Martha Mooke Interview Transcript
Episode: Podcast, Video, Show notes
Martha Mooke:
Crosspollination of different styles. Let's get the pop people wanting to know why is an event like this happening at the Cutting Room? Let's get the classical people asking why is this event happening at the Cutting Room? And so I came up with the idea and it started out as a vehicle for myself, but it also, as with most things that happen, it becomes a vehicle for others. And because I'm not the only one in that position, if I'm feeling a need to have my voice heard, guaranteed there's other people out there.
Leah Roseman:
Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians with Leah Roseman. This podcast strives to inspire you through the personal stories of a diversity of musicians with in-depth conversations and great music that reveal the depth and breadth to a life and music. Martha Mooke is a pioneer in the field of the electric five string Viola and transcends boundaries as a performer and composer. This episode features, insights, stories and music, including from the beautiful album by Carla Patullo "So She Howls" which just won the GRAMMY® Award for “Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album", as well as from several of Martha's solo and collaborative albums. You'll hear about the unique Multistyle string program she's helped launch at New Jersey City University and about many of her mentors and collaborators - from David Bowie to Tenzin Choegyal, to Laurie Anderson, to Jean-Luc Ponty. Martha is passionate about the breadth and diversity needed in music education for the 21st century, and it was a joy and an inspiration for me to be able to hear about the arc of her multifaceted career so far.
Like all my episodes, you can watch this on my YouTube channel or listen to the podcast on all the podcast platforms, and I've also linked the transcript to my website, Leahroseman.com. The podcast theme music was commissioned from composer Nick Kold, and you can use the timestamps to navigate the episode. Before we jump into our conversation, I wanted to let you know that this weekly podcast is in season four, and that I send out an email newsletter where you can get access to sneak peeks of upcoming guests and be inspired by highlights from the archive. Have a look at the description of this episode where you'll find all the links, including the support link to buy this independent podcaster a coffee.
Now to Martha Mooke. Hey, Martha, thanks so much for joining me here today.
Martha Mooke:
It's great to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Leah Roseman:
I love the twinkly lights, and I was going to ask you about this sort of thing. I know you're very cognizant of the necessity in terms of concert presentation to have, create a beautiful vibe. Now we're going to be sharing lots of your recorded projects and talking about your teaching and all kinds of cool stuff, but I know you're willing to do a little demo on your electric viola, so do you want to do that towards the beginning of the episode?
Martha Mooke:
Sure. Actually, in the process of writing a new piece, it's going to be premiered next week. It's a little bit of a stretch for me. It's a piece for electric viola and electric harp, a wonderful harpist that's joining our concert next week at NJCU Edmar Castaneda -
Leah Roseman:
OK!
Martha Mooke:
and he's all wired up and uses electronics and I've got wires and electronics and we'll see what happens. So just to explain, retuned, my viola scordatura, so it's become a transposing instrument, and so when I'm notating it, because eventually it will be notated, be notated both as I play it and as the sounds come out, as the pitches come out. So I'll give you a little bit of an idea of the instrument. This is my Yamaha, YEV five string electric. Viola/ violin serves both purposes, so this is the sound, so it's quite nice. It's tuned to a B flat with an A in there, little seventh. Now that's all fine, but here's where the fun really starts. (music)
Leah Roseman:
All right, very cool.
Martha Mooke:
It's just a little idea of the sound of it, little improv, and that's how I discover ideas, just kind of explore around the sound of the instrument. And with the electronics, I've got the top of the line, oh, you can't see it. Eventide H 90.
Leah Roseman:
So what were you using in terms of processing and the different layers? What was going on with all that?
Martha Mooke:
From the viola, I go into the H 90, it's a multi effects processor, and I have an expression pedal that also changes the parameters, and so it's controlled with this H 90 control, and this tells me exactly what the effects are that are in the particular algorithm in the effect. Then you can see it moving a little bit. That's the expression pedal. So I call it, it's an instrument basically comes with preloaded algorithms and then it's up to the player. It's up to myself to fine tune them the way that I like. So I'm liking this quite a lot, playing with it and experimenting and we'll see what happens next week.
Leah Roseman:
So the harp player, his name is Edmar, right?
Martha Mooke:
Edmar Castaneda.
Leah Roseman:
So he always plays standing up?
Martha Mooke:
Yes. It's a harp that it's, it's not a classical pedal harp, it's a lever harp and it's indigenous to, he's from Columbia, and so that is the harp that comes from his culture, from his country. And what he does with it is just astounding.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I've seen him play on the internet, but that must be a really fun collaboration.
Martha Mooke:
Yeah, I've known Edmar for many, many years and to have this opportunity to collaborate with him and bring him in to work with directly and to also work with my students, it's a real treat and a real learning and amazing growing process for them and for me.
Leah Roseman:
So before we get into that, I just want to understand this piece. So is it, there must be improv integrated into stuff that you've written?
Martha Mooke:
Yes. So there's the sound palette that it's pretty much what you heard, give and take. There's a few more patches and there'll be sort of a concept. I'm very big on concept composition and a structure of sorts and we'll, I have some ideas that I'm going to put down, but there will be a lot of improvisation. There'll be a lot of, for me in the music, it's very important about the connection and the interaction between the musicians. So we'll see it. It's still formulating, kind of excited, been a while since I've written a piece like this.
Leah Roseman:
What do you mean by concept driven composition?
Martha Mooke:
The way that I've been composing for many years, very non-traditional, like most of the things that I do, I'm not driven particularly by harmonic structures and formats or even rhythmic or I sort of defy all those rules and regulations. And what it's allowed me to do is free me up to explore sounds, explore collaborations of sounds, meaning when I'm playing through this effects box or any effects box, I actually consider that to be an ensemble and trial and error because with every articulation, the same setting is going to sound different. If I pizzicato, it'll sound totally different than when I'm playing with the bow and when I'm playing with harmonics. And so I'm constantly experimenting with different sounds, different qualities of sounds, different textures. I feel that that's a very important part. The dimensionality of music is very important and I think it's oftentimes not, in especially the listener's perception, it's very experiential from the actual creation of the work and the process of the work mostly. Also, my pieces are never finished, even if they're recorded because of the nature of adding improvisation, they're always going to keep evolving. And that's kind of the beautiful part of that. And that's the beautiful part of live performance as well.
I'll get into that in a little while, but so concept. Yeah, I think of an idea. I think of room, space, everything except the little black dots on the page when I'm composing, when I'm creating.
Leah Roseman:
One of the tracks I wanted to include part of was your Ice 4, because it's so textural and percussive, I thought it'd be really interesting for people to hear how you use the viola.
Martha Mooke:
Yeah, well, that was another, the title came from concept ICE 4 several years ago. My mother got a new iPhone and my sister was helping her program it in, and I called her one day and she said, oh, it's ICE 4. I said, what do you mean it's Ice 4? She said, In Case of Emergency. And in her phone I was in case of emergency number 4, and I said, well, but you only have two daughters, so you need to explain that. But that's where the title came from. And then it was just sort of an exploration of different understandings of the word ice.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. This is a clip from ICE 4 from the album, No Ordinary Window.(music)
Are you inspired by visual ideas or just pure emotion or I mean a more narrative?
Martha Mooke:
It's different for each piece that I go in and with. Usually I'll have an idea, a concept. For example, a few years ago I did a piece that was called Dreaming and Sound, and just the title of that. I've actually done a series of works for dreams, A Dream in Sound, Dreaming in Sound, Dreams and Sound, for solo viola with my quartet. And then Dreaming and Sound was, that was very involved, lots of electronics, lots of the sound. I had four different speakers in the room. And so I had it hooked up to a program Max MSP that I was able to change where the sounds were coming from. So rather than just stereo left and I could actually have the sounds circulating around the room.
And so it was a lot, I'm always involved with choreography because my effects and my looper pedal are all at my feet. But I kind of gave myself a really big challenge with that one because I had an extra set of pedals to control where the sounds were going. But the whole idea of dreaming in sound was lucid dreaming the sleep process where you travel to it was also tied in with constellations. And as it was being another example of that, it was commissioned for a festival in Prague. And so one of my favorite things in the middle of the city of Prague is that clock, the astronomical clock. And I incorporated that into the piece as if when you're dreaming, sometimes something that you just saw right before you went to sleep enters into your dream and it has no meaning whatsoever except that it's somehow in your consciousness and it needs to be involved. So that was one example of how I put different things together and came up with that concept of dreaming in sound, and then that evolves into something else After that, I do a lot of evolving.
Leah Roseman:
So let's go to your program at New Jersey City University. I was so happy to find out about this, and I know you kind of got started during the pandemic, during lockdowns. Was there any kind of silver lining to that?
Martha Mooke:
Oh, that's how I try to journey in my life is that we are always going to be thrown curve balls and there's always going to be obstructions and it's never going to be always the right time for something. And I think if that lockdown time, the time of Covid really proved anything was that you need to be able to reframe and pivot to be able to continue on. And so I have always looked at mistakes as opportunities. Being an improviser, I get a lot of opportunities, let's say, but being able to incorporate that into my performance and also as a teaching tool, teaching improvisation students, teaching teachers that, because we're so ingrained, don't do that. Don't play anything that sounds awful. Practice, practice, practice. So it's perfect and that's fine for certain things, but it's so ingrained that you've kind of erased a lot of the beauty of being a child and the naivete of being able to create and conjure up in this spur of the moment coming back to Covid.
And the first thing that I realized two weeks after when we realized that this was going to be probably the long haul, I was able to pivot pretty quickly because I already had experience with technology and knowing how to plug things in and turn things on and make things work. And those were the early days of Zoom. All of a sudden everybody was zooming and learning how to do that. And so that whole thought of how can we reframe, pivot that idea that we are faced with this situation that we have no control over, how do we get control back is to call it something else.
Leah Roseman:
Okay. So when they invited you to put together this program, had their string program died out or was it on life support?
Martha Mooke:
Once upon a time, there was a pretty vibrant string program at New Jersey City University. And for whatever reasons that happened in music programs, it sort of faded away. And there was maybe one string major and I was brought as an adjunct to revive the string program. And their thought was for classical and maybe Broadway and they had a classical performance major. And I had been doing research for many, many years on different kinds of programs that exist out there that are being created like the programs at Berklee College of Music. And there were these entrepreneurial musicianship programs popping up and musical entrepreneurship. And just between the research I was doing with that, I didn't know why I was doing the research. It just was interesting to me to see what was out there. I don't know, maybe I was going to apply to a program, I really don't know that. But it went hand in hand with my experience as a professional player and creator and improviser. I mean, I have a Master's degree in viola performance, but everything else I've taught myself, the electronics, I've taught myself, improvisation, basically I've taught myself composition and maybe that I have a little bit of an outsider approach to a lot of things, but I always thought it would be really interesting if I'd had the opportunity to have kind of a program that offered all these different things that I've been acquiring over the years through experience.
And so it was one of those aha moments. I've had a few in my life where I woke up one morning and the term multistyle strings just popped out of my head. And I started writing a proposal for the string program, which was sort of based around my career path because I have the tools and many string players have the tools to be wonderful performers. But what happens when your livelihood goes away for two years and you can't go out and play Broadway or you can't go out and play at the Met or any show or tour, you can't rehearse with your friends. And so that was part of having the tools to teach the tools of what do you do if that happens? I learned from Berklee that part of their mantra is that every graduate is an entrepreneur, a small business, a entrepreneur, and you've got to own that because of the nature of how the music industry, the music business has been changing over the years, there's no guarantee that even if you're the best violinist in the world, that you're going to have a job that you're going to be able to support yourself with only playing the violin.
There are certainly positions about that, and I know I'm going to have some hate mail saying that, but I really believe that for musicians now in this 21st century graduating, they need to have the skills to play their instruments. They also need the skills to be able to turn on gear, electronics to record themselves, to do Zoom, to set up microphones, to set up a PA system, plug in, get an app, use electronics. All this is here at our disposal. And really there's not an argument to say we shouldn't use it because I'm pretty sure that if Mozart had had some pedals back in those days, he would've had them plugged in. We would've had a Mozart or electric Requiem or so.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, no, I agree. So you're right across from Manhattan, and do you want to talk a little bit about the faculty?
Martha Mooke:
Yeah. So New Jersey City University is in Jersey City, which is very close to Manhattan. You can see Manhattan from the sixth floor. And so it's easy access into the culture capital of the world. And when I was so setting up the program, creating it, and little did I realize I would actually be tasked with creating a brand new performance degree because multistyle performance wasn't an option. It was either classical or jazz. And so the emphasis on all styles are legit. It's not just classical or an alternative to classical or jazz. That's where the multistyle comes in.
And over the course of my career, I have cultivated a lot of friends, wonderful friends who are at the top of the game in the music industry, especially in the string world. And I called them all up and I said, I'm creating this new program at New Jersey City University. It's a public university, so also the tuition is a lot less than a private institution. I said, we're close to New York City. The students can go in and out whenever they want to. So I called, the first person I called was Regina Carter, who I've known for many years and talked to her about it and I didn't know if that was anything she would be interested in. And she signed on right away. She loved the idea of the program. She's still a really big supporter of the program and she's taught students private lessons. She's come in and coached ensembles, she's performed, and it's just having her on the team has been so fabulous, and I so value her input in the program.
And so I also called my friend Jeremy Kittle, who is an amazing fiddle player who I've known since he was a teenager and seen him just blossom with his own band and tours. And I love his playing what he brings to the fiddle world. And he's a brilliant musician, whatever style he's playing. And he agreed to sign on because he liked what the program was offering. And I also had some students that were fiddle players coming in. And I basically would say to the students, if you had your choice of who to study with, who would your dream bee? And for most of the time, I've been able to make their dreams come true. Nice. And I tapped my friend Dave Eggar on cello, known Dave for many, many years. One of the most brilliant musicians that I know, brilliant, cellist, composer, arranger, pianist. I mean, there's not enough words for Dave and what he brings to his knowledge of the industry and all of the artists that he's worked with and created string charts and arrangements for and tours that he's done.
So he signed on right away too when I asked him. So another one was Joe Deninzon, who, these are people I've known for many years in different aspects of the string world. And I've known Joe to be an amazing electric. I mean, he's a fabulous classical player as well, but jazz player working with electronics with the pedals and loops and just totally brilliant. So Joe came on board and subsequently, it's been about a year now, he's been out on tour with the band Kansas. So it's, it's been pretty amazing to see everybody keeps growing, keeps evolving, and that is something that the students are seeing also, that their professors are not just stopping and just teaching. They are continuing in their career paths. And I'm not putting down any teachers by any means because everybody's got lives that continue, but sometimes we think that your life doesn't continue, that you're in the classroom teaching skills, teaching information.
And what I found as important to that is the teaching of experience, which includes being a professional, cultivating your network, being open to collaborations. Some of the most amazing musical experiences I've had have been with people I have absolutely nothing in common with in the music field. And I see that happening in the program because that's encouraged. Collaborations are encouraged. People that think they have nothing in common, get together, sit on the floor, turn out the lights, plug in, or just explore and see what happens. Allow yourself that time and the space to do that. And it's been pretty amazing to observe what can happen and what can grow out of that.
Leah Roseman:
So is it just a Master's at this point?
Martha Mooke:
So the Masters kicked in first, it's just the nature of how programs are approved and because it started up during Covid, so it started out with just a string quartet virtual, obviously. And so now we've had three graduating classes of Master's candidates. And in a few more weeks, we'll have another class graduating. And the other thing that the Bachelor's has been a little delayed in kicking in partly because of Covid, those two and a half years decimated a lot of music programs, especially string programs, when that count on being in the same room and having that consistency of playing and interaction with the teachers and with the fellow students. So now the string programs, and I'm hearing this from a lot, especially the middle school and the high school teachers that I interact with, they're telling me, but next year we're going to have, our seniors are going to be ready for you.
Leah Roseman:
Good. Yeah. Things are coming back.
Martha Mooke:
Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
I understand. The wind and brass world, of course, is worse in terms of the fallout,
Martha Mooke:
Any form of art, performing art that you need an ensemble to be in the room or you need that interaction. So I can only speak for the strings, but I think we're going to see a regrowth, a rebirth in the next few. A renaissance perhaps it's really important that the emphasis that is being placed on STEM, STEAMs out to include the arts. There's a part of the brain that is just so inspired by and motivated, I think, and touched by the arts are such a vital part of our being as humans.
Leah Roseman:
Beautifully said. So if we could talk about your recent granny win with this beautiful project by Carla Patullo.
Martha Mooke:
Yeah, so that was another beautiful, a lot of things have happened in my life that seem happenstance or coincidental, but they have a meaning. And I met Carla first a number of years ago, just by chance. We were taking a film scoring workshop together, and Carla lives out in LA and we sort of bonded over that. And then we didn't see each other for a few years, and I didn't know until post Covid that she had also been stricken with a very serious illness, the experimental treatment that helped her, along with just letting out of these musical emotions because she wasn't sure what was going to happen with that. And that was a form of therapy in a way. And she reached out to me because we'd been talking about collaborating, not knowing how we would collaborate, but she wanted to work with me, knowing the sounds that I create on electric viola, the vibe that surrounds what I do, and my string quartet Scorchio.
We've been working for the last 20, 21 years as the in-house string quartet for the annual Tibet House benefit concert that has been produced by Philip Glass. And so there's a special bond with that as well, and all the different musicians and artists that we get to work with. And it's really, that's also the multistyle. It's having the soul that can say yes to adapting to whatever style, whatever the needs are. And so Carla sent me the music and she asked me to put the session together. She was coming to New York. The vibe was important, the people that were important, the feel of the session was important. And by the end of the session, we knew something special had happened. And I don't know - you can say that, well, it's a beautiful recording. Yes, it is. It was also what went into that, which may be, I think that's evident. I think when people listen to it, they get the sense of what went into that recording besides just the sounds.
Leah Roseman:
This track is Machine Dreams from Carla Patullo So She Howls which just won the GRAMMY® Award for “Best New Age, Ambient, or Chant Album.” (music)
Martha Mooke:
I was just talking with her. She's coming to New York in June, and we're putting together a show at the cutting room. So hasn't been announced yet, but we are going to perform the album. Okay,
Leah Roseman:
Wonderful. And the vocal group in that Martha is Tonality, right?
Martha Mooke:
Yes.
I think they - I did an episode last year with EmmoLei Sankofa, media composer and her score for The Other Black Girl. She used them, I believe that was the group. So some of their music was featured in a totally different way on my episode with her.
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You mentioned the Tibet House and your quartet formed because of that initially many years ago.
Yes. So yeah, that's a whole other story of circumstances, probably my favorite story to tell. And so way back when in the late nineties, I guess I had a chance encounter with Tony Visconti, who was David Bowie's longtime producer, and as well as produced many other just amazing albums. And I think I was playing in a string quartet backing up the band, the lead singer of the Zombies, Colin Blundstone. And Tony was backstage and we ended up talking and he liked my playing, and I said, well, I also play electric viola. And we started a friendship, and then I started contracting string sessions for Tony for the recordings that he was producing. And the nature of what I do, I don't know, I never made a game plan of it, but I always feel that if I feel like there's not a space for me or a place for my voice to be heard, I will figure out how to make it.
And that's exactly what happened. Being a composer and a member of ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, authors and publishers, and not really feeling where I had a home. I wasn't really composing classical music, I wasn't composing any particular style of music, and I was playing electric viola and adding electronics and adding elements of all different styles of music. And at a meeting, I just sort of stood up. I didn't know what else to do, and I proposed to do a showcase. I dunno, it sort of came out and I had called it Thru the Walls. And after a few meetings with some of the folks at ASCAP, they agreed to co-produce it, and was a series lasted for eight years, started in 2001, a series that showcased composer performers that were doing and creating music that defied categorization. Alright.
And so the plan was for the very first show to be at the original address of the Cutting Room, which is a venue that I have a long time affiliation with. Now they moved to East 32nd Street, but Steve Walter, the owner, was a Berklee grad, played guitar, but has such an interest in all styles of music. And we pitched this crazy idea of doing an ASCAP concert music, which means sort of classical new music in this club where they have rock and roll and all kinds of other things that turn on and play loudly. And so that was another of my thought, a collaboration meaning cross-pollination of different styles. Let's get the pop people wanting to know why is an event like this happening at the cutting room? Let's get the classical people asking why is this event happening at the cutting room? And so I came up with the idea, and it started out as a vehicle for myself, but it also, as with most things that happen, it becomes a vehicle for others.
And because I'm not the only one in that position, if I'm feeling a need to have my voice heard, guaranteed, there's other people out there. And there were, and there still are. And so I told Tony about this idea and I said, what do you think about coming on board to be the host of the very first Thru the Walls showcase? I was going to feature three different acts. It was Ben Neil on Mutant Trumpet. Trumpet that he, he's still playing it with electronics and really interesting ways of playing a horn. And then the other composer, performer Eve Beglarian, who's also doing really advanced cross-cultural cross multistyle work. And Tony loved the idea of introducing it. And so the plan was made, it was the end of January of 2001 and the day the premier of the showcase, I was talking with Tony and he said, well, I'd mentioned to my friend David that I told him a little bit about this event tonight and he was interested. And I said, yeah, right.
And so I go to the venue, we do the sound check, I'm running the video camera, I'm producing the thing and running around, and it comes to the time of the show and the lights go out, everybody takes their seat and they escort David Bowie to my table, and he sits directly in front of me. And that's how I met David Bowie. And then Tony went up and did his introduction. And it was beautiful because Tony is so knowledgeable about so many different styles of music and his string arrangements are just classics and the work that he's done with Bowie's just stunning.
And it was a really magical evening. And David stayed at least through my set, and then he had to leave because he had an early morning BBC interview or something. And shortly thereafter, I don't know if it was the next day or day or two later, Tony called me and he said, David would like to know if you could put a string quartet together to play with him at Carnegie Hall for the Tibet House benefit concert that Philip Glass produces. That's like, that's mic drop, right? Yeah. So what did I do? Of course, I called up some friends and I said, Hey, you think you might have some time to do this gig? And it was a benefit concert, so nobody got paid. So that was the first time of getting to together, really getting together and working with David. And I'll never forget that the first day going in for a rehearsal, it was at when Philip Glass had his Looking Glass recording studios, and we went to rehearse there.
I still have a picture somewhere with, we were sitting in the small room and David is sitting next to me and I'm just like, and we're rehearsing Heroes with String Quartet to play with David Bowie. It's just not registering that it's real and it soundcheck. And then it became real when we were backstage at Carnegie Hall just before going on, and David walks in as David Bowie. I mean, the picture's a little worn out now, but with makeup and his hair made and just looking like that. And I went, wow, I'm really going to play with David Bowie.
And we did. And it turned into a three year collaboration where we played with David the following two years. But we also in the interim had some recording sessions with him both in New York and upstate on a few different albums. The main one being Heathen, which came out in 2002. And the time that we spent recording with him, I was up there doing some solo work and then the quartet came up. I was up there September 9th, 2001, September 8th, September 9th, 2001. And the Quartet, we were planning to come back a few days later to do more tracks, and then the world changed 9 11.
And so we had to sort of reconfigure what that all meant. But we were, after a few days when people were finally able to travel a little bit again, I lived in Rockland County, so it wasn't too bad for me, but the rest of the quartet lived in Manhattan and they had to figure out how to get up there. But we did, and we went up there and I remember getting up there and they were watching probably CNN, and I think one of the last buildings was sort of on its way down, and it was a very, very emotional time. And that I think got absorbed into the sessions as well, very, very meaningful and recording in this beautiful studio up in, it's called AIlaire outside of Woodstock. So just amazing memories of working with David and that whole time, and it's hard to believe that it was 23 years ago.
Leah Roseman:
And all these years, I mean, you've been continuing to play in this Tibet House benefit concert.
Martha Mooke:
So I'm actually the only original member since I formed it. But we've had a few comings and goings, which happens with quartets, but I've played every year since 2001, including there were two years that we were virtual because of Covid. But yeah, so the last one was just about a month or so ago at Carnegie Hall. And so what happened in 2001, that first year, we only played with David Bowie and Tony did the arrangements and for Hero in Silly Boy Blue, which actually just came out a couple of years ago on the album called Toy, but we recorded it back in 2001 or 2002 around that time.
So the next year David performed again and the following year, and then other artists got the idea that there was a string quartet around and asked if they could borrow David Bowie's String Quartet. So after the third year, David wasn't doing the events anymore because people do a few years and then they sort of move on, move out, and Philip just would call me up and say, so-and-so is coming in, David Byrne is coming in, can you play with him? Or Rufuss Wainwright or Lou Reed or basically anybody that was coming in. And I was doing the arrangements for them. And it is something about playing in Carnegie Hall with his string quartet, no matter how big - Iggy Pop wanted to play with us every time he did the Tibet House concerts. And that was wild every time we played this past year with Gogol Bordello, and we've played many times with them, and there's just this crazy amazing energy filled band, and they love playing with the string quartet. And one set was playing with Gogol Bordello, and another set was playing with Maggie Rogers, with just Maggie and her guitar and her beautiful voice singing her gorgeous song. And one of the only times I ever had to rewrite an arrangement because in the sound in the very first rehearsal, the arrangement I wrote was a little too heavy for what she was doing, and I felt awful. I almost made her cry, made Maggie Rogers cry.
But I said, I will make this okay. And the next day we came in for the dress rehearsal sound check, and I had paired it down and it went so beautifully with what she was doing, and it was a magical experience. So it's kind of cool for Scorchio for us to be on stage and playing all these different styles of music. And we also played with Laurie Anderson, and I did a duo with Laurie on Electric Viola and the Quartet joined in and we played with Maya Hawk. It was just a fabulous energy that goes on in that event. And Joan Baez,
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I was going to ask you!
Martha Mooke:
That was just incredible time at the rehearsals, just seeing that was the legend of Joan Baez. And then to perform with her, and I dunno if you, there's a video of that performance where it starts out innocently enough with us playing with Joan and ends up into a beat, bring in a rock beat, and she starts dancing and we're standing up and dancing, and it was phenomenal. It was really such a poignant moment, and I will never ever forget that.
Leah Roseman:
So Tibet House, do you want to speak to what it is and what the money goes for
Martha Mooke:
Tibet House is, there is actually a place on, I think it's on 15th Street, but it serves to support and keep the Tibetan culture alive because it's very much in danger from what's been going on with China and the Tibetan people, the Tibetan culture, the artwork, the music. And so it's an opportunity for people to come together to really to honor the culture, to honor the musicians. There's always Tibetan monks come in and perform, or they do the incantation at the very beginning, and that's what it's about because it Tibetan musicians, they can't go back to their country and they can't go back to perform there. There are organizations that do send back money for an orphanage or for other things. And this is specifically to help keep the culture alive.
Leah Roseman:
And the singer, Tenzin Choegyal, is that how you pronounce his name?
Martha Mooke:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
So has he come in for those events since he lives in Australia?
Martha Mooke:
Yes. He comes in at least if not, well, I think he's done it the last few years, but he's done it probably 10 times that I've been involved and we've become great friends and we've collaborated. That's another one of those things where you talk backstage and it was like we said we should do something together. And so we did.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I listened to Sutras of the Heart. I was hoping we could have a clip from that to point people towards that album.
Martha Mooke:
Oh, yes, yes, please. I have many people that tell me they meditate to that, that it's the perfect meditating song. So it is an honor for me for people to play it and work with it in that capacity.
Leah Roseman:
This a clip from Sutras of the Heart by Martha Mook featuring Tenzin Choegyal and Jesse Paris Smith. (music)
Martha, do you meditate?
Martha Mooke:
I do. I don't listen to my music when I meditate, but yeah, it's a way for me to, this world can be so overwhelming most of the time. And how do you sort of regroup when it gets to be a little too much? And so I find myself, I don't have a set schedule of, when I do, my body tells me when I need to recharge, and if I'm hanging out with family or friends, I'll excuse myself for a bit and put on my noise canceling headphones and put on just some generic sounds, usually some kind of a white noise. I don't want to sing along. I don't want to hear the progression and know what chord is coming next. I just want to be in the moment, and I've actually taken to just putting a fan on at night. Also, it sort of works the same way. Just having that white noise there helps the thoughts disperse and helps me regain the centeredness that I need to. Do you?
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I do. And I've spoken to a lot of serious meditators on this podcast, like Stephen Nachmanovitch, and I won't go - Madeline Bruser, I won't go into all the people I've spoken with, but actually I was thinking about him, of course, because of his book Free Play and all that. I believe he has a six string viola like Tracy Silverman, but different. And I wanted to ask you, have you gone over to the six string side and had that lower string you explored?
Martha Mooke:
Not yet. Okay.
I mean, I've been a five stringer for a very long time, but I'm enticed and I have been talking with some powers that be about possibly delving into that world. So some of my students have been expanding. And yeah, Tracy came in to do our work with our strings program last year in our symposium. And yeah, he swears by the six string, which does make sense. But you got to still give cred to the four and the five, I mean, there are people that swear by a seven string as well. So what do you do? Well, you have to adapt, and so all my works are basically for five string, which could be easily played by six string. But the beauty of the five string is that it's really combination or a collaboration of violin and viola. So you can play repertoire, violin repertoire, and viola repertoire seamlessly. It's just a matter of the clef. Yeah.
Leah Roseman:
Now you've helped Yamaha develop some of their instruments over the years. What does that collaborative process look like?
Martha Mooke:
Another one of those moments where I was introduced to just at an event that had absolutely nothing to do with strings, it was another product that they were trying, it was a midi sensor suit that was supposed to be originally designed for music therapy where you touch different spots and it causes sounds and music to happen. And I started getting involved with that. But in the meantime, the emerging markets folks found out about my playing of electric strings, and they said, well, we're starting to work on electric strings and can we send you a prototype?
So they did. And that was how I got involved with Yamaha. It's been probably over 25 years now. That was an instrument that started out just as a practice instrument, just to facilitate so that kids or people living in close quarters could practice their scales without bothering the rest of their family. But I said to them, this is very cool, but I want to play it loud. And so I gave them feedback on it. And then they also invited me to Japan to their headquarters in Hamamatsu. And I worked with a design team for a few days on different, they were working on two different designs. And so I gave them my input on that. And I continue working with Yamaha on giving my input as well as doing workshops. And they're very, very supportive of music education. And so they've been a big supporter of my program as well. And they're just a wonderful company to be affiliated with. So I'm delighted, and there's always things coming up and I can't see what they are, but there are more things coming up. Okay.
Leah Roseman:
I bought one of those silent, so-called Silent Violins when they first came out, and I just found it so heavy. Have they lightened them up a bit?
Martha Mooke:
Yes. So a lot of that has to do with they were heavy because they had batteries in them. The whole system was, it was an active system. So that tends to make it heavy. The instrument heavy with this instrument, the YEV, and actually this is a specialized, a customized viola length, YEV. The regular ones are violin length, but this is special made and it's really light because there's no battery pack in here. There is a knob, a volume control, and usually when I'm performing, I perform with a wireless pickup system, but
Leah Roseman:
There's no body to speak of.
Martha Mooke:
So that doesn't add weight. I mean, it doesn't need to. However, there is resonance and that does make a difference. But yes, there are a lot of models of electric strings that they're uncomfortable to play because they're heavy. The weight is not distributed evenly or something is not quite right.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, I'll alert our people listening on podcast platforms who can't see. What I often do is I'll put a little gallery of images on my website associated with this episode so people can click in the show notes and see your viola and maybe some of the other stuff.
Martha Mooke:
Great.
Leah Roseman:
That'd be cool.
Martha Mooke:
And if anybody has any follow-up questions, they're welcome to find me and send me elecviola on Instagram or whatever.
Leah Roseman:
Yeah, well your website will be linked in any other links, of course. So speaking of outreach, we were just talking about Yamaha. You were recently in Jamaica?
Martha Mooke:
Yes. First time in Jamaica is, I feel like when I go into my honor, I teach an honors class at NJCU, and every day I go in there and I said, this is going to be the best class yet.
Leah Roseman:
I love it!
Martha Mooke:
Now it's a joke. But I truly believe that, and this is another thing that happens by circumstance that in the symposium last summer where Tracy Silverman was our guest artist, and it turned out that one of the faculty in the nursing department is Jamaican, and she's very much a supporter of the arts and involved with music programs in Jamaica. And she found out about the symposium and some of the music teachers from Jamaica, from Montego Bay came to the workshop. They had never played a string instrument before, but the whole idea of this, and it's now become a collaboration, was to teach music teachers about string instruments, teach them the instruments and teach them how to teach so they can bring that back to the schools, which is a very different approach to teaching's. Another word for it than pedagogical, but that was the idea. So they came over last summer and we started collaborating, and then they invited me to go over and I took a couple of another faculty member and a current student of mine went, and we were there for about five days working with, most of the participants are in the band programs, either as teachers or as students.
And the connection, her name is Michelle, she has a foundation and they've been buying string instruments and sending them to Jamaica. So we had a bunch of instruments to work with, so there will be more interaction. In fact, they're planning to come back for our symposium this summer, and we are going to be doing Zoom calls and working with that. So the idea is to build up this string program in that part of the island on the other side of the island from Kingston, which is where the conservatory is, that has an orchestra program. But we went out into the schools, we went out into a couple of high schools, and the students, they all wanted to play for us and sing for us.
And there was so much, I dunno, love and eagerness in the room, and we played for them and then we jammed with them. It was a beautiful experience, very hot. It's hot in Jamaica, but we did get to the beach one day. But yeah, I didn't set out to create a new string program in Jamaica. And it's one of those things that you see the value in it and what it could mean for students in any culture, in any country, but especially for a country where they don't have that experience of working with the string instruments. And it takes a little more maintenance because of the weather, but there are ways to work around it and to work with it. So I've been to Cuba, which is sort of similar temperature, and then the music programs over there are just astounding, but they have also have the same issues of the music paper eventually just disintegrates and the instruments need additional maintenance, but when there's a will, there's a way. And so we're making this happen and it fills my heart.
Leah Roseman:
So actually, I was thinking the hot weather about the album Buzz that you were involved with, where these insect sounds were used, and I wanted to ask you about sound design. I was thinking, what is it called Metachrosis, that piece, because you don't really recognize the viola in there. Are you using viola?
Martha Mooke:
In Metachrosis? I am not using the viola that is pure insect sounds being processed through basically the same effects processing that's in this H 90. They are plugins. So in I use Logic, and what I did was I took these recordings of these insects and I processed them and I composed them or recompose them. And that's how that piece came about. There's another piece on the recording, Platycotis that does use the viola sounds as well as the insect sounds. But I wanted to sort of create a kind of symphony, and that's what Metachrosis is. And I got a note from the scientist that had actually recorded those sounds, and he loves the piece. He says that he can sense the respect to the original insects to their beingness in what I brought to them. And that was the intention. So yeah, I had fun with that.
Leah Roseman:
This is a clip from Metachrosis from the album Buzz, using a variety of insect sounds recorded by Rex Cocroft.(music)
Really beautiful and inspiring. And I was curious about, well, all these things come to mind. Well, one thing is I would like to point people towards my episode with Linsey Pollak, the Australian musician who's a brilliant improviser and instrument builder out of everything. And one of the things he did on that episode with me is he has these sounds sampled from nature, like bird calls and frog sounds, and then it's played through his midi wind instrument and then he can manipulate them. And that was a really interesting, and he did that in the session with me. He just showed me options you can use, and it was a really inspiring way of hearing these beautiful nature sounds. And then I was wondering about sound design because a lot of these composers I've spoken to who do media composition, it often says sound design. And I've noticed I just did a production with my orchestra. It was a beautiful ballet that used music of Mahler, but then in between there was sound design and actually some insect sounds. It was very interesting that the things they were manipulating, and I don't know the name of the person who created it, I should look that up, but I was listening to it thinking, well, what is sound design? How is it different than composition? Where are we making this distinction?
Martha Mooke:
There's the blurry line, that's my - blurry line is my favorite line to traverse. It depends on how it's being used, really depends on the end, the intention of it. So it could certainly be one day, it could be a composition. The next day it could be used as something that's sound design, meaning where does that mean you're not actually supposed to pay attention to the music, but it's supposed to inform something about what's going on. Maybe that's the little detail in there. I don't know. I mean, when I create, I think what I do as a combination of composing and sound design, but I don't call it that. I don't like labels.
Leah Roseman:
Now your first inspiration for getting an electric instrument was Jean-Luc Ponty. Have you met him?
Martha Mooke:
Yes.
Leah Roseman:
Okay.
Martha Mooke:
Yeah. When I was in high school, I was just a naive, innocent viola player. And I don't know what somebody gave me, word lent me an album called A Taste for Passion. And on it was Jean-Luc Ponty playing this gorgeous blue violin. And I brought it home and played it vinyl, what it was back then, and people are going to get tired of hearing this story, but back in those days, there were no emojis of brains exploding. But that's what literally happened. That was one of my first revelation moments because I remember listening to the album and just thinking, I never knew a violin or a string player could do that, could play, that could play a style like that. I mean, I knew about jazz, but I didn't know in that context of using electronics and expanding the sound of the instrument in such a way that he did and continues to do. And that really was a turning point where shortly thereafter, I had my parents drive me down to Manhattan when it used to be all the music stores on 48th Street and Manny's and Sam Ash, and I actually bought the same version of the violin that he was playing was a blue Barcus Berry , five string electroacoustic violin. And I still own that, in fact.
Leah Roseman:
That was my next question!
And so over the years, I just started exploring other string players. Of course, I bought every Jean-Luc Ponty album, and then CDs came out. So I was buying the CDs and I discovered Didier Lockwood and Michael Urbaniak and Noel Pointer, and I was so hungry just searching and searching for electric string players. There were almost no viola players that could identify at that point in the concert music scene. I didn't know at that point about John Cale and The Velvet Underground. I did learn later on when I actually ended up touring with John and recording with John, but he was sort of the godfather of electric viola in his own way.
But yeah, so I was expanding and I wasn't really playing it anywhere except the basement of where I was living. By then, I was in college and then gone to grad school and was starting to acquire pieces of equipment, which were not little pedals that we have now on the floor. They were rack mount, big pieces of gear. And I started experimenting because it was another one of those things. It's like you're building your own instrument and you could ask people what gear they use, what amps they use, what effects they use, and everybody's going to tell you something totally different until you try its trial and error and find the sound. Like when you're trying out an acoustic instrument, it's going to have to resonate with you. You want to what it sounds like under your ear, what it sounds like in the hall, and the same kind of thing when you're working with electronics.
And so that's why quality of sound is very important as well. So over the years then starting to meet other people that were doing improvisation, and again, I was improvising, but in the privacy of my basement apartment, or I would put on Jean-Luc Ponty recordings, and I was also listening to the Turtle Island String Quartet and just kind of jamming that way and sort of building up my confidence and my repertoire. And then there was one he played at, I think it was at BB King's at the club in New York City. I forget what year it was, way back, probably in the nineties at some point. And oh yeah, it must've been like 97 or 98. I had just released my first solo album and Harmonic Vision. And so I got a ticket, I went to the show, I had the CD with me, and I had to muster up all my courage to stand there and sort of find my way backstage and meet him and number one, to tell him what an influence he's been to me and to all of the string world. And number two, to give him my CD. I think there had just been a review that came out in the Village Voice, that's another extinct piece of propaganda.
And he was very gracious. And then years later, I never heard from him again. Then years later, I just took a chance and I sent a note to his website just to sort of remind him and tell him where I was in the progress as an electric violist. And he wrote me right back. And in fact, he was cleaning out all these old recordings and things, and he found my album and he didn't throw it out. So I felt really good about that. And then over the years, he came on tour to play, and then I met him again backstage as an invited guest. And so we would just write to each other quite a lot. And it turned out that we were also playing some of these same electronic gear, and he heard, then I sent him my album, no Ordinary Window, which was using another new piece of gear, and he really liked the sound of that.
And I said, oh, that's the H9 from Eventide. And he said, oh, I really like that. So I called up the people at Eventide and I said, Jean-Luc Ponty really likes the H9 sound on my album. So I think the next day they brought it over to him in Paris. Then he started using it. So that was pretty cool. And I think he's still using it. So that was another inspiration and mentor that is just such a beautiful and generous person. And I sent him best wishes for his birthday a few months ago, and sometimes sends me things that he's working on and he's just so, oh, coming from you. That's such a thank you. It really means a lot. So he's a beautiful person.
I was listening to your album No Ordinary Window, actually. We had that eclipse recently. We didn't have totality here where I was living and a great regret of my life. I didn't plan to get the glasses or go where I could have. So everyone else I know seems to have had this experience, but it was getting dark. And I was walking back from an appointment listening to that album of yours on my headphones, and it was very, very evocative and it was getting dark, and I saw all these people on a hill with these glasses looking up and I was trying not to look up, listening to you play. So it was just one of those moments.
Martha Mooke:
Wow. Well, I guess you didn't fall into any craters on the Thanks. Yeah. I mean, I should put a warning on it if you listen to it. Well, now there's no CD players, but back in the day I would sort of joke and tell people, listen to it in the car on the way home. Just don't drive off the road.
Leah Roseman:
It's trippy. It's great. And we still have CD players. This is a clip from Omotion from No Ordinary Window. (music)
Martha Mooke:
Can I just add another of my mentors and inspirations? Laurie Anderson?
Leah Roseman:
Yes, I was going to ask you about her. Yeah.
Martha Mooke:
Oh, okay.
Leah Roseman:
No, please do.
Martha Mooke:
Just so along with Jean-Luc Ponty, when I was doing that great exploration of electric strings and just non-traditional string things, I discovered Laurie Anderson as one does, if you're a string player and if you're in the contemporary art world of sorts. And became an instant fan, Big Science and Follower. And I went to see some concerts. And then as a coincidence, or maybe not as a coincidence, Laurie also is good friends with Philip Glass. And I got reacquainted with her at the Tibet House concerts back in the early two thousands. And also when Lou was alive, Lou Reed, her husband, we played the quartet, backed up Lou a number of times at Tibet house at Carnegie Hall. And then we also did an event for the ACLU, a lot of these kind of events. But then I started to get friendlier with Laurie and she heard me play. She came to an event that I produced where we actually honored her innovative women, what was it called? In new music or something like that. And I produced it at the Cutting Room and it featured composers and performers.
And right after that, after she heard me play, she said, well, why don't we play something together at the Tibet House concert coming up. And I think that was 2015. And so that was the first time I actually got to play with her on the stage at Carnegie Hall. And we just kind of did an improvisation and it was so magical. Just it was a conversation. And I have pictures. There's always photographers there. In fact, one of the pictures actually made it into the BBC picture of the day of the two of us sort of playing at Carnegie Hall. And there's other pictures. We just have big smiles on our faces. And so that was sort of the start of doing more collaborations at Tibet House.
And then this past year I was co-producing an event at the Cafe Carlisle and I called Laurie and I said, you have any interest in playing at the Cafe Carlisle? And it's a cabaret, and it's not sort of a traditional venue for the likes of experimental violin playing as such. But it was a friend of mine is the pianist, Earl Rose a, the regular pianist there. And so he asked me to sort of help set it up, and we performed and we had such a beautiful time talking and playing. And so since then, there's another, she has a new recording that's going to be coming out fairly soon. Amelia Earhart, based on her last voyage. And I played quite a lot of electric viola on that. So that's another one. And Laurie's just a beautiful person as well. So I feel so fortunate that to have met and worked with and formed these really significant friendships with these people that I just have been so important in my life.
Leah Roseman:
To close this out, you were speaking about mentors you've had a chance to become friends with and so on. Now you're a mentor to all the new generations coming up, but your path wasn't super straight in terms of your path. And maybe it might just be interesting to reflect on that as both mentor and the twists and turns that led you to this unique career.
Martha Mooke:
Now that I'm of a certain age, and I can look back and sort of see how it made sense, but while I was traversing my career path, all I knew is I loved playing the viola and I loved music and I loved a lot of different kinds of music. And I dunno, maybe because I allowed myself to be open to different kinds of experiences that I was tapped to play with some very interesting people and do some really amazing tours. And the main thing, the main consistent thing along the line was that I made sure that the work that I did was quality. I made sure that I was professional in whatever I was doing. A good stand partner, an attentive contractor, a sensitive ear on a tour with respect. Always respect the crew. When you're in any kind of production, whether it's a tour or whether you're on stage, always respect the production crew, the ones that really make you look and sound like you do. And they just rarely get the respect that they deserve. So that's something I learned, and that's something I also pass on.
I mean, I never journaled really. I just experiences along the way that happened and kept them in different parts of my brain to bring me to this point, to understand that it's very much about the experience and that I can tell my students time and time and again about do this. This is what's going to happen, but they're going to have to experience it. And I can give them, I can be a guide, I can be a support system, but I can't go through the experience for them. And I think that's just now I have, I don't know, is it a luxury of being able to look back or to have the perspective? But I would never have known that 30 years ago when I was just trying to get my first solo recording and first solo concert without having to pay to rent the hall. I didn't know where I was going to be ending up in another few decades. So be true, be true to yourself and be open. One of my favorite sayings is you never know what you're missing until you know what you've been missing, which means there's a lot out there that you're missing. And be a good person. Add value, be someone that adds value and makes this place a better environment for having been in it.
Leah Roseman:
Well, thanks so much for sharing your perspectives and your music today, Martha.
Martha Mooke:
My pleasure. Thank you very much. This has been a really wonderful, engaging conversation.
Leah Roseman:
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Pleased to share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed leahroseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. The link is in the description. Have a wonderful week.
