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Part 2

Could you take us through a day in your life, from a possible morning routine through to your work? Do you have a fixed schedule? How do music and other aspects of your life feed back into each other - do you separate them or instead try to make them blend seamlessly?

Luke: I wake around 8. Short movement and breathing routine to wake up then a meditation before breakfast. Breakfast and tea while reading the news, answering emails, and doing research. Possibly some work in the woods before lunch. Studio time does not usually start until after 1 pm or so and will last until dinner, often picked back up after. I tend to stick to this schedule when my days are more open. Freelance work will often disrupt it and have me working at all hours of the day or night. Most of my life revolves around some aspect of music so I try to make them blend as seamlessly as I can.  

John: My background is in writing, poetry specifically, and I still try to write every day. My schedule varies, depending if I am on the road, recording, woodshedding, rehearsing, or connecting with loved ones. I am pleased that my writing practice and my music practice have come to inform and support each other. I am super excited about my practice. My day always includes green tea, some mindfulness work, and as much time at the instrument as possible.

Could you describe your creative process on the basis of a piece or album that's particularly dear to you, please? Where did the ideas come from, how were they transformed in your mind, what did you start with and how do you refine these beginnings into the finished work of art?

Luke: Our recent debut record as Methods Body allowed for an interesting exploration into custom tuning systems. It began with creating several of my own tuning systems and slowly over several years learning the melodies and harmonies contained within each. This was like relearning the instrument in a way and it took some time for my ears and fingers to make sense of it all.

Most of what you hear on the Methods Body record is modal with several notes within the scale quite close to each other (sometimes within several cents) so I could employ a technique that allowed me to mimic the fast picking and frequency shifts of a guitar player. There are even a few notes in there that sit lower on the keyboard but are a slightly higher pitch than the note to the right of it. I was trying to break out of some habits, experimenting with different pathways on the keyboard has led to some surprising revelations. None of the tunings I am working in are based on any mathematical or pre-existing temperaments but are inspired by finding unique tonal colors and harmonic textures (especially from beating tones and the complex rhythms that emerge).

John: Making this record took three years. The world felt like it was changing drastically around us while we were making this record. We seriously questioned our purpose and the purpose of music in such a distressing world. We keep finding meaning in the strength of our connection, our friendship. We spent months composing and recording in an empty saloon in the desert and in a tiny cabin in the Oregon forest. We built this music on syllabic phrases, long improvisations, and Luke’s new looping approaches. Our Quiet suite showcases our performativity. For the Claimed Events suite, we used technologies and sculptural editing techniques to make music that surprised us. We asked our friend Holland Andrews to sing a compelling call to action in the middle of this suite. That might be the emotional heart of the album.     

There are many descriptions of the ideal state of mind for being creative. What is it like for you? What supports this ideal state of mind and what are distractions? Are there strategies to enter into this state more easily?

John: I am always trying to identify and limit the things and situations that ‘kill’ the music in me. Whether its my phone, having to make money, human dramas, or doing interviews, ha! Regularly finding that creative flow state is critical for me. I love playing with a metronome, practicing while staring into a mirror, singing while I play, looking out the window at the trees. I party on my axe. I have my practice notebook with me at all times. I drink a lot of water. Good sessions come from being well rested and healthy. Prioritizing time at the instrument.    

Luke: Open, boundary-less, conduit, spacious, unreaching flow. Self-consciousness and not being present are big distractors for me. Embodiment, meditation, emotional authenticity, joy, catharsis, cannabis, caffeine, connection.

How is playing live and writing music in the studio connected? What do you achieve and draw from each experience personally? How do you see the relationship between improvisation and composition in this regard?

Luke: I am always thinking about form and structure when improvising. Feeling into the edges of the container for that event in time. Looking at the pathways and possible ecosystems at play for inspiration. Much of my writing also comes from ideas initially spawned through improvisation, so their relationship is inseparable.  

John: It often feels like recording and performing are very different arts. In performance, I am generating big, expansive energy. I am communicating in real time, telling a story, and changing the story as I read the people in the room. I am open to new renditions and surprising paths. Performance is concerned with holding real space in meaningful ways.

Recording feels more concerned with focusing, stripping down, and clarifying. Its about ideas and execution. I mean, I try to open up space for the unexpected while I’m in the recording studio, but it’s more of a challenge. The audience gives me a lot. Luke’s helped me see how a recording can be its own thing, not just a documentation of a performance, it can showcase different sides of a music. And, as Luke said, most of our compositions come from improvisation at some level. I am very much a believer in the live show as the finest form of musical transmission.   

How do you see the relationship between the 'sound' aspects of music and the 'composition' aspects? How do you work with sound and timbre to meet certain production ideas and in which way can certain sounds already take on compositional qualities?

John: I think a lot about one tenet of classical Hindustani music that I learned from my teacher Pandit Lacchu Maharaj in Benares. This idea that the human voice is the most perfect instrument and that all other instruments are just aspiring to the perfection of that sound. We do lots of little studies trying to build timbres, or sound textures, that might be interpreted as more vocal in quality. We embrace gritty, glottal, and dissonant sounds as easily as sweet, concordant sounds. Music has to be the kind of beautiful that can encompass new ugliness. We want to reframe the contemporary conception of beauty.

Luke: Most of the time, the qualities of sound is what initially inspires the approach to composition. From there, it Is a back and forth dialogue between the two as I sort out the logic of a production. Using texture and timbre variations allow me to shape the architecture of a composition.

Our sense of hearing shares intriguing connections to other senses. From your experience, what are some of the most inspiring overlaps between different senses - and what do they tell us about the way our senses work? What happens to sound at its outermost borders?

John: When I am deepest ‘in the zone’ musically, things become oddly visual. I make connections and see faces in the drumheads; I have pareidolia all over the place. One of my earliest memories is of my mother putting Grieg on the record player and three-year-old me running around the dining room table in absolute thrilled horror. That music was somatically overwhelming, and I loved it. Chills, shaking, weeping. I know sound can access pure emotion on par with the strongest experiences. I am chasing that.

Luke: Yeah, the fully dimensional visual landscape my brain translates music into is forever an inspiring experience. The way time-based art and how we process our experience of it can fold perceptions of past, present and future onto themselves. This shows me how malleable my sense of reality is. The questions that arise from this practice are life-long. Sound, and any art, at its boundaries, can blur the lines between self and other.

Art can be a purpose in its own right, but it can also directly feed back into everyday life, take on a social and political role and lead to more engagement. Can you describe your approach to art and being an artist?

John: I want my life as a musician to function as an example of dream-following. A friend of mine has walked the Camino de Santiago many times and he is amazed by how non-pilgrims interact with him mid-pilgrimage. Some are clearly threatened and judgmental and spiteful toward him for breaking from society’s expectations. But many are warm and attach some ecstatic wistfulness and envy to him as an example of someone actually following his wanderlust.

Methods Body is about our friendship, our relationship. Luke and I try to be an example of high-functioning, loving collaboration. We want to make room for masculine tenderness and compassion. We want to stay in touch with the real struggles in the street and in the legislature. We want to float above the market. We want to become more nurturing. This pandemic poses some real challenges for continuing to feed community. Wish us luck.

Luke: Yes, music as a medium and conduit for self-evolution, exploration, connection, and healing.

It is remarkable, in a way, that we have arrived in the 21st century with the basic concept of music still intact. Do you have a vision of music, an idea of what music could be beyond its current form?

John: Music feels older than language. Music is central to so many humans' private hearts. We are not surprised in the slightest that music is still here to thrill, connect, sedate, inspire, and MOVE us. Humans have always wanted it.

However, the need for music to evolve right now feels very salient. My favorite music reminds me that the message is what matters. What do we say from this tiny soapbox that music affords? Come together and dig into something beautiful as a way to learn about each other. Take care of each other. We can all be part of transformative beauty. We can be beautiful together.

Luke: And I hope that music (and all the arts) will become more accessible in the future. I look forward to the day when everyone’s voice is equally represented.  


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