Interview with Ian Shanahan by Richard A. Willgoss on 5 April 2011.

EPISTEMOLOGY

What do you understand music to be?

1. Music is that which exhibits (logos): Divine utterance; purposeful intelligence. This Ancient Greek word
also carries the connotations of proportion or ratio (whence rationality) and, in general, interrelationality. It
exhibits Mind (with a capital M). It doesnt have to be humanly-audible phenomena; it can be the Music of the
Spheres. I see here relationship and orderliness as flowing from the mind. To me, the universe in toto is
inherently musical a hypothesis ongoingly confirmed as we discover more about physics (quantum, astro-
and cosmo-), whereby all the underlying ratios that reside therein become apparent. I quote Heine Wronski:
Music is the embodiment of intelligence that exists in sound. The composer Edgard Varse upheld this very
same dictum too.

Is music overloaded, or can it stand without explanation i.e. speak for itself?
2. Both are true for me; those criteria arent mutually exclusive. I addressed this point a while ago. It gets back to
logos that can encode things via proportions such that meaning is embodied there. Or take for instance
Haydns Emperor string quartet in G major, second movement. This tune was taken over by so many in
different eras to mean diverse things.

Opposites, duality, dichotomy, dilemma are pairs used to define either end of a spectrum of facility,
view or property. What role does any thinking like this play in being creative musically e.g.
cresc./dim.? Name some dualities important to you.
3. Bounded continua are crucial to my musical thinking. For instance, I like order/disorder and clarity/noise as
polarities. But such duals are only real, as opposites, when viewed in a certain way. I am a Platonist in thinking
that contrarieties complement one another, and can coexist happily. I normally take the dual and unite terms in
a higher sense of awareness as part of an abstract structure. Abstraction is power. I am in accord with Ian
Stewart, the Scottish mathematician, who demonstrates in one of his popular texts a trickle-down effect from
abstraction into concreta: Chaos Theory engaged in the quality control of wire production!

What for you is the connection between a subjective viewpoint and what you objectively produce as a
score?
4. I hear my music accurately in my head first. When played, it then becomes a physical reality. (However,
performances of my scores often turn out to be rather longer than I envisaged and are difficult to contain in
toto.) For example, I work a lot with multiphonics and devise sets of multiphonic sequences that then become
building blocks for my scores. One piece Im currently working on, for solo bass clarinet, uranometria , has
lots of multiphonics yet to be fully tested by the player but Im able to imagine a great deal beforehand and
can say that such sequences will be fully verified before they get put down onto the score.

Need a composition communicate?

5. Communication relies upon unambiguous information, on widely agreed-upon meaning being present
somehow. There is no explicit message in my instrumental pieces, but there is a great deal of encoding of
ideas that are not necessarily consciously registered: they impart coherence, just as my DNA (invisible to the
naked eye) ultimately gives my body its form. Music works at a higher cognitive level than to communicate
explicit ideas.

Can a composition just be as your own creative product?

6. Yes. Connotative powers are there my piece Harmonia {in PP} (2001), written in memory of Prof. Peter
Platt, has them: it is a lamentatio that exudes sadness. However a piece of music is heard, it will convey
something. Someone once told me that a piece of mine sounded like fireworks in a rainforest, but my intent
was to convey the concept of light; yet they are compatible.

ONTOLOGY

What purpose is there in you composing?

1. True creativity is adding genuinely to culture (not merely dumping more unimaginative pastiche or ineptitude
upon the already mile-high pile that is Mount Detritus). I like to think I contribute to culture idiosyncratically,
with a new distinctive grammar and vocabulary. Im compelled to create via music, and similarly through chess
composition too. I get really cranky if I do not create. I insist that my contribution be done in a meaningful way.

Is your musical creativity an inevitable expression of who you are or who you want to be seen to be?
2. The difference between my private and public persona is nil. Yes, it is an inevitable part of who and what I am.
I had to overcome the tall-poppy syndrome and a very harsh upbringing when young; they have both left their
marks in me. I learnt early on how to defend myself. Negative experiences have impacted my world-view such
that I now reject any notion of being affected by unpopularity or popularity. This is deeply ingrained in me. My
music is intended for anybody who wishes to avail themselves of it.

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 Do you need to show any reverence or reference in your work to previous influences? If so, why? If
not, why not?
3. Not consciously. I am painfully aware of traditions. My solo alto flute piece, Dimensiones Paradisi
(1991/1998), has now become part of the repertoire composed in the shadow of solo-flute milestones such
as Syrinx, Density 21.5, various Japanese flute pieces, as well as those major contributions by Brian
Ferneyhough and Chris Dench. Such pressures as implied in your question are a little less burdensome for us
here in Australia, where some think us to be out of the main flow and less important. My PhD contains pieces
with techniques that draw upon precursors from others, but I like to be as independent as I can. I used to be
musically very omnivorous, being influenced by the likes of George Crumb, Olivier Messiaen, modern jazz,
and Igor Stravinskys late music. You will even find references to Varse and my liking of the shakuhachi and
the sound-world it creates. In the 1980s, I created an ideologue that linked the recorder to the shakuhachi
showing how similar their sound-worlds can be.

Is there any sense in which you feel compelled, destined, fulfilled in being creative?
4. All these give me meaning in life. But I have lived the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes and find ultimate
meaning as portrayed there in God. Am I compelled? Yes. Am I destined? Maybe. Am I fulfilled? Yes. I can
help myself get out of an attack of depression by creating something.

Is creativity directly coupled to composition, or could it equally be gardening or strong adherence to a

belief system?
5. Here I recognize creativity as an act leaving behind permanent artifacts. My creativity is articulated not solely
through music but also comes via the composing of chess problems as well as writing some poetry of dubious
merit (very occasionally, as therapy). Could I say otherwise about the poetry?

How content are you that what your compositions might say or mean can be seen in many different
ways?
6. That is a natural part of composition. For me, a piece must have a title decided upon first of all, often inspired
by my understanding of theology, science and arcana. I sketch programme notes in the midst of composing;
they preface all of my scores. So, yes, I am happy for my works to be seen in different ways, but I reserve a
moral right that makes me cautious about how they are used, especially for public consumption. I think
meaning in musical works should be immanent in the music, and my documentation is supposed to help that
immanence be made known.

NASCENCY

What or where is the beginning point of your musical creativity?

1. With my birth! But there is both nature and nurture here. For me, a creative seed might sprout from reading
science fiction, a paper on physics, or just about anything. Practically, I spend a great deal of time in a state of
so-called pre-composition. I design, look at, or think about plans, charts, sketches and instruments available.
I am significantly enchanted by an area of study called gematria (which assigns numerical value to words in
alphanumeric languages) whereby language encodes meaning numerologically and geometrically. Such
languages symbologies bear a double duty, with both qualitative and quantitative roles. Qabalistic meanings
(about the nature of divinity) permeate my scores. I embrace unique forms for my music which are based on
proportion, permutation and linguistics. Composition for me involves the act of filtering in gematrial space.

What gives rise to you wanting to be creative via musical composition?

2. I have a love of sheer sound, and also a great deal of expertise that enables me to reify my desire to project
and shape it. (This goes for chess composition too: a love of patterns, relationships and spatial effects on the
chess board.)

How much is newness involved in what you try to compose?

3. Quite a lot. Newness comes out in instrumental technique exploitation and in structures that havent previously
been employed.

What is the role of intelligence or cleverness in being able to compose music?

4. It is crucial. I have only ever met one dumb composer! Here we have a need to build bridges between
disciplines and competently handle a huge skill-set in order to do so. Dumbness simply cannot manage it.

PROCESS

How does musical language differ from the more obvious spoken languages?
1. Music is not unambiguous whereas language text can be so. Further, music is proportional and spatial to a far
greater extent than spoken languages.

Is there a musical language common in some way throughout your compositions?

2. It is not necessarily a language. Yet I do have a personal idiolect a palette of compositional techniques that
exudes meaning. As far as I can tell, my PhD is still the only one that not only analyses and explains these
~2~
 techniques, but investigates their semiotic content as well. For example, I work with systematic permutation:
Cyclic Groups. This displays cyclicity (something that pervades the universe, hence has a cosmic meaning)
and even underlies the Qabalistic cosmogony wherein reality itself flows from a shuffling of the Hebrew
alphabet (think of amino acids and DNA), hence transmits esoteric meaning. You will find a basis in
mathematics for much of what I do, containing geometric proportions, algebraic structures and harmonic
patterns. I have a fondness for microtones, as typified by my piece [p]s(t)ellor/mnme (1997) whose
instrumentation calls for, among other things, three bass viols and a solo recorder instruments traditionally
associated with death and the metaphysical realm. It so happened that my father, to whom it is dedicated, died
around the time of its premiere. Instruments iconologies are an important compositional consideration for me.

How synonymous are the concepts of composing and creating to you?

3. They are very close.

How much or how little do you put fragments, jottings, sketches together to create a work?
4. A lot generally, but it does depend to some extent on the specific piece. Most of my sketches are in the form of
charts, grids, musical notations, diagrams or just numbers from which I derive different parts of the work.

What gives rise to such fragments, and what is the glue that appropriately fixes them together?
5. Glue for me is the grid, chart etc. in a numerical form. I work out choices for sets; instinct plays a role. I once
used to employ a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer to make some music. I made shadows of soundscapes.
Throughout, you will find predetermined ratios in all aspects of my compositions.

In what way is your music idiomatic?

6. Colours, structures, motivations behind the soundscapes, should all point to it being me who composed it. I
also devote much time to guaranteeing my musics practical performability.

Where does form and structure play a role for you?

7. Form is structure to me: theyre identical. You will find self-similarity via ratio sets, my idea of form, which
pervades my work.

What sort of routine is conducive to you being compositionally creative?

8. I have no set routine. I dont respond well to deadlines. Sometimes I work madly on a piece whenever I am
able to. Nowadays, my health is poor and I have limited energy. Lingua Silens Florum (1991) a little
festschrift piece written for Prof. Eric Grosss retirement was conceived, completed, copied out, rehearsed
and recorded in 12 hours, but is only 1 minute long. My present composing pace is more glacial than fast.

What ambience is conducive to you composing?

9. My home office is a good place. I need my recorders to hand (for double-checking the affect of microtones). I
can just turn off from the world mostly, but prefer silence to hear sounds accurately in my head.

Is your music an exercise in coping with or controlling complexity? If so, why is complexity attractive
to you? If not, why not?
10. This is the way I tick! The world, the whole universe, is complex. My music latches onto that. It is a natural
music (in the Boethian sense). Despite inequalities, everything is subject to Divine providence, with the rhythms
and patterns of nature in it.

PRODUCT

When studying your compositions as finished works, how much juxtaposition and change do you see
in them?
1. Quite a lot, actually. I see this as a breaking of symmetry a fundamental device of nature. To me it is like
inserting the alien wherever I see fit, but the alien is in fact related somehow to its surroundings.

Is the change episodic, regular, random or what? Does this constitute form or structure to you?
2. An analogy might be Quentin Tarentinos films. There are multiple narratives going on in them. I embrace a
variety of devices to move from one musical region to another.

Are stasis, minimalism and silence means to worthwhile end in creative composition? If so, how? If
not, why not?
3. Stasis Yes, it is a necessary counterfoil to activity. Minimalism Solar Dust: Orbits and Spirals (1988) may
seem minimalist yet is not essentially. I have employed long-range repetitions, so protracted that one can miss
them when they start or repeat. Frankly, in my opinion, almost all minimalist compositions are idiot music. Terry
Rileys In C (1964) is historically significant only because it was the first on the scene with certain techniques.
Silence seen as inactivity is an important opportunity to contemplate what the listener has just heard; it is
great at heightening tension too.

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 Can stasis, minimalism and silence be ends in themselves in creative composition? If so, how? If not,
why not?
4. They can (after all, each piece of music is framed by silence, which may or may not be its logical outcome),
but not for me. Stasis is a chimera: as Heraclitus observed, all is flux. The ultimate end for minimalism is
silence nothingness; would that that end be reached by its proponents regularly Next question!

What is the nature of finished product in creative composition?

5. The Platonist in me declares that effectively, the work is finished at the moment I complete its score. But of
course I want to hear it performed.

Where do you see the familiar musical arch in your product?

6. [Ian looks puzzled.] Not in my music. It is often quite different to that. There are structures which one could
interpret that way, I suppose. Sometimes Ill impose a type of superficial teleology upon an inherently non-
teleogical (cyclical) process. I like the concept of the labyrinthine structure reaching out in all directions.

Is there any sense in which your creation/composition is spoilt if not heard from start to finish?
7. No because, as I have just mentioned, the structure is a labyrinth even holographic and may well contain
cyclic behaviour. Ideally, I do want whole pieces to be heard, of course. But it is also context-dependent.
Some works can be sampled for example, any with a fairly stable soundscape.

TRANSCENDENCE

How much would you expect or hope listeners of your music to be be affected emotionally, spiritually,
aesthetically or politically?
1. Ideally, I want to change peoples lives! I hope a musical moment will stay crystallized with them forever. Nigel
Butterleys Fire in the Heavens (1973) impelled me dramatically when I was a teenager into the direction of
wanting to become a composer. My Echoes/Fantasies (1984) turned out to be inspiring to him too! I dont
think art music is inherently political, nor even should be. Politics has no real power to affect music, and vice-
versa. I make mystical music that transcends grubby mundanity.

How satisfied should listeners be that they can relate to and/or understand your music? How many
repeat hearings could it take for a musically literate person to reach this stage?
2. Thats listeners business, not mine. One is extremely unlikely to get the totality of many of my pieces in a
single listening. That would need many auditions perhaps at the extreme, one hundred times. All great art
music requires this. Nuance takes time to be found. Only ephemeral rubbish, such as pop music, is completely
consumable by a cursory hearing.

Is there any sense in which you desire your music to be non-understood, awkward, unreachable,
mystical or in any way ineffable?
3. Awkwardness is not on my agenda. However, both mystical and ineffable are desirable to me. I adore
ambiguity in music. This gets back to my love of cyphers and encryptions in my music that might never be
found by anyone else! I refer to what are known as trapdoor functions special entry points in the music
where I feed in data such that the conceptual grid simply cannot be reverse-engineered from the score. I recall
Heraclitus, who said: It is the nature of things to be in the habit of concealing themselves. [A big pause.] On
account of Gdels Incompleteness Theorems, I dont think it will ever be possible to get a comprehensive
handle on creativity. [The interviewer smiles.]

In what way does your music try to suspend reality by creating another world?
4. I mess with time in my music. Chris Dench once said: Composers are like shamen. Real composers are akin
to alchemists magicians of time. Im thinking of the illusion whereby subjective (experiential) time is made to
seem perfectly still or to pass by very quickly relative to objective clock time. Yes, in answer to your question:
it would be marvellous if it happened, to draw the audient in to the musics world.

Music is language and is not language. Please comment on this sentence if you would like to?
5. Music is not a language, but languages are types of musics.

What is accessible to you by composing (creatively?) rather than speaking in, say, a mother tongue?
6. Composing reveals all manner of things not evident by what I might verbalize. No mother tongue can
encompass all that one can experience, let alone the whole of existence and the abstract world of ideas (much
of which is codifiable, however, through mathematics). Personally, I have been referred to as a hard bastard,
but there is a deeply sensitive side to me too (beneath the prickly exterior). Listen to 153 Infinities (1996). You
might find some of my gentler side there. Musically, I go through huge emotional ranges in totality, amongst
which are some beautiful and tender moments.

~4~
WORK OFFERED FOR SCRUTINY

I nominate Dimensiones Paradisi (1991/1998) for solo alto flute as a work for you to analyse. I have supplied its
score and a recording of it.

Richard A. Willgoss and Ian Shanahan, 5.4.2011.

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