Ian Power on the Importance of Music in Art Communities
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Rob Lee
Welcome to the truth in his heart. I am your host, Rob Lee. Thanks for listening. And do share subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. Leave a comment and let me know what you think of the podcast. Today I am in conversation with an educator and a composer who white who writes clear, warm, immersive music that focuses on performer agency.
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Rob Lee
Please welcome Ian Power. Welcome to the podcast.
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Ian Power
Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here.
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Rob Lee
Just really, really looking forward to this. I'm doing a little bit of a series. I'm trying to expand some of the folks that I've talk and talk to. I think you're the second, maybe third composer I've spoken to. So an illustrious group. Illustrious.
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Ian Power
You know, I was looking through the archives before this. And you've spoken to such a broad range of the Baltimore community. That's what makes it such an honor to be here. And one of the points I hope to make today is that I may I may be the second composer, but I think a lot of people you've talked to are doing similar things to what I'm doing and and could call themselves composers as well.
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Rob Lee
That's great. That's great. So with it, I want to start off by as we tap right in, I want to start off with what are some of your earliest musical memories and ultimately what led you on a path to become a composer?
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Ian Power
Well, my earliest musical memories are probably listening to a lot of music with my dad. That's what it comes down to. I think my dad is a musician that was in his main job, but he was sort of a singer songwriter on the side. He'd minored in music in college and came from a musical family. And so we listened to a lot of records, real records back back then, you know, from Raffi for me to the Beatles and stuff that he was really into.
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Ian Power
And from there, I had a, you know, I went to a public school system in Rochester, New York, that was that was good with music. And I had a lot of opportunities there, which I'm very thankful for. And what led me to be a composer is it came down to, you know, when I was deciding where to go to college, a life in music was really attractive to me.
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Ian Power
A lot of people surely warned me of how precarious it can be. But, you know, the idea of thinking about music and how to get it performed and the issues in it as being part of my day to day life, you know, a couple of times I tried to get away from it, but that's what always, always kept bringing me back to it.
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Rob Lee
Thank you for sharing that with us. And yeah, I think those early experiences, it's always interesting to hear about those. And even if it's something that, you know, like it wasn't super early, but it was a little later and maybe like teenage years. And I remember listening to like jazz music and WEAA with my dad and now I'm looking in my, my home.
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Rob Lee
The only records that I have, you know, the majority of the records that I have or jazz records. But then I didn't really appreciate it. But now it's like, I need records here. And then I go back to, Oh, right. He told me this. I'm just getting the lesson late.
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Ian Power
Yeah. You know, there's people talk about the Mozart effect. You're supposed to play Mozart for your babies. I don't really believe in that. I think it's kind of stupid, but I do think that that just any music, you know, just just filling a kid's ear and atmosphere with music will will benefit them.
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Rob Lee
So I like and I agree with that. I like the learning about what it is and the day to day like I, I listen to like comedians and they, they joke. But like, yeah, I go to a new city and I'm just abusing myself in the hotel room into it's time to go on stage. And that's one take, right?
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Rob Lee
Or someone who's a, like me of a podcast. I've been sitting here in the studio the entire day. I'm glad it took a shower recently. I took a shower for this interview now. So what does the day in the life of a musician look like? What does your day to day look like?
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Ian Power
Yeah, it's a tough question. It varies by musician and it also varies a lot by country. In the United States, there is not a lot of public support for the arts compared to especially a lot of European countries or other countries with a bit more of a social safety net. So for my day to day life, it has a lot to do with my day job, which is I'm a professor of arts and arts production and management at the University of Baltimore.
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Ian Power
And there's lots to do with my family. I've got a wife and a son, and so there's a lot of maintaining the household, maintaining relationship. So before those things, my life looked like I would wake up, write music first thing in the morning, every morning, you know, get it, go and listen to a lot of music, spend the afternoon, maybe doing more career stuff, looking for opportunities, self-promotion and that sort of thing.
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Ian Power
These days, it's a lot of fitting it in. You know, I have a colleague at University of Baltimore, poet Steven Leyva once said that he thinks in our society the talent of an artist is the ability to just make art whenever you can, when you have time for it in this modern life. And I think there's something to that.
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Ian Power
But I will say just briefly, you know, I believe that you should there should be a discipline about it. You know, I try and write music or work on music in some capacity for a little bit every day. There's a lot going on with my day job, with getting classes ready and working with students and things like that, and then there is still that, you know, it's part of your job to be looking for ways to get your art out there, whether it be grants you can apply to connections to make festivals, jobs, just sort of expanding your knowledge of what resources there are available to you.
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Rob Lee
Yeah, and it is a full time thing where I'm I don't have I'm not married, but I do have a partner, no kids. But it is that thing where, you know, I'm doing X amount of podcasts in the course of a week. You're doing all of the other things that go along with it, you know? And I feel like I can easily balance it and, you know, and and I had a conversation earlier today with the person who is doing a podcast, but they're doing it in a very maybe different sort of way.
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Rob Lee
And I'm just expressing like what I'm doing and what my process is. So yeah, it does vary. But you know, you mentioned like, oh, I might sit there for like a couple of hours just writing questions. Just for the sake of writing questions.
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Ian Power
Yeah, absolutely. And I tell my students, you know, if you sit down to make art for 3 hours and at the end of that 3 hours, you have a blank piece of paper or a lot of things that are crossed out. That's work. I mean, that was going to happen anyway. So you got it out of the way.
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Ian Power
You know, you move through it. It's all part of the process. Absolutely.
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Rob Lee
Yeah. And it keeps it keeps you fresh. Like even if you're it's almost like, you know, baseball. I love baseball. That is my favorite sport. And here, you know, sometimes you're like, all right, that was a lot of foul balls. This is this is not good. This isn't going anywhere. But ultimately, you know, it is something you're learning about the pitchers that are coming your direction, your you're to your timing them.
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Rob Lee
You're keeping your base speed. And so you're making contact, which I would imagine doesn't hurt the psyche if you're just swinging and missing in. Like, it's like I'm I'm never going to hit this, at least if you're clipping it, you're good.
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Ian Power
It's funny. I mean, as a baseball reference, you know, a really good baseball player gets a hit maybe three out of every times of it. Right? Which to me is a nice allegory to an artist applying for grants and things. You know, it's it's about numbers. You know, you'll get maybe one out of every ten. So it's just all about what you're trying to apply to.
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Rob Lee
Yeah. You know, make sure those, those count, everyone is not going to be a homer and get some of those doubles. But, you know, it's, you know, 30%, 30% just say, you know.
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Ian Power
Even a walk helps the team.
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Rob Lee
Oh, yes. So what about your creative process? Like, could you explain like your creative process when when composing and what do you enjoy most and what do you kind of it was a challenge within the process because some people would like to be flowery and say, I love every part of it. Yeah, I don't know if that's true for but.
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Ian Power
I was trying to think of a part. I could say definitely enjoy it. No, that's a bit of an overstatement. But one of the I one of the things I've come to in my own artistic practices, I feel like the music I make, I can really stand behind every note, every moment. And it's all I wouldn't say tightly controlled, but it's all something that a lot of thought has gone into.
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Ian Power
And so my process tends to be a lot of sketching and planning and throwing ideas out. I have little notebooks, I throw ideas out and cross half of it out and then paste it back together. And then usually toward the end of the process, I have a lot of like pre what they call pre compositional material that allows me to kind of get a good flow going with actually writing it out, getting the score down to the recording, whatever it is I'm particularly working on, what do I enjoy the most in the least?
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Ian Power
I think the answer to both of that is, is starting. I enjoy starting a new project because it's just wide open. All all of the possibilities are there for me, but that can also be a kind of deer in the headlights thing too. I I'm often like when I'm starting a new piece, I open my old pieces just to be like, okay, I can, okay, I could do this.
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Ian Power
I did this in the past so I can do it again. And even though I do it every time, it's just, you know, talking about maintenance, maintaining your own confidence in yourself is maintenance as well. And of course, I do love when when a performance is happening, if I'm listening to my music to perform or if I'm performing it myself, that can often be a nerve wracking experience as much as an enjoyable one.
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Ian Power
But there's often these moments that that really make me happy. And that's kind of what what you work for.
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Rob Lee
Absolutely. That's that's great. Yeah, I, I like getting started. I think the thing I don't like is to procrastination because that's almost baked in now that I'll look at. And I mean one thing that you touched on having a notepad or something to write down because I think we've gotten more and more enough. And I've read this and Austin Kleon joint recently, but I've read that we've gotten more and more away from analog and we focused on digital so much that something gets lost there.
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Rob Lee
And because, you know, you had to do the scratching out, you have to like write down other little side ideas that might contribute to the whole thing. And I find that if I don't at least get started and come up with question one or even like research because there have been a few guess recently that I do that extra level of research that they may have a book.
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Rob Lee
So I'm going to like I'm going to load it up in Audible, then I'm going to because I'm going to have a chance to read it. I'm too immersed in that way, but I am going to have a chance to consume it. Or I did. I did a interview with the filmmaker and I watched his documentary, and that's part of the preparation.
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Rob Lee
And, you know, normally I might put in an hour to 2 hours on questions and research, but if I'm doing that, that's an extra hour or whatever the commitment is to consume it. But I think it makes for a richer thing. And I've framed it in this way where in the past I might look at May I can look at this movie, and it's like, No, this is research.
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Rob Lee
This is going to give you questions. So look at it critically in it, have that have the piece of analog, they have that paper and a pen there. I mean, that's going to help you kind of get started because I know if I don't get started, I'm just going to look at like I have work to do versus I have fun to engage in.
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Ian Power
Absolutely. And I think, you know, whether, you know, obviously like writing is working this you're supposed to be doing as a composer but you know, is listening to music, working, is going to concerts working. And the thing I have come to is like, you know, deep down what working is because it's the thing you're avoiding. You know, it's the thing that's hard to sit down and open up and do.
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Ian Power
And it is that's a big hump. It's a big hump for me. I think a lot of artists like sit down, open up, do the hard thing, because not only will you stay productive, to me, that makes me feel better in my day to day. I mean, I love my my job and my family, but if I'm feeling some kind of emptiness in me and I'm trying to figure out why, it's probably because I've spent a few too many days away from, you know, being creative every day.
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Ian Power
It's it's something that's important to me. And and I think I wish there were more opportunities for more people to discover that within them.
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Rob Lee
Yeah, I agree with that. I think having that time too, that one of the ways that I put it is kind of wander a little bit and be able to just let people describe different things. But wandering is the best way. And I think even if it's like career oriented and not necessarily being an artist, you need time to really figure out what you're doing versus being siloed, trying to a go for something for whatever reason, whether it's money, whether it's I'm good at this, but it's not really something I'm passionate about.
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Rob Lee
I rather kind of experience that early on and kind of shift around and then get to the thing that I really love and identify that almost like having an internship, but in a real world, almost.
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Ian Power
Yeah. An internship. Your life.
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Rob Lee
Yeah. Yeah.
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Ian Power
I mean, the open ended ness of art making is, is what makes it scary and also really what makes it worth it, you know? I mean, the reason art is so easy to procrastinate is because all our other tasks in life have more clear goals and deadlines and things like that. And I'll say, Well, I'll get this out of the way, and then I'll do that.
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Ian Power
But but not only, you know, not only is pushing through and doing the creative, the difficult, the open ended work important, I think it's also kind of what is important about art generally, that it pushes us into that mindspace that we're not always encouraged to be in.
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Rob Lee
I agree with that. So what's something? Let's get the inside dope. What's something about something about being a composer that people might not know? Like they just might not get that you think people should know?
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Ian Power
That's a really interesting question. And I think the answer the answer I'm thinking of is there's so many different ways to be a composer. And, you know, people look at musicians as though they've passed some special test to be one. But to me, you're not. You aren't who you are or what your credentials are. You are what you do.
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Ian Power
What do you spend your time doing and what do you really care about? So I went to school for a long time for composition, but that's one way to go. You know, if you're a producer, you're also a composer. If you're learning to be a producer or if you're a songwriter, if you're an improviser, all of these processes have a lot of overlap and they're really only pushed apart by a kind of, I feel like old fashioned genre boundaries.
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Ian Power
It's not that those boundaries don't create wonderful music and creative practices, but if I could tell someone something about a composer, it's that it's not this mystic thing. It's something that you can get better at by practicing it every day, just like an instrument or a language or a skill like mathematics or something like that.
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Rob Lee
Yeah. Yeah. So hallmarks. That's that's something that I want to know about when it comes to like, you know, having the having the opportunities to speak with artists and creative types and just people doing great stuff in the community. I want to see like what it looks like within the community. So what are some of the whole hallmarks that define an arts community and why is important?
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Rob Lee
Why is art like why is music an important part of that kind of arts community? So what are some of the hallmarks that define an arts community and why is music integral to like that? That whole mix?
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Ian Power
That's a really good question. To me, what's integral about an arts community specifically is a commitment to discipline, of working, to making things, to open mindedness that I was talking about earlier, to creativity. And in some senses that's it. I mean, that's at the center of a community that should be organized or held accountable the way any of your communities would want to be.
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Ian Power
You know, a church community, an educational community, a family community. I mean, all these things have ethics of interpersonal relationships and hierarchies that affect how we deal with each other in those communities. And I think that's one thing that's been happening more and more in the last ten or 20 years in in American music and arts is more attention to community.
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Ian Power
Who are we shutting out? Who are we letting in? You know, who are we giving more power over us when we could be more of a sort of communitarian thing? Those those things, I think are important to any community, specifically to art. It has to do with then what we're all getting here to do is this thing that we've brought out of nothing, you know, to use an ancient Greek idea about what art is and this this open mindedness, this thing that might not end up being anything but that we've we've tried to put together through through what we have access to.
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Ian Power
I mean, some of the music you mentioned in the intro, you know, I've call my music performer driven. What I mean by that is I've my scores recently are mostly made of text. They're made of text instructions that I consider to be like kind of manuals for a performer who is a master of their instrument to to move through their instrument in a way that is both taking advantage of their expertize, but also giving them some novelty for exploration in it.
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Ian Power
Because as a composer, you know, the old fashioned thing for a composer to do is to write the music and then the players have to play it and either they succeed or fail. But that's not the kind of community I want to be a part of. And so I'm trying to make music I like to listen to. But another reason I made my scores this way is to have a musical process with another person that is more about acknowledging that they are the ones who have the control over their instrument, not me.
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Ian Power
What I am providing is, is a sort of blueprint. Blueprint for collaboration. And as a result, I've tried to make my music more adaptable to performers, individual tastes and desires and skills. Yeah.
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Rob Lee
Yeah, I see that, I see that. And yeah. And I think that's an interesting approach because it's not just like, you know, using, using this terminology that the person is an avatar and the conductor is kind of like controlling, like, go ahead, fingers, do it. Do the thing.
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Ian Power
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Rob Lee
And at times when, you know, I'm doing the intake and talking with folks before we get started, you know, I try to make the point is, I guess, you know, what kind of answer are you looking for here? I was like, this is pretty much about you. I'm just trying to help guide the conversation. But really, if you want to talk about Serial for 30 minutes, we can talk about Serial.
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Rob Lee
You got some some hot takes on Captain Crunch. We can do that.
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Ian Power
Yeah. Yeah, I you know, and again, as a sort of a quote unquote classical musician, you know, classical music, again, especially recently, it's been trying really hard to expand its horizons, expand its audience, for better or for worse. But I think it's important to acknowledge the history of how we got here. You know, classical music may be a little too uptight.
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Ian Power
That's fine. But the answer to that is not necessarily to just say, okay, classical musicians, you have to improvise in this piece, something you've never done before. I mean, that's just going to put them in an extremely uncomfortable position. You know, I think there needs to be not that there not that there shouldn't be more introduction of improvization, but classical music.
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Ian Power
I think the way I just describe my music could be thought of as something like that, but how can we again acknowledge how we have all gotten to the point we have gotten to? And how can we move forward from that accumulating that, whether rather than trying to negate negate it, how can we bring it all with us and create something new and something better?
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Rob Lee
Yeah. And I think, you know, as more and more questions that, you know, the deeper I go down this rabbit hole of talking with artists and creatives about talk about vision and stuff and such, and that's the thing that you know, when someone's like, Yeah, I'm kind of going against what we normally expect, let's say from content from a musician, from a composer or what have you.
00;19;57;11 - 00;20;15;11
Rob Lee
It's like, All right, do you get it? Do you not get it? And then I find that some people that don't get it, it's like a lack of vision sometimes and or some type of bias that's sitting there and I dig that sort of stuff. I dig when people are like kind of going against is like, this is the way I like to work, so tell me more.
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Rob Lee
Yeah.
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Ian Power
Yeah. And I mean, it's a constant negotiation as an artist because you need to stand up for yourself. You need to work in a way that's going to make you comfortable or else you're not going to produce your best work. But you also need to work with other people. You need to compromise, you need to have social skills.
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Ian Power
And, you know, in the art world where artists often can have a reputation of being difficult to work with or standoffish or weird, for lack of a better word. I do think, you know, to me, that's maybe one of the most exciting challenges, is how can I bring something that I do think is totally new and also stand up for it and make sure that I'm communicating best what I think is best about it, while at the same time maintaining that openness that I think is vital to any community, you know, and letting people give me what's making them comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time and creating a solution or a partnership that way.
00;21;06;00 - 00;21;29;14
Rob Lee
So you could you tell me about how you consume new media, specifically like music, you know, as a touchstone a little bit earlier I'm audio booked out that's how I consume that and you know, I think I keep my ear and my eye to like what's happening and that's how I'm able to kind of reach in the cracks and crevices of this interesting story.
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Rob Lee
Let me let me reach out and I'm kind of tapped in and that works, but I can't define it outside of how I just mentioned it. But it's I'm sure it's broader than that. So how are you consuming new media?
00;21;38;22 - 00;22;00;02
Ian Power
So the question I you know, for better or for worse, I get a lot of suggestions either directly from friends or from social media and things on the Internet. You know, I've got I've got I use this website, Instapaper, to keep track of links. I want to visit. I put stuff on my YouTube watch later, I put stuff on my Bandcamp wish list.
00;22;00;15 - 00;22;25;11
Ian Power
And then often if I'm like doing some, some mindless work and I want some music, I go there and, okay, let's go through some of the stuff and see what I like. Yeah. Now that, that can kind of contribute to the background ification of music, which can be a bad thing too. You know, I think it's one of the things that as we get busier with whatever our jobs or family situations are, we lose that music as a thing that you do just by itself.
00;22;25;11 - 00;22;42;07
Ian Power
Sometimes. And I'm trying really hard right now to make more time for that, to have at least some time every day or most days where I sit down and I'm listening to something I've never heard before. And that's all I'm doing. You know, I've left the phone across the room, that, that sort of thing, because it is quite a different experience.
00;22;42;18 - 00;23;01;26
Ian Power
And and again, it's not just about what you learn, it's about putting yourself physically in that space for for a little while about what it feels like to concentrate and to listen and to think and to breathe in that way. I think it's an it's an important antidote to to a lot of the pressures of life around it.
00;23;02;08 - 00;23;03;09
Rob Lee
Mindful listening.
00;23;04;12 - 00;23;21;05
Ian Power
I guess. So. You know, I don't know a lot about the mindfulness movement, but but I think there's a lot of overlap and a lot of the things I've said today and what they're going there. So shout out to to what's going on there. You know, again, I don't know how much of it. I'm sure there's a lot of pseudo stuff and a lot of good stuff.
00;23;21;13 - 00;23;37;28
Ian Power
But I do think, you know, there's these cliches like live in the moment and and, you know, stop and smell the roses and all these things. And what I appreciate about what I know about the mindfulness movement is they go beyond those cliches and say, here's how to do that. Here are some activities you can do in your daily life.
00;23;38;04 - 00;23;49;17
Ian Power
That's basically what a musical performance is. Score Here's an activity you can do to make yourself feel a certain way and so I think there is a lot of overlap there. And I do think it's important. It's almost it's a kind of meditation almost.
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Rob Lee
I prefer to stop and smell the garlic if we if we're being.
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Ian Power
Exposed to it. Well, yes. Making sure to eat well and cook well is another thing.
00;23;57;23 - 00;24;10;18
Rob Lee
So that's the the the last real question that I have before I get into the Rapid Fire and I've added more rapid fire as you've been talking, because I have a funny I have a funny observation about composers that I want to get your take on.
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Ian Power
I'm ready. I'm ready.
00;24;12;00 - 00;24;25;09
Rob Lee
So this one is and I think you're in it. You're in a you're in a unique spot where you're also working you're a working composer, but also an educator. So why is that important to protect access to musical education?
00;24;26;11 - 00;24;51;11
Ian Power
That's a great question and an important one. And I want to answer this without making any concessions, because because I think too many have already been made. And I always say, especially in this country, music is something that almost every different person in the world that has been encountered by whatever our modern body of knowledge is has done in some sense.
00;24;51;11 - 00;25;17;26
Ian Power
Now, we don't always think of it as music, you know, is worship music, music or is it news or is it worship is you know, there's there's lots of different philosophical discussions we can get into, but I think that alone means that there is something extremely powerful here that needs to be attended to. I think as I mentioned before, that music and musical practice encourages an open and accepting mind, which is vital.
00;25;17;26 - 00;25;38;20
Ian Power
I mean, there was an op ed a few of like ten years ago, maybe I remember about the New York Ballet or the New York City Opera was soliciting donations, and it was this left wing writer who was like, the opera is bougie. It's not helping anyone. Do not give it money in the sense like, you know, I'm not a person who thinks if we lose New York City opera, then the world is ending.
00;25;39;00 - 00;26;10;19
Ian Power
But I want to discredit this notion that art comes is completely thought of separately from subsistence inequality. Because I think the kind of mind that art making and creativity in its best forms can encourage is vital to us learning how to evenly distribute the essentials of life, of how to share things with each other, how to understand each other stories, and learn why someone different from us is worth sympathy and love as much as we are.
00;26;10;20 - 00;26;26;14
Ian Power
That might be a little grandiose, but I think I could defend it if I had a little less. I had a little more preparation. Another thing I'll say real quick, as someone who teaches at University of Baltimore, which is a wonderful place to work and I think a great place to learn is that, you know, we are a public school.
00;26;26;14 - 00;26;52;13
Ian Power
We're an older population, a mostly nonwhite population. And I keep running up against these narratives that people who are in public schools or cheaper schools or things like that, they're they need to focus on science and technology and math. Now, again, I am not trying to dump on science sitting out your math and I'm not even trying to jump on the idea of needing a job.
00;26;52;14 - 00;27;18;18
Ian Power
You need money to survive, there's no doubt about that. But I think we need to be careful about the message we're sending about who deserves what kind of life. Gift music, in my opinion, is one of the things that makes life worth living. Full stop. And I think, again, history backs me up on that because there's very few people who've not done it no matter how bad their life has been or how dire the situation has been.
00;27;18;21 - 00;27;38;07
Ian Power
And so I think one of the reasons we need to protect the access to it is to teach anyone, no matter their station, that their life is worth living and that they deserve to enjoy it beyond their ability to contribute to our economy. Sorry, that was a little big, but no doubt about that question for a while.
00;27;38;14 - 00;27;52;09
Rob Lee
Now, I 100% agree. And I'll tell you one thing as a caveat, as a chuckleheads sort of caveat, if someone was like, I don't like music hard, stop and I don't like you, I like, oh, you're a serial killer. Got it.
00;27;53;05 - 00;28;09;23
Ian Power
Yeah. I think about how rare that is. I mean, I once had a situation where I was talking to a friend's girlfriend, and I said I was a musician, and she said, in this very weird way, she said, Oh, really? I love music. And then took me back because I was like, Well, yeah, yeah. But it's just that weird.
00;28;09;23 - 00;28;21;15
Ian Power
I mean, it's such I mean, if you need evidence that music is what makes life worth living, look at extremely comfortable people and how much effort they put into making sure that they have access to their cultural resources. You know what? I mean?
00;28;21;19 - 00;28;49;04
Rob Lee
It when when someone puts on like I remember you would hear about I got this new great system and you got to listen to it. Is that it's people are investing a whole types of things in you know like I have a few things in the crib but really, you know, I'm, I'm looking at the one of the few non jazz albums that I have and it's a story album under the pine neath the pine and it's right there and you know, that sets the mood for the day.
00;28;49;04 - 00;29;19;00
Rob Lee
There's so many different things like that. When I'm playing with music I'm listening to. That change is humbling to approach my fitness. That changes how I'm going to approach maybe working. I might throw in something that has, well, I'm absolutely going to throw in something that doesn't have lyrics. And when I'm prepping, when I'm researching, when I'm coding because, you know, day job analyst and you know, that is the for me I think the seasoning for what I'm doing in a normal day the soundtrack is one might say.
00;29;19;11 - 00;29;54;02
Ian Power
Yeah, and you mentioned fitness and I think that's almost a good allegory. Like, do you need to stay fit to enjoy your life? No, not at all. And I mean, that would that would be enable listening to say I suppose, but not everyone can listen to music either. And I think it's important to point out that there are certain things that are not they do go directly to making money that do not go directly, even to extending our life, that are, you know, are the ways we can spend the time we have here in a sort of heightened state of attention and a heightened state of awareness about ourselves and the people around us.
00;29;54;12 - 00;30;10;03
Rob Lee
And that's that's one of the things that that sort of approach of these are things that may not have a quote unquote bottom lined around it. So, you know, if someone is like, I'm going to do something that's for the community or what have you, the moment when that's pitched because, you know, behind the scenes, I'm doing different things.
00;30;10;19 - 00;30;34;05
Rob Lee
It's I know I don't want to talk about impact. I don't want to talk about these different things either. You have the vision that you can follow along and see that people are going to take. This is going to be well received and so on. And that's just just be a cool thing that we're doing. It should be subsidized by someone for, you know, whatever reason, you know, but as soon as well, how much are we going to make from this?
00;30;34;05 - 00;30;36;20
Rob Lee
And so on. It's like, I think we have the wrong focus here.
00;30;37;18 - 00;30;59;21
Ian Power
Yeah, I think every artist I mean, every artist needs to negotiate that. I mean, you know, there's a push right now, especially with younger musicians, to to for them to realize their worth, and especially musicians who are not institutionalized, stronger, but who have not come up through institutions like I did or who who are in maybe more marginalized genres to be like you are doing work and you should get paid for it.
00;30;59;21 - 00;31;16;28
Ian Power
I think that is important. But I think deep down, I mean, that goes back to what I said like that the important thing about an artistic community is the important thing about any community. You know, there's a lot of there's a lot of, you know, legal battles over copyright. Oh, they stole my song to use their own song and they made their own thing out of it.
00;31;17;09 - 00;31;53;09
Ian Power
And it's tough. You know, I, I want intellectual property to be free and open, but I also don't want people to not get compensated for labor, especially if their labor is basically funneling money to people who are more privileged, that privilege and not to get too political. But I think if we solved the general not solved, but if we worked on the general societal problems of inequality and of people needing to beg, borrow and steal for every last little dime, then that alone would enable us to loosen our grip on intellectual property a little bit, because it wouldn't be our livelihood that we're fighting for.
00;31;53;09 - 00;31;54;22
Ian Power
It would be something else, you know?
00;31;55;01 - 00;32;05;01
Rob Lee
Right. I agree. And I think that's a good spot for us to stop. And I'm glad we got that in there, by the way, because. Oh, thanks. No, no, no. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's it's all about authenticity.
00;32;05;19 - 00;32;28;05
Ian Power
Let me say one little quick thing, which is that a lot of this stuff I've learned from being a Baltimore musician, I've been here almost ten years and I've learned so much from the city. It's full of resilient and unbelievably creative people. And I've learned so much about what can be beautiful art and where you can find it in all different parts of the city and all different kinds of venues.
00;32;28;17 - 00;32;33;11
Ian Power
And and that, as much as anything else, is what is helps me think about these things.
00;32;33;11 - 00;32;54;09
Rob Lee
Thank you. Thank you for showing up. All right. Now, with all of the goodwill that we've established in the last 30 minutes or so, now it's time to get weird. So, you know, I got some good questions. I got some odd questions. You know, we'll we'll see where we go. I'll start off with a softball, if you could put it in one word.
00;32;54;09 - 00;33;02;07
Rob Lee
What is the best thing about your job? Right. Let's say education or you either either side you can go educational composer, which whichever one you want to go with or both.
00;33;03;04 - 00;33;27;02
Ian Power
Teaching you said job. And so I thought of my job. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And teaching as a chief because it contains a lot of things. But being in there, throwing something out and hearing it thrown back, having what I say be modified by the experiences of everyone else in the room, that that never gets old.
00;33;27;19 - 00;33;37;25
Rob Lee
So if what is your go to lazy weeknight dinner.
00;33;37;25 - 00;34;01;02
Ian Power
Kenji Lopez Also it's these chicken thighs in this kind of like peppery sauce that you sear them in the pan and then you put the pan in the oven for 45 minutes. So it's not that hard. But when you take the pan out of the oven, put something on it to remind you that it was in the oven once, I then forgot and grabbed it and burned the hell out of my hand.
00;34;01;06 - 00;34;07;24
Rob Lee
Oh no, I actually do that. Actually made Chicken Digest it. And I had a similar instance and I was like, I need to put something on this.
00;34;07;28 - 00;34;10;28
Ian Power
Yeah. I always leave the oven mitt on the side, remind myself that.
00;34;11;00 - 00;34;24;05
Rob Lee
I had this heavy cast iron joint and I was like, This is going to end badly. And I actually made some some green beans and mushrooms and a bit of feta. And with it it turned out really well. I actually.
00;34;24;14 - 00;34;25;13
Ian Power
Mm hmm. Mm hmm.
00;34;26;27 - 00;34;32;08
Rob Lee
Now, now I'm going to get progressively weirder. What would be the name of your autobiography?
00;34;33;09 - 00;34;37;12
Ian Power
I like? I had an answer for this once in my life would be.
00;34;38;22 - 00;34;40;11
Rob Lee
Please say with great power or something.
00;34;40;29 - 00;34;47;21
Ian Power
Oh, I see what you're saying. The name of my autobiography would be working through it.
00;34;49;15 - 00;34;50;10
Rob Lee
Oh, God, I love that.
00;34;51;11 - 00;35;15;14
Ian Power
Yeah, I think one of the things I one of the notes I made about the earlier questions was something about, especially now that I'm almost 40 now and around now is when I'm realizing that the work you put in it does come back to me. You might not realize it, but whether that be in terms of people remembering you for something, an opportunity, or even understanding something, you never understand it just takes a lot longer time than you thought it would.
00;35;15;14 - 00;35;20;16
Ian Power
But it'll it'll come.
00;35;20;16 - 00;35;44;27
Rob Lee
So I, I, I enjoy movies. I do a movie review podcast outside of this, and I find that some of my favorite movies, there is something about the score that really pops like, I love the score for RoboCop or even most recently the the latest Batman movie. And that hits. And in fact, I think the vinyl sold out or we have, you know, like three different vinyls.
00;35;45;03 - 00;35;50;10
Rob Lee
It is ridiculous. What is your favorite movie score?
00;35;50;10 - 00;36;11;17
Ian Power
I am going to be just pilloried by my friends for this because I don't really, really pay that much attention. The movie scores, I mean, I, I do. And the thing is that I write sort of modern classical music, which you might describe as being classical music. That weird sounds come out of, you know, in classical music situations, but weird sounds come out of.
00;36;11;22 - 00;36;27;13
Ian Power
And one of the first things everyone says is that that was great. That could be in a horror movie. And so you kind of react negatively to that. But I okay, here's here's one that just coming to mind real quick. Do you remember this movie, Hannah, from like ten years ago?
00;36;27;13 - 00;36;28;09
Rob Lee
Vaguely, yes. Yeah.
00;36;28;13 - 00;36;48;10
Ian Power
You're so Ronan, was this like little girl assassin in the Arctic or something? That was one of the first movies I watched that had like in these natural landscapes, it had these, like, big blasting synths, you know, this kind of this kind of disjunct ness between the sound of the visuals. Nowadays, I almost feel like that's a little overdone.
00;36;48;19 - 00;36;55;28
Ian Power
But I do remember being excited by that, by the fact that my eyes and my ears could be feeling two separate feelings at the same time.
00;36;56;11 - 00;37;22;13
Rob Lee
Get going. This is the last one I have for you. And this is the one I think is really funny. It's ridiculous. How would you describe composer hair? Because I've seen some hairstyles. There were composers and I mean, as a person who has, as I'll describe, unfortunate hair, I shaved, I shaved by heavy frog on his podcast to my right.
00;37;22;13 - 00;37;30;14
Rob Lee
I was like, yes, composer hair is funny. I was looking for a list. I was like, What? It was that choice. Mm hmm.
00;37;31;12 - 00;37;51;05
Ian Power
Okay, I'm going to cite two scholars in response to this question. The first is Roland Barthes. He said when he was writing about fashion, no one dresses innocently. The idea being that I don't quote, I don't put any work into my appearance, quote unquote, is a decision, a decision you have made about how to represent yourself that that is working in the world.
00;37;52;07 - 00;38;13;24
Ian Power
The second person I'd like to cite is Bell Hooks, who in her book on teaching talked about how upset she would get when her white male colleagues would walk in with rumpled shirts to teach every day knowing what was expected of her, you know? So to take it back, to compose her hair, I'm thinking of some of my dearest friends when I think of one composer here, and they know and they know who they are.
00;38;13;29 - 00;38;36;24
Ian Power
And, you know, I think a cynical person might say, well, composers sometimes affect these wild hairstyles as a way to separate themselves without separating themselves musically. But I will remind that, you know, again, as a as a thinning hair person myself, looking normal is also the, quote unquote normal is also a choice. And it does reinforce the normal.
00;38;37;02 - 00;38;52;02
Ian Power
And that's not necessarily any better than than going for it in a different way. So what do you mean more? I mean, the early comb over stages maybe. Or you're more of a Buzz Osborne signature. Go with what works for you now.
00;38;52;05 - 00;39;10;25
Rob Lee
I dig it. I dig it. I was like, that's really funny. It was it was some recent news, and I just remember why my girlfriend was like, Oh, no, that's absolutely the composer. It was just someone we saw that was like, No, he's absolutely composed. Look at his hair. And I was like, What was it? Jonathan Hayward It was, yeah.
00;39;11;14 - 00;39;13;04
Rob Lee
She's like, He's absolutely composer.
00;39;13;04 - 00;39;30;17
Ian Power
Yeah, he looks great. You know, I think I'm really excited about about his hire at the BSO. And, you know, I think he's someone he's obviously someone of two worlds. You know, he's the American world of the European world. And and I think the hair just threads that needle in a great way, and it makes it exciting for what's to come.
00;39;30;17 - 00;39;47;08
Rob Lee
Yeah, looking for it? It's just like, oh, yeah, that's the composer's. Just boot braid. There you go. So that's pretty much it for today. I want to thank you for coming on to the podcast and I want to share I want to invite and encourage you to tell the fine folks where to check out your work and all of that good stuff.
00;39;47;22 - 00;40;08;19
Ian Power
Thank you so much. I would start with my Bandcamp page. It's Ian Power O-M-G dot Bandcamp dot com. And then after that maybe over to my website which is a little more comprehensive. That's Ian Power dot net and that'll have a little more information and links to other stuff. But I've got two albums out there both on my Bandcamp and I always think listening is the best place to start.
00;40;09;09 - 00;40;29;06
Rob Lee
So they have it. Folks, I want to again thank the powerful Ian Power for coming onto the podcast. And I'm Rob Lee, saying that there is art in education, a community in and around your neck of the woods. You just got look for it.
