A Conversation with BT

In an upcoming print issue of Mix we’ll be featuring a piece on BT, a pioneer in the field of Trance music. In that interview BT talks about his personal studio and the tools he relies on to create his work. We continue our conversation here in the blog, focusing on the art of music.

Mix: You often speak about the relationship between music and mathematics. I believe you once said that you incorporated the Fibonacci sequence into one of your compositions. Can you give me some examples of how math influences your compositional style?

BT: “I’m a firm believer that all musicians are mathematicians. The harmonic relationships we work with, the rhythmic figures, the overtone series, these are all math based, and on some level every good musician is aware of them on an instinctual level at least.

“While working on my last album, These Hopeful Machines, I had the idea to morph between meters. There is a concept known as metric modulation, where a composer moves between different tempi in an organized manner. I was trying to take that idea a bit farther, going down to the sample level.

“I spent between 14 and 16 hours a day over a two week paper writing out all of the beats where notes should fall if you wanted to morph between 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures over x bars at a tempo of 126 beats per measure. The idea was to have a pattern of quarter notes remain unchanged and have this sample level change of meter imposed on top of it.

The result is a piece called “Las Nocturne Des Lumeires.” I played the piece for the first time in Norway and thought that it would be poorly received, but the response was extraordinary. People knew how to move their bodies while all of this strange rhythmic stuff was happening. I believe we have a genetic memory or recall of certain rhythmic structures that’s greater than what we generally consider biologically possible.

“I’m currently in the process of automating this rhythmic process, which will, obviously, make things much easier. It’s not free jazz, it’s the in the middle stuff, where beats fall over themselves. The focus of my work for 20 years has been micro rhythmic figures. This is me looking under new rocks.”

Mix: You’ve said that Stravinsky is one of your heroes.  Does his influence show up in your work?

BT: “Stravinsky was my guy. The Rite Of Spring, and Firebird, these are beautiful compositions, so atonal at the time, so brash and different, way before serial and aleatoric music came along. But these works, and others by him, were so logical and emotionally grounded that they’ve become easier and easier to hear and play.

“My heroes are the composers who throw a wrench in the engine. That’s how I think of my work; I’m a disruptive technologist.Regurgitating the same crap-who cares, even if it’s good? The best composers are the ones who create atomic explosions, decimating the concept of what’s possible.

“When I recorded the score to Stealth I stood at the podium and handed out boxes of #2 pencils to the first chair string players. I had to tell the players that I was the composer, not someone straightening up the studio! I wanted to create an orchestral cue that emulated what has been done with granular synthesis, taking the sounds that string players make down to the particle level to make tiny sounds, somewhere between white noise and potato chips!

“The entire cue was written with half notes and quarter notes only. I told the players to play the written notes, but in between the beats to play aleatoric rhythms using the pencil. If an Eb, for example, was notated as a half note, the idea was to play that pitch with the bow at the proper time, but before the next note entered create a rhythm by tapping on the string with the pencil. The musicians were quite skeptical, but it ended up being an extraordinary musical event. The cue is called "Edi Returns.’”

Mix: On your website you cite a number of composers-Rachmaninoff, Bartok, Debussy-as being major influences. All of them wrote through composed music. Do you write through composed music?

BT: “That’s something I want to do more of in the future. My 15 year plan-part of which I’ll implement when I become tired of performing in the way I do, which I can see coming-is to pursue some of the alternate passions I have, including composing in more extended forms. At this phase of my life I love performing for big electronic dance music crowds.”

Mix: Are you a fan of musique concrete?

BT: “Absolutely! Totally! I was introduced to that stuff at the Berklee College Of Music by one of my favorite professors, Dr. Boulanger.”

Mix: Is he related to the famed pedagogue Nadia Boulanger?

BT: “Yes, and he’s an inspirational teacher. Dr. Boulanger turned me on to Cage, Xenakis and Stockhausen. My idea is to apply the ideas inherent in musique concrete to something that’s directly emotional.

“I live in a no man’s land.  I’m aware of the extended techniques, but I can listen to a three chord song and be brought to tears. Tracy Chapman, early Bruce Springsteen-this stuff knocks me out. That’s what I want to do with music, take that emotion and wrap it in something that’s conceptually new. We’re getting back to the duality again, the academic and pop sides merging.

Mix: Did you break any new ground with your latest CD A Song Across Wires?

BT: “Not really. This is a return to my dance roots. For many years, I’d say between 2002 and 2007 nothing about dance music appealed to me. Everything went into this blase, minimal, tech house area, so I moved away from dance music. A number of people have been doing interesting things lately, and that’s renewed my passion for this style.  A Song Across Wires is me bringing new sounds to the form.

“I’ve been amazed at how people have responded to “Skylarking,” an instrumental cut on the CD.  It’s built on modal pedals that move between the I and V chords through most of the song, with a harmonic minor reveal in the breakdown. It’s simple harmonically, and there’s no moment where two synth bass lines and a kick drum pound you in the face. People are really responding to it. Armin van Buuren said that it’s one of his favorite pieces on the album.”

Mix: You’ve said that electronic dance music has to be appreciated live, with a great sound system, other people around you and a gifted “conductor” mixing the event.  Can you think of a single moment in your career that encapsulates this experience?

BT: “I was playing in Seattle after the release of These Hopeful Machines. I never get on the microphone, but I saw some girls-they must have been about 18 or so-crying.  I grabbed the mic and said ’I just want to make music that makes you feel less alone.’”

7/11/2013