Five Questions with Curtis Roads
Molly Sheridan: There are obviously many new worlds that technology has opened up in music. Do you ever feel like this has taken the humanness out of the performance and creation of it? Will developments like your Creatovox synthesizer help add that element?
Curtis Roads: As a musician, I began working with computers in 1972. For a number of years the only means of approaching the digital medium was through programming. In my early electronic music, however, I rarely took a purist approach. I often combined computer-generated sounds with sounds from acoustic instruments, voice, and other sources. By the 1980s, the MIDI protocol made it possible to introduce a degree of interactivity into the computer medium. Since then, much effort has gone into “interactive music” in which the connection between the gesture and the sound is indirect. I was not interested in this approach. In designing the Creatovox synthesizer, I wanted to return to a virtuoso instrument with direct gestural control of sound.
Molly Sheridan: Is this music intended for performance in traditional concert venues or is it ideally suited to a different environment? Should it be integrated with other multi-media?
Curtis Roads: Electronic music works well with many performance idioms and other media. Concerning the concert hall, electronic music can be performed in a traditional concert hall, but it demands what we call a pluriphonic (rather than stereophonic) sound system. Such a system consists of multiple loudspeakers (greater than 8) situated around the audience. Toward this end, we are trying to build an immersive auditorium at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The architectural design is done, and we are trying now to raise funds.
Molly Sheridan: It seems like you compose almost exclusively using computer-generated sounds. What attracts you to this type of music?
Curtis Roads: Very early in my path to composition I recognized the profound potential of the computer as an artistic medium. I have not been disappointed. The computer is an essential tool, but as I said earlier, I am not a purist as to the source of my sound material.
Molly Sheridan: How would you respond to someone who called this type of music “just noise” or “over-intellectualized”?
Curtis Roads: As to the noise charge, I would quote Varèse to them: “To stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise. But what is music but organized noises?”
As to the over-intellectualized charge, I am not a formalist or conceptualist, nor is my work ideologically or philosophically driven. Intellectual concepts follow my practice, rather than the other way around.
Molly Sheridan: Are there adequate education programs out there for composers who want to explore this area of music?
Curtis Roads: At the University of California, Santa Barbara, we offer a Masters degree in Electronic Music and Sound Design. We are currently putting into place a Ph. D with a similar focus. Research is very important here. Please see http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/.