[00:00:02] Hey, everyone, this is Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour on KSUU Thunder 91.1. In this show, you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over, learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also give you some new music to listen to and hope to turn you on to some new sounds and new genres. You can find us here every Thursday at 3:00 p.m. or on the web at suu.edu/apex. But for now, welcome to this week's show here on Thunder 91.1.
[00:00:47] All right. Well, welcome into the A.P.E.X Hour, everyone. It is March.
[00:00:51] I'm so happy to be here with you. And today we are talking my language, the language of music. Our A.P.E.X. Event this week featured the percussion ensemble, Clocks in Motion, and I've got all four members of Clocks in Motion here with me in the studio. But before we talk to them, what is a percussion ensemble, you may be asking yourself? And we just did this concert this afternoon. Earlier today, actually. And I'm going to play you a little sample of one of the pieces that they played so you can check it out. So here's some of what we heard earlier.
[00:04:49] All right. Well, cool. That gives you a little bit of a sample of some of the instruments we're gonna be talking about today. You're listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1. This is the A.P.E.X. Hour. Let's introduce the group to you. So there are four players in Clocks in Motion, and if you guys could each tell me, you know, maybe a sentence or two, we'll start with Sean, about yourself and what you do.
[00:05:11] I'm Sean Kleve, I'm the founding member of Clocks in Motion, been doing this crazy project for almost a decade.
[00:05:19] That's amazing.
[00:05:19] I know, next year. And I live in Madison, Wisconsin, and I house the, most of our instruments and my rehearsal facilities south of Madison.
[00:05:28] Oh, cool. OK. Next.
[00:05:31] Yeah. My name's Chris Jones and I've been with the group for four years. And I live in Nashville, Tennessee. I do some teaching. I do some freelance. Yeah. Do a bunch of different stuff. Happy to be here. Excited to be here. And always excited to be with my Clocks in Motion family.
[00:05:50] And look great in the sunglasses, by the way,.
[00:05:52] Naturally, of course.
[00:05:52] Sunglasses indoors. It's a great look.
[00:05:55] The sun never stops shining. You know?
[00:05:58] Amen, brother! All right, Matthew.
[00:06:01] Thank you, Lynn. Hi, everyone. My name is Matthew Coley and I'm originally from Waterloo, Iowa. And I joined Clocks in Motion when Chris joined in 2016. And we, you know, it's really great. Oh, I was going to say it's great to be back at SUU. This is my third or fourth time here working with Lynn Vartan and the percussion, so that's exciting.
[00:06:26] Right. And the lady of the group.
[00:06:28] Yes. My name's Megan Arns. I've been in Clocks in Motion for about one year now, officially. So when I'm not playing with Clocks, I'm teaching at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri. And we are, we have a proud alumnus of SUU, Jordan Nielsen, in our percussion studio also, so it's nice connection there.
[00:06:48] Yeah, I know. There's so many connections. We've been really enjoying finding out the small world. You know, it's a big world, but a small world at the same time. Well, my first question and Sean, maybe you can field this one is what is the sort of spirit behind the group Clocks in Motion? We talked about the name earlier and where it comes from. But what are some of the, like, missions and visions of this particular percussion quartet?
[00:07:14] Absolutely. That's a great question. So Clocks in Motion for me is really a way to, a creative outlet for each of these four artists to bring a personal touch into our realm of kind of percussive artistry. So the way that's manifested itself over the years has been a commitment to instrument building and bringing instruments into new contexts, but also through commissioning new pieces by living composers and presenting those pieces using our new instruments, but also not being afraid to kind of stay within the traditional percussion instruments. I'm sure I'll talk about all those things as well. And also, Clocks in Motion has dedicated stuff to also playing in sort of nontraditional venues over the years. And also having a commitment to classic percussion works from kind of the past century. Our repertoire is relatively new in the span of classical music. It's only been about 100 years old. So as a result, I think our music kind of starts in the new.
[00:08:28] Right.
[00:08:29] We're only now just kind of getting into this place where we're starting to kind of hearken back to the old stuff. So when particularly in the first five years of Clocks in Motion when we were at a university and we had kind of unlimited space and rehearsal time, we commit ourselves to playing these gigantic percussion sextet, sometimes 10, 12 players covering the entire stage with instruments and now we've committed ourselves to a much smaller quartet. But as you've seen, we still do travel with a lot of instruments, but it's a really different kind of model than we used to do.
[00:08:58] Yeah, yeah. That's another question I'd like to ask. And maybe, Chris, you can kind of help and jump in with this one and that is that you guys are living in four totally different places. And now you're touring together. I'd love to know, and I'm sure audience would love to know a little bit about the logistics of how like how does a performance come to be with you guys? How do you rehearse? Do you rehearse online or anything like that? Or do you come together and then maybe talk about your touring rig a little bit? Because I think people don't understand, like, okay, you're a quartet, but with an hour and a half of setup before you can play an hour and a half hour tear down or something like that.
[00:09:39] If it was an hour and a half only, I think we'd all be really, really proud of ourselves with how fast we were able to get in and get set up. Yeah, I mean, starting at, let me kind of take, let me take my sunglasses off so I can focus here a little bit. I would say let me start with the logistics of just how we manage ourselves as an ensemble. A lot of it is DIY and it's all do it yourself. So like as far as rehearsal spaces, we do have a rehearsal space in Madison that we have used in the past, but with the current formation of the group, actually, we have a lot more flexibility now to rehearse in Waterloo at Matthew's studio. We can go to Columbia, which is actually where we started this tour in rehearsing at the university that Megan teaches at and down in Nashville. You could also be teaching at the university or using the university that I play at. So how does this all come together? Well, we have meetings every two to three weeks and we are, you know, Skype, Facetime, you know, all of the the standard video chats. But, you know, for us, that's that's how we can stay on top of our administrative tasks, some, you know, goals for the group. Short term, long term. And just to keep checking in this, you know, this tour doesn't happen out of thin air. It's a lot of hours of sending out contacts and making sure that our logistics are set. We've got the travel plans, the dates. And, you know, that's how we can stay on top of that.
[00:11:24] Compared to, say, a rock band, you're not rehearsing like together three times a week, so you kind of prepare your music on your own and then you're meeting regularly online, but you're not playing together until you designate a rehearsal chunk. Is that, would you say that's accurate?
[00:11:39] That's very accurate, actually. You know, the each of us are professional musicians. So we have music in our lives and a lot of different ways. So just like we would prepare for any of the gigs or our teaching or anything that we do as individuals, we prepare on our own with, you know, the expectation that we have three days of rehearsal before we start any tour. And that's where we'll put together a lot of the music that we'll have on tour. Now, you know, the nice thing is, is that we've been playing together for a group for a while, so we're not learning new pieces. Every single tour, so we get a lot more familiarity with not just the music, but how we perform and work as an ensemble.
[00:12:23] Right.
[00:12:23] And having that familiarity just really makes our time together just more efficient. And we can prep and have, you know, a really great tour and a great product to bring out.
[00:12:35] And I'm sure everybody would love to know, like, do you guys ever argue during rehearsals?
[00:12:40] Feel free to jump in there.
[00:12:45] There are some gentle pushing on each other a little bit.
[00:12:51] I mean, it's a challenge.
[00:12:51] But the thing is, you know, I think that's part of any growing pains for any group. And fortunately, you know, playing in a chamber ensemble like this is a lot like any sort of relationship, you know. And, you know, when you find the right person, the severity of arguments goes down dramatically. You know, you kind of figure out, oh, we're arguing now. Yeah. And then you and then you kind of look, you realize this is fine. Yeah. You know, you find a way, way through it. So this is the maturity of these four players here is that we've kind of learned. And also just the right chemistry. but I'll tell you, I mean, throughout my decade doing this, it's been there have been pretty explosive ones. But, you know, forcing we're not in that place now.
[00:13:34] Yeah. Yeah. I think since there are four of us, you know, at some, you know, things sometimes get frustrating with logistics or a part or something. And so with there being four of us, I think if someone's feeling down or frustrated, we kind of use each other to help bring us up. But we know they're starting to know like when some somebody just need space or how you can help someone kind of come out of that funk.
[00:13:56] And that's I was gonna ask that. Do you have sort of roles, like family type roles that you've kind of fallen into? Like, one is the caregiver and the nurture that tends to be more than others or one tends to be the rebellious one. I know we were joking about the soloist. That whole thing, Matthew is the soloist.
[00:14:18] I disagree with that.
[00:14:21] Chris wants to be the soloist. I mean, but do you have sort of tendencies that way?
[00:14:28] The soloist is going to speak now. Everyone quiet, please.
[00:14:35] Yeah. So we do kind of delineate the ranks a little bit that way just to make it a little more effective. For example, kind of in the administrative way, Chris handles a lot of our logistical planning for the tour. Loosely, we're all kind of responsible for trying to book gigs and handle that. Sean, you deal with a lot of the music and library.
[00:15:01] Yeah.
[00:15:02] Archiving and stuff. So there are those roles. And then when we're on tour, it really, it really is kind of split up. I don't, I don't know. I mean.
[00:15:09] Well, I mean, I think that's pretty, I mean, but Matthew, you also handle a lot of our like recording projects and have been our audio. You know, start to go to- well, in addition to your soloist. But yeah, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, there's whatever work that needs to be done has to be done. And no one else is going to get it done except the four of us here. And sometimes, you know, you ask for help because you're like, I'm swamped. I need someone. And I think that's probably the one of my favorite things about the group is the level of support and care and love for each person. It just shows through, especially on those times you're like, "hey, guys, I need, can you help me with this?" or as Megan was referring to earlier, if we get frustrated, like we're learning about like space or words of encouragement or actions. And that's really important.
[00:16:02] Yeah, I think that's one aspect or a big aspect of why it works so well is that everyone seems to be keenly aware of what's needed at times like what you're saying, what Megan was saying, when someone maybe having a bad day or needing a little pick me up, it's like, OK, well, we'll step in there or, you know, it's time for me to drive the truck because you've been driving for four hours. So you pull over, you know?
[00:16:31] I think the reason, I think the reason some of us are laughing at this because we all know. We've all played in groups or this group and it's not so distant past has had issues like, "wow, you need to work on your social skills a little bit" and you know it. We've had all those kinds of situations. And I think what's really nice about this group now is that in the past we used to, I used to assign really like, particular officer positions, like you are in charge of social media and you're in charge of this and you're in charge of it. And that's really convenient because then you know who to yell at when something goes wrong. But it's actually really not a good I think, for the health of the overall ensemble that's we've kind of gone in this place was like, well, what are our responsibities, you start thinking and say, "oh, yeah, I have done a lot of this stuff. So maybe I'm that guy," you know? So I think we're in a more organic way of organizing it now.
[00:17:18] Well, I want to talk about instruments and I'm going to try this clip again, because one of the things that is really interesting is that you guys use a dulcimer sometimes in your concerts. So let me see if I can get a chance for a snippet of this dulcimer so that we can hear what it sounds like.
[00:19:28] Okay, well, we'll kind of give you that sample there. That's an example of the dulcimer being used with a percussion ensemble. And that's one of the things that you guys we're talking about kind of in your mission is that you use unusual instruments and maybe play in unusual venues. So maybe, Matthew, talk about the dulcimer a bit and then and I'd love to hear about some of the other instruments and venues.
[00:19:50] Sure. So the dulcimer you're hearing is an American Appalachian hammer dulcimer as an extended range instrument. So it's fully chromatic for four octaves like you would, if you can picture a piano keyboard, it has all those notes with less than not, not seven octaves of notes, but only four. And that is actually the piece you heard is, is one, is the pure sort of way that I've always imagined being able to present the dulcimer. I wanted to bring, you know, new cultures, new folk music into the realm of like what sort of the standard repertoire for percussion ensemble and utilize the instrument in a chamber music setting. And so that's part of what excites me about playing the instrument.
[00:20:44] Dulcimer normally would be alone, right? Or in an ensemble with like fiddles or, right?
[00:20:49] It's traditionally depending on the where we are in the world, in the northern hemisphere. Traditionally, it's sort of you know, it's mainly presented in kind of your close quarters, like very small spaces and a small group or in a solo aspect. And a kind of a funny bit of information about the background of the dulcimer is the string bands of of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Appalachia in the US, which are fiddles and banjos and guitars. They typically don't have a dulcimer because of the quality of sound and the kind of constant resonance that happens when you strike the instrument. So you kind of find the dulcimer players hanging, hanging off in their own groups and creating their own ensembles.
[00:21:42] Well, they blends it blends so well with the keyboard, percussion instruments, the marimba, the vibraphone. And so it's just great to hear those instruments.
[00:21:50] Yeah. And that really attracted me from the very beginning because even, you know, George Crumb, who's a contemporary composer of percussion music, was also fascinated with it. He was from that area of our country. And he composed for it in some of his pieces, some other composers from the 70s and 80s utilized it. And from that and just the sound really was inspiring to me as being something that could work really well and just be kind of a fascinating, fascinating addition to what we normally think of as percussion ensemble.
[00:22:29] So that's something that you've been very interested as a player. And then, Megan, I know that you have a background in African music. You've studied quite a bit of African music, if I remember, right?
[00:22:40] Yeah, I have. We haven't incorporated anything specific yet. Maybe 2021! But yeah, I have a study abroad trip that I take to Ghana every summer.
[00:22:51] How cool! Can I go?
[00:22:52] Sure. Yes, definitely. But where we study the gyil from the northern part of Ghana and southern part of Burkina Faso. And also Ewe music from the southeastern portion of Ghana.
[00:23:05] The gyil is like a keyboard instrument. And then what is the Ewe music like?
[00:23:09] Yeah, the Ewe music is mostly drumming. And when you say music in a lot of African countries, it's all encompassing. So it's not just the drumming, but it includes singing, dancing. It's the whole, you know, culture of what surrounds just the instruments.
[00:23:25] It's day to day life, it's not like, okay, we're gonna sit down in a concert and watch music. It's part of everything.
[00:23:31] Exactly. And everyone's participating. So, you know, there's less of a performer, an audience. It's like everyone is participating in some way.
[00:23:41] And how does that music manifest itself in your current life? You have an African drumming ensemble.
[00:23:46] Yeah, at the university I teach at. We have an African drumming ensemble where we do the [00:23:52]Dagaba [0.3s] music, the Ewe music. And then we also study music from Zimbabwe. The Shona people of Zimbabwe. And that instrument is called the mbira. So it's very thin metal tines that are attached to a hardwood board and tuned, and so you might say like a thumb piano.
[00:24:11] Yeah, it's a very spiritual music, in some, if I'm remembering right, in some scenarios, it even kind of calls spirits to come in to the gathering?
[00:24:24] Yeah, absolutely. It's very tied into the Shona culture and the traditional religion there. So it's used with traditional healing ceremonies, wedding ceremonies, birth ceremonies, circumcision ceremonies, all kinds of all parts of life in Shona culture. But it's also used as a contemporary instrument, too. People are, Zimbabweans are composing for the instrument in nontraditional settings as well. I think that's happening in all of the music I've been studying. And so I'm sure is, you know, it's very common across the entire African diaspora.
[00:25:01] Well, and some there are many other unusual instruments that you have built and developed. So maybe, Sean, if you could share a little bit about some instruments we haven't yet talked about.
[00:25:12] Yes, I'll start kind of from the beginning. Actually, what inspired the very start of Clocks in Motion was an instrument building project. I really wanted to play a massive percussion sextet that's like a whole concert length by Xenakis, a Greek composer, called "Pleiades", from the stars.
[00:25:33] With the Sixxen.
[00:25:34] Yeah. So we built sixxen. I took an entire summer with another one of the group members at the time and sixxen are these 19 pitched metallophone keyboards that we built out of aluminum channel, 4 inch aluminum channel and we had a railroad cutting saw and drill bits and we made these things that took us the entire summer to do it.
[00:25:54] Oh, my gosh.
[00:25:54] And what's really just about the sixxen is that they're not tuned identically. There are all the keyboards are within three quarters of a tone of one another. So it creates this really wild harmonic spectrum. So that's what really kind of started Clocks in Motion was an instrument building project. From there we went and we built a quarter tone marimba or actually kind of retuned a marimba a quarter tone flat so that we could stack it with a regular tune marimba to create a 24 tone scale instead of the traditional 12 tone scale that we know and love. And actually, we're still using that today. The quarter tone marimba just made it on a premiere that we did this September, a piece called "Chroma" by Andrew Rindfleisch. He used the Quarimba. So that's, that's a great resource. And then on a piece we played today, we used our Galvitone pipes, which we made at the same time that we made the Quarimba, which is a set of 88 pipes steel pipes.
[00:26:45] 88, there's 88 of them?
[00:26:45] 88 of them. And we only have, we have less than half of them here with us right now because they're actually tuned in quarter tones as well.
[00:26:51] So it's a 44 tone scale with quarter tones. So it doubles it to 88. So we have all of those back in our, and frames for them as well. And then I'll let Matthew maybe take over and talk about some the glass instruments.
[00:27:04] Yes. And I think maybe you're going to play an excerpt of something with the glass instruments and the Galvitone. Possibly, but anyhow, we, today we used our Aquarion, which is the glass marimba. And this is an instrument that I built along with a glass instrument maker named Jim Dobel. And this comes from a longtime project of mine, of a fascination with with glass sounds and creating a different sound palette and soundscape with glass instruments, collaborating with glass blowing artists. And then also with this maker of the glass marimba. But we have, I created the resonators for it, the tune pipes that go under it to kind of amplify the sound. And so now we use it in in our repertoire.
[00:27:56] That is so cool. And I want to make sure to let our listeners know about your website and YouTube channel. So the Web address is?
[00:28:03] Clocksinmotionpercussion.com.
[00:28:07] Clocksinmotionpercussion.com. And from there you can go to your YouTube channel and all of that. And there is a CD coming soon?
[00:28:15] Yeah. We've actually already recorded it. We're just in kind of the editing and mastering and completion process. So hopefully this summer or shortly after, it's an E.P. featuring our soloist, Matthew Coley on hammered dulcimer. Well, it's a really special project to us because Matthew actually arranged these hammered dulcimer tunes years ago for kind of larger percussion ensembles and a few years ago the group really wanted to invest in this. And so we had him actually, we were playing with these kind of cut up parts from other things. And Matthew finally committed these like real arrangements specifically for Clocks in Motion. So we wanted to make a disc with it. So there's three tracks on it? Four tracks?
[00:28:52] Yeah.
[00:28:53] Three or four tracks on it. And it's just really special it's a really special project for us. We just recorded it in December.
[00:29:00] Cool. And some of the instruments that we've been talking about are, you definitely can check out on their YouTube page and of course, it's YouTube so you can see them as well. And the glass marimba is really quite, quite gorgeous. And I was just, the combinations of sounds. So one of my favorite moments in the concert earlier was a piece by one of your resident kind of composer, like this resident composer program that you have called Clock Shop. I'd love to talk a little bit and let our listeners know what that program is and maybe introduce the composer and get into her work a little bit.
[00:29:36] Yes. Our clock shop composer is named Jennifer Bellor. She's on faculty at the University of Las Vegas, which is actually where we're heading, after we're done with here,.
[00:29:45] Next stop, on the tour.
[00:29:46] So Clock Shop was inspired by of as a question we had about the way we think about percussion repertoire in the fact that we know our repertoire is relatively young, like we said earlier. But because of the youth of our repertoire, we don't have composers like Haydn that wrote for us. It just didn't exist then, and Haydn was such an important composer for modern music because he wrote 104 symphonies. And, you know, maybe not every one of those symphonies is amazing. But what he did for the orchestra, for just how we think about orchestral music is so profound. And, you know, composers like Beethoven and Mozart wrote so many string quartets. And nowadays as percussion, we think that a composer has written a lot of percussion where they've written, you know, five, six, seven pieces. We think, oh, that's a great percussion composer, but we don't have that person that wrote like 100 percussion quartets. Doesn't exist.
[00:30:39] Right.
[00:30:40] So Clock Shop is an idea to start with a composer and to say, "OK, we're gonna have you write multiple pieces for us of the course of years. We want to hear where that's going to go, where we are. What's the fourth piece going to sound like? What's the fifth piece going to sound like?" All working with the same group. And so Jennifer Bellor, she just completed her first piece, which was "Of Maker and Movement", which is what we played on the concert today. And then next week, we're premiering her second piece, which is called "This We Have Now", which features the hammered dulcimer and drum set and just a kind of really interesting, very different type of piece from the first one. So, yeah, so we're kind of halfway through this residency right now with her.
[00:31:20] And I think we have a bit of a sample of her work. Let's see if we can get that going. So go ahead and see if you can get it going and we'll see. And while you're sort of playing it. Tell us what we're hearing.
[00:31:33] So this is going to be the first movement "Of Maker and Movement", which is called "Pendulum Surround". And the instruments you'll hear from are, you'll be actually hear. It's a relatively homogenous sound. But if you really listen closely, you'll hear all the different instruments. And there there's marimba, vibraphone, Galvitone pipes and also the Aquarion, the glass marimba in there.
[00:31:55] Yeah. Go for it. Let's see if we can get some audio and-.
[00:32:00] It's playing.
[00:32:01] Let's see. I'm wondering if I'm not going to.
[00:32:06] All right. Well, while we're doing that, let me do a little technical. I've never tried to play from that computer before and in the meantime you can come over here and do it. And while you're doing that, let me get, let me get you, move in here. Maybe what I'd love to do. I have some other questions ready for the rest of you, if you guys could tell me. You know, you're all incredible musicians on your own who have had all kinds of different teachers and different influences on your life. So I'd be curious to know what musical influences have been really important to you. Are there musicians that you really look up to or really inspire or, you know, not necessarily percussionists, but, you know, that might be food for thought for our listeners. So who would like to go first?
[00:33:01] I could start on on this question. So there, of course, have been key people in my life through the years that have helped inspire things. Certainly some teachers that I've had, you know, some percussion professors like Christopher Deane and Michael Burritt and Mark Ford and all those people who are just incredibly inspiring performers and pedagogues and composers, too. And that's, and that's something that was really important for me along the way as well. In my day and age-
[00:33:41] Back in my day. I find myself saying that, too. No worries.
[00:33:44] You know, my teachers all encouraged me and and the students around me to compose music because as percussion is, as Sean has alluded to, we don't have a ton of repertoire. We're in a very early period of percussion, music and instruments. So they were also super encouraging for composing. And then some of the performers that, you know, I'm just thinking, like through some of the CD that I would listen to, like on constant play in my undergrad, you know, Nancy Zeltsman who was a marimba player, but also Keith Jarrett, who's a pianist. Love Keith Jarrett. Rostropovich, the cellist. And thenm and then kind of later on, I'm not going to be able to come up with specific names right now. But, and we were talking a little bit about this at A.P.E.X., but the Eastern European folk musicians and how they treat rhythm and the composers and how they treat harmony and kind of extended chromatic schism or whatever the term is for that. But that's been a really profound inspiration to me, is kind of listening carefully to what they do.
[00:35:10] We heard "Fantezie" earlier and is composed by Sergiu Cretu. And then there's kind of a whole lineage of dulcimer artists from that part of the world that have been inspiring to me. So maybe I'll pass it off. Or what do you want to play?
[00:35:25] I'm going to try to play this and give you guys a second to think about your musical inspirations. So let's hear a little bit of "Of Maker and Movement" by Jennifer Bellor.
[00:39:38] All right. Well, that is an incredible combination of sounds. That piece is called "Of Maker and Movement". The composer is Jennifer Bellor and the performers are Clocks in Motion percussion, who are in the studio today. You are listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1. Welcome back, Clocks.
[00:39:57] Thanks, Lynn.
[00:39:59] Same here.
[00:39:59] OK. Let's get back to the serious talk. We were talking about musical inspiration. All right, Chris, go.
[00:40:04] OK, I guess. All right. So I'll be the next person. So what inspires me musically? I kind of have, like I grew up playing or singing in church choir, playing in handbell choir. You know, middle school band and then, you know, changed over to percussion in middle school and I still listen to a lot of rock bands and jazz combos, and I really try to get my hands on as much different kind of music as possible. And so my interests have always been varied. So I always get inspired by right now I've been a lot more inspired by singer-songwriters. People like Andrew Bird. I really love the 80s. I'm a big Hall and Oates fan. Huge Hall and Oates fan. But you know, also in the classical side, you know. The wonderful thing about being in Clocks is that I'm surrounded by just a group of people who are phenomenal musicians and each one of them, I actually look up to and I'm inspired by and I've told them all, you know, individually in moments like it's that's part of like, you know, the incredible thing about our group is I get to work and play with just phenomenal people who are also fantastic musicians.
[00:41:23] Beautiful. So you were inspired by those around you?
[00:41:27] I am.
[00:41:28] OK. Megan, Sean, who would like to share?
[00:41:30] I'll go next. So I maybe had a little bit different musical upbringing than a lot of great classical musicians in the United States because I grew up playing in a fife and drum corps.
[00:41:40] Oh, yeah. And I wasn't playing drums. I was playing fife.
[00:41:43] No way.
[00:41:45] Yeah. I had wanted to play flute in band. And there were too many flute players. And so I ended up joining this fife and drum corps. And that ended up being my primary music education.
[00:41:56] Wow.
[00:41:56] Yeah. And eventually, you know, they found out that I was a closet percussionist and recruited me for the drumline. But I sort of grew up in this very traditional American rudimental style. Yeah. And you know, where as band like middle school in high school bands might go to competitions, we would go to things called musters, which were fife and drum corps from across the country, would gather together at a fort and do reenactments and do performances together. We would have mass bands. So I grew up with a lot of Scottish music, we're talking about Irish music before we would play our penny whistles at night because the fifes were too loud. So got a lot of experience with traditional Irish music that way. And so I think that that was a huge influence on me. I mean, obviously it affected my musical upbringing, but it also made me really interested in the way that music exists in cultures, not just on its own, but the way it exists among a group of people. And so I ended up going on to study some ethnomusicology in graduate school. And that has really, we've talked about some of my interest in African music, but that's sort of all tied into that. And then I think the other thing for me, too, is not really musical influence, but traveling.
[00:43:14] Yeah.
[00:43:15] I just love the travel bug. And just love going new places and finding new music.
[00:43:22] So cool. Thank you. All right, Sean. Musical influences and inspiration.
[00:43:29] My musical upbringing was very serious and rigorous.
[00:43:32] I see.
[00:43:34] I come from a musical family. My mom is a professional piano teacher and she did that since before I was born. And her father was a concert pianist and played in Carnegie Hall and Fisher Hall and all that did the whole touring thing, European tours. And so I grew up. I started piano lessons and violin lessons at the age of three and four and was a very serious pianist up and up as a high schooler. And I used to travel out to Long Island where my grandfather lived and take piano lessons with them all summer. I want to go out and do like 8th grade all the way through when I graduated high school. And so I learned I played Chopin. I played Brahms. And I played the Greek Piano Concerto and Beethoven 1 and all that stuff. And everything was fine until, everything was great. Everything was going swimmingly until I was a sophomore in high school and I got a chance to play timpani in like the regional orchestra. And it was the foreshock, a symphony. And I played and I decided this is really cool and piano isn't so cool. And when I got into my, later in high school, I was doing more piano competitions. I kind of really hated performing on stage as a pianist. I felt like I was on the spotlight and like that. I liked playing with the larger ensembles. And so I decided to major in percussion and so I went to college, into the conservatory thing and all that. And I was really focused on getting the orchestra job. And throughout that experience, when I moved to New York for my master's degree, I really discovered my love of new music and and found myself more excited to play Milton Babbitt than Brahms.
[00:45:08] That's crazy.
[00:45:10] Yeah. And it just, it just went it took this really wild left turn for me. And I'm the kind of person that as it is, a musical influences are concerned. I get really obsessed with one thing at a time. And see I was the guy that walked around the college campus with the earbuds and listening to Schubert lieder, you know, like I would listen to them on repeat, like, you know, the thousand Schubert songs, just like over and over. And, you know, and I listened to, you know, the Mozart symphonies just, just again and again and again. And so and now my musical obsessions are like Animal Collective, you know, and or Kacey Musgraves. I really like her singing, you know. So I just like, listen to that again and again and again and again. And I've always been that way. And so Clocks in Motion for me is like it was, it was something that I kind of founded my doctorate degree. Cause, you know, academia wasn't really, I thought it was really where I wanted to go. And Clocks in Motion was sort of taking off in this direction. And it was a, well, this is everything I love. I get to perform at a really high level. And I still get to freelance as an orchestra musician when I when I want to. And I still get to play timpani, which is fabulous. It was always like my first my first love in percussion. So I get to play timpani with the Madison Symphony as a substitute. And it just gives me that little, it's like that bite of the cookie where you're like, oh, that's just what I needed. And so I get, I get to do it. And then I still the things I really focus on are like my new music. My, you know, I do a little bit of solo performing, but it's really all about Clocks for me.
[00:46:34] Cool, cool.
[00:46:35] Can I add a little thing here?
[00:46:37] Please.
[00:46:38] I thought of something that you might enjoy and connect with, Lynn, just knowing you over the last 10, 12 years or so. I know it's been a while.
[00:46:49] It's so cool!
[00:46:49] It is. It is. And so, you know, I was thinking about inspirations and later in my musical life, something that became an incredible inspiration for me or other artistic forms ending and drawing from other creative people at different disciplines actually started to give me more inspiration than, you know, listening to certain CDs and things like that. And I think maybe that's a process of being an artist as you start to branch out. But specifically for me, it was dance and working with, and it just kind of learning of how choreographers create things. And they're just sort of on their unrestricted, you know, passion and grit to go for it. And I think maybe you can expedite a little because having your Satellite Salon series that you've done here and all the collaborations you've done.
[00:47:43] Yeah, I love dancers and choreography, well, all art, but specifically talking about dancers. Recently I've been so turned on by. I think her last name is is pronounced Pite, Crystal Pite. There's the choreographer. Her work is absolutely amazing. And so, it's so musical and so new and fresh. And so yeah, I 100 percent agree.
[00:48:09] Is she West Coast?
[00:48:11] I think she's from Canada and I don't know where she currently is. She worked with Paris. She's worked in Paris. She's works all over. But just some beautiful, beautiful movement. Art, art and movement. You know, it's just incredible. But yeah, I totally agree 100 percent.
[00:48:26] Well, we probably have time for one more little musical clip. And I know that there is a, do you have a recommendation? I know you're playing "Gravity" coming up. And there's a live version of that here. Okay. So this is "Mechanical Ballet" by Anders Koppel, and it's a lot of performance. And we'll just listen to a little bit of it so you can get more of the Clocks in Motion sound kind of in your ear. And just a reminder, you're listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1.
[00:50:18] OK. Well, that's just a little sample, but it's quite a low little signal there, so I just want to make sure you guys know a little bit about what that piece is. Again, it's "Mechanical Ballet" by Anders Koppel, the group playing is Clocks in Motion. All of these tracks, if you've got your ear piqued by them and want to hear more, are either available on their YouTube or on their SoundCloud. But we have time for our favorite question, which we ask every week on the show. And the question is, what's turning you on this week? And this can be anything. It could be your favorite, it could be a TV show. Could be a movie. It could be a book. It could be a magazine. It could be anything. It could be clothing. It could be food. It could be a restaurant, could be whatever you want. The idea is just to give our listeners another little insight to your life. So maybe we'll go opposite. We'll start with Megan first. Megan, what's turning you on this week?
[00:51:16] Sure! I've been watching this series on Apple TV called Little America, and it focuses on their just short stories about immigrants and from all over the world coming to the United States. And it's funny, it's sad, it's emotional. There's just so much packed into these kind of short episodes. And so, yeah, that's kind of what I've been thinking about the past few weeks.
[00:51:41] Amazing. So it's on Apple TV?
[00:51:43] Yeah.
[00:51:44] And is it multi seasons or is this just the first season?
[00:51:47] You know, I don't even know. I'm in the first season. I feel like there might be two seasons, but I'm not sure.
[00:51:51] OK, well, what's the name one more time?
[00:51:53] Little America.
[00:51:55] Little America. I love it.
[00:51:57] Yeah. It's good. You're welcome.
[00:51:58] Check it out. Matthew. What's turnng you on this week?
[00:52:00] Okay. I'm going to start with, I'm going to go on a fashion route here.
[00:52:06] I love it. You and I are like, we're the fashion trenders.
[00:52:13] Shoes. Like, I'm feeling the urge to get some more shoes.
[00:52:16] You have these great shoes, your red shoes on today.
[00:52:19] But of course, seeing Lynn's shoe selection is always inspiring, too. But, you know, I think I just add quickly to that more than the fashion thing is actually the experiences I'm having with this group. And I started the year kind of sluggishly about being a creative artist in like wow, is this what's next? Is this how it's all? You know, that sort of thing we always go through and we get it. And then just in the last month, it's really kind of slap me out of that and turn me around and it's been the collaborations and experiences with amazing musicians and friends.
[00:53:01] Beautiful. Thank you. All right, Chris. What is turning you on this week?
[00:53:08] Yeah. Well, any time we go on tour, I usually have a book with me to like just kind of just change it up. You know, we do a lot of rehearsing and all this like high level stuff. So sometimes I I like to just read kind of wind down. And there is a there's a book by David Epstein called Range. And I get really interested in these topics. It's about why generalists succeed in a specialized world. And I think these kind of think piece books are just, I think it's really great reading. And there are a lot of different chapters in the book that deals with, you know, from scientists to music to any other creative or scientific outlet. And talking about how being broader, you know, having broader knowledge and information in many ways helps you creatively problem solve. You can find more creative ideas because you've tried things outside the box. And I feel like sometimes, especially, you know, working with this groups who like, you know, we have to find creative solutions. And I know we have. We all have a varied background of, you know, where we grew up in and all of the experience we had. So I often kind of think about that. You know, for the group and it's like, wow, that we've really just come up with solutions that I never would have come up with on my own. And so, yeah, the book Range by David Epstein. I highly recommend it. It's a really fantastic read.
[00:54:43] Cool. Thank you. I'm curious about that. All right, Sean. What is turning you on this week?
[00:54:48] So this week is tour. But I can actually start a little before this week because I want to give you a little taste. My home life. I am a hobby board gamer. My wife and I play board games together. It's like one of our one of our shared hobbies. You've a lot of separate hobbies as one of the things we do together.
[00:55:04] How fun!
[00:55:05] So we are about 50 games into our Gloom Haven campaign, which is like a really nerdy game. But it's fantastic. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but like a board game where you play cooperatively against the game. Your like, little fantasy characters going through dungeons and killing monsters and collecting treasure. And it's like a really fun little choose your own adventure story that we're playing together.
[00:55:24] That's awesome.
[00:55:25] It's great. Hobby board games are amazing. And my tour thing that's turning me on besides these amazing people that I play music with is my Ford F-150. That is, you know, they were driving this thing a lot of miles for this tour and it's holding up great. And I've had a lot of different minivans and tour vehicles, but this one's the best one.
[00:55:45] Does it have a name?
[00:55:46] I'm not a name my vehicle and marimba kind of guy. I don't know. Weird. I like to name people, but not in animals. Yeah, but not so much. Yeah. I mean Matthew's instruments have names and more power to him, but I'm not the naming type.
[00:56:00] Yeah.
[00:56:01] Maybe I'll let them do it for me someday.
[00:56:03] Well we totally ran the gamut there. Everything from shoes to TV to board games to cars to books. Well, that was awesome. Lots of inspiration for everyone. All right. Well, that's pretty much all the time that we have. And I just want to say to you guys, thank you so much for being here.
[00:56:21] Thank you, Lynn.
[00:56:21] Thanks, Lynn!
[00:56:21] Thank you. Yeah.
[00:56:23] Yay! All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a wonderful rest of your day.
[00:56:28] Thanks so much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1. Come find us again next Thursday at 3:00pm for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime, we would love to see you at our events on campus to find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex. Until next week, this is Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X Hour here on Thunder 91.1.
