Jamming in the 21st Century

A profile of local composer David Smith

by Dot Brovarney (Posted with Permission, second rights only)

Composing music has always seemed reserved for the geniuses among us, or a process that happens in a rarified atmosphere - perhaps in a castle under the patronage of a king. Mozart composed a piano concerto and a number of short compositions for Countess Maria Lodron. Count Oppersdorf paid 500 florins ($10,000) for six month's private use of Beethoven's fourth symphony. He was so pleased with the arrangement that he renewed for an additional six months and, in 1808, commissioned Beethoven's fifth symphony.

The music scene has changed considerably over the past 200 years. One of the more intriguing shifts has involved computer technology. While Mozart and Beethoven had to imagine sounds as they wrote, modern composers can hear immediately using computer music software programs such as "Logic" and "Notion". Not only that, but the computer has taken musical composition a step farther - out of the castle and the garage - and into the world via the internet. One might say, the atmosphere has been democratized, for both composers and listeners. And, there is a composer in Ukiah who has followed this evolution over the past thirty years.

Ukiah resident David Smith is a man who, has been juggling two careers and a family of five for years and has recently returned to the cutting edge of composition. Not only does he compose a variety of music on his Macintosh, but also he's collaborating on pieces with people from all over the world. It turns out that a small number of social music sites exist where composers and songwriters can post their work in progress and request help from others.

"I participate on a couple of sites where many dozens of pieces are posted every day," Smith says. "icompositions.com, which is free to all participants, has nearly 100,000 compositions posted. New pieces are listed by category and composer so I can easily find the music and artists I'm most interested in."

Participants — who run the gamut from professionals to garage band members, to guys named David Smith — use the site to discuss music and post their work for critique. But the truly fascinating part occurs when a composer posts a piece and offers it to group members for collaboration.

Smith explains, "Recently a fellow in Italy posted a short orchestral piece called "Tribute to L'Aquila, Italy," honoring the victims of the April earthquake. I liked what he did and I wanted to respond. So, I added a number of instruments and layered them in. I did it in a couple of days and posted it back to the site."

Over the past two years, Smith has collaborated on several pieces with different people. Smith still marvels at the collaboration that took place when he sent Andreas (a choral conductor in Germany) a note about a composition he (Smith) had just finished. "I'd written a piece for four part a cappella voices," says Smith." Andreas responded by saying 'Send it to me and I'll have a look.' Within a week, I was hearing finished recording with real voices in the traditional English madrigal style. He'd sung all four parts (base, tenor, alto, and soprano) and re-posted it!"

While Smith concedes that Hermann's level of involvement is unusual, the global reach of these creative collaborations certainly is remarkable. A couple of musicians connected through the site have produced multiple CDs together. One hails from Santa Monica, the other from Baghdad. Although they've never met, they happen to like each other's style, and technology has paved the way for an artistic partnership with a tangible product.

Smith's own compositions, which he's created on the computer over the past three years, include classical and Latin music. His first orchestral piece, "Concerto Anacapa," is named for the Channel island off the coast from his alma mater, UC Santa Barbara. His creative experiences in the new musical technology program there in the early 80s (only two others existed then at UCSD and MIT) combined with his interest in electronics laid the groundwork for Smith's recent emergence as a composer.

Thirty years ago, tech-oriented music makers still needed lots of equipment to produce their sounds, including synthesizers and multi-track recorders. By the time Smith returned to making music in 2005 (in addition to his work as an electrical engineer and designer), everything had changed. Computer software had replaced most of the electronics. Now, the software, an iMac, a mic, an amp and speakers are all he needs.

"We're no longer limited by gear," says Smith. "There is no limit to what kind of music you can write. I don't use paper much. I create the music directly to the screen and I can hear the notes as I place them, instruments and the harmony. I can hear it all."

"Concerto Anacapa" debuted in February when the Ukiah Symphony performed it. Since then, Smith's work has seen additional public performances. A trio of the symphony's woodwinds played "When Time Expands" at the Tallman Hotel in Lake County in March. In late May, a Berkeley women's chorus, Musae, accompanied Bossa Five-O in a commissioned performance of "It's Muse Light."

"Sitting in the symphony rehearsal, when the conductor turned to me and asked, 'Is that how it's supposed to go?' That's when I knew I was a composer," Smith says.

Due to the magic — and democratization — of computers, you can hear David Smith's music anytime at www.ninetrees.com.

Dot Brovarney is a writer, historian, and Ukiah resident.