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.
I see one of my duties as a composition teacher is to promote and encourage curiosity. I'm at odds on how to do that. I want my students to go out (with gun and camera as my undergrad comp teacher used to say) and find music. I want them to take in anything and everything. I want them to expose themselves to the diversity of styles and philosophies present in today's modern music landscape. More than that, I want to ignite unquenchable fires within each student and get them passionate about this wide world of musical style.
I give my students names of composers, mostly living, that they should check out and listen to. I loan CDs, show everyone the magic of Interlibrary Loan, and function as a PR person for whoever I think my students need to listen to. Sometimes I feel like an infomercial for Art of the States and Nonpop Music and Counterstream Radio and PostClassic Radio.
My biggest fear, though, is that my proselytizing backfires. Instead of seeking the materials themselves and finding their own influences, they just take what I give them and it ends there. I become the single source. In some ways, my pedagogy seems like a drug dealer. "Psst, buddy, you want a good time? How about a little Julia Wolfe? Michael Gordon? What about Peter Sculthorpe? A little Rautavaara will fix you up nicely." Instead of my clients using me as a springboard for their curiosity, they think all roads of contemporary music come through me somehow. I want them to branch out and I'm not sure I'm being effective.
If you are reading this, you probably know how it goes. You listen to a piece by a new composer (or new to you, anyway). You like it. You yearn for more and you scour the planet getting more. Then, it isn't enough. You start listening to music by people who collaborate or associate with that original composer. The web builds. Connections are made. You discover stylistic things that you didn't know existed before. They start to manifest in your own music. First it is intentional, sure, but eventually you can't help it. You look back, now that you sound like a love child of everyone ever associated with Bang on a Can, and realize that your journey started just because some guy named David Lang won the Pulitzer and you'd never really heard any of his music before. And only a year ago you were sounding like Rachmaninoff. How did you get here?
It's a rush.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/15/2009
Top Composer
I have become a fan of the reality shows on Bravo. The ones that require you to DO something in order to get ahead. I like Top Chef, Project Runway, hell, I even watched the hair cutting one this summer. What was it...Sheer Genius. What I enjoy is watching people be creative in areas that I don't full understand.
Take Project: Runway. Look at that picture of me on the side. What do I know about fashion? Clearly, not enough. So I like seeing what people do when they are in a restrictive environment and how they come up with solutions. More than that, I like hearing the judges critiques. It is interesting when something I think is ugly is praised for various reasons. What the judges see and how they articulate their pleasure/disgust is very informative to how their brains work.
Naturally, I want to be on Top Composer. Not that such a show will exist. First of all, not that many viewers are going to tune in. Sad to say, we composers aren't much of a draw for Prime Time. There are many other reasons the show wouldn't work. You can't really watch people do it in the same room. Could you imagine having 10 composers trying to write a piece in 2 days, all sharing a studio? Come to think of it, that could be good television right there. Also, the viewer can't really experience/appreciate the final form. We can get a sense of a plate of food, see a dress and a haircut, but it takes too much time to experience a piece of music. Unless the pieces were insanely short each week and that would get stale.
But still, I can dream. If Bravo wants to do Top Composer, I'll apply. I'd try to be the villain, but I'm too much of a marshmallow.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/08/2009
Learning from my mistakes
I find old plans and harmonies scattered among scraps of staff paper. It seems that, after failing to produce music with these plans and ideas, if I let them sit and steep for about 3-5 years, I can make something good from them. The other day, I was playing this chord and really liked it:
A nice, proper, 12-note chord made of tetrachords, something to make the theory folks happy. But, then I realized that I was playing the chord wrong. I was really playing this:
So I was hitting D and F-sharp in the middle of the chord instead of B and D-sharp. To my ears, though, it made a huge difference. The first chord, the "right one," was not without its charm. There was something unmistakably better about the "wrong chord." The asymmetrical nature of the chord, the slight variance in an otherwise dull pattern, made the chord substantially more vibrant to my ears.
I took out some of the redundant notes and got this: Essentially, F-sharp minor, G minor, F minor, with an E left over.
This proves that I am learning from my mistakes. They are often better than my intentions. Now we'll see if I can make something worthwhile out of this or if it needs to sit and soak for another 3 years.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
1/06/2009
Best of 2008
Okay, I need a little time to look over the last year and see what was really the best. There were a lot of cool things going on, but some were more meaningful to me. In no particular order:
Discworld. I am a sci-fi geek, but not much on fantasy. A few people had, from time to time, asked me if I had read any of Terry Pratchet's Discworld books. On a whim, I picked one up over the summer and I can't believe I lived so long before experiencing these books! I've torn through about half a dozen of them in the last half of this year. I'm petitioning my wife to celebrate Hogswatch instead of Christmas. We'll see what traction that gets in '09.
Carnival Daring-Do. My video collaboration with Carla Poindexter has become my most performed composition, having been screened about 15 times since March. It is rather astonishing to me. I've not had something like this happen with a piece before. I've jokingly said that I want to be a "one hit wonder" composer. I wonder if I am. Like Berlioz.
Buddhism. Again, this summer I read some books on Buddhist philosophy. Very interesting stuff and, to me, quite an appealing way to look at the world.
Go. I didn't play as much as I hoped I would, but I'm learning the game and I really like it. It is a world that I want to explore more, and hope to in 2009.
Moving the TV out of the living room, reducing Netflix down to the minimum. My wife and I have better things to do than just sit and watch stuff. Like talk, read, play games, or just sit and listen to stuff.
Those are the highlights of the year. Substitute your own as needed. And I'm only kidding about Berlioz. I like two of his pieces.
posted by Jay C. Batzner
