gamey. But penetrating, percussive and, in quiet playing, very soulful and deep. I’ve been doing some practicing and composing for it. The sound is in my ear and it will probably show up in some future pieces.
Combs: I’ve heard that you ran into someone at a party, a composer, and were speechless. Who was that and what happened?
Ross: You’re talking about my non-fateful meeting with John Cage. It wasn’t at a party, though. He was giving a lecture at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in the early 1980s. (I’m originally from southwestern Pennsylvania.) The talk was just Cage standing in front of the room reading from his book “Silence” in an incredibly even, detached tone of voice. I remember it was a very calming experience. After, people were hanging out talking with him, and I just couldn’t speak. But at the time I was only 18 or 19, and I felt quite intimidated. I was certain I didn’t really have anything intelligent to say or to ask him so I just kept my mouth shut. I’m still not sure what I would ask him if he were around today and I had another chance.
Combs: Tell us what we can look forward to from you over the coming months.
Ross: Just finished a long dronal/ambient piece called “Heaven.” It consists of clips of the sound of ringing pot lids that have been transposed to various pitch levels and layered together. The transpositions explore a series of modulations in seven-limit just intonation. Some excerpts are at my MySpace page (myspace. com/jrossdrone). Also, planning to finish a series of pieces I started last year called “Island of the Dead.” It’s more music based on the sounds of the pot lids mentioned above. Only with these pieces, I derived a tuning from the inharmonic tones produced by the lids, and used the tones to compose for other instruments, voices, etc. Includes prepared guitar and drumming on some old milk cans. I plan to release the recordings privately. There are also the zhongruan pieces–I have a couple of those under way. I guess that’s more than enough.
To Coin a Term: “Tricked by the Application”
Ladies and Gentleman. I am coining this term: “Tricked by the Application,” if it hasn’t been coined yet. This Archimedes moment hit me just as I realized I sent out a totally inappropriate YouTube video to 14 of my new Facebook friends. Of course, I didn’t really send it out, I was TBA!
Silly, maybe. Think about the term. Would it exist without the internet? I can’t come up with an example. Yet, in our high-tech age being “tricked by the application” is written in our human code as a SOP.
TBA! Don’t let it happen!
Wake, Reality
The world is overburdened with rich, greedy humans. They spawn and grow.
The world is overburdened with poor, naive humans. They spawn and grow.
The world is kept with adversity, to squelch and smite to whom who is not born unto sacred, golden pastures of gliding, glowing poseurs filling the empty spaces.
Off-Topic: Wii Fit
All through my school years up until my early 20s I had an immensely fast metabolism. Now past my mid-30s, tasty meals such a pizza seriously pack a couple pounds on and after awhile it adds up. I walk quite a bit in my normal routine, but my busy schedule doesn’t allow much time to hit the gym.
So I viewed the preview of the Wii Fit and it looked really fun and for a mere $89.00 I was primed to buy it. I heard there was a shortage of them, so I called around. Every store told me to stop by at 8 a.m. the next morning as they might have some in. I planned for my wife to go one direction and I would go the other. We communicated our findings via cell phone. She arrived at Target prior to my arrival at Fred Meyer. She informed me that they had none in. However, as I stepped into the Fred Meyer electronics department I noticed many Wii Fit boxes behind the cash register. I proceeded to check out and, viola, mission accomplished.
We set it up and went through the entire beginning workout (you unlock more workout options as you improve). Certain portions are definitely aimed at keeping you from aging beyond the point of disrepair before your time is up. Walk a tightrope, ski, ski jump, are a couple examples and if you regularly do this, this gadget just might keep you balanced and seriously help the elderly avoid falls which lead to broken hips and unfortunate deteriorating health states (no pun intended).
Another aspect is for folks looking for a challenging workout. I believe this portion of the Wii Fit will be looked over for awhile, but I noticed that Nintendo focused hard on this area as I kept unlocking more and more strength exercises while in non-related areas of my workout. The first strength workout I did on “beginner” was to do pushups on the scale device and then turn my body and hold one arm up. As I type this I admit I am sore just from that particular exercise.
The other area Nintendo hit on was the peaceful workout. Yoga, need I say more.
Almost lastly, and the most fun was the aerobics. Hula-hoops and dancing at the beginner level went by so fast, yet the Wii told me I had been going at it for 20 minutes.
Finally, and for me the most impressive aspect, was the jogging section. It is actually under “aerobic” but I think Wii could have added a separate section just for this. You don’t run on the board. You simply put your Wii-mote in the back pocket of your shorts and run in place. It might look silly to strangers watching you, but most likely no one will be watching you but your family and friends. It feels so close to the real thing if you pick up your legs enough, because your avatar moves along in step and you are with a group of others in-game running you along cool paths. Now the option here is to run at different lengths, so I can really see this part catching on because running is b.o.r.i.n.g. and the way Wii Fit implements this actually provides a fix for that dilemma.
To wrap it up, so far so good Wii Fit. I am looking forward to starting it up again already.
Sound Display at The Northwest Folklife Festival
Really, one the few perks of living in Seattle, the Northwest Folklife Festival. Don’t believe the hype regarding the rest, .i.e., the rain and beauty. The reality is we wait eight months out of the year in gloomy weather for the sun to appear without clouds in the way. Rain, wind, cold, and “gloomy,” I’ll say it again, now that’s Seattle.
However, it is a serious treat to get out to the various art festivals and for once this one fell on a perfect day. The forecast called for rain, but as you can see, not a cloud in the sky, 75 degrees. Perfect.
Here are The Bridgetown Morris Men performing. Sorry about the sound, or lack thereof, but it was lost somewhere in the process of moving this from the phone to the computer.
Ture Larsen
Ture Larsen has some great music up at his Myspace page. I am not aware of a blog or website to link to, but his page over at Myspace offers a fantastic visit full of mysterious sounds mixed up with electroacoustic and standard orchestral instruments. Ture doesn’t hold anything back in his composition and it shows. Exciting, enigmatic, undaunted, elaborate and precise are some words that come to mind when listening to Ture Larsen. And you know how when you visit someone’s band page and it takes three minutes to load, then you find out its because they have 20 crappy YouTube videos of themselves up? Well Ture has some Myspace videos but they are really worth watching and they don’t bog down his page. One of my favorites involves a man standing at the edge of a subway landing (could be a train). Another is the a singer who can’t seem to keep an article of clothing from falling off
From James Combs to J.C. Combs
The metamorphosis continues my friends. Now I shall change my name, as “James” signified the evil side of me, the troublemaker. Just kidding!!
Seriously, I am changing my artist name to J.C. versus James because in the Internet age the networks that promote and distribute our music can really only deal with one person of one name in use in the field of music. Give them two of the same and things are inevitably and irrevocably fouled up. There happens to be a talented rocker out of California who also goes by the name, James Combs. I figured no problem, we are in two very different genres. However, that is not the case. Genre is not looked at, it is assumed that there is only one artist with one name. So look forward to seeing Charmed Elixirs paired up with the rock albums of aforementioned talented artist.
I like JC (I never really was called James in person anyway) and the other Combs has four or so albums out to my one, so I will try as best as possible to split our doppleganging. It was cool being a rocker there for awhile. J stands for James and C is Clark which is my middle name.
JC
Conversion
I am naturally “gifted” some might say. I have the ability to hear music in my head rather well. I believe we all hear music in our heads, but I guess where people differ is that some of us can translate it to an instrument or a work. It does seem very strange that someone could hear a melody and not be able to copy it down to an instrument. Gifted doesn’t go very far in the world of music if you have no inspiration, however. Inspiration defined in film, novels, poetry, glamorizes the word as the urge to create works that are divine. In my view inspiration is to have the ability to open your mind to almost everything that surrounds you and see the beauty in it.
My personal conversion in the form of further musical study described below came upon me approximately ten years ago. That is when I retired from composing. I am thirty-seven and just released my debut CD, Charmed Elixirs. So if you wonder what happened to me, this should answer your question.
Around the age of nineteen I began experimenting with composition. If you read my mini-bio, you would know that I had studied piano starting at age five up to eleven or twelve. My first encounter with composing came when I was or nine or ten. Mr. Forge, my piano teacher, assigned a lesson involving taking a chord that was printed in the treble clef in an instruction page and then re-writing it over and over. This was a take-home lesson. I truly hated lessons and would procrastinate until the very last minute to do my assignments. Not understanding the exercise, I sat down at the piano and proceeded to write additional chords on the instruction sheet to make a phrase versus copying the chord over and over. Feeling good about completing my task, I turned it in to Mr. Forge at my weekly lesson, who promptly scolded me for not correctly understanding the exercise. But Mr. Forge was a great instructor and I know he has a son who played professionally, although I am not sure of his name. At times Mr. Forge would fall asleep while I practiced. He also had wonderful pets. I still feel sad when I remember the day I told him I quit. Teenage years…. Rebellion and the piano didn’t go well together (not then at least).
So it was around age of nineteen that I started studying music theory in-depth, counterpoint, composers and learning piano scores. I started recording works at age twenty-six. I was independent and just really starting up. But there was something missing. Inspiration. I was a cocky, naïve, immature composer. I created music for strange reasons now I cannot understand or even articulate. I realized this at age twenty-eight.
I then decided to go back to what is basic. I quit my business in the medical field, which had allowed quite sufficient time for composing, and got a job at Home Depot. I moved into a 10′ x 25′ basement and had little responsibility. I bought a bicycle to use as transportation to work and back and everyone at my work would laugh as it always had a flat. I found that it was more of a challenge to ride a 10-speed on flats. I worked in building materials and my duties were to load concrete into trucks by hand and drive a forklift most of the day. I loved the dirt and the rottenness of it all. I forgot about “talent” and all that garbage. I was just Jim in Building Materials and I had much responsibility, like taking out the trash every hour and breaking up the drywall so it would fit in the compactor. Unloading trucks…, and I tell you I had very many interesting conversations with truckers.
We would go out many nights after work, my co-workers and I, for drinks. It wasn’t so much the co-workers that attracted me to the bars, it was the game of pool. I still play the game and think of myself as pretty good at it, above average. And sometimes when I was a little too inebriated, I would out of nowhere exclaim that I was a composer. They would give me a startled glance and I would say “but I’m retired.” Boy they would laugh. It was during this time I really began to see beauty in many things I would not have noticed before, even if it was one foot in front of my nose.
After five years of that routine, the sounds and music in my head started playing louder and I began thinking about music. One New Year’s Evening, 2005, I made a resolution to quit my job of hard labor and find employment of a sort that would allow for time to create. For the next two years I positioned myself back into the medical field while listening to various forms of music to use as inspiration for future works.
Now I am here.
A Great Listen
I ran into Marc Chan on the web yesterday via his Myspace band page. I remember when I first heard his works, a piece called “J’s Box 2 for Five Oboes.” I sent Steve Layton a message and said check this guy out.
So yesterday I visited and noticed he has been working on a piece called “My Wounded Head.” It was performed over at Carnegie Hall by Xiayin Wang. NY Times did a little write up on it. A very cool work, showing off all registers of the piano from top to bottom, combined with expressive power and sensitivity.
Charmed Elixirs Mug
Charmed Elixir Coffee Mug – $12.99
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