TEDxStanford
Mark Applebaum: The mad scientist of music
Filmed:
Readability: 3.8
5,439,346 views
Mark Applebaum writes music that breaks the rules in fantastic ways, composing a concerto for a florist and crafting a musical instrument from junk and found objects. This quirky talk might just inspire you to shake up the "rules" of your own creative work.
Mark Applebaum - Composer
Mark Applebaum has built an instrument out of doorstops and combs, as well as composed a piece of music to be performed by a florist. Full bio
Mark Applebaum has built an instrument out of doorstops and combs, as well as composed a piece of music to be performed by a florist. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:18
I thought if I skipped it might help my nerves,
0
3005
3222
00:22
but I'm actually having a paradoxical reaction to that,
1
6227
3186
00:25
so that was a bad idea. (Laughter)
2
9413
1822
00:27
Anyway, I was really delighted to receive the invitation
3
11235
3421
00:30
to present to you some of my music and some of my work
4
14656
3937
00:34
as a composer, presumably because it appeals
5
18593
3094
00:37
to my well-known and abundant narcissism. (Laughter)
6
21687
3983
00:41
And I'm not kidding, I just think we should just
7
25670
2608
00:44
say that and move forward. (Laughter)
8
28278
3456
00:47
So, but the thing is, a dilemma quickly arose,
9
31734
2880
00:50
and that is that I'm really bored with music,
10
34614
2205
00:52
and I'm really bored with the role of the composer,
11
36819
3066
00:55
and so I decided to put that idea, boredom,
12
39885
3208
00:58
as the focus of my presentation to you today.
13
43093
2974
01:01
And I'm going to share my music with you, but I hope
14
46067
2288
01:04
that I'm going to do so in a way that tells a story,
15
48355
2235
01:06
tells a story about how I used boredom as a catalyst
16
50590
3409
01:09
for creativity and invention, and how boredom
17
53999
2554
01:12
actually forced me to change the fundamental question
18
56553
3161
01:15
that I was asking in my discipline,
19
59714
2081
01:17
and how boredom also, in a sense,
20
61795
2059
01:19
pushed me towards taking on roles beyond the sort of
21
63854
4444
01:24
most traditional, narrow definition of a composer.
22
68298
2610
01:26
What I'd like to do today is to start with an excerpt
23
70908
2471
01:29
of a piece of music at the piano.
24
73379
2828
01:32
(Music)
25
76207
9315
01:41
Okay, I wrote that. (Laughter)
26
85522
3314
01:44
No, it's not — (Applause) Oh, why thank you.
27
88836
1907
01:46
No, no, I didn't write that.
28
90743
1631
01:48
In fact, that was a piece by Beethoven,
29
92374
2272
01:50
and so I was not functioning as a composer.
30
94646
2555
01:53
Just now I was functioning in the role of the interpreter,
31
97201
3051
01:56
and there I am, interpreter.
32
100252
2061
01:58
So, an interpreter of what? Of a piece of music, right?
33
102313
2709
02:00
But we can ask the question, "But is it music?"
34
105022
4207
02:05
And I say this rhetorically, because of course
35
109229
1780
02:06
by just about any standard we would have to concede
36
111009
2821
02:09
that this is, of course, a piece of music,
37
113830
1948
02:11
but I put this here now because,
38
115778
2326
02:14
just to set it in your brains for the moment,
39
118104
2283
02:16
because we're going to return to this question.
40
120387
1841
02:18
It's going to be a kind of a refrain
41
122228
1782
02:19
as we go through the presentation.
42
124010
1811
02:21
So here we have this piece of music by Beethoven,
43
125821
2228
02:23
and my problem with it is, it's boring.
44
128049
3206
02:27
I mean, you — I'm just like, a hush, huh -- It's like -- (Laughter)
45
131255
6820
02:33
It's Beethoven, how can you say that?
46
138075
1718
02:35
No, well, I don't know, it's very familiar to me.
47
139793
1735
02:37
I had to practice it as a kid, and I'm really sick of it. So -- (Laughter)
48
141528
3031
02:40
I would, so what I might like to try to do is to change it,
49
144559
2723
02:43
to transform it in some ways, to personalize it,
50
147282
2644
02:45
so I might take the opening, like this idea --
51
149926
2427
02:48
(Music)
52
152353
2208
02:50
and then I might substitute -- (Music)
53
154561
4897
02:55
and then I might improvise on that melody
54
159458
1639
02:56
that goes forward from there -- (Music)
55
161097
3635
03:00
(Music)
56
164732
26022
03:26
So that might be the kind of thing -- Why thank you.
57
190754
3112
03:29
(Applause)
58
193866
3595
03:33
That would be the kind of thing that I would do,
59
197461
2118
03:35
and it's not necessarily better than the Beethoven.
60
199579
2097
03:37
In fact, I think it's not better than it. The thing is -- (Laughter) --
61
201676
3732
03:41
it's more interesting to me. It's less boring for me.
62
205408
5299
03:46
I'm really leaning into me, because I, because I have
63
210707
3170
03:49
to think about what decisions I'm going to make on the fly
64
213877
3572
03:53
as that Beethoven text is running in time through my head
65
217449
3202
03:56
and I'm trying to figure out what kinds of transformations
66
220651
2205
03:58
I'm going to make to it.
67
222856
1598
04:00
So this is an engaging enterprise for me, and
68
224454
2575
04:02
I've really leaned into that first person pronoun thing there,
69
227029
4658
04:07
and now my face appears twice, so I think we can agree
70
231687
2321
04:09
that this is a fundamentally solipsistic enterprise. (Laughter)
71
234008
3691
04:13
But it's an engaging one, and it's interesting to me
72
237699
2414
04:16
for a while, but then I get bored with it, and by it,
73
240113
2420
04:18
I actually mean, the piano, because it becomes,
74
242533
2651
04:21
it's this familiar instrument, it's timbral range is actually
75
245184
3218
04:24
pretty compressed, at least when you play on the keyboard,
76
248402
2521
04:26
and if you're not doing things like listening to it
77
250923
2610
04:29
after you've lit it on fire or something like that, you know.
78
253533
2723
04:32
It gets a little bit boring, and so pretty soon
79
256256
1969
04:34
I go through other instruments, they become familiar,
80
258225
2160
04:36
and eventually I find myself designing and constructing
81
260385
2677
04:38
my own instrument, and I brought one with me today,
82
263062
4163
04:43
and I thought I would play a little bit on it for you
83
267225
2936
04:46
so you can hear what it sounds like.
84
270161
2206
04:48
(Music)
85
272367
11413
04:59
You gotta have doorstops, that's important. (Laughter)
86
283780
5763
05:05
I've got combs. They're the only combs that I own. (Music)
87
289543
3108
05:08
They're all mounted on my instruments. (Laughter)
88
292651
3156
05:11
(Music)
89
295807
9059
05:20
I can actually do all sorts of things. I can play
90
304866
2585
05:23
with a violin bow. I don't have to use the chopsticks.
91
307451
2498
05:25
So we have this sound. (Music)
92
309949
7853
05:33
And with a bank of live electronics,
93
317802
2044
05:35
I can change the sounds radically. (Music)
94
319846
4121
05:39
(Music)
95
323967
9074
05:48
Like that, and like this. (Music)
96
333041
6251
05:55
And so forth.
97
339292
2118
05:57
So this gives you a little bit of an idea of the sound world
98
341410
2139
05:59
of this instrument, which I think is quite interesting
99
343549
2677
06:02
and it puts me in the role of the inventor, and the nice thing about —
100
346226
3774
06:05
This instrument is called the Mouseketeer ... (Laughter)
101
350000
3119
06:09
and the cool thing about it is
102
353119
2264
06:11
I'm the world's greatest Mouseketeer player. (Laughter)
103
355383
3568
06:14
Okay? (Applause)
104
358951
1619
06:16
So in that regard, this is one of the things,
105
360570
3176
06:19
this is one of the privileges of being,
106
363746
1860
06:21
and here's another role, the inventor, and by the way,
107
365606
3006
06:24
when I told you that I'm the world's greatest,
108
368612
2178
06:26
if you're keeping score, we've had narcissism and solipsism
109
370790
4004
06:30
and now a healthy dose of egocentricism.
110
374794
2004
06:32
I know some of you are just, you know, bingo! Or, I don't know. (Laughter)
111
376798
3600
06:36
Anyway, so this is also a really enjoyable role.
112
380398
5547
06:41
I should concede also that I'm the world's worst Mouseketeer player,
113
385945
2732
06:44
and it was this distinction that I was most worried about
114
388677
2250
06:46
when I was on that prior side of the tenure divide.
115
390927
2937
06:49
I'm glad I'm past that. We're not going to go into that.
116
393864
2486
06:52
I'm crying on the inside. There are still scars.
117
396350
2957
06:55
Anyway, but I guess my point is that all of these enterprises
118
399307
3816
06:59
are engaging to me in their multiplicity, but as I've presented them
119
403123
3735
07:02
to you today, they're actually solitary enterprises,
120
406858
3352
07:06
and so pretty soon I want to commune with other people, and so
121
410210
3027
07:09
I'm delighted that in fact I get to compose works for them.
122
413237
2518
07:11
I get to write, sometimes for soloists and I get to work with one person,
123
415755
3086
07:14
sometimes full orchestras, and I work with a lot of people,
124
418841
3309
07:18
and this is probably the capacity, the role creatively
125
422150
3679
07:21
for which I'm probably best known professionally.
126
425829
3162
07:24
Now, some of my scores as a composer look like this,
127
428991
2975
07:27
and others look like this,
128
431966
2073
07:29
and some look like this,
129
434039
2084
07:32
and I make all of these by hand, and it's really tedious.
130
436123
3046
07:35
It takes a long, long time to make these scores,
131
439169
2333
07:37
and right now I'm working on a piece
132
441502
2173
07:39
that's 180 pages in length,
133
443675
2023
07:41
and it's just a big chunk of my life, and I'm just pulling out hair.
134
445698
4196
07:45
I have a lot of it, and that's a good thing I suppose. (Laughter)
135
449894
2509
07:48
So this gets really boring and really tiresome for me,
136
452403
3564
07:51
so after a while the process of notating is not only boring,
137
455967
2973
07:54
but I actually want the notation to be more interesting,
138
458940
3132
07:57
and so that's pushed me to do other projects like this one.
139
462072
2719
08:00
This is an excerpt from a score called
140
464791
2230
08:02
"The Metaphysics of Notation."
141
467021
2191
08:05
The full score is 72 feet wide.
142
469212
2544
08:07
It's a bunch of crazy pictographic notation.
143
471756
2698
08:10
Let's zoom in on one section of it right here. You can see
144
474454
2886
08:13
it's rather detailed. I do all of this with drafting templates,
145
477340
3817
08:17
with straight edges, with French curves, and by freehand,
146
481157
3617
08:20
and the 72 feet was actually split
147
484774
2654
08:23
into 12 six-foot-wide panels that were installed
148
487428
3035
08:26
around the Cantor Arts Center Museum lobby balcony,
149
490463
4884
08:31
and it appeared for one year in the museum,
150
495347
3808
08:35
and during that year, it was experienced as visual art
151
499155
2858
08:37
most of the week, except, as you can see in these pictures,
152
502013
1901
08:39
on Fridays, from noon til one, and only during that time,
153
503914
3038
08:42
various performers came and interpreted these strange
154
506952
3380
08:46
and undefined pictographic glyphs. (Laughter)
155
510332
3279
08:49
Now this was a really exciting experience for me.
156
513611
3684
08:53
It was gratifying musically, but I think
157
517295
1603
08:54
the more important thing is it was exciting because I got to take on
158
518898
2696
08:57
another role, especially given that it appeared in a museum,
159
521594
2896
09:00
and that is as visual artist. (Laughter)
160
524490
3276
09:03
We're going to fill up the whole thing, don't worry. (Laughter)
161
527766
2500
09:06
I am multitudes. (Laughter)
162
530266
2003
09:08
So one of the things is that, I mean, some people
163
532269
2904
09:11
would say, like, "Oh, you're being a dilettante,"
164
535173
1787
09:12
and maybe that's true. I can understand how, I mean,
165
536960
2577
09:15
because I don't have a pedigree in visual art
166
539537
2159
09:17
and I don't have any training, but it's just something
167
541696
2036
09:19
that I wanted to do as an extension of my composition,
168
543732
2467
09:22
as an extension of a kind of creative impulse.
169
546199
2900
09:24
I can understand the question, though. "But is it music?"
170
549099
3096
09:28
I mean, there's not any traditional notation.
171
552195
2259
09:30
I can also understand that sort of implicit criticism
172
554454
2253
09:32
in this piece, "S-tog," which I made when I was living in Copenhagen.
173
556707
3372
09:35
I took the Copenhagen subway map and
174
560079
1987
09:37
I renamed all the stations to abstract musical provocations,
175
562066
3132
09:41
and the players, who are synchronized with stopwatches,
176
565198
2771
09:43
follow the timetables, which are listed in minutes past the hour.
177
567969
2861
09:46
So this is a case of actually adapting something,
178
570830
3061
09:49
or maybe stealing something,
179
573891
1883
09:51
and then turning it into a musical notation.
180
575774
2341
09:54
Another adaptation would be this piece.
181
578115
2155
09:56
I took the idea of the wristwatch, and I turned it into a musical score.
182
580270
3346
09:59
I made my own faces, and had a company fabricate them,
183
583616
3238
10:02
and the players follow these scores.
184
586854
2238
10:04
They follow the second hands, and as they pass over
185
589092
2021
10:07
the various symbols, the players respond musically.
186
591113
2986
10:09
Here's another example from another piece,
187
594099
2223
10:12
and then its realization.
188
596322
2054
10:14
So in these two capacities, I've been scavenger,
189
598376
2479
10:16
in the sense of taking, like, the subway map, right,
190
600855
2387
10:19
or thief maybe, and I've also been designer,
191
603242
2518
10:21
in the case of making the wristwatches.
192
605760
2315
10:23
And once again, this is, for me, interesting.
193
608075
3580
10:27
Another role that I like to take on is that of the performance artist.
194
611655
3319
10:30
Some of my pieces have these kind of weird theatric elements,
195
614974
2687
10:33
and I often perform them. I want to show you a clip
196
617661
2154
10:35
from a piece called "Echolalia."
197
619815
1764
10:37
This is actually being performed by Brian McWhorter,
198
621579
3071
10:40
who is an extraordinary performer.
199
624650
1305
10:41
Let's watch a little bit of this, and please notice the instrumentation.
200
625955
3432
10:45
(Music)
201
629387
28888
11:14
Okay, I hear you were laughing nervously because
202
658275
1684
11:15
you too could hear that the drill was a little bit sharp,
203
659959
2294
11:18
the intonation was a little questionable. (Laughter)
204
662253
2128
11:20
Let's watch just another clip.
205
664381
2012
11:22
(Music)
206
666393
10576
11:32
You can see the mayhem continues, and there's, you know,
207
676969
2696
11:35
there were no clarinets and trumpets
208
679665
1878
11:37
and flutes and violins. Here's a piece that has
209
681543
1904
11:39
an even more unusual, more peculiar instrumentation.
210
683447
2555
11:41
This is "Tlön," for three conductors and no players. (Laughter)
211
686002
3577
11:58
This was based on the experience of actually watching
212
702327
1940
12:00
two people having a virulent argument in sign language,
213
704267
2516
12:02
which produced no decibels to speak of,
214
706783
1859
12:04
but affectively, psychologically, was a very loud experience.
215
708642
3411
12:07
So, yeah, I get it, with, like, the weird appliances
216
712053
3668
12:11
and then the total absence of conventional instruments
217
715721
4102
12:15
and this glut of conductors, people might, you know,
218
719823
2873
12:18
wonder, yeah, "Is this music?"
219
722696
2903
12:21
But let's move on to a piece where clearly I'm behaving myself,
220
725599
3847
12:25
and that is my "Concerto for Orchestra."
221
729446
2487
12:27
You're going to notice a lot of conventional instruments
222
731933
1998
12:29
in this clip. (Music)
223
733931
3700
12:33
(Music)
224
737631
12847
12:46
This, in fact, is not the title of this piece.
225
750478
2040
12:48
I was a bit mischievous. In fact, to make it more interesting,
226
752518
2555
12:50
I put a space right in here, and this is the actual title of the piece.
227
755073
4285
12:55
Let's continue with that same excerpt.
228
759358
2026
12:57
(Music)
229
761384
10293
13:07
It's better with a florist, right? (Laughter) (Music)
230
771677
8090
13:15
Or at least it's less boring. Let's watch a couple more clips.
231
779767
2236
13:17
(Music)
232
782003
13976
13:31
So with all these theatric elements, this pushes me in another role,
233
795979
3048
13:34
and that would be, possibly, the dramaturge.
234
799027
2823
13:37
I was playing nice. I had to write the orchestra bits, right?
235
801850
4487
13:42
Okay? But then there was this other stuff, right?
236
806337
2463
13:44
There was the florist, and I can understand that,
237
808800
1933
13:46
once again, we're putting pressure on the ontology of music
238
810733
3140
13:49
as we know it conventionally,
239
813873
2713
13:52
but let's look at one last piece today I'm going to share with you.
240
816586
4423
13:56
This is going to be a piece called "Aphasia,"
241
821009
2665
13:59
and it's for hand gestures synchronized to sound,
242
823674
3435
14:03
and this invites yet another role, and final one
243
827109
2739
14:05
I'll share with you, which is that of the choreographer.
244
829848
2573
14:08
And the score for the piece looks like this,
245
832421
2478
14:10
and it instructs me, the performer, to make
246
834899
4410
14:15
various hand gestures at very specific times
247
839309
2730
14:17
synchronized with an audio tape, and that audio tape
248
842039
2254
14:20
is made up exclusively of vocal samples.
249
844293
2877
14:23
I recorded an awesome singer,
250
847170
2422
14:25
and I took the sound of his voice in my computer,
251
849592
2345
14:27
and I warped it in countless ways to come up with
252
851937
2599
14:30
the soundtrack that you're about to hear.
253
854536
2268
14:32
And I'll perform just an excerpt of "Aphasia" for you here. Okay?
254
856804
4965
14:37
(Music)
255
861769
38336
15:16
So that gives you a little taste of that piece. (Applause)
256
900108
6623
15:22
Yeah, okay, that's kind of weird stuff.
257
906731
2284
15:24
Is it music? Here's how I want to conclude.
258
909015
2239
15:27
I've decided, ultimately, that this is the wrong question,
259
911254
2576
15:29
that this is not the important question.
260
913830
1958
15:31
The important question is, "Is it interesting?"
261
915788
2733
15:34
And I follow this question, not worrying about "Is it music?" --
262
918521
2892
15:37
not worrying about the definition of the thing that I'm making.
263
921413
2486
15:39
I allow my creativity to push me
264
923899
2453
15:42
in directions that are simply interesting to me,
265
926352
2160
15:44
and I don't worry about the likeness of the result
266
928512
3049
15:47
to some notion, some paradigm,
267
931561
2056
15:49
of what music composition is supposed to be,
268
933617
2989
15:52
and that has actually urged me, in a sense,
269
936606
2443
15:54
to take on a whole bunch of different roles,
270
939049
1735
15:56
and so what I want you to think about is,
271
940784
2135
15:58
to what extent might you change the fundamental question
272
942919
3218
16:02
in your discipline, and, okay,
273
946137
2723
16:04
I'm going to put one extra little footnote in here,
274
948860
2380
16:07
because, like, I realized I mentioned
275
951240
1614
16:08
some psychological defects earlier, and we also,
276
952854
2935
16:11
along the way, had a fair amount of obsessive behavior,
277
955789
3743
16:15
and there was some delusional behavior and things like that,
278
959532
2161
16:17
and here I think we could say that this is an argument
279
961693
2981
16:20
for self-loathing and a kind of schizophrenia,
280
964674
1979
16:22
at least in the popular use of the term,
281
966653
1936
16:24
and I really mean dissociative identity disorder, okay. (Laughter)
282
968589
2234
16:26
Anyway, despite those perils, I would urge you
283
970823
3063
16:29
to think about the possibility that you might take on roles
284
973886
2575
16:32
in your own work, whether they are neighboring
285
976461
2091
16:34
or far-flung from your professional definition.
286
978552
2498
16:36
And with that, I thank you very much. (Applause)
287
981050
1777
16:38
(Applause)
288
982827
6199
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Mark Applebaum - ComposerMark Applebaum has built an instrument out of doorstops and combs, as well as composed a piece of music to be performed by a florist.
Why you should listen
Don’t ask Mark Applebaum the question, “Is this music?” A composer and performer, he takes great joy in challenging the conventional boundaries of musical ontology. His solo, chamber, choral, orchestral, operatic and electroacoustic work has been performed throughout the world. He is also an accomplished jazz pianist and the founding director of the Stanford Improvisation Collective.
An associate professor of composition at Stanford University, Applebaum received the Walter J. Gores Award for excellence in teaching in 2003. He was also recently named the Hazy Family University Fellow in Undergraduate Education and the Leland & Edith Smith Faculty Scholar.
Mark Applebaum | Speaker | TED.com