Jay C. Batzner is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Central Florida where he teaches theory, composition, and technology courses as well as coordinates the composition program. He holds degrees in composition and/or theory from the University of Missouri – Kansas City, the University of Louisville, and the University of Kansas.
Jay's music is primarily focused around instrumental chamber works as well as electroacoustic composition. His music has been recorded on the Capstone, Vox Novus, and Beauport Classical labels and is published by Unsafe Bull Music.
Jay is a sci-fi geek, an amateur banjoist, a home brewer, and juggler.
Each week, I'll put up a new electroacoustic piece/sample/fragment/section/SOMETHING!
I'm going to have a lot of fun with this...
If you have thoughts, I'd like to hear them.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/27/2007
My place
Let me just say this: I know my place.
I have not been hired for any job based on my compositional prowess. My jobs have usually come from my technical/computer background, which I find very funny. The only reason I have the computer skills that I do (which aren't the computer skills everyone THINKS I have is because of my composition). I wish it wasn't that way, but it is. I think that things are changing though and people will start to notice my music as being, in general, good stuff. Or, at the very least, thoughtful.
I know that I'm not writing music "for the ages." I'm writing pieces right now, sending them off for potential performance, and more often than not they get rejected. This is a fairly typical model, I think. Those of us who claim nothing but artistic success are probably lying.
My music is good. It is the only music I can write. It expresses parts of me that cannot be expressed in any other way. Will it take the world by storm? Will my music be the subject of retrospection when I turn 80? I think not. No music festivals are going to spring up to champion my work. I will compose and die in relative obscurity.
And I'm okay with that.
Sure, my bio lists Things That Should Impress You. I only do that because it is what bios do and, while I'd love to get away with the bio "American Composer" or "Born in Dubuque. Eagle Scout." those bios (or something similar) have already been taken.
I'm not bitching and moaning. Really. I'm perfectly serene about these things. I work hard, try to teach well, and try to write the music that I need to be writing. I'm not a superstar. Nor will I become one.
I get excited when there are successes in my life. Who doesn't? And I post them here to share my joy in things going well. I have this energy and want to share it. I'm not about to post an egotistical rant about how great my music is. My music isn't great. It is just what I need to be doing right now. Honestly, very few people like it.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/21/2007
Flint and steel
I'm at the Spark Festival. Hoo-ray. Gave my paper this morning on Negativland which, I think, went well. Nobody laid any smack upon me, which is a sure sign of acceptance.
All in all, it is what you would expect. Lots of Max/MSP being thrown around. There is even some music happening. I'll report more when I have more to report.
And I'm thinking about podcasting. Should I or shouldn't I? My idea to is create a short electronic work every week and put it up on a podcast. It would be a vehicle for exploration and experimentation with a constant deadline which would force creativity. Am I too busy for such a thing? That just makes it more appealing. Is there an audience for such a thing? That is the great thing about podcasting: It Doesn't Matter! I can pretend that people will be listening.
Heck, I could just pretend to make a podcast. Maybe I'll do that instead.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/16/2007
Two thoughts
#1. Determining the exact amount of indeterminacy to put in a score is a real bitch.
#2. Classic rock stations are increasingly including Guns-n-Roses and Motley Crue in their lineup.
Discuss.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/13/2007
Must have one.
The ReacTable. Ask for it by name.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/08/2007
Lego Einstein
This is pretty funny...
Thanks to David McIntire for sending this along to me.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/07/2007
Notes and rhythms
They aren't working. They just Aren't Working.
It is as if my dissertation was the last piece I could write that had actual pitch and rhythmic accuracy. In the four pieces I've written/am writing since I just can't seem to make these things match up. I keep thinking it terms of shape, gestures, dynamics, all of the things that I REALLY hear when I listen to music. So when I sit down to write something, I have a hard time figuring out what to write down.
And everything is slowing down. It is as if I can't write fast music anymore. Everything has so much space to it and yet I feel like more space needs to go in. I can't seem to get to the beginning of the piece. Everything I write is about 1 minute past the start, even when I purposely try to write the beginning.
I'm having some difficulties with my electroacoustic music, too. Those problems seem easier to fix. I'm getting some great sounds together, like this one, which isn't perfect yet but is pretty darned cool. Thanks to user "hyo" at Freesound for having so many balloon samples.
Anyhow, the solution to the pitch and rhythm problem seems to be one of avoidance. I just need to figure out the basic information that the performers need and not sweat everything else. It is sort of uncomfortable territory for me, I used to be a chronic over-notater. But all that stuff now doesn't seem as important to me. My music is somewhere other than that, you know?
posted by Jay C. Batzner
2/02/2007
Random Rules
I get a kick out of reading the Random Rules portion of the Onion AV Club so I thought I would take unfair advantage of a Friday afternoon lull and post mine. Sadly, my iPod died last February so this is a simple shuffle of tracks on my laptop.
1. Sunny Days and Nights, episode 9. My good friend David McIntire turned me on to this radio show, a spinoff of The Great Eastern. Imagine a Canadian version of Prairie Home Companion, but really funny. It was taken off the CBC for being "too foreground." Excellent, excellent work.
2. Ancient's Ritual from Rite of Spring. I have maybe 6 different recordings of this piece on my laptop. This one is the remastered Ozawa with Chicago. My favorite.
3. Well Tuned Piano (excerpt from Sudol's MP3 blog). Whenever I need an hour of acoustic goodness, this is where I go.
4. Sequenza XII for bassoon. Holy shit! That's a bassoon? After a few listenings I became fascinated at the spectrum of sound above the notes being played. A masterful work and surreal performance.
5. Zipangu, again from Sudol's blog. I don't know this piece well, but I'm certainly glad that Jacob introduced me to the music of Claude Vivier.
6. Example 5-5 from Adler's Study of Orchestration. I taught orchestration last semester. It was easier to have the examples on my laptop than shuffle through the CDs. It was my first dealings with the Adler book, which I like. His recompositions of things are the types of orchestration excerpts we need more of. Ok, that was a bad sentence from a grammatical point of view. Sue me. It is Friday.
7. Piano Piece 33B by Schoenberg. Can't go wrong here. I find nothing gets students interested in atonal exploration than Schoenberg piano pieces.
8. Revenge of the Repressed, resonance 2 by Paul Dolden. I like the whirling and dense sounds that this guy makes. And this piece is like heavy metal meets Stockhausen. What could be better?
9. Nugget by Cake. What can I say? I like Cake. They rock AND they have a trumpet player. That means they rock more than usual.
10. The Cat with Two Heads by the Aquabats. This is a superhero ska band that my old high school chum recommended to me. You simply MUST get yourself to the iTunes store and buy Fury of the Aquabats. Right. Now.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
