There are a lot more people who like my music than those who reject it. I don’t like negative reviews or censorious people, and there are a lot of them out there. I have divorced myself from the need for validation from others about my music.īut that’s not always easy. That’s a current that runs deeper than anyone’s external opinion, even a well-educated person’s. I want the audience to like the music because they were moved by it or felt they had something important communicated to them.
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I don’t want a negative review, but I take positive reviews with a grain of salt, too. What anybody thinks-especially critics-doesn’t affect what I do.
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YORK: If someone commissions a piece, I want them to be happy and I want the audience to like my music, too, but from a different perspective. No artist should be.ĬG: Do you have concerns for how a new piece will go over with an audience or commissioner?
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Trying to balance between dissonance and melodious qualities would suggest that you are overly concerned with external opinions about your work. Let’s say you know you want to write a piece in four parts for an ensemble. That’s different from saying that you have parameters you want to work within. I try to always be open to going beyond any walls or boundaries instead of erecting them at the beginning. It’s a creative process and I feel that if I impose too many external constraints, my music could become derivative or a parody of itself. YORK: I am suspicious of planning too much about how music is going to go. It takes its toll on my sleeping! It’s the same process when I have a commission.ĬG: Do you plan how dissonant a piece will be, or the form, or level of virtuosity a piece will have, or do those things evolve with the piece? I also do my best mathematical work in the dark lying there with no distractions. There is really no separation between waking and sleeping in terms of doing work for me. I’ll get up in the dark, find a guitar, and record it. I’d wake up with an entire phrase that I want to use based on what I was thinking about. Some of the themes for pieces I’ve written recently were worked out in my sleep. I do most of it at night when I am lying in bed, sometimes while I’m sleeping. When I begin to develop a theme that I like, the development becomes a mental process. If it’s something I find fascinating, I record it immediately on my iPhone. I do the majority of the composing in my head, but often the initial inspiration comes when I’m improvising and enjoying letting a rhythmic pattern, a sequence, or a melody come out of my subconscious.
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I see inspiration as a constant seeking for beauty and patterns of fascination that have a depth greater than what they suggest on the surface where the bottom drops out and there seems to be a limitless potential for depth.ĬG: Do you compose with or without the instrument? It may be just a reflection of your inner state anyway. It also comes from observing the natural-or really any-environment that has a bit of a magical quality at that moment. Sometimes it’s from a deeply internal sense of beauty or fascination with a conceptual thought or a phrase that I improvise on the guitar. In a recent wide-ranging phone conversation, York shared many thoughts on composing.ĬLASSICAL GUITAR: How does inspiration for a new piece come?ĪNDREW YORK: Inspiration has always come from so many different places. The melodic appeal and diverse musical influences (classical, new age, jazz, folk, world music, and more) in his music have prompted guitarists worldwide to explore his ever-expanding catalog. York’s compositions gained wide visibility when John Williams began performing “Sunburst” and “Lullaby” in concert and recorded them on his 1989 album Spirit of the Guitar. Other artists, including Christopher Parkening, Sharon Isbin, Jason Vieaux, and many younger guitarists, have since played York’s music. During his LAGQ years, York contributed compositions and arrangements to the ten CDs they recorded together, among them the group’s 2005 Grammy winner Guitar Heroes. He was a member of the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet from 1990 to 2006, and has since pursued a solo career. From the Summer 2017 issue of Classical Guitar | BY MARK SMALLĪndrew York has enjoyed an extraordinary career as both a composer and performer.